Sketchnoting: Fast-motion video

As I was sketchnoting Tweeting about Speaking, a thought occured to me: it'll be so cool if I can make a video like the doodling tutorial from PicCandle! At that point I have already drawn the title, but I put down my pen to figure out how to record it.

Overhead camera

I set up the webcam mount that I use to record app demos. It almost worked: I could not capture the whole page because the rod was too short. So I propped it up with a box and put some weight on the clipboard to balance the mount.

I was worried that the mount would bother me when I was drawing, or my head would get in the way in the video. Turns out the problem was that the mount would bounce when I leaned my weight on the table, making the video shaky. Fortunately the bouncing got smoothed out when I increased the speed of the video. In fact the jerky jumps made it look retro and cool.

Audio

I wanted some cute background music, so I searched for podcast-safe music, and found this awesome track called Ice Cream Sandwich. I love the tune, and I love the name! But it was marked for non-commercial use, and I'm not sure if I can use it in a YouTube video. So I picked Dancing on Green Grass by The Green Orbs from the YouTube Audio Library instead.

Result

The fast-motion makes it look like words and pictures just magically appear on the page :)