You'll get the best sound if you choose a wide, long piece of dry bamboo. The longer and wider your wood, the richer the sound will be. You can cut and  cure your own bamboo or buy a piece at a garden store. Get a smooth, straight piece without any bends or holes. If your bamboo piece isn't already hollow, use a metal rod to push out the material at its center. Once the path is clear, attach a piece of sandpaper to the end of the rod. Use it to sand the inside of the bamboo so that it's smooth and free of obstructions. If you don't have a metal rod, any sort of strong, long implement sturdy enough to scrape out the inside of the bamboo will work. Use a pencil to create a pattern of dots around the outside of the bamboo. These dots will be the places where you bore holes to insert the wooden skewers, which are an essential part of the rainstick. Making a pattern that spirals around the bamboo from the top to the bottom will look very attractive and ensure that the pebbles or rocks you place inside will have plenty of obstacles to plink against. Use a drill bit the same size as your wooden skewers, so they'll be able to slide right in. Carefully drill each hole you marked, taking care to puncture the bamboo without drilling through to the other side of the stick. If you do not have a drill, you can still make a rainstick using long nails. Instead of drilling the holes, use a hammer to pound a long nail through each hole. Make sure the nail isn't long enough to penetrate the other side of the bamboo stick. Put a bit of glue on the tip of a skewer and thread it through one of the holes. Push it through until it runs up against the other side of the bamboo stick. Use a sturdy pair of scissors or a small handsaw to cut the skewer flush against the bamboo stick. Continue inserting skewers and cutting the ends until each hole has been filled. This step isn't necessary if you used nails instead of skewers. Wait about an hour before finishing your rainstick. Sand off the nubs left from the skewers with a flat file or some sandpaper. To plug the ends of the rainstick, cut out two circular pieces of wood the same width as the ends of the stick. Glue the first end cap to the base of the stick using wood glue or superglue, to make sure it won't budge. Save the other cap for now. If you don't have the supplies to cut out pieces of wood, you can make endcaps out of cardboard, particle board, or another sturdy item you have in your home. Just make sure you can glue the cap securely to the end of the stick. Different materials will make different sounds as they plink against the wooden skewers. Use pebbles of different sizes, pennies, dried rice, dried beans, beads, and any other items you like. Fill the rainstick about 1/8 - 1/4 with objects.  Don't overfill the rainstick, or you won't be able to hear the individual sounds of the objects. Putting too few objects in the rainstick won't give you the impression of rain when you use your instrument. Use wood glue or superglue to seal the rainstick on the other side. Let it dry completely before using.

Summary: Choose a piece of bamboo. Hollow the bamboo. Make a pattern of dots on the bamboo. Drill the holes. Insert the skewers. Allow the glue to dry. Smooth the sides. Make end caps. Fill the rainstick with pebbles and other objects. Affix the other endcap to the rainstick.


After you've shot the raw footage, upload it onto your computer and edit it. Most cameras can be connected via USB cords or by an SD card that you can remove and load into a (usually) USB converter. Follow the instructions for the particular camera that you've used. Save the raw footage as a separate document so you can feel free to edit and make changes. You can always go back to the original footage if necessary, confident that you won't lose any of it. You can always start over. Unless you shot everything perfectly and want to keep your video as is, it's best to use a user-friendly editing software that will allow you to trim, adjust, add music, and otherwise clean-up the raw video that you've captured. If you want to add captions or boost the audio, you'll need to open the footage with some kind of editing software.   Popular free versions of editing software include:  iMovie Windows Movie Maker Avidemux    Professional editing software includes:  Apple Final Cut Pro Corel VideoStudio Pro Adobe Premiere Elements When you've loaded the footage into the software, start cutting out anything that you don't want in the final product. Cut repetitive scenes, or trim down everything to the bare essentials and start organizing your best footage. Depending on the kind of video you want to make, you may want more shaky and informal footage, or you may want a clean and professional product. Use your judgement depending on the project. Move scenes around to switch the order if it improves the video. If you're documenting a party or another event, don't worry so much about staying true to "the way things really happened" and make the best possible version of the video that you're making. Tell a story. Most editing software includes lots of options that allow you to smoothly transition from one scene into another scene, making it easy to move things around and make changes. Avoid hard or disjunctive cuts, unless that's an effect you hope to include in the video for some reason. iMovie and other kinds of software has lots of complicated fades and transitions that you can use, but use them sparingly. It can distract from the final video if you get carried away. Stay true to the content and make the video the most important thing, not the fancy transition you just learned how to do on the computer. If it fits the video you want to make, upload music that's on your computer and use it in the background as a soundtrack to montage moments in your video, or take the sound out entirely if its not important, and use music in its place. This can be a good way to lively up camera phone video that might not have audio as good as the quality of its video. When you're finished, finalize the project by exporting the finished video into a video file, like a .avi or a .mov. Open in a playback software like Windows Media Player or Quicktime and check out your work. After you've exported the file, consider how you'd like to share your work with others. You could burn your video onto a DVD to provide physical copies to people. This is a particularly good option if you've taken wedding footage, or footage of another kind of private event that was attended by a small group of people who would be interested in the footage.  If the video has wider appeal, upload your video to YouTube. As long as it's short enough, you can create a YouTube account and upload your video relatively quickly. It'll be online in no time and then you'll be able to share the link with anyone you want. If you want your video online, but would prefer it stay somewhat private, you can upload privately with a Vimeo account. The video will be password-protected and very high-quality, meaning that you can share it freely with anyone who you provide the password with, but it won't be visible to just anyone.
Summary: Upload your footage onto your computer. Download editing software. Cut out unnecessary or confusing bits. Don't be afraid to rearrange. Add transitions to smoothen out the final video. Add sound effects or music. Finalize the project. Share the video.