Keeping Your Budget Under Control
Getting That Green As we all know, budgeting your work, especially documentary film work, is not easy. You must first secure the money, not an easy feat mind you, and then be extremely careful to utilize it to its fullest extent. The still-shaky economy makes it even more difficult for production professionals to secure budgets, since people are still hesitant to give money to anyone even if … read the full article.
Insurance for Freelancer and Production Companies
Recently at Interface Media Group, Women in Film and Video held a great presentation that was all about insurance for both freelancers and production groups. The main speakers were Kelly Ann Dixon-Nachodsky from GBS HR & Benefit Solutions and Richard Gottlieb from Woodhome Insurance Group, Inc. Some of the topics discussed included the effects of the … read the full article.
Getting Started in your Media Career
Last night at American Universities School of Communications, several media professionals gathered with TIVA to give out some very valuable information about how to get your foot in the media industry whether your a college student or a seasoned professional looking to switch careers. The panelists included: Jason Villemez, Production Assistant at PBS Newshour http://www.linkedin.com/pub/jason-villemez/10/a27/594 Kristen Edgell, Marketing … read the full article.
WordPress Development: WordPress SEO Plug-In One Month Later
After a month of using the “WordPress SEO Plug-In” by Yoast, I am happy to say that we have had some very positive results. In this article, I just wanted to elaborate on why I think this plug-in does such a good job. Now let me just clarify, we have had some progress, but we … read the full article.
Keynote Pro Tip – Export Animations to Video in Full HD
Have you ever tried to export an animated Keynote presentation to video? If so, you have probably been a bit disappointed with the quality of the final video. As the integrated marketing manager here at Word Wizards, part of my job is to deliver professional quality media presentations. My software of choice for multimedia slide … read the full article.
WordPress Development – WordPress SEO Plug-in First Look
Another week, another experiment in the latest SEO technology. Yesterday, we installed the WordPress SEO Plug-in by Yoast and began to use it to help optimize our website and blog. In the past, we have tried playing with some other SEO plug-ins but have never been completely satisfied. It seems that this plug-in is different … read the full article.
Transcription Tips – Transcriptionist Best Practices
Hello out there in cyber space! On this wonderful Friday at the end of September, I want to share some tips that will help you be a more professional and trusted transcriber, whether you’re working for a company, or you’re a freelancer. Business, government agencies, private institutions and everyday citizens rely on transcriptionists to get … read the full article.
E-Mail Marketing and Graphic Design – How much is too much?
As the Integrated Marketing Manager here at Word Wizards, its my job to make sure we effectively reach as many people as possible with our outbound marketing, specifically in this case with e-mail marketing. Its a touchy subject and seems to be inherently paradoxical. On the one hand, you are under pressure to reach as … read the full article.
Find a Fieldname Prefix on Acroform Pages with JavaScript
When spawning new pages in an Acrobat Acroform, you can choose to rename, or not rename, all the fields on the new page. Obviously, if you don’t rename your field names, you know what the field names on the new pages will be. But what if your user really needs a lot of continuation pages? … read the full article.
Office Avatars – Improve Small Business Productivity
The dedicated employees here at Word Wizards HQ often wear many hats, as is the case with many small businesses. During the course of the day, many critical discussions must be postponed while other responsibilities are dealt with. How can we keep track of who needs to talk to us when we are under the … read the full article.
New Service Launch: CloudScript – Transcript Media Player
Early this month, Word Wizards began introducing our existing clients and friends to our new service, CloudScript. CloudScript is a simple tool that allows a user to sync a transcript with time code to a media player. In seconds you can have a transcript that allows you to click on any time code in the … read the full article.
Transcription Tips – Add an Amp to your Audio Setup
Contrary to popular belief, transcription can be a dangerous profession. Once and a while, audio gets out of control; background noise, clipping, clicks, the perils are real, and you can save your ears and a big headache by including a simple and affordable audio amp in your setup. An Amp on Both Your Houses By … read the full article.
Apple’s WWDC 2012 – Industry Impact
Que the trumpets and raise the banners, Apple has some important new announcements and once again the world will shudder under their unrelenting innovative dominance… Well maybe it was not quite that dramatic, but they did have some good news to share! Today I am going to quickly review the new tech highlights released by … read the full article.
Audio Gear Spotlight: Zoom H4n HD Audio Recorder
I just picked up a Zoom H4n yesterday and I am very impressed with this powerful little gadget. Up to 12 hours of continuous audio recording, 2 XLR / 1/4 inch line ins, and 2 high quality stereo mics offer the perfect solution for any recording situation. Our company often gets asked to record speakers, … read the full article.
Transcription Trends: Software – The John Henry Paradox
Today I read an article about the newest update to Phillips’ Speech Processing Software SpeechExec Enterprise. The impressive dictation and transcription management software just got a full overhaul and is now bristling with new features. The following excerpt from the MarketWatch report sums it up pretty well. “The new software version supports faster turnaround times … read the full article.
ePub: Editing the Navigational TOC
All e-readers require some form of navigational (or as Amazon refers to them in its Kindle Publishing Guidelines, logical) TOC (Kindle devices also want a separate, inline, TOC as well, but that’s another article). And while InDesign is usually pretty good about building one for you, we recently ran into an issue where the client … read the full article.
ePub: How to Create an Inline TOC
Recently we were faced with an issue that shouldn’t have been an issue at all: how to create—by hand—an inline Table of Contents (or TOC) for the Kindle portion of an ebook project. Normally this isn’t a big deal; Adobe InDesign is very good at doing this on the fly during export, assuming you have … read the full article.
CloudScript: The Future of Transcription Workflow
Word Wizards is proud to present our newest service, CloudScript! Over 30 years of working in the media transcription industry has provided our team with rare and valuable insight into how and why people need our transcription services. We have noticed an important trend in the past few years, the name of the game these … read the full article.
The ONLY I.T.A.R. Compliant Transcription Company
When it comes to a project of a sensitive nature, be it legal, militaristic, classified, or otherwise not intended for unauthorized eyes, who are you going to trust? Now, we are not trying to put down firms who have chosen to enter the transcription industry utilizing offshore labor, in fact we capitalists respect and encourage … read the full article.
Transcription Tips: Fixing Incorrect Time Codes
Once and a while somebody makes a mistake, details get lost in translation, and your transcript is in jeopardy. When time codes in the transcript do not match the time codes in the reel, there is a BIG problem. What is a video professional to do in this nightmare scenario? Word Wizards to the Rescue! … read the full article.
Video Transcription – A Tool for Pros and Joes
Video transcription companies like Word Wizards have been assisting the professional video production industry for a long time, making the lives of editors, producers, and audio mixers much easier. As with any industry, time is money, and wasted time in post can be reduced significantly with the use of a standard or time coded transcript. … read the full article.
Transcription Gear: Typing Gloves
If you have every experienced the pains of long term typing fatigue, you know that it can be excruciating. Word Wizards is dedicated to taking care of our professional transcription typists, and we have a new product that seems to help relieve / prevent some of the strain. Presenting, handy dandy typing gloves! These … read the full article.
Hollywood Ballroom Dance Center: New Custom Calendar
One of our favorite web clients, the Hollywood Ballroom Dance Center, LLC, has become very creative with the WordPress Ajax Event Calendar plugin. This plugin is beautifully written and allows detailed entry of color-coded events. It allows links, images, and maps in the event detail, which show in a modal window. But because the Hollywood … read the full article.
Transcription Tech: MXF Proxy Files and Tapeless Workflow
Word Wizards lives on the cutting edge of the video industry. Thus, our facility is set up to ingest, trans-code, and transcribe all proxy formats. Most transcription companies will make you convert these files yourself and externalize this cost to your team. Here at Word Wizards, we have the technology and the expertise to handle … read the full article.
Transcription Gear: The Ergonomic Keyboard
Typing hours and hours, day after day can be heavy on the hands. At Word Wizards, we value or speed typists for their high level of education, rapid typing speed, and their overall ability to transcribe in context from any media format with very few mistakes. Here at Word Wizards, the talented hands of our … read the full article.
Transcription Gear: Tinted Glasses Reduce Eye Strain
Word Wizards, Inc. is proud to boast that we take care of our transcription work force. As with any business, keeping our human capitol healthy is paramount to productivity, and more importantly its the right thing to do. We have long insisted that our staff use Ergonomic Keyboards while transcribing to reduce the chance of … read the full article.
Analog Transcription – Betacam, VHS, Audio Cassette Tape
Word Wizards, Inc. continues to offer transcription, digitization, and archiving services for Betacam, VHS, and Audio Cassette Tapes. These long forgotten analog formats were once the backbone of the video and audio production industries in ages long ago. Now, vast stores of Betacam, VHS, and audio cassette tapes sit alone in dark dusty boxes stored … read the full article.
Graphic Design For The Web: Bridging The Gap
Graphic design has been a specialty of Word Wizards, Inc. since day one. Before we even had our own office, we were offering professional desktop publishing and graphics design for clients. Our team of graphic designers are experts in the latest graphic design technology. As the tools of graphic design have evolved, so has the … read the full article.