GIF creation

Today I spent two hours creating nine GIFs for two writers who intend to use the GIFs for analysis in a couple of future posts. The process I use to make GIFs is to record the video, trim the video, import it into photoshop, edit, crop and watermark the GIFs. Then I upload it to the site. I use a program called Fraps (http://www.fraps.com/) to record video from MLB.TV which has archived games from last season and beyond. I use Windows Movie Maker to trim the video. It’s simple, quick, and easy to use. Plus I’m only trimming the video. There have been a couple times that I’ve used Adobe Premiere to edit some video, but that’s for special cases where I’m trying to do a little more with the GIF that I can’t do in Photoshop. Once the video is trimmed I import it into Photoshop where I delete unnecessary frames, crop and add a watermark to the GIF. If I can fit two different shots into one GIF I will do that from time to time, like one of the GIFs I created tonight.

The GIF is then exported and uploaded to our site and placed in the editor at the writers discretion.

Graphic creation

One of the promotional things we’re doing leading up to the start of Spring Training is creating an SB Nation meme counting down the days. We grab pictures from the photo database upload them to the tool and then fill out the text. Here is what’s scheduled for tomorrow.

As you can see we’re on day 37, so there are a lot more memes that need to be created and promoted on Facebook and Twitter. I will be doing this over the next few days and scheduling out the posts on our social media platforms.

This is my final semester at the University of South Carolina and in my final semester I will be doing my internship at the Crawfish Boxes. As part of my internship I am required to do a journal on the thins I do as an intern, which I've decided to post on my site. If you have any questions regarding any of the things I do contact me directly or leave a comment.

Post Production for podcast

Sunday night we recorded our 142 podcast episode for the regular show. I very rarely edit the podcast the same night we record the episode. I like to come at editing with a fresh mindset, because a lot of the time I think my podcasts suck. On Mondays I will schedule the post using the same format I’ve used for a while now. I open an old post and copy all the HTML format in the editor and paste it into a fresh article. I then go into the HTML code and change the audio files to reflect the current podcast I am editing. In essence I will change “...141.mp3” to “...142.mps3.” I then change the title of the podcast and fill out the topics we discussed in the topics. From there it’s a matter of setting the summary, promotional blurb, and the social media lines for the post.

Regarding the podcast editing itself I typically mark areas in the podcast during the recording that I need to go back and look at. Often times these marks are for points where I messed up in the live podcast or everyone talked over each other. There are also marks for other points in the podcast that I feel need “cleaning up” or editing. After I’ve made my edits I will export a selection of the audio that doesn’t include the intro music for leveling and audio processing. I use Levelator 2 for this process. The tool takes all of my audio and levels it so that everything is at the same level. Once I’ve run it through that process I move the outro into the end of the podcast typically setting the end of the outro to the minute or .30 second mark of a minute. There is no particular reason for doing this other than I think it looks much better if a podcast ends on a minute or .30 second mark. After all this I add any extra content at the end of the podcast as special content for listeners. In this weeks podcast recording I had some pre-recording audio that I decided to include because it was funny.

Once the podcast editing is completed I export it as a wave file and use iTunes to create an .MP3 version of the file. Once the .MP3 version is created I upload the file to the hosting provider. The final thing that has to be done while the podcast is uploaded is edit the RSS feed for the podcast. The RSS feed is an XML file that includes file download location, description, time and date of release, title and categorical information. It’s what the podcast directories use to pull information for podcast distribution. Once the file is updated with the latest podcast information, podcast directories use it to grab the latest podcast episode.