VIDEO: Dancing Orphanage
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VIDEO: Driving around town, Cambodia
So we're getting over the "wow, everything is new phase!" in Cambodia. Since we're here for about 3 weeks, the challenge becomes how do we show more?
VIDEO: Cambodia, Day 1
Momentshowing straight from Cambodia. (edited by Ryan). Today, we go meet with some students and give out our 100$ camera packages.
VIDEO: Our next three weeks
Ryanne and I are spending the next three weeks in SE Asia to videoblog for PreventHumanTrafficking.
This non-profit is led by the incredibly progressive, Christina Arnold, who realizes that videos on her website documenting their work will help raise awareness and encourage donations.
While we're in Cambodia, Vietnam, and Thailand, we are also running some videoblogging workshops for local bloggers. Video cellphones, Blogger.com, and all the free video hosting sites make it so much easier now. Check out this video where we put together $100 camera packages to give away.
Big shout out to Beth Kanter for helping us making these connections, and to Doug who donated the 50$ cameras. This is all in the spirit of helping get regular people around the world to post video about their lives. Broadband internet and access to computers are really the only barrier. Many people in developing nations are still just struggling to survive and eat, but this is changing. Every country we've been to has a segment of the population getting online because they want to be connected. We all find our own reasons and resources to connect. This is a citizen journalism group we'll be teaching in Thalalnd. The world is getting closer.
VIDEO: Death and Missing it
My friend Ferd Eggan died last week. He was such a good guy. Actually he was a revolutionary in every sense of the word. Here's his obit in the LA Times.
Described by colleagues as brash, articulate and charismatic, Eggan championed public housing assistance for homeless people with HIV and AIDS and guided efforts to include women and minorities in AIDS policy-making roles. He also led the city to fund important research, including the first major study to demonstrate the link between crystal methamphetamine use and HIV risk in gay and bisexual men.
Ferd drove up to San Francisco to basically say good bye to all his friends here. I got the chance to set down and talk with him about death. He looked like he was going to die, and he wasn't afraid to talk about it. In the early 70's, he was in a movie/documentary about his life called "The Continuing Story of Carel and Ferd". You can see an excerpt here. This was really groundbreaking stuff before anyone had thought about "reality TV".
So Ferd was no stranger to self-documentation. He spoke about many "uncomfortable" topics on his videoblog, "The Cranky PWA". I met Ferd when he started sending me questions about how to post video online. He was totally fearless about using new artforms to express himself. No preciousness. (He was posting up till his last week...and the blog got kind of messy.)
Here's a funny moment with Ferd. Be aware that he had a morphine pump attached to him for the pain. He died 3 days after this video. I was very lucky to have known him. I'm going to make sure my life kicks ass as well.
VIDEO: Under the Sea (Lumiere-style)
VIDEO: The Gambler (lumiere-style)
Here's another video for the Lumiere Project (60 seconds max. • Fixed camera • No audio • No zoom • No edit • No effects) This video was shot on a Carnival Cruise that I just went on for my sister's wedding. Remember this is a Lumiere video. This video contains NO audio. Feel free to leave your own music running.
Blogger is actually ready for videoblogging
Since 2004, we've been teaching people how to videoblog using Blogger. Just check out the tutorial at Freevlog. Blogger was super easy to use, but always frustrated us because it didn't provide a lot of the features we needed. RSS enclosures, video uploads, etc.
Now things are changing in a big way.
Eric Case recently became project manager, and he understands that people shouldn't have to go to Youtube to post video. In my opinion, blogs do a lot of things much better than social networking sites (like control the look of my page, moderate comments, gather a specific audience). Eric came to Pixelodeon and listened to what videobloggers had to say.
You can now help test video uploads and RSS enclosures on your Blogger accounts.
You must be logged in through http://draft.blogger.com
It's pretty freaking cool.
Now someone brand new can make a blog in 10 seconds, upload a video to Google video IN the post, and have an RSS feed that anyone can subscribe to in iTunes. That's what we always wanted.
Blip.tv and Wordpress.org are still the places for serious videobloggers who want complete control over their work. But this new and improved Blogger helps open the door for the newbies, especially since they've localized it in 8 different languages.
Videoblogging Club
Michael Verdi is doing a cool project here.
A couple of weeks ago we started talking about critiquing videoblogs in a flash meeting. Like I say in the video, I’ve used this great feedback process with my theater and I think it’ll work well for talking about videoblogs too.
This is a moderated process where the responsibility of the audience is to not bring their own agenda and to have a desire for the artist to do her/his best work.
The purpose of this process is to create a critical dialogue between an artist and responders that is non-threatening and positive. Nothing is set in stone. This is a working method and can be adapted to fit needs as they arise.
So basically videobloggers are going to meet in a Flash conference and critique new videos made by different people. Just another way to bump up the art of videoblogging. This is the exact stuff we spoke about at Pixelodeon. The next virtual meetup is Tuesday, July 3 at 23:00 GMT (that’s 7 p.m. EST, 6 p.m. CST, 4 p.m. PST here in the U.S.). You can figure out your time in relation to GMT here. All you need is a webcam and internet connection to join in.
VIDEO: Lumiere Rules
Here is a video of my father and I sitting on a couch.
There is no sound on purpose, so turn up your music.
Why am I posting this?
Andreas and Brittany started a little game called the Lumiere rules.
The rules are as follows:
- 60 seconds max.
- Fixed camera
- No audio
- No zoom
- No edit
- No effects
I made this video with my father back in 2004 when I was experimenting with videoblogging. My father always seems very shy around cameras, and I was shy trying to record him, so I decided to just record us sitting there. My kids can just watch us be ourselves. Kind of reminds me of Warhol's Screentest.
Andreas made a great page that has all the Lumiere videos people are making.
http://videoblogging.info/lumiere/
Feel free to join the fun.
