[Foundation-l] Wikipedia video tutorials: the making-of

[Frank Schulenburg]

Hi all,

As most of you know we've been working on Wikipedia video tutorials
during the last few months. The general idea behind producing video
tutorials is the belief that videos make learning much easier than
text based online help pages, at least for some audiences. We are
therefore producing a number of videos demonstrating the basics of
Wikipedia editing and increasing the public understanding of Wikipedia
and Wikimedia.

For this purpose we would like to distinguish between two sorts of
video tutorials:

* Guided tours: designed to raise the public understanding of
Wikipedia and Wikimedia as well as to encourage people to view
Wikipedia as friendly. All guided tours will be presented by
moderators in order to appear more trustworthy, friendly and
encouraging. They will be produced as high quality videos by a
production company commissioned by the Wikimedia Foundation.

* How-to videos: aimed at explaining basic features of the Wikipedia
user interface. How-to videos shall be produced as screencasts with a
speaker explaining every single step.

In a nutshell think of (a) guided tours as videos aimed at giving the
audience a look behind the scenes and to encourage them to join us as
editors and (b) how-to videos as tutorials to enable newbies to make a
successful start on Wikipedia.

(a) Examples for guided tours may be:

* Editing Wikipedia is easy!
* Why does Wikipedia work even though anyone can edit it?
* What motivates the volunteers behind Wikipedia / Wikimedia?
* What you should know about Wikimedia - the organization behind Wikipedia

(b) Examples for how-to videos may be:

* How to create a user account
* The basics of Wiki markup
* How do I upload images?
* How to find information about a certain topic on Wikipedia?

On 19 November 2008, the shooting of the very first Wikipedia guided
tours video tutorials took place. We are very happy that we found in
Hendrik John of Living Colour film production an experienced filmmaker
who managed not only the shooting but also everything related to the
development (including the casting of Theresa, our moderator in the
first two videos) and the pre-production (like hiring the crew and
building the set).

A big thanks goes to Lennart Guldbrandsson, the president of Wikimedia
Sverige, who helped us a lot with his experience in filmmaking and
scriptwriting. Thank you Lennart - I always enjoy our collaboration!

To give you a look behind the scenes I produced a short 3 minute
making-of video that provides some insights on how complex the
production of guided tours may be. You can watch it online:

* http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wikipedia_video_tutorials_making-of_(high).ogv
(11.7 MB, better quality)
* http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wikipedia_video_tutorials_making-of_(low).ogv
(6.2 MB, lower quality)

and also on

* http://vimeo.com/2554962
* http://fschulenburg.blip.tv/file/1493287/
* http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XgJTndVjSYc

Currently, the two video tutorials are in the process of
post-production (assembling the film, adding visual effects etc.) and
we hope that they will be online soon.

All this would have not been possible without the funding of Wikimedia
Deutschland. The German chapter not only paid all costs for the video
production but also my travel expenses.

So, please join me in thanking Wikimedia Germany for the financial
support and ... enjoy the making-of video :-)

Frank Schulenburg
Head of Public Outreach

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