Play Video (19:01, Flash Video, note: if a video player does not appear in your browser, visit the blip.tv video page to see the video.

Special thanks to Steve Garfield for providing me with the video he shot with his Nokia N95. I had originally planned this to be an audio interview, but when Steve Garfield gave me his video of the discussion, it became a video. When I combined his video and my audio, I was impressed that the audio sync drifted less that a frame from start to end. Many of the little cameras drift a lot (like my Canon TX1). The N95 is an impressive little camera.

I spoke with Philip Hodgetts at the New Media Expo in Las Vegas and asked him about his new venture, the Open Television Network which I blogged about several weeks ago.

 Play Video

Music by Colin Owens.

Online video has become a vibrant part of our everyday communication landscape and an important component of political discourse. Increasingly, video creation and sharing depend on the ability to use and circulate existing copyrighted work. As more and more video is being shared on the web, financial stakes are raised and the legal status of inserting copyrighted work into new work has become an important issue for online video makers, video hosting providers, and content owners to understand the legal rights of makers of new culture. What some people claim is “piracy” in the online environment might be lawful use protected under the fair-use doctrine of United States copyright law. Mashups, remixes, and parodies are part of an important cultural practice: recycling of old culture to make new, and this process of copying other author’s works is woven into the social bargain at the core of copyright law in the fair use provisions, which are not well understood by most online videomakers. This new document should go a long way in helping to narrow this gap of understanding among online videomakers.

This document provides a long-awaited and much needed code of best practices that will help online videomakers, copyright holders, hosting providers, and other interested parties in developing a better understanding of the copyright doctrine of fair use in the context of online video. Fair use is the right to use copyrighted material without permission or payment under some circumstances. What are these circumstances? Most often it is acceptable when doing a parody, or making a critical comment or appropriate quotation. Many of the uses you see online are acceptable, many are not. This code of best practices does not clearly define the limits of fair use rights (that’s determined by the trends in case law, quite complex), however, it does provide much needed guidance to what are currently acceptable practices and draws upon actual activities of media creators as discussed in the study, Recut, Reframe, Recycle: Quoting Copyrighted Material in User-Generated Video and backed by the judgment of a national panel of experts. It also draws upon the professional judgment and experience of documentary filmmakers, whose own code of best practices has been recognized throughout the film and television businesses and is described in the document, Documentary Filmmakers Statement of Best Practices in Fair Use.

Related to this presentation, see also my previous post, “Notes on the Interview” (January 23, 1006). This is a set of notes I’ve collected that I use to remind myself of things to think about when I’m preparing to do an interview.

View slides (on SlideShare): Art of the Interview PC3

Download slides as a PDF (from SlideShare): Art-of-the-Interview-PCB3

List of example clips screened and discussed (year, description, roles):

“Student Activities Midway” (2006, video podcast story segment, MIT ZigZag Episode #10, Co-Producer, Director, Editor)
“MIT Freshman Experience” (2007, video podcast episode, MIT ZigZag Episode #14, Producer, Director, Editor )
“Journey to MIT” (2007, excerpt from series produced for 2007 MIT pre-commencement show, Co-Producer, Director of Photography)

Some of these clips can be viewed at: kino-eye.com/about/reel/

Steve Garfield announced that we’re going to have to change meeting venues, as Sweet Finnish in Jamaica Plain has closed. We also want to expand the scope of Boston Media Makers, nothing changes regarding these meetings, but starting in May, we’d like to host a technical and/or creative in-depth demo of a tool or technique one evening in the middle of each month. We’re in the process of crystallizing this idea, so make your suggestions known on the Boston Media Maker blog.

John Herman has been working on Gravityland a new websodic. The current episode (Episode 6: Joni’s Dream) was writtend by viewers who pitched their ideas on the Gravityland blog. He just did a 48 Hour Film Project film which debuts on Tuesday. I recorded an interview with John Herman after the meeting for the next episode of my audio podcast, Art Film Talk, so if all goes well, I’ll post the interview tomorrow.

Mike Mooney, FM Crew Productions, has finished What is Joppa and he’s now involved with Dr Dunbar’s Mystery Spot.

Curtis Henderson, General Manager of Boston Neighborhood Network (BNN), reported that they are now settled in their new headquarters at 3025 Washington Street in Egleston Square, formerly an MBTA power plant. They are right in the midst of the analog to digital conversion. BNN is having an Open House Ribbon Cutting next Saturday at 1:15pm w/ Mayor Menino and other local ploticos in attendance. BNN operates Boston’s two public access cable television channels: BNN’s News & Information Channel (9 Comcast/15 RCN) and BNN’s Community Access Channel (23 Comcast/83 RCN). Membership is open to Boston residents and non-profit organizations serving the Boston community. You can learn how to create your own TV program, have it broadcast on BNN cable, or produce projects for the web. Their facilities include two studios, digital cameras, non-linear edit systems, and a mobile production truck for doing multi-camera shoots on location.

Adam Green, CEO, Grazr, talked about his social networking application which allows you to create reading lists. Adam is currently looking to hire MySQL coders, Perl programmers, and CSS experts. The basic idea behind Grazr is that Everything is Miscellaneous. Grazr is a collection of tools to create and manage multiple reading lists, and share them with others. It makes it easy to keep up-to-date with the ever-increasing number of blog posts, web pages, and tweets of interest. The key insight is that they post-filter as needed, rather that requiring you to tag and sort in advance. Grazr can search each stream by keyword, date, or media type. Free accounts can merge and filter up to 50 feeds. Paid accounts can process up to 1,500 feeds in a single stream. And you can share your Grazr results on your web site using a widget they provide. Adam also blogs at Feedonomics. And speaking of tools to make sense of all the bits in your life, check out this video from Michael Wesch: Information R/evolution.

Jason Pramas, Editor/Publisher, reported that Open Media Boston is off and running. Their next meeting will be held tomorrow (Tuesday, April 8, 2008) from 6-8 p.m. at Encuentro 5, 33 Harrison Ave., 5th Flr. in Boston Chinatown (corner of Beach St. and Harrison Ave. close to the T Orange, Green and Red Lines). They will be talking about making the site really go now that’s it’s and running and start thinking about what direction to take the site design for full launch next month). Open Media Boston is a project of Media Working Group (a non-profit organization), Open Media Boston is a new audience-centered online media outlet dedicated to publishing fair and accurate news, views, arts, and entertainment content in text, image, audio and video formats from a progressive political perspective for the Boston area. They want to balance open participation with editorial control. They are soliciting submissions and commentary from the general public using the latest social media technology while maintaining professional journalistic standards at all times. Their site was built with Drupal, an open source content management framework that has become a popular choice for people building online media community sites.

Anna Pinkert, a media producer, talked about the Women, Action & The Media Conference that was recently held at MIT. In attendance were some really cool people, but she was surprised that the ratio is still heavy on print media. She’s getting into editing and asked the group, what are the differences between Final Cut Express and Final Cut Pro? Basically, Express only comes bundled with LiveType and the older 1.5 version of Soundtrack Pro. Final Cut Pro is part of a complete bundle that includes Soundtrack Pro 2 (much better than 1.5), Motion, Compressor, DVD Studio Pro, and Color. The interface is pretty much identical, especially now that the latest version of Express adds key-framing. Express does not support third party capture cards and the full range of video formats, however, it does support DV and HDV, so that covers it for most people. Express only has the secondary (two-way) color correction tool, it does not have the three-way color correction tool which once you start using it, you’ll really miss it. Also, Express limits undo to 32 levels. If you want to explore the differences in great detail, take a look at Final Cut Express Technical Specifications
and Final Cut Pro 6 Technical Specifications on the Apple web site.

Andrea Mercado, co-manager of PLA Blog, the official blog of the Public Library Association, recently aquired a Zoom H2 digital audio recorder and she’s very excited about it. I can see why, it’s a cool little recorder. One thing that makes the little H2 unique is that it has 4 built-in microphone capsules that simply put provides excellent stereo imaging.

John Carr has done short films and documentaries and is now venturing into audio. He’s getting involved in some podcasts and writing a radio drama. He’ll be doing a show at Improv Asylum on Saturday night (April 12, 2008). He’s been using Zhura, an online screenwriting application. Zhura is most easily described as Final Draft meets Google Docs. It provides a way to create formatted scripts with revision control online. Youc an create a private group and invite friends and colleagues to collaborate in a workspace. You can also use it in public mode to collaborate with others under a Creative Commons license, letting other people read and comment on your script, they can even help out with edits. Software is rapidly becoming a service and Zhura is making a play for the screewriting sector.

Jeff Cutler, who does Bowl of Cheese (self-described as “gentle, and not so gentle, ramblings about the inane and insane”) is taking some time to write.

Reiko Beach of TRB Design talked about Geek Girl Camp (which takes place on April 17, 2008 at the Heritage House in Hyannis). It’s a meetup and unconference for girls/women of all ages geared to empower, educate, evangelize, excite and improve the overall knowledge of the ever-evolving world of consumer products, computers, and the web.

Tom Beach of TRB Design recently aquired a Sony HVL-LBP LED camera light ($500, add $100 for NP-F970 battery, $100 for single charger $150 for dual charger). After the meeting we experimented with the light and I did some shooting with the light and a Sony HVR-V1 camcorder. The light is a little heavy mounted on-camera for handheld shooting, but it certainly works as a daylight balanced battery-powered LED light to add some fill or act as key when there’s not enough light to shoot sans light. It works with Sony L-series camcorder batteries, Tom discovered the smaller L-series batteries do not work with the light, it requires the higher capacity models.

In terms of price/performance I think the HVL-LBP fits somewhere between the more expensive Litepanels Mini ($740, add $164 for rechargeable battery) the less expensive Litepanels Micro ($300), a lightweight alternative to both lights that is well suited for handheld work with smaller cameras, but not as bright as the HVL-LBP and Mini. And on the high end of LED camera lights is the Zylight Z90 ($950 w/ mounting accessories, add $180 for rechargeable battery and cable) that lets you dial in any color. It has two built-in preset colors (5600K, 3200K) and two user preset you can program to display any color. This is where the Zylight differs most sharply from the Sony and Litepanels, no gels are needed, instead, you dial in the color you need. It also has a plus/minus green mode, or tungsten/daylight mode, allowing you to choose the color of “white” you need quickly. The number of LED lights is proliferating and expect to see continued price drops and innovation.

Alecia Orsini will be putting her film, Combustible Russ , on the net for sale. She’s interested in hearing from people the pros and cons of the various options available for filmmakers who want to sell their work online.

I suggest checking out a recent New England Film article by Rhonda Moskowitz, Distributing Your Short Film in the Global Marketplace. Also, in New England Film you will find two related pieces by yours truly which ran last year: Delivering Video on the Web, and Prepping and Posting your Video to the Web, most of what’s in there is still relevant, however, the field is in constant flux. Another suggestion is to take a look at Video on the Web: A Resource Guide, an evolving guide of compression tools, hosting services, and video players for delivering video on the web. It’s a work in progress, so let me know what else should go in there.

Steve Albanese, Tutorial Depot, provides tutorials for users of Logic, Pro Tools, Digital Performer, and more. He continues to do his very fun video show, Friday Brew, check it out.

Media scholar Heide Solbrig , a Professor at Bentley College, and her student Mai Huynh talked about Bentley’s program in Media and Culture. Mai is a graduating senior and the first graduating media major at Bentley. She had a Zine at 12, has been with new media for a long time. She’s doing a project mapping bloggers in the Boston area and hopes to talk to many of the people here at this meeting and beyond.

I’m fascinated by Bentley’s new program, and how forward looking it is, requiring students to balance their media major with a business minor and students do a media-related internship or project. Given the rapid change in the media industry, this fresh program strikes me as a savvy alternative to craft oriented programs that only teach tools and techniques on the one end, and traditional film schools on the other end, which definitely provide a good liberal arts education, but your major prepares you to enter an industry that will most likely not look anything like it does today ten years from now. It’s very fresh and timely that Bentley is providing students the opportunity to mix of business and media studies, along with a good solid liberal arts education, this strikes me as a very smart way to educate the new generation of media makers who grew up using editing tools and cameras in high school and don’t need to learn the craft so much as building their knowledge of history, trends, aesthetics, critical thinking, and business. You can’t go wrong with a good liberal arts education focused on the future yet still firmly planted in the fundamentals.

Joe Cascio continues to work on Social Logic and he’s also involved in starting up Providence Media Makers, their next meeting is on April 20th.

Mike Walsh is putting together another Barcamp on May 17th and a MacCamp on May 10th.

Phillipe Lejeune has been creating amazing video using Flash and lately he’s been using Seesmic which he really likes, he finds it “ten times more powerful that Twitter ,” especially as a visual artist. For him, Seesmic offers “something extra,” allowing you to see the “personality of the other person.” Phillipe also mentioned that for people who find using WordPress difficult, Phillipe suggested taking a look at Jimdo, which is very easy to use.

Brett Stilwell is involved with Pecha Kucha Boston. He talked about Pecha Kucha, an event format for presenting creative ideas. The name is onomatopoeia, the sound of conversation in Japanese. Fifteen or so speakers each present exactly twenty slides. Each slide automatically advances after twenty seconds. The next one in the Boston area will be focused on architecture, design and technology: Pecha Kucha Boston 4, hosted by Harvard GSD on Thursday, April 10, 2008 at 8pm in Gund Hall, 48 Quincy Street in Cambridge, MA. The event is free and open to the public. In June they will be doing another one with a more diverse speaker set. He had with him a copy of a beautiful book, Pecha Kucha Night: A Celebration, celebrating the phenomenon now running in over a hundred cities around the world. The book looks at how the event has grown, where it’s been held, how to run one, and why it has gone viral. Brett has put some videos on blip.tv

Adam Greene, Marksman Ship Pictures, does family history videos, he’s looking for people w/ web skills needs help with production and promotion. He’s also a certified Final Cut Pro trainer, so if you need help with Final Cut, give Adam a call.

This month I did show and tell about using an MS Stereo microphone (in my case an Audio-Technica BP4029) for hand-held documentary in-the-moment shooting. In the past I used two microphones to capture what’s in front and to the side of the camera, but it’s a drag to do a two handed technique. I’ll be posting a detailed article on this in the future covering both production and post-production details, so stay tuned.

Monte Ladner is a medical doctor who does Fitness Rocks, a health and fitness podcast. He suggests that there is something missing in the interaction between doctors and their patients around the dissemination of research on lifestyle and health. Health care costs are a big issue these days, and the shocking statistic is that 75% of the money is spent on chronic disease, over a trillion dollars a year is being spent in the United States on things that could be prevented if people were more active and ate healthy.

Brian Agusta has a show he started last summer, he’s an actor, performer, and singer, he helped form the professional vocal group, Almost Recess. Brian is looking for opportunities to do acting and performing, his first standup show is this Wednesday at Improv Boston.

Mike Ball talked about the wonderfully progressive Left in Lowell site, which is an excellent example of local progressive journalism. He has been running into some podcasting and Joomla problems, so if you know about both, he can use some help.

I’m sad we are no longer meeting at Sweet Finnish Cafe in Jamaica Plan, which closed its doors. We will miss the lovely cafe, it was a perfect environment for our meetings. Coffee, old-world pastries, new media, conversation, more coffee. We will miss Ulla’s hospitality, she hosted us for the past two years. This month we met in the back room of Doyle’s pub in Jamaica Plain and had what came close to record attendance.

I did not take notes about everything we spoke about, or everyone who spoke, so if I left someone out, sorry about that, nothing was meant by it. I think we might need to find some real-time wiki technique for taking notes at these meetings. It would be nice to explore how we could write notes of the meetings in a more collaborative manner. Any ideas? Until next month, keep making the future of media.

OTN lets viewers subscribe to an RSS feed so they can see the titles of new videos in iTunes. When the viewer clicks on a particular item to download it, their OTN account is debited the price of that video. This is done through a technology called KlickTab. Media makers can add buttons on their site that when users click on them it add their RSS feed to iTunes. Before viewers can buy content they will have to obtain an account with OTN (OTN starts new users off with a $5.00 credit as an incentive to try it) and then whenever they click on content in iTunes from an OTN publisher, their account is debited the price of the video. Like PayPal in the early days, people are going to be hesitant to give their credit card number to an unknown entity, but I think that if OTN can collect a critical mass of interesting content, viewers will start to see the value of being part of the network. What OTN needs is a killer hit that everyone will want to download, or some free content that requires opening an account, so viewers can see what’s in it for them.

There are many things I like about the OTN model. They provide small publishers a way to get paid for their media, they are putting it into iTunes, which offers a seamless user experience for getting media to iPods, iPhones, and AppleTV that most people can manage. There are no content gatekeepers (except for clearly inappropriate content like pornography). No DRM. OTN charges a reasonable 15% fee from the money they collect, unlike other services based on old media that want to take much higher percentages. Last time I checked internet transactions were super efficient, so the percentage distributors take should drop precipitously, not stay the same.

Some media makers may be concerned about no DRM, but OTM is perusing a positive model and counting on the goodwill of most viewers out there that want to support media makers doing good stuff. Rather than worry about protecting your media, small publishers should worry about getting their media out there and sold. User convencience should be the priority. Long tail publishing actual benefits from some sharing among viewers, for that spreads the word of mouth. And as Philip Hodgetts of OTN said at last week’s Final Cut Pro Users Group Meeting in Boston, it’s about making it, “easier than piracy and almost as cheap.”

The music industry made a big mistake when they introduced CDs at a price higher that LPs rather than lowering the price. That was the beginning of the end. The video industry was much smarter in the transition from VHS to DVD by lowering the wholesale price of DVDs, and the home video industry took off. Now Apple’s iTunes music store is selling videos for too much money, are they repeating the mistake of the music industry? I think the price of a video should be low enough as to constitute an impulse purchase. Only a small segment of the population is going to pay $1.99 for a TV show. There’s an untapped market out there. The long-tail content publishers that OTN is building their system for will have an open marketplace to sell their goods. Right now they have none. The democratization of production and post production is not enough. You need the democratization of distribution. OTN is trying to take care of that. So far advertising has not earned much for media makers distributing their video online, however, for specialized an niche content, OTN might help media makers make a decent living making videos for specific audiences who are not served by the major studios.

Detailed session descriptions follow:

Web Video 2.0: Delivering Your Video Online
Friday, March 07, 1:00PM – 3:00PM, $25.00
Video on the web is hotter than ever and the excitement is moving beyond YouTube and into corporate web video, web-based episodics, delivery of films directly to viewers, and new applications of video never before possible. Through examples, demonstrations, and discussion, you will learn how you can make web video work for you. A practical how-to approach will provide you with an understanding of delivery options (e.g. progressive download vs. streaming), compression and format tips (codec and player choices), video sharing and streaming services, and monitization strategies. This session will be of interest to producers, directors, videographers, editors, and site designers who want to deliver video online and/or integrate video into their web site. Back by popular demand, this follow-up to last-years sold-out session has been updated with new material and examples to reflect the latest tools, techniques, and trends.

Art of the Interview: Strategies and Techniques for Better Video Interviews
Saturday, March 08, 9:00AM – 11:00AM, $25.00
The interview is a fundamental element of most documentary films, many video blogs, and event coverage. Through video examples and interactive discussion this session will provide you with practical strategies and techniques you can apply to your work and includes coverage of how and why to use interviews. You will learn how to: choose the right interview style (e.g. walk-and-talk vs. formal sit-down), choose a form of address (e.g. first-person vs. third person), prepare for an interview, put your subjects at ease, conduct an interview, and more. A discussion of how technical components (camera, sound, lighting, environment) influence the results is included. Designed for both beginning and intermediate documentary filmmakers, videobloggers, and event videographers. For an in-depth exploration of lighting for interviews, consider attending the “Interview Lighting” session that follows later in the day.

Interview Lighting: Professional Results On A Tight Budget
Saturday, March 08, 1:00PM – 3:00PM, $25.00
A demonstration and discussion of several approaches to lighting interviews ranging from low-budget existing light and one light techniques to classic three-point lighting using professional fixtures. Session covers: review of lighting fundamentals, survey of popular lighting fixtures and kits, screening and discussion of practical examples covering aesthetic issues and technical trade-offs, and suggestions for putting together a kit based on your specific needs. This session provides an excellent follow-on to “The Art of the Interview” earlier in the day. Prior attendance to “Art of the Interview” is helpful but not required.

I hope to see you there.

Steve Garfield demonstrated broadcasting web video streaming from his Nokia N95 phone using Qik, which is pretty cool, you can have your own page on Qik and make the videos available on your page. Full disclosure: the N95 phone was provided to Steve by Nokia and he used a trial mobile phone account provided by AT&T. Does it matter whether we are demonstrating something given to us for promotional purposes vs. something we bought? I think in the future everyone will become an extension of a corporate marketing program for fifteen minutes (with apologies to Andy Warhol), if marketing became a more organic process it could be a good thing.

Apogee Duet Audio Interface

Nate Aune is with Jazkarta, a company delivering open source solutions for building web-based video community services branded for your own organization that can pull in video from YouTube and Blip.tv. For show and tell he showed us the Duet audio interface from Apogee, it’s a really cool FireWire audio interface with several inputs and outputs. He looks forward to using it to record performances as well as interviews in the field with his laptop. A visit to the Apogee site reveals these details: the Duet provides both inputs (2 channels of 24-bit/96kHz audio via balanced XLR inputs with selectable 48V phantom power and 2 unbalanced high impedance instrument inputs) and output (1 stereo headphone output and 2 unbalanced -10 dBV line outputs) and sports a cool multi-function controller knob for volume and input gain. It interfaces to your computer via FireWire 400 and is compatible with any Core Audio-compliant audio application and control functions are built directly into Apple’s Logic Pro, Soundtrack Pro and GarageBand. It comes bundled with Apogee’s Maestro software for control and low latency mixing.

Audio Technica ATM 10A

Nate asked, “I’m looking for a high quality microphone to record interviews,” I suggested for starters, the small mics from Giant Squid Audio Lab are worth taking a look at. Adam pulled out his Audio Technica ATM 10A, a condenser microphone available for about $100 which he uses for interviews. According to the Audio-Technica site, the ATM 10A has been replaced by the AT8010, which looks like pretty much the same, an omnidirectional condenser microphone idea for interviews with a very smooth response on- or off-axis. It runs either on battery or phantom power.

Electro-Voice RE50

My note: For hand-held field interviewing I prefer (and thus I own) the Electro-Voice RE50 omnidirectional dynamic “reporters” microphone. It is very rugged and has excellent acoustic isolation between the mic capsule and exterior case so you don’t hear the handling noise when you hand it from one person to another. It’s not as sensitive as a condenser microphone, but I’ve never found that to be a problem using it with the audio recorders, cameras, and mixers I use in my work. Both the AT and EV are excellent mics, one thing to consider is that microphones, like speakers, are a highly subjective purchase.

Adam Weiss is now using the moniker, Digital Media Strategist, and it fits him well. He does podcasts and other new media stuff, including the award-winning podcasts for the Museum of Science, and also does The Puzzle Podcast and Boston Behind the Scenes. Adam’s show and tell this month was the Circa Notebook System which he first got as a free starter kit while visiting the Levenger store in the Prudential Center. This is old analog technology designed to work like we do, Adam carries four of five notebooks, etc. looks like a spiral bound notebook, but all of the pages come out and go back in wherever you want, you can carry one notebook, take pages out and put it in the right notebook, various kids of paper are available, and you can buy a punch and make your own paper. The levenger version of this notebook is the highest quality, alternative version sold at Staples is cheap and does not work as well.

My note: if you like the Circa notebooks, check out D*I*Y Planner , a community of people who are into paper as a medium for planning, productivity, and more. They share advice and inspiration and are home of the free kits .

John Coyne is on hiatus from the social media company company he was working for and is doing freelance shooting and editing. He had a question about a site Steve and I mentioned for “instant web sites” it is Jottit which I blogged about a while back saying that Jottit is to web tools what haiku is to poetry

Gabriel Mugar, who treaches television production at Madison Park High School, is working on Press Pass TV, civic minded citizen journalism, they are looking for adults who are interested in working with youth on creation of content on a volunteer basis. They want to build a freelance network of adults that can help cover stories. Their high school program starts in February. Press Pass TV is related to Citizen Schools, which operates a national network of apprenticeship programs for middle school students, connecting adult volunteers to young people in hands-on learning projects after school.

Tom Beach of TRB Design has been reading Chris Anderson’s book, The Long Tail, his blog entries on his new book about how commodies all go to zero is really interesting to him.

I was a panelist at the recent Web Video Summit held in New York on December 10-11, 2007 and there I met many interesting people involved with start-ups in the web video space, two that stood out for me that might be of interest to this group are Kaltura (a collaborative media start-up self-described as YouTube meets Wikipedia) and Bid4Vid (a way of linking people who need media with people who make media). Two recent blog posts are related to this: “Kaltura: Wiki meets YouTube by way of Yochai Benkler” and “Linking those who make media with those who need media.” I also interviewed Shay David, Co-Founder and CTO of Kaltura in Episode #24 of Art Film Talk.

I also spoke about bandwidth checking feature of the JW Flash Player. Version 3.10 of the player introduced a new bandwidth checking feature for video. Using two simple flashvars, the players can determine a site visitor’s bandwidth and automatically switch to the file with the appropriate bitrate. While my home connection typically clocks in around 2,300 kbps, I’ve been in some internet cafes where the bandwidth is more like 350 kbps. In fact today at Sweet Finnish it was about 150 kbps with so many people at this meeting hitting the net. With this feature you can show different sized movies based on the visitor’s bandwidth, improving the overall experience of video viewing on your site if you use a custom Flash player.

Paul Day is producing a right wing christian satire in the form of a weekly radio show and he’s intersted in hearing ideas of how to make it look and sound better.

Graham English is a blogging musician who is immersed in the social web, his current project is to compose a song a week for 2008. In the near future he’ll post his Music 2.0 manifesto on his blog. Stay tuned.

Rick Burns is doing a site called 9neighbors.com they bubble up cool content created locally on a neighborhood level, they are currently covering Boston, Cambridge, Somerville, Newton, and Brookline. They and the community bubble up and highlight the best stuff. You can add your feed and they will filter it. As a user of the site you can recommend stuff like on dig.

Jeff Glasson does a podcast, diecastAUDIO for diecast model enthusiasts, , why audio for a visual hobby? He was a radio DJ in college, podcast was the natual evolution for him. He currently has a single chip Sony camera, wavering between a three chip camera or high definition, or….

John Herman really likes spaces, it’s the selling point for him as far as Mac OS X Leopard goes. He produced a stage show, Atoms, Motion, and the Void, which closes tonight (it’s playing in Portsmouth at the Payers Ring Theater). You can listen to the play at radioghost.com. John also produces improv comedy, the troupe is called Stranger than Fiction , he’ll be doing a show on Tuesday, January 19th 7:30pm on Mogulus, the link is: www.mogulus.com/improvcomedy

My note: Atoms, Motion, and the Void is a one man show in the tradition of old time radio shows with Sherwin Sleeves, the 79 year-old alter ego of 39 year-old stay-at-home dad Sean Hurley from Lemon, New Hampshire. The podcast that the play is based on won a “best of New Hampshire” podcast award. My wife Alice and I went up to Portsmouth to see the show on opening night and in one word, amazing. We really liked it.

Jared Spool runs User Interface Engineering, a user interface engineering think tank, he works with large company clients, they produce podcasts and webinars on various topics related to design and development, right now they have five positions to hire, a live events person, an editorial assistant (print and email production), a product manager for webinars, an intern web design, and a CSS guru contractor. Jared is looking for someone who has gotten rid of all the tables in their house. He also has a blog called brainsparks. He’s warning clients that social media spending is on the rise, are you ready to deal with this?

Jesse Baer is a self-proclaimed tritter fiend (misc on twitter), he says that he’s “not made much media to speak of,” but people try to get him to come to to Boston Media Makers, now that he’s got a camera and a Mac, he’s “ready to make ghetto media,” his day job is working at digital natives project at Harvard Berkman Center as an intern, studying how kids use the internet.

John Wall (The M Show, Ronin Marketeer , and Marketing over Coffee) does marketing for software companies, lots of digital media, podcasting, blogs, wants to check out what people are doing, they just got their first Mac in house, and John says it “has ruined his life,” since he used to come in the morning and start the PC booting and go get coffee, and now “he’s all ready to work” in the morning.

My note: I’ve noticed this winter, more than ever before, many people I know who have been long time Windows users have gotten new Macs instead of a new Windows machine. It’s nice to see after years of marginalization that the Mac is making truly serious inroads among creative professionals. In my circle of friends I count two marketing professionals and three media makers who have bought Macs this winter. Could this be the turning point? Has the gap finally widened enough between the complex and horrible Vista experience and the simple and elegant Macintosh experience to encourage people to switch?

Andrea Mercado is the blog co-manager of PLA Blog, the official blog of the Public Library Association, her show and tell was her new Xotic PC laptop, it’s light, white and sassy, has a camera, they offer custom skins, she’s really happy with it (of course she’s running Windows XP, not the disaster known as Windows Vista).

Amy Carpenter is a blogger, artist, who paints, draws, and makes videos. She was one of the earliest attendees of Boston Media Makers and found it inspiring, she was back to see what’s happening. She’s got a new drawing project, She’s Drawing, you should check it out. Her work is typically mixed media, with more oil around the corner.

Thinkspotting is a new competitive mini-blogging for ideas, a way to get ideas out there and do it as an organized forum, they do a podcast every two and a half weeks. The competitive aspects of the site include giving top users the ability to show their adsense ads on the idea. A similar site, half-bakery, is, in comparison, less unorganized and messier.

OK, that’s it for this month. Sorry for leaving some folks out, I could only type so much this month. The meeting of Boston Media Makers at Sweet Finnish Cafe in Jamaica Plain is the place for media makers to hang out and share knowledge and news with each other the first Sunday of every month stating at 10am.

It was another inspiring, interesting, and entertaining meeting of the Boston Media Makers , which has become carved in stone in my calendar for the first Sunday of every month. We meet at Sweet Finnish in Jamaica Plain with founder and master of ceremonies Steve Garfield. This month Steve used Mogulus studio to stream today’s meeting. It’s a little TV studio on the mac, allows you to stream live, add lower thirds, on the broadcast site you can take comments, it’s all early software, it crashed a couple of times, but it certainly points to where web-based streaming is headed. We went around the room doing updates and show-and-tell.

I mentioned that on Art Film Talk (my audio podcast) I recently posted an interview with Marshall Herskovitz on the topic of Quarterlife, a “television-style” episodic on the web that’s been generating lots of buzz in both industry and new media circles.

My show and tell this month was my Tram-50 Lavalier Microphone and its many accessories, including Rycote’s Lavalier Windjammer designed to reduce wind noise on Lavs worn on the outside of clothing. The Tram-50 delivers smooth, rich sound and was the first piece of audio gear I bought. Three video cameras have come and gone in the time I’ve owned the Tram. Good sound equipment is a worthwhile investment from which you will reap dividends for many years. If the Tram breaks your microphone budget, a good source of affordable, good quality, small microphones is Giant Squid Audio Lab.

I’ll be participating in the Web Video Summit coming up on December 10-11, 2007 at the Roosevelt Hotel in New York, on the Lights, Cameras, Sound: How to Get Great Results panel (1:00pm-1:50pm on Monday) where we’ll be discuss stratagies, tactics, and techniques for better video and sound that will not break your production budget. I offered a free conference pass to the first person who asked for it and Steve Albanese was the lucky winner. Congratulations Steve!

Len Edgerly showed us iYule on his iPhone, a 30-minute Yule Log video available for iPod, iPhone, and more. A holiday fireplace experience with crackling sounds for those on the go. Len is intersted in hearing about interesting uses of the web, video, and social media by artists. Some suggestions came up including a recent Wall Street Journal article about a visual artist using YouTube and Exit Art, an interdisciplinary laboratory for contemporary culture that explores the rich diversity of voices that continually shape art and ideas. Len has been documenting how artists and art organizations are using the web. Check out his podcast and video blog.

Bryan Person made a plug for Len’s podcast, saying “he’s a great storyteller.” Bryan is organizing monthly social media breakfasts that meets every 5-6 weeks in town or somewhere outside, network and talk, kind of on his radar are seesmic and utterz , how are these working for you? The next breakfast, Social Media Breakfast 4 will take place on Monday, December 17, 2007, from 8 to 10am at The Wine Cellar at the Mooo Restaurant in Downtown Boston.

Nate Aune from Jazkarta is building community media portals using open source software offering organizations a way to aggregate multimedia content including screencasts, he’s also recording bands, interested in promoting local boston based bands. They are building sites running on Amazon EC2, offering a scalable media cloud for your application.

Martin Freeth from Windfall Digital is a media producer from London who works on science videos, they are doing Choose Your Character, a museum exhibit project in genetics, visitors pick a card, and move through changes to your character, you learn through walking in the shoes of another person. They are also doing an IPTV story on genetics. He used to work in the BBC and set up BBC online and he dragged himself kicking and screaming into new media. Windfall Digital develops media for all platforms. He showed a wonderful one minute film titled “The Conundrum” from a series of short pieces were designed as instertitials between TV shows but now are perfect for the web. He often comes to the states where lots of good science work is being done. This is the third time Boston Media Makers has had a visitor from London.

Mark Hanser has a new web site, The Mark Hanser Show, different from his current sute, he’s getting into vlogging, exploring these woderful tools, coming to Boston Media Makers and Podcamp and learning to apply these tools as an artist and as an educator. Matt is doing the editing.

Rafael Lanfranco is working with John Coyne on Nuovomedia laboratory’s New Americans Web Site project for immigrants in the US, they are producing media for hispanic-americans, initial focus on Peru, with content on things like how to become an american citizen, how to manage personal finances, encourage them to create their own media, build this template and move to other hispanic groups, working on alpha site right now, should be live within the next week or so. In spanish. Their model public service, advertising and sponsor support. John Coyne and Rafael Lanfranco are building MixItUp, a database to bridge between talent and companies that need the takent by building list of peolle and groups of people interested in working on interesting projects with Nuovomedia.com. They also have a group on Facebook.

Bill Wendel, The Real Estate Cafe, is working on a Real Estate Unconference and has bought an Ice cream truck he’s turning into a mobile podcasting / mapping studio for use at events like real-estate open houses. Sounds really cool.

Zach Braker, Quiver and Quill, is looking to interview people on his blog. He’s working with a business partner who interviews people on management, they are interested in the intersection of life online and life offline.

Jack Hodgson has been doing uncontrolled airspace , a weekly podcast on general aviation, the podcast is literally hangar flying. It’s a very good podcast. He’s also working on Voxci , an alpha prototype that add spoken word to the web, literally word of mouth for the web. Bryan said that bookmarks become richer when there’s an audio description to go with them. Anyone can sugn up and play with it. The main thing Jack is asking for is feedback to help them improve the site.

Tom and Reiko Beach, TRB Design, need in setting up WordPress MU. They want to support multiple gymnastic coach’s blogs. It was suggested checking out WordPress for Dummies by Lisa Sabin-Wilson, the book includes help on every aspect of installing and using WordPress and insights from bloggers who use WordPress. Steve suggests that the easiest way to learn about videoblogging is to click on the “Learn About Videoblogging” on his web site. For people just getting started, Bryan suggested the Flip camera, a.k.a. the soccer mom cam, a low cost alternative for shooting video. If your looking for a miniDV camcorder, David LaMorte and I sugggested the Canon Elura 100 becuase it’s an inexpesnive, small, easy-to-use camcorder that has an external mic input. Using an external microphone is critical for getting good sound. Len’s been happy with the Sanyo Xacti HD2, a tiny 720p camera with an external mic input. If you’re using one of the tiny digital cameras without an expternal mic input, you can always do “double system sound” (recording audio and video separately and synch them up in the editing), for example, Len suggested the Edirol R-09 and I suggested the MicroTrack II. The Samson Zoom H2 and Samson Zoom H4 are also popular choices for small digital recorders.

John Herman in the short
film The Future

John Herman has a show coming up on Thursday, he’ll be doing short-form improv with Gameboyz at the Cantab Lounge in Central Square. Also, starting on December 28 he has a new show starting, producing one man show based on the atoms in the void podcast with Sean Hurley. They have compressed 29 eposides down to a story, performed in character. Catch the show at The Player’s Ring in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, it’s a small venue, so order your tickets now. John also started production last week on Gravityland, an 18 episode web show.

Bob Sherriff is an independent producer (without a web site) in the Boston area who has started to immerse one toe into the social media area, getting into corporate videoblogs, an area in which he would like to find someone to work with clients, determine capabilities, help them publish, help them put a lot of different things into their video blogs, get into different areas, right now he’s social media light, wants to become social media hevy, develop corporate blogs for mass publication, he thinks it’s an area that is growing. Most companies still just want to get their message out, they don’t understand the two-way nature of videoblogging, but other companies get it. It will be their competitive advantage.

Some book suggestions that came up in the discussion today include: The Wealth of Networks by Yochai Benkler, The New Rules of Marketing and PR by David Meerman Scott, The Cluetrain Manifesto by Rick Levine, Christopher Locke, Doc Searls & David Weinberger, The Starfish and the Spider by Ori Brafman and Rod A. Beckstrom.

Matt Searles is ediring Mark’s new video blog and he does Asymmetric Biz Cult (a.k.a. ABC), a fascinating podcast tagged, “a new philosophy of art, mind and business.” Matt’s been doing collaborations with Mark thinking business and new media from an artsists perspective, in his words, “a rich tapestry.”

As I cleaned up these notes I listened to ABC Episode 12 Out in Left Field in which Matt talks about how his new Zoom H4 recorder which allows him now to record in the field, he’s no longer limited to recording in the studio, so this will allow him to try some new things. The episode explores what is ABC about? In a nutshell the business of media in the social media space. Around 09:46 and 13:20 you’ll hear “intros” he recorded to help express what ABC is all about. Engaging in the world through both new and traditional forms of art. At 18:00 the Matt goes into who are you? What is your personality? What is your unique approach? How do you market somethign that is so unique that there are no established channels of distribution? This is a big question for Matt. At 22:00 he goes into “modes of being” and suggests that social media is reconfiguring society. Around 25:00 he goes into organizating principles, evolution of the language, the categories that we use to put things in, something to do with idea of custom in the Heidegger sense. Trippy, interesting stuff.

Dave LaMorte is in graduate school and produces Teaching For The Future, a podcast for teachers about implementing technology education and media literacy.

Andrea Mercado is the blog co-manager of PLA Blog, the official blog of the Public Library Association She’s also the Reference and Techie Librarian at Reading Public Library in Massachusetts and author of the LibraryTechtonics blog. PLA Blog is the first blog sponsored by a library organization. She’s preparing a presentation on social media tools and came to the meeting to be inspired. She suggested checking out the Second Life Library System.

Steve Albanese, Tutorial Depot, is offering tutorials on the web available for a range of media devices. Content is geared to music technology, but he’s looking to branch out into other areas. The offer video podcast, some free and others paid. He’s also been doing a video show every Friday at 5pm called Friday Brew with friends, right now more of a fun thing, though it might go into a regular podcast at some point. He’s using the Adobe Flex player.

Well, that’s it for this month, whew. Lots of notes. First photo courtesy of Steve Garfield. Photo of John Herman courtesy of John Herman from the short film, The Future

PodCamp Boston 2 takes place on Friday through Sunday, October 26-28, 2007 at the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center before VON Boston. Download the excellent Guide to Podcamp Boston 2 which contains everything you need to know including the schedule and session descriptions. Some of the amazing things about Podcamp Boston 2 include the depth and bredth of the sessions, the networking opportunities, and the fact that except for a small fee for the Saturday night party, it’s all free. Come learn, share, network, and enjoy the weekend.

Here’s a list of sessions I think will be of interest to filmmakers:

Saturday:

• New media crash course for traditional filmmakers (Beth Kanter & David Tames)
• Go HD today. Here’s Why and How (Matthew Snodgrass)
• How to Market with New Media 101 (Christopher Penn)
• What is it like to produce a video podcast? (Eric Gunnar Rochow)
• Web 2.0 Tools That Are Actually Useful (Scott Monty)
• Champagne Production Values on a Beer Budget (David Tames)
• Videoblogging in 5 Minutes (Steve Garfield)
• Intellectual property for the Creative Class (Sarah Salter)
• Tools Of The Social Media Trade (C.C. Chapman)
• How to Make Google Care About You (Julien Smith & Christopher Penn)
• Creative Briefs in Brief (J.C. Bouvier)

Sunday:

• Let the People Speak: How Users Are Changing the Web (Steve Mulder)
• The Arts 2.0 (Len Edgerly)
• Why are we calling it Internet TV, or Is it time for Internet Storytelling? (Kfir Pravda)
• Social Media for Business (Isabel Hilborn)
• Art and Technique of Double System Sound (David Tames)
• Social Networks 101 (Christopher Penn)
• How to Avoid Facebook F$#kups and the Google Gestapo, Reputation Management for Digital Natives (Mike Denton, Christin Eubanks and Paull Young)
• Crappy Web 2.0 Marketing. Don’t do it like this! (Panel, Isabel Hilborn moderates)
• Business Models (open discussion w/ David Cutler)
• The Art of Successful Interviews (Larry Lawfer)

Here are the details on the sessions I’m presenting:

New Media Crash Course for Traditional Filmmakers (Satuday 9:30 A.M. Room 204A): Social media expert Beth Kanter and I will present a crash course on what filmmakers need to know about “new media” and provide some starting points for further study and exploration. Appropriate for people who have been making traditional films or corporate videos who want to explore the potential of new media including blogging, podcasting, video blogging, and social networking.

Champagne Production Values on a Beer Budget (Satuday 10:30 A.M. Room 204A): a survey of the most important things media makers need to know to get better results when doing video and audio production in the field. Appropriate for beginner to intermediate media makers who want to improve their production values. A reprise of the popular “Video and audio production fundamentals.”

Art and technique of double system sound (Sunday 11:00 A.M. Room 204A): Double system sound (recording audio separate from video) is one of the easiest ways to improve the production values of video shot with tiny digital cameras. A step-by step tutorial including microphone selection and placement, survey of small digital recorders, recording tips and tricks, and demo using Final Cut Pro, however, the technique is easily translated to other editing systems.

Hope to see you there!

Boston Media Makers meetings are held the first Sunday of every month at Sweet Finnish in Jamaica Plain. Meeting notes include Len Edgerly’s video of Friday’s iPod frenzy, Christopher Penn’s demo of his new camera stabilization device, and many interesting updates. Here are my notes:

Steve Garfield has been webcasting the meetings using Ustream.tv, but today we’re using another tool, blog.tv which offers the additional capability of having participants link in their webcams and you can switch between the main stream and other streams. It has really livened up the meeing to have participants out on the net and offering their sending in their questions and comments during the meeting. An archive of the live stream is available.

On Friday, Len Edgerly (VideoPodChronicles.com) went to the Apple store at Cambridgeside Galleria at 3am to be first in line for an iPhone, at first security guards gave him a hard time for shooting video, but once the euphoria of people walking into the store took over, the security guards could not stop him from shooting this wonderful video of being first in line walking into the Apple store:

Click To Play

Len’s first reaction to the iPhone is that it is “unbelievably cool,” and he said, “I went to sleep that night hoding it in my hand, Steve Jobs is right.” He points out that some stuff does not work quite right yet and it’s not quite perfect, for example, notes do not sync, it does not shoot video, the headphone jack does not take his Bose headphones, and it will not play Flash video embedded in web pages. But he added, “if you were crazy enough to be there [on the first day of sales], none of this detracts.”

I’ve completed my one year contract at MIT and so I’m back doing freelance production work and media technology consulting. I just completed a short film, The Smile Boston Project, that will premiere at the 16th Woods Hole Film Festival on August 4th. I gave Steve an M4V file of the trailer to show on his fancy Vista laptop, but it crashed trying to play the video. In other news, I’ve been organizing three panels and a seminar that will take place at the Woods Hole Film Festival, visit the festival’s Panels & Workshops page for more information. Woods Hole is a wonderful festival with an amazing program in a beautiful setting, I encourage you to attending this year.

Reiko & Tom (TRB Designs) are media makers who’ve been producing video including GymSmarts.com gymnastics instructional videos. Their question to the group was they are working with a local nursing association to take seminars and PowerPoint presentations into the video realm for remote access.

Safa suggested looking over the video streaming comparisons on the Beanywood web site. I suggested that free video streaming (for example, Ustream.tv and blog.tv) solutions provide a cost-effective option if you’re on a tight budget, however, they come with many compromises. They may or may not neet the needs of the client, depending on their expectations in terms of image quality, frame rate, and licensing issues (most free sites are working on ways to monetize content, so there are content licensing and access issues to consider).

If enterprise class presentation capture is required, the Accordent Capture Station, as an example, might provide the right solution. It takes in video of the presenter and VGA of their presentation slides and makes an integrated video and slide presentation available. And for live streaming of an event to many viewers, the Accordent can provide a Real or Windows Media stream uplink to a CDN like Limelight Networks PowerStream, or Akamai who in turn can deliver multiple video streams anywhere from dozens to hundreds of viewers. Safa suggested that Adobe Connect offers a viable solution in this arena.

Frank Wing (Wings TV)does video production, sports videography, and has done work with George W. Bush. It’s quaint to meet a Republican once in a while in Democratic Party dominated Massachusetts.

David La Morte continues to work on his Teaching for the Future podcast, he’s looking for a better transcription solution. Christopher suggested using Dragon voice recognition, I suggested Via Voice might help. Any other ideas for David?

Mark, a media artist and teacher, is moving out of the Medieval era of OS 9 and getting an iMac with Intel processor, he said it’s like “Dorothy and Toto,” everything is in “Technicolor” now. Congratulations, Mark, and unlike Steve Garfield’s Windows Vista laptop that crashes and does strange things on a regular basis, Mark will not have to live in a virtual Apple ad, he’ll be able to get work done without hassles.

I myself ordered a MacBook Pro last week, I’m counting the days to it’s arrival. Every time it’s time to buy a new laptop, I ask myself, has Windows caught up? Should I go over to the dark side? And all it takes is a demo of Microsoft’s latest operating system to convince me not to switch. Maybe in another three years.

Kristen Crusius, a.k.a. kroosh (kroosh.tv) is a design student at New England Institute of Art who was doing new media marketing for a company that was doing fake blogging, and from her perspective a general disservice to their marketing clients, so she quite her job (good for her) and has moved on. She’s available for freelance design and would like to do audio and video production, podcast production, etc. Twitter has been very helpful, made friends, found work, etc. Social networking at it’s best.

Laura Fitton (Great Presentations Mean Business) has been thinking about the online equivalent of Beer O’Clock, making online gatherings more social, she was watching Chris Brogan and Jeff Pulver do their show, her daughter was learning to crawl, she turned the camera to her, and her husband was able to see the first 20 minutes of her crawling, she relayed to us that Chris Brogan made the comment, “that’s really persona media.”

Matt Searles (Asymmetric Biz Cult) is a media artist and continues to cover “the new asymmetric business of culture creation,” in his podcast.

Safa Sadeghpour (Beanywood) updated us on his New England Film Movement Digital Media Database and is looking for a Drupal programmer. Anyone out there interested in programming in Drupal for some equity in a start-up?

Christopher Penn (Financial Aid Podcast) demonstrated how he created a reasonable equivalent to the $300 Fig Rig using some PVC pipe he purchased from Loews, which he describes in his Stabilization Equipment for Handheld Video blog post. blog post. Here’s a movie of Christopher demonstrating the rig with his Sanyo CG65 Camera which can record 76 minutes of 640 x 480 H.264 video on a 1G storage card.

Click To Play

Christopher also told us that the Student Loan Network is looking for a Senior Web Developer with PHP and MySQL experience to work in their Quincy location and they are offering a $10K finders fee for anyone who refers someone they hire if the programmer stays in the position for a minimum of 3 months. They would rather pay someone in the media maker community $10K than a recruiter $30K. Both the community and the employer win. The internet in general and and social networks in particular are changing the nature of business that depend primarily on inefficiencies for their profits rather than creating real value, and recruiting firms are yet another example.

Also attending the meeting were Lindsay Shah (Beanywood), Wayne (new to Boston Media Makers and looking for some help with video production for Brookline Access Television), Philip Shevitz (who’s here to keep on top of stuff), and Mike Wall (working with audio and involved in redoing the web site of the Society for Technical Communication).

After the “going around the table” portion of th meeting participants discussed Andrew Keen’s book, The Cult of the Amateur. In our discussion we raised several interesting issues in terms of the reliability of “the wisdom of the crowds,” especially in terms of Wikipedia; how are we going to find “hard-hitting journalism” in the age of citizen journalism; and the validity of the professional vs. amateur duality. During the discussion, Christopher Penn suggested the book, The Underground History of American Education by John Taylor Gatto and I suggested The Wealth of Networks by Yochai Benkler. I also think Henry Jenkins’ Convergence Culture provides an excellent and thoughtful counter-point to Keen’s argument.

It was another wonderful meeting, a delightful mix of coffee, pastries, conversation, sharing, and learning around a table. Some photos are available on Flickr.

It was a beautifully sunny day in Jamaica Plain with flowers blooming and trees beginning to show their leaves, a perfect day for walking around Jamaica Pond, but instead, I attended the the monthly Boston Media Makers meeting at Sweet Finnish in Jamaica Plain held the first Sunday of every month. This has become a must-attend event for people interested in the convergence of traditional media and participatory media and attendees include the full spectrum from seasoned professionals to enthusiastic amateurs. It’s also a wonderful opportunity to get a good cup of coffee and have a Pulla. We go around the room and everyone talks for a few minutes about what their working on and/or poses a question to the group. I’ve posted a set of meeting photos on Flickr.

Steve Garfield, the catalyst of these monthy gatherings, showed us Ustream.TV which makes it easy to add streaming media to your own site. He also showed us Yack Pack, a walkie talke widget you can add to any web page for instant voice chat. We webcast the meeting using Ustream and people who were watching could ask questions and make comments via Yack Pack. Only a few years ago this kind of videoconferencing cost thousands of dollars to arrange and we set it up quickly, easily and for free. People like Beth Kanter were able to attend the meeting remotely and chime in, making the meeting even better.

Dean Jansen is working on Make Internet TV, a new site providing a step-by-step guide for shooting, editing, and publishing video online that’s part of the Participatory Culture Foundation initiative. He also talked about a Wiki they are working on that will provide a central resource for media makers, what do you wish you knew before you started? Share your one secret you wish you had, join the community. This is designed to compliment the the centerpiece of their platform, the the Democracy Player. This is a free and open source application for watching internet television that runs under Windows, Macintosh, and Linux; (2) Video Bomb us a web site sharing videos, creating personal video channels, and filtering up the best videos online. They also offer software for publishing channels (RSS feeds) of video from your website and a Channel Guide that comes up when Democracy starts up. The Guide is an open listing of video podcasts and other content available throught the Democracy Player. I wish they would change the name of their player, there’s something, not quite hubris, but something, around naming their media player “Democracy” that does not sit well with me, but I hear they are working on a new name, and I welcome that.

Michael Ball, an audio podcaster, does Marry in Massachusetts, Left Ahead and Harrumph!, he shared the insight with us that he has found that when doing his audio podcast, it’s better to have an expert guest rather that just rambling.

Jason spoke about the Alliance for Climate Protection, an organization with the mission to persuade Americans and people around the world of the importance and urgency of adopting and implementing effective solutions for the climate crisis.

I suggested that everyone interested in filmmaking and how filmmaking is changing in the context of new networking, imaging, and distribution technologies should plan to attend the Making Media Now: Filmmaking in Transition conference to be held on June 1st, 2007 from 9:30 am to 6:30 pm at the Photonics Center at Boston, University. The event is being organized by Filmmakers Collaborative. This day-long conference will include master classes, seminars, panel discussions with experts in the field, a plenary session, networking opportunities, a box lunch and refreshments, all focused on the opportunities that new and emerging digital technologies create for media makers.

I also spoke about the new Canon TX1 camera that has just started shipping, I have written about it in a separate post, “Canon TX1 First Impressions/.”

Lindsay Shah and Safa Sadeghpour were at the meeting discussing the mission of Beanywood, an organization that has been formed to help put Boston in the national spotlight when it comes to media production, and they are doing this by helping old school filmmakers as well as emerging media makers by offering networking tools through their site. I’m currious to see how Beanywood will compliment the existing offerings of local organizations promoting and supporting media makers in New England. They are participating in Filmmakers Collaborative’s Making Media Now: Filmmaking in Transition Conference, which is cool. Other local organizations supporting independent media makers in New England inlcude: Center for Independent Documentary, Central Productions, The Color of Film Collaborative, Documentarty Educational Resources, and Filmmakers Collaborative, who is putting on the Making Media Now conference.

Jason Daniels talked about the wonderful 100 Second Film Festival, this event taps the creativity of independent media and celebrates online video. Anybody can create a 100 second piece. There is no theme or subject, no entrance fee, the only constraint is the length of the entry. The deadline for entries is July 1st. Jason also talked about his use of Drupal 5.1, which from an administrator’s perspective is fun to work with, even for a non tech guy. Drupal is often descriped as Wordpress on Steroids. That scares me, I like the simplicity of Wordpress, and I’m not sure I need more than that for my blog. But who knows?

John Herman has been working on Energy Smackdown an eco-reality project, they will be creating 7 webisodes, and edit it into a TV pilot, it’s about three familes in Medford competing to conserve their ernergy use. John is also working with Jon Greenberg of New Hampshire Publis Radio (NHPR) on their coverage of the Presidential Primaries in New Hampshire.

Jon Greenberg discussed NHPR’s choice to focus their coverage on Exeter, NH they chose a place where candidates of both parties would find enough supporters to make a visit worthwhile, and they are encouraging people to blog in Exeter, and since they have direct access to every candidate, literally go up and get a answer from them, this is a New Hampshire thing, and Jon suggests that New Hampshire should not just claim the right of being the first primary but earn that right, earn it as they encounter the candidates and collect their impressions and blog about it. They will be holding a Town Hall event on May 19th with video stations, come and talk for two minutes as they reate videos and upload them to YouTube and blip.tv. New Hampshire Publis Radio has also made available As part of their primary coverage, NHPR has embarked on the Stump Speech Remix project, collecting full campaign speeches by presidential candidates as they come through the state, and posting them on their web site, encouraging people to download them and edit the speeches into something new, fresh, funny or satirical, turning them into a new speech, adding video, pictures, or music.

Much more was discussed, but I’ve run out of time to write. It was another amazing meeting, and the mix of people who show up every month keep me informed, inspired, and educated on what’s happening in participatory media and the new media edges.

On January 31, 2007, Wesch posted his video (about web 2.0 technology) to YouTube and sent the link around to some friends and an anthropology mailing list. Within days, the video became a YouTube “Top Favorite” and as of March 26th it’s been viewed almost two million times and elicited over 4,000 comments. This is viral video at its best, and this time it was not Saturday Night Live comedians or clever performers, but an academic publishing a video about the socio-technical phenomenon of our time.  

Just a few years ago, Wesch would have considered himself lucky to reach an audience of several hundred students over a period of years. Things have changed. The trade press is full of examples like this. Your short film could be next.  Because one thing is clear: today as a media maker on the web, you have direct access to an audience. You can bypass the traditional gatekeepers. The industry rules have all changed.  That said, whether or not you will be appropriately compensated is still up for grabs. It’s still hard work to reach out and connect with an audience.

The rest of this article can be found in “Deliverving Video on the Web” which appears in the April edition of New England Film.

I spent most of the time walking around the exhibit tables, and in a 60 second video tried to capture a little but of this wonderful event, offering an opportunity to talk with friends and colleagues, and attending a couple sesssions too. The first was a session by Peter Yanke, Vivian Vasquez, and Kathy King on the uses of podcasting in education, providing a good overview of tools, techniques, and challenges, especially in terms of using podcasting beyond delivering lectures, but as part of instruction and homework. You can learn more about this at Podcast for Teachers, a site and podcast providing professional development for teachers with resources, news, interviews and commentary on podcasting and related technology.

Then other sesson I attended was “New Media and Public Radio,” with Jay Brodsky from NPR and some folks from WNYC. They discussed how NPR and WNYC are using podcasting and new media to complement their radio programming. Not only has NPR been proactive in talking up podcasting, but they are linking with other media in interesting ways. From my perspective, convegence means the end of mono-media. There is no reason why any media organization should not compliment with a full range of media. Newspapers have added video, television stations have added web sites, monomedia has become anachronistic.

I did not attend it, but Lisa B. Marshall, who is helping to organize Podcamp Philly told me that Andy Beach did a great session on Video Compression for Podcasters.

In the afternoon John Herman and yours truly, led one of the sessions, a discussion around the topic of using cinematic language elements in your video, and we discussed, with lots of insights from the room, media aesthetics and production values. While video podcasts can benefit from effective use of established media aesthetics (why reinvent the wheel?), at the same time, we’re also creating new aesthetic criteria, video on the web is both an extension of cinema, television, and home video, and a new medium evolving its own aesthetics too.

The show brought together many amazing people in one place including (but certainly not limited to!) Jason Van Orden who was promoting his new book, Promoting Your Podcast, offering valuable insights to help promote your podcast successfully; Chris Brogan, co-founder of Podcamp Boston and involved with Network 2, a guide to video on the web; Andrew Baron, creator of Rocketboom; Chris Penn, co-founder of Podcamp Boston and someone who has boundless energy; much of the blip.tv gang was there including Mike Hudack, Dina Kaplan, Justin Day, Charles Hope, and Jared Klett; Joyce Bettencorurt from The Vesuvius Group develops for virtual worlds including Second Life; Shaunna Thomas, Deputy Director of Young People For Knowledge with an emphasis on non-traditional orgnaizers; and a healthy number of people from traditional media companies that have launched or will launch podcasting initiatives were there too. Podcasting has arrived. It’s no longer new, edgy, geeky. It’s here, it’s real, and it’s part of the media mix.

The party at Slate Saturday night offered the oppportunity to catch up with an old friend, Joel Heller, who’s been doing Docs That Inspire, a podcast offering great interviews with filmmakers. Later, when the music started to get too loud for a civilized conversation, Joel and I moved on to Carnival of Dreams, New York’s most excellent restaurant offering vegan, organic, and live food that even a carnivoire can take delight in. Then it was back to Boston on the 3:15am train.

Today I attended another wonderful meeting of Boston Media Makers held at Sweet Finnish in Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts, the first Sunday of every month. We go around the room and everyone talks about what they are doing, triggering interesting discussion, questions, answers, suggestions, and ideas. It’s an unmeeting much like an uncoference. Another thing that makes these meetings special is the mix of pros and amateurs, everyone is learning new things, everyone helping each other out, sharing pointers, tips, techniques, talking about their new projects, a really good vibe.

Steve Garfield talked about the start of Videoblogging Week 2007, so make a video every day for a week, and be sure to tag your videos with videobloggingweek2007 so people can find then. Steve also showed a demo of Joost, which I wrote about in a previous post. It’s a cool peek into the future of internet-television convergence.

John Herman talked about the RPM Challenge and the Nanoloop, a synthesizer and sequencer for the Nintendo Game Boy stored on a game cartridge, it allows you to produce interesting electronic music without additional hardware.

John Herman and I will be doing a session at Podcamp NYC titled, “Using cinematic language elements in your video,” for a long time filmmakers have been evolving a language for communicating efficiently using a stream of visual and audio elements over time, and this session will discuss some approaches applying this language to your video in order to increase viewer engagement.

My show and tell this month consisted of two books that I highly recommend reading, they both present some very important ideas. The first is Yochai Benkler’s The Wealth of Networks: How Social Production Transforms Markets and Freedom. And the second is John Maeda’s The Laws of Simplicity.. This book offers a refreshing perspective on simplifying of the systems we design and the technology we develop, and even extends into business, and even your own life.

Joe Cascio continues to work on his email project that promises to deal with the spam problem in a manner better the solutions presented so far, he’ll be doing a session on email at Podcamp NYC.

Glen Cooper, a photographer who teaches photojournalism at New England School of Photography will be working on the new Boston Now coming April 17th. Publications on the net offer more room for video, text, and photos, Boston NOW wants citizen journalists to be featured right along professional journalists. They will not edit blogs except for profanity or slander.

Jack Hodgson is a new media producer, writer, and web-developer and the host and producer of the Uncontrolled Airspace, a general aviation podcast. He’s been flying since 1989. His goal for 2007 is to help his clients to use more audio and video on their web sites, move away from text web pages, and towards more audio and video. I say, “bravo.”

Adam Weiss, who does the Museum of Science Podcast, is now blogging for O’Reilly Digial Media Blog, very cool.

Phillipe Lejeune did a great video collage covering the recent Barcamp that gives a nice sense of what went on for people who missed the event.

There was lots more, but I’ve got to cut this short and begin preparing for my shoot tomorrow. Check out some of the photos on Flickr.

This was one of the largest Boston Media Makers meetings yet with so many people talking about so many fascinating projects. The group meets the first Sunday of the month at Sweet Finnish in Jamaica Plain starting at 10:00 a.m. I always get a lot out of hearing what everyone is working on and all the amazing discussion. We went around the room and everyone talked about what they were doing, then, after a short break, we got into a discussion on the topic of production values, do they matter?

Regina OBrien talked about BostonNOW, a new daily newspaper in Boston that is developing a compensation plan for successful bloggers/citizen-journalists posting on their web site. They are holding a Bloggers’ Summit on March 10th in order to get feedback from the community. Regina is the Web Content Manager for BostonNOW.

Rick Berlin is working on Jamaica Plain Spoken, a documentary exploring American community through Jamaica Plain. The film integrates “plain spoken” interviews, historical perspective, a dynamic soundtrack (produced by Jamaica Plain residents), and cutting-edge animation. He’s currently looking for animators to help him in the endeavor.

Matt Searles, Evan Pew, and Mark Hanser, spoke about their business Asymmetric Biz Cult and their podcast on the Asymmetric Business of Culutre Creation, which includes thinking from Jungian Psychology.

Randy Mann would like to see VloggerCon 2007 happen here in Boston and is curently looking for a venue.

Beth Kanter talked about the many things she’s involved with including her blog, Beth’s Blog where she writes about about technology for non-profits, educational technology, and much more.

Susan Walsh, Executive Director of The Center for Independent Documentary talked about her organization and how they are embracing change and thinking about the role of feature length documentaries and their involvement with the Alliance for Independent Motion Media and the upcoming Making Media Now: Filmmaking in Transition event hosted by Filmmakers Collaborative scheduled for June 1st at Boston University.

Steve Albanese talked about Tutorial Depot, which includes tutorials like How To: Digital Performer and How To: Record Drums. He uses Snapz Pro X for capturing screencasts on the Macintosh and Camtasia Studio on the PC.

I spoke about the upcoming Camera Company Pro Video Show on Friday and Saturday, March 9th and 10th, it’s a good show for checking out camera, lighting, and editing, gear at the vendor expo and learning new things at the many workshops and seminars (some are free, some are paid), I’m doing two sessions on Saturday: Delivering Video on the Web and Champagne Production Values on a Beer Budget. I also talked about the latest episode of MIT ZigZag.

Phillipe Lejeune talked about how he’s using his blog and wiki to improve his teaching of drawing.

Dave LaMorte gave us an update on his Teaching for the Future podcast, which started out as his thesis project and he’s continuing to do it. It’s a really interesting blog and podcast. The group got into a discussion of copyright and fair use and David mentioned (and had several copies to share) of the Documentary Filmmakers’ Statement of Best Practices in Fair Use document that was written by veteran filmmakers to help other filmmakers understand the situations in which using copyrighted material without clearance is considered fair use. Fair use is the right, in some circumstances, to quote copyrighted material without asking permission or paying for it. It is a crucial feature of copyright law and what keeps copyright from being censorship. You can invoke fair use when the value to the public of what you are saying outweighs the cost to the private owner of the copyright.

David Dahl (an editor) and Emily Sweeny (a writer), both from the Boston Globe, talked about how the organization is slowly figuring out how to meld with the world of blogging and were asked when they were going to incorporate comments right there as part of their articles rather than sending people off to a discussion section.

Fred Light talked about his work as a web designer in the Real Estate market, his web site, Nashua Video Tours, provides high definition real estate video touts for the Nashua, Manchester, New Hampshire, and Boston metro areas.

Chris Brogan talked about the Network 2 Contest. They are looking for producers to create a post to their videoblogs or make a clip that shows people “How to Watch Internet TV”. If you mention Network2, that would be appreciated, they are offering $25,000 in cash prizes. The deadline is March 9th, 2007 and the prize will be awarded on March 20th at Spring 2007 Video on the Net in San Jose, California.

Ashley Hodson just got back from her road trip, she’s documenting the continuing exploration of the ’sustainable’ movement. On her road trip she visited various places around the country where average people are grappling with global climate change, increasing populations, peak oil, threats to biodiversity, etc. There is a lot to chew on these days when it comes defining and working towards sustainability.

Steve Garfield talked about his “allow or deny” experiences with Windows Vista, as well as some of the curious list of choices the operating system presents to him now and then. I wonder if he’d be using Vista if Microsoft had not sent him a free laptop to use. Steve is currently working on Spices of Life, a new videoblog by Nina Simonds about food, health, and lifestyle.

Bryan Person is working on getting JobCamp happening, it’s like PodCamp but for people who want to learn how to use Web 2.0 tools to help then in their job search and building their online persona and reputation.

I’ve missed a few, but my notes are sketchy. Adam Weiss talked about using Google applications to set up a web site, Elisa Mintz is doing freelance videography and editing, Nate Laver is doing hoorayforfunn, and Serra Shifflet is doing headsoff. Justin White and Tim White are in the Real Estate business.

Production Values Discussion

After everyone spoke about what they’re up to, I led a discussion around the question, “Production Values, Do They Matter?” All techniques (whether intentional or not) are part of our vocabulary as visual storytellers and communicators. When is it best to “shot and get whatever” and when might we want to worry about “production values” like “good” lighting, sound, framing, etc.? There are aesthetic and moral issues at stake in this issue. When should we use the aesthetic conventions and tools of industry professionals and and when should we “do our own thing”?

It’s often a question of what is appropriate vs. what is inappropriate for a given message. Much videoblogging is intimate vs “professional” media which is often “detached.” We spoke about low quality vs high quality, and discussed the examples of the “mistakes” in Jean-Luc Godard’s Dreathless in the form of jump cuts were actually an excellent aesthetic technique for creating a particular mood or feel.

Phillipe Lejeune remided us that what’s most important is passion, the desire to do what you’re doing. I have to say this is one reason I find this particular group (which has a mix of everything from novices to professional media makers) more interesting that most, everyone here, regardless of their skill level in media making, is driven by something that’s important to them. Phillipe’s words really resonate, especially in the current context.

Beth suggested we come up with a priority list in terms of what components of production values are most important for effective communication/sharing/conveying what we want to say, we came up with something like this:

• 1. Story, message, passion, you have something to say;
• 2. Record good sound (this is the basis of your viewer’s emotional response to your piece;
• 3. composition and camera work (some rules of thumb that make expression more efficient includes: the rule of thirds, which is based on the golden triangle/mean/spiral;
• 4. Editing, including basic rules about eye-line and eye-level match (related to rule of thirds), making cuts seamless or noticeable, depending on your intent; and
• 5. Shoot for the edit, shot in a way that makes it easy to cut things together, for example, get coverage (alternative angles) of what you’re shooting. Now cutting makes things less “truthful” so how you cut involves a moral dimension. Uncut footage subliminally feels like you were there and can sense the “truthiness” but on the other hand, seamless cutting does the same thing. This goes back to the old argument in film theory between Andre Bazin (who favored little cutting and wide shots) and the more formalist filmmakers who were really into expression, form, and editing.

In the end, “technical resolution” is not what is really important, what’s important is “emotional resolution”. Most of what you need to do to communciate effectively is not expensive. Some books I recommend reading if you’re interested in this issue of production values and media aesthetics include: Sight, Sound, Motion: Applied Media Aesthetics by Herbert Zettl, The Visual Story: Seeing the Structure of Film, TV and New Media by Bruce Block, andIn the Blink of an Eye (Revised 2nd Edition) by Walter Murch.

At the end of the meeting Steve demonstrated some truly interesting technology: Shooting video with the Nokia N95 phone and then edit the video right on the phone itself including adding a soundtrack and then uploading the video from the phone via WiFi to his blog. He shot and edited a video while riding on the T. Steve has posted some good notes and images on the Boston Media Makers blog.

If you live in the Boston area you will not want to miss the 17th Annual Pro Video Show sponsored by The Camera Company to be held Friday and Saturday, March 9-10, 2007 at Stonehill College, in Easton, Massachussetts (Exit 17B off Route 24). This annual event provides local media makers with the opportunity to check out new equipment, talk with fellow media makers, and attend a wide range of workshops and seminars. Yours truly will be presenting two of the seminars, “Delivering Video on the Web” and “Champagne Production Values on a Beer Production Budget.”

Here’s a description of my seminars:

Delivering Video on the Web
Learn how to make video available on the web, earn money with it, take a look at how it can be delivered to devices and web browsers, and examine the opportunities and challenges it presents. The launch of the video iPod, availability of video on iTunes, the explosion of viral video, Google’s purchase of YouTube, and the amazing quality of shows on blip.tv are all part of a tectonic shift in the media distribution landscape. Television producers, independent filmmakers, communications specialists, advertising executives and entrepreneurs will all learn how to benefit from the tremendous opportunities made possible by delivering their video on the web. Cost: $25. Saturday, March 10, 2007 at 12:00 NOON to 2:00 p.m.

Champagne Production Values on a Beer Production Budget
Video production budgets are tighter than ever, and the increasingly saturated media environment demands that your video must stand out from the rest. In this seminar, you will learn about the strategies, creative elements, and production tools that together deliver what viewers and clients often describe as “high production values.” Practical discussion and examples help you apply cost effective methods right away, resulting in champagne production values on a beer production budget. Cost: $25. Saturday, March 10, 2007 at 3:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m.

Other workshops and seminars scheduled at this time (subject to change) include:

• Audio for Video (Sennheiser, David Missal)
• Planning a Production (Teja Arboleda)
• Editing Aesthetics (Eric Scott Latek)
• Apple Final Cut Studio, a Complete Workflow, (Alex Kaloostian)
• A Practical Comparison of DV, HDV & DVCPRO HD for FCP Editors (Alex Kaloostian)
• Docudrama (Eric Scott Latek)
• Final Cut Pro—The Next Step (Ed Krasnow)
• Lighting For Video Film Style (Tom Musto)
• Making History! Profiting from Biography and Same Day Edit Presentations (Hal Slifer)
• P2/Apple Work Flow (Bill Kennedy and Raj Lad, Panasonic Broadcast)
• Meeting of The Society of Motion Picture & Television Engineers (SMPTE)
• HD Outdoors (Trevor Gowdy)
• Digital & HD 101 (AJA Systems)
• Adobe Premiere Pro Basics “Crash” Course (Eric Scott Latek)
• Digital Asset Management & Workflow (Focus Enhancements)
• Reflecmedia (Bogen Imaging)

Please keep in mind that all workshop attendees must check in at the Sally Blair Ames Sports Complex (main exhibit location) at least 15 minutes prior to class.

For more information call 781.769.7810 or visit The Camera Company web site. Seminar listing subject to change.

With all the excitement over Google’s purchase of YouTube and videomakers making money putting Mentos into Diet Coke bottles, you’d think that the viral video phenomena is where all the action is. But for independent filmmakers who are looking to get some financial return on their work, there are some serious distribution and revenue opportunities emerging on the web, but it’s not YouTube. Alternative sites like Brightcove, blip.tv, IndieFlix, and CustomFlix offer a range of services to filmmakers who would like to take reaching an audience and distribution into their own hands. Scott Kirsner’s new book, The Future of Web Video: Opportunities for Producers, Entrepreneurs, Media Companies and Advertisers provides the most comprehensive guide to web video to date from materials gathered in 2005 and 2006. The books is available as an e-Book or printed book. Since sites in this space and the services they offer are changing so rapidly, it’s a good thing that Scott has made his chart, Getting Paid: Sites that Help Video Producers Make Money available online for free.

I listen and watch podcasts on my video iPod as I commute to and from work. Sometimes I want to watch or listen to podcasts on my home stereo system in the living room. My wife would like to listen to her iPod on the stereo too. As far as audio goes, it’s easy to simply hook up a cable, and the same goes for video, but it leads to a gnarly mess of wires.

Santa provided a more elegant solution this holiday season, delivering us a DLO HomeDock Deluxe.

While I have mixed feelings about this gadget, it provides an acceptable solution to the problem of integrating a video iPod into a home stereo system and television. It comes with RCA line outs for the audio and both composite and S-Video connectors for the video.

You can navigate the iPods menus on the television, and it will display the song information while the music plays. It also has a screen-saver. However, apparently there’s a firmware problem (or intentional limitation) with the video iPods so the HomeDock can’t display the menu when it’s in video mode, so when you’re watching videos you have to use the iPod for navigation. This, and the low-build quality of the device is what leads me to the mixed feelings, however, right now there’s really no better solution to the problem. Someone is sure to come out with a better solution. Time will tell, for now, this is what I’m using to listen to the iPod and watch some video podcasts in the living room. It’s kind of a low-budget alternative to AppleTV if you’ve already got a video iPod, but no where near as elegant.

Summary of basic features: Easily navigate and select music on your home television; Control the iPod with an included remote control; charges the iPod while it’s sitting in the doc; and an adjustable back-rest for the iPod allows you to adjust the doc for an iPod nano (1st or 2nd generation), the iPod mini, 4G iPods with click wheels, the iPod Color, and of course, video iPods.

Today Amanda Congdon launched her new project, Amanda Across America, a five week road trip sponsored by NRDC, among others. Check it out.

Photo from Flickr: day_01.png Originally uploaded by slash_ovlov.

PodCamp Boston 2006 will be held on September 9th and 10th at Bunker Hill Community College. This will be a BarCamp-style meetup for bloggers, podcasters, listeners, viewers, readers, and new media types of all stripes. You need not be a podcaster to attend. If you’re interested in podcasting, a listener, a viewer, or just curious, you will want to attend this event. There will be many interesting sessions at this event. Since the event is an UnConference it’s free to attend, however, you should register online because only registered attendees will receive free food, swag, and more. See you there!

In Episode 16 of Art Film Talk I talk with Steve Garfield about video blogging. It was pure serendipity, I was driving to MIT to record an interview with Henry Jenkins, Steve called, and we ended up having lunch at the Stata Center, recording an interview, and then videotaped two promos for Podcamp Boston, one of which might appear on Rocketboom next week and the other is on Steve’s video blog. That was a fun afternoon.