Howcast has always made it easy for you to share what you know, but now we’re expanding your options: Not only can you upload your own videos to your How-To guide, but now you can also embed videos from across the web!
Starting today, Howcast gives you the option to embed videos from other popular video sites — YouTube, Metacafe, Blip.tv, and Vimeo — onto your own Howcast.com guides. While you can still upload your own videos, and take advantage of Howcast’s innovative instructional video player, the embedding feature allows you to include high-quality videos from other sites alongside your own step-by-step written guide. Have an insanely good family recipe your Aunt Shelly has up on her YouTube page? Now it’s easy as pie (no pun intended) to illustrate with video: Simply write out the recipe as a How-to guide, then embed her YouTube video on Howcast.
Sign into Howcast, click on the “Add a How-To Video or Guide” button at the top corner of Howcast’s main page, and choose “embed a video.” Go to to any of the Howcast-supported web sites, copy your video’s URL, paste the URL into the “embed a video” box on the How-To creation page, and click “Embed.” Once you’ve finished writing your How-To guide, click “Save” to create your How-To, and we’ll magically import the video onto Howcast. Give it a try, and let us know what you think!
Today is the beginning of Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, so we thought it’d be cool to show everyone how to blow a shofar. The blowing of the shofar, which is a ram’s horn, is an ancient tradition in Judaism that signifies the new year. It’s an interesting sound, and it takes quite a pair of lungs to make it! Check out the video to learn more about it!
Howcast teamed up with Talk About Curing Autism (TACA) to deliver this informative video, “How To Help A Child With Autism.”
The video teaches viewers how early intervention is the key to improving the outlook for a child with autism, a neurological disorder that impairs communication and social skills.
TACA provides information, resources, and support to families affected by autism, thus strengthening the autism community in the U.S. We’re very pleased to have worked with TACA on their cause. Check out the video below!
Jack Mullan here, providing a few last musings on my time as a Howcast summer intern. Let me start by saying — it was a busy one! I sent tons of e-mails, wrote blog posts, watched and commented on dozens of videos, and completed any office task that came my way. And through all that hard work, I now have irrefutable evidence for any skeptics that I did do something while at Howcast. I’m talking, of course, about the intern video: How To Stand Up for Yourself.
That’s me, as the protagonist/confidence-builder. If you dare doubt my abilities as an actor, I’ll have to stand up for myself in person and exhibit my true bullying qualities. Seriously, I had a great time shooting the video. We encountered numerous obstacles along the way, but we managed to deal with every ordeal we faced (including keeping ice cream cold on a hot summer day in Washington Square Park). Acting without words was a personal challenge, especially when you’re playing a character undergoing a transformation. I definitely have more respect for the robots in Transformers now.
As for our friends by the Bay, the San Francisco interns produced How To Play Twister. On top of the challenges of video production, Twister can present it’s own unsettling positions, but the interns managed to turn it into an easy way to have fun. Check it out!
I’m so thankful we got to produce these videos. They’re not only a testament to the great work we put in as Howcast interns, but also to the opportunity and challenges that our internships offered us! It was truly a great experience being part of the Howcast team!
The votes are in, the jury has spoken, and filmmaker Keith Heyward, with the help of his star, Oliver de Loaf, scored first place in the Howcast Emerging Filmmakers Program contest, the How-To Video Challenge. The contest was a call for filmmakers, DIYers and experts to reinvent the how-to video format, and Keith’s unique take on the traditional cooking spot did just that. Using top-notch stop-motion animation skills, Keith’s video, How To Make Olive Bread, features Oliver, a talking loaf of olive bread, narrating the recipe for homemade olive bread (what else?). Dancing Kalamata olives, a “lovely” sourdough starter, and “dashing” salt round out the charming cast in a stellar video that made us smile and salivate at the same time. Kudos to Keith for a well-earned win!
Scoring second and third place in the How-To Video Challenge were Anthony Redendo and Meghan Mathes. Anthony’s video teaches audiences a unique lesson, How To Stage a Hit-And-Run Using Special Effects. Anthony is such a pro at the editing effect, we dare you not to cringe when you see the car “collide” with his actor! Meghan’s video teaches audiences a technique also rarely mastered, How To Spoon, as in how to cozy up to a partner in bed. Accompanied by a sweet song written especially for the spot, Meghan’s video covers all the spooning basics, including what to do with that other arm and no-nos like snoring.
Congratulations to these talented filmmakers! And, again, big props to all the contestants who impressed us with their creativity, style, and skill! We‘re looking forward to continuing to work with these talented filmmakers. Coming soon: a showcase of some more entries that captured the attention of voters and judges!
School is back–and so are all the social ambiguities that come with it. Have no fear, young scholars, as Howcast has a video playlist that is sure to help you navigate some of the more bewildering aspects of your school’s social scene.
For you gals out there who crave popularity (but also have a moral compass) How To Become More Popular Without Turning Mean and How To Neutralize Mean Girls will show the path to status without turning you into a total… well, you get the idea. But if you want to forgo tact, we’ve got you covered, too. How To Start a Rumor will spread any legendary tales that you can dream up. If you’re on the short end of that stick, we have your retaliatory videos, too. Click on How To Cope with Being Teased for some ideas.
The votes are in and the How-To Video Challenge finalists have been chosen. Check out who made the top 10 in the playlist below — they definitely haven’t made it easy for our jury to pick the top three. Congratulations and good luck to the fantastic finalists!
We also want to give big Howcast kudos to all the contestants. We asked filmmakers, DIYers and web video artists to get creative with the how-to format, and they didn’t let us down. We asked to have our socks knocked off, and I can tell you, we are sockless! As the manager of Howcast’s Emerging Filmmakers Program, I review more than 100 how-to videos every month, and I was incredibly impressed with the creativity of the concepts, the quality of the productions, and the unique styles and approaches we were treated to. Big props to everyone who entered! I’m really looking forward to working with all of you in the future.
Please stay tuned for the announcement of the winners on September 9 (there’s $2,000 at stake!), and keep an eye out for a showcase of all the awesome entries!
Hey there! I’m Lindsay Goldner, one of the interns at Howcast’s San Francisco office. Like our East Coast counterparts, we made our own video to be featured on Howcast.com. From our list of potential topics, we decided that “How To Play Twister” would be the most fun for us to film. The New York office sent us the script that we’d be using, and we got to work producing the storyboard that laid out each scene of our video.
After story-boarding, we got to work on filming the video itself. Tiffany acted as referee and main camera operator, while Nick, Sunil, and I played Twister.We filmed in the lounge of Sunil’s apartment complex in downtown Berkeley, and, just like any first-time filmmaking team, we ran into some obstacles along the way. The first was figuring out just how to get the right angles while using the camera’s small lens. Lighting was another challenge, since the lounge windows let in small, uneven squares of light, and it was too windy to shoot outside. Like Charlie (one of the NYC interns), I too had no clue how intricate filming a three-minute video could be!
Complications aside, we were ultimately able to set everything up to our liking and begin filming.I think we’d all forgotten just how much coordination and flexibility is involved in playing Twister, but we were reminded quickly enough! Despite whatever the final cut may show (and to the chagrin of Nick and Sunil), I wound up winning every round — although my sore muscles paid for it the next day!
While some of our friends spent their summer internships pouring coffee and sorting e-mails, we were lucky enough to have a hands-on role in producing content for our web site! I think all of us took away a new-found appreciation for everyone that produces videos, and the considerable effort involved in the process.
Look for the SF interns’ video, How to Play Twister, coming soon to a computer near you!
We’re happy to announce that the voting period for the How-To Video Challenge has been reset and will start again now. In order to vote, viewers will create a Howcast account or sign in to their existing account. They will be able to vote on as many videos as they want and any one video, once per day. (Here’s a tip — voters can use Facebook Connect to easily create a Howcast account!)
None of the contest dates, including the end of the voting period, will be affected by this change. We apologize sincerely for having to restart the voting period but our top priority was to ensure that the contest is 100% fair to all the filmmakers and video artists who worked so hard on their entries.
After receiving 150 amazing entries to the How-to Video Challenge, we opened the official voting period yesterday to help us determine the top 10 finalists that will be judged by our stellar jury. Within a few hours of the voting period opening, we noticed certain irregularities in the voting process that could impact the fairness of the voting for all entrants. We have researched the irregularities and are working on the necessary corrections to prevent them from recurring.
In the interest of fairness, we’ve paused the voting period and will be restarting it as soon as possible, with all vote counts set to zero. None of the contest dates, including the end of the voting period, will be affected by this change. We apologize sincerely for having to restart the voting period but our top priority is to ensure that the contest is 100% fair to all the filmmakers and video artists who worked so hard on their entries.
If you have any questions, feel free to contact us at videochallenge@howcast.com.
