While I do admire Wikipedia’s bravado regarding this issue, other Internet players have taken a more subtle approach, encouraging action by putting up a splash screen (Mozilla) or changing their logo (Google) but not blacking out the entire site for a day. Why has Wikipedia blacked out the entire site for the SOPA and PIPA issue, but has not done so for other issues that may be even more important, like hunger, poverty, human rights, etc? It is an issue worth thinking about. Why do we take particular actions with particular issues, and what does that reveal about our deeply held values? Food for thought.

I’ve been contemplating the evolution of the documentary this summer and I was delighted to see that The MediaGuardian’s recent Sheffield Doc/Fest 2011 coverage includes ten articles providing a refreshing perspective on how documentary makers are finding new ways to reach their audience. These articles provide a view into a crystal ball in which we can begin to see a vision of the future. Here are links to the articles, worthwhile reading and a good starting point for further reflection and discussion.

Social media influences documentary-makers
Social media have had a truly revolutionary effect, enabling film-makers and citizens to disseminate their own stories

Adam Curtis: happy to be different
The maker of classic documentary series such as The Trap and The Power Of Nightmares believes he is still learning his trade

New technology opens up documentary-making
Recording devices are always evolving – from 16mm cameras to iPad apps – offering film-makers the chance to innovate

Jay Hunt: Social media promotes a better viewer experience
Using multiplatform and social media is an incredibly important part of what we’re doing at Channel 4

Can you make a film and a profit?
Making money from documentaries is no easy task, but there are some business models that are generating revenues online

How the internet is galvanising support for social justice documentaries
Films that form part of a campaign for social justice are regularly appearing online – greatly increasing their reach and impact

Tools of attraction: creating multimedia content for games and TV shows
Audiences now expect stories to be told in new ways across different platforms, but commissioners often fail to produce compelling ‘transmedia’ content

The impact of Twitter on TV shows
For producers, posts on Facebook and Twitter are seen as indicators of success – but do they influence ratings?

BBC documentary boss wants programmes that do more than entertain
Commissioning editor Charlotte Moore favours quality and craft over feelgood and populist

Steve James hails a ‘golden age of documentary film-making’
Prior to his visit to the Sheffield International Documentary Film Festival, director says attitudes towards docs have changed

Image credit: Crystal Castles by Frogman (2008).

For a good basic introduction to HTML 5, see Dive into HTML5 by Mark Pilgrim. Rich media and dynamic web content has outgrown the ability of HTML 4 to describe the content of web pages. Video, audio, and dynamic interfaces that rival desktop applications are now commonplace. By adding additional HTML elements, HTML5 will provide web developers with a better way to describe the content of a web page. Significant new features include <video> and <audio> elements, improved forms handling, a <canvas> element that allows image scripting on the fly, and new ways of marking pages to support user interaction.

Video, especially, should be shown with a video player that is HTML5 compliant in order to include the new generation of mobile devices like the Android, iPhone, and iPad. With the right HTML5 player you can support HTML5 for these devices and newer browsers but fallback and use Flash in the event the viewer is using an older browses. Two examples of video players capable of this include the JW Player for HTML5 and the Kaltura HTML5 Video Library.

Industry players are currently debating the merits of HTML5. Apple, with its large deployment of iPhones and the iPad growing in popularity, neither of which supports Flash, has taken a strong position in favor of HTML5. Even after you factor away Job’s famous reality distortion field, he still makes a compelling argument for embracing HTML5, although Adobe might disagree.

Image source: HTML 5 Video Element – New Open Video Format Tags by Mark R. Robertson.

Free distribution. Nina Paley has been pleased with the results of doing free distribution for her film Sita Sings the Blues, she has managed to generate revenue from the sale of DVDs, T-shirts, and donations. She writes on her web site, “My personal experience confirms audiences are generous and want to support artists. Surely there’s a way for this to happen without centrally controlling every transaction.” Why not? In the old days many filmmakers supplemented their income with grants from Arts organizations, why not go directly to your audience for support? Paley said that “Copyleft was the best decision, the audience is distributing [my film].” Thomas Woodrow (Producer, Bass Ackwards) suggests that even if you do free distribution, you should not offer it free forever, think of it more like a traditional release window, rather than perpetually giving something away. In the end, it’s not simply a choice of one technique over another, it’s about coming up with a portfolio of techniques that makes sense for your project.

DVD and what works. Steve Savage (CEO, New Video) suggested that “DVD is not yet dead” and remains as a robust revenue streams for filmmakers. And while digital revenues might be about 10% on the average of independent filmmaker revenues (compared to 90% for DVDs), this will most likely flip just as it’s going to do in music. 2010 is the year that digital downloads will overtake CD sales in the music business, so it’s only a matter of years before the same thing will happen with films. It’s easy to predict what could happen, it’s hard to predict when, and exactly how things will happen. Richard Lorber (CEO, Kino Lorber) said “we’ve entered the postmodern era of film distribution [in which] everything is possible and nothing is working.” Ira Deutchman quoted an article (don’t recall the titled or reference) that with unusual candor summed things up, “the film business has always been hobby” challenging the “content is king” mantra. Robert Bahar (Producer, Made in LA) said of indie distribution, “This is not easy, this is like being in a rock band…”

New models are emerging. Arin Crumley talked about his new project, OpenIndie, a “”Niche social network” with the goal of connecting independent filmmakers directly with their audiences, filmmakers make their films available, Open Indie helps potential viewers request screenings and entrepreneurs to host screenings, linking potential audiences with films, much in the same way he did with Four Eyed Monsters. Related discussion included the use of Gowalla and Foursquare to help drive audience to screening locations. While digital distribution was the Tsunami in the room, there ramains strong desire among independent filmmaker, and a culultral need, to screen films for an audience.

Using social media. There was a great deal of discussion the use of social media platforms (especially Twitter and Facebook) for promoting your film, but given the panel structure of the conference, there was not a lot of time for tactical nuts and bolts, the level of the discussion remained, for the most part, strategic, but the strategic insights were valuable nuggets:

• Focus on aggregating passionate followers and don’t worry about those who hate your film.
• Online communities moderate themselves and take on a life of their own.
• Participate online speaking in your own human voice (the advice of Seth Godin and The Cluetrain Manifesto comes to mind), authenticity is currency. And modulate the frequency of your interactions with the characteristics of the community you build, we don’t want to replace the old push advertising model with the same beast in new clothing.
• Nina Paley suggested that attention is scarce, while information is plentiful.
• If you make a film for a niche audience, it’s quality, not quanitity that counts. Angel Aviles-Clinton mentioned the film, At Home By Myself With You as an example of successfully raising $46,000 using Facebook and Twitter with a modest number of followers.
• Thomas Woodrow suggests that for content creators to stand out they need to create stories around their stories.
• And many others (search on the #convonyc hashtag for more insights).

New forms? Davin Hutchins of ITVS IndiesLab and I combined our lunchtime discussions, “MicroDocs: What They Are and Why You Might Want to Make One” and “20 is the New 90: The Future of Not-So-Long Form Content on the Web,” respectively, which led to a lively conversation. I’ll write about the discussion in a future blog post, after some synthesis and post-conference discussion with the participants. Stay tuned…

It’s an exciting time to be a storyteller. Lance Weiler’s words during the closing session wrapped things up, suggesting these are “exciting times to be a storyteller” and in spite of the internet being a disruptive force, “a creative class is going to emerge.” He added that “we’re all trying to figure out how to fund, create, distribute, and exchange.” I hope Lance’s optimism wins out over the concerns over free culture and Web 2.0 voiced by Jaron Lanier in his new book, You Are Not a Gadget: A Manifesto, a very thoughtful critique that can’t be dismissed lightly, written from an informed perspective.

It’s up to us to create the new landscape. One thing is for sure reading between the lines at this conference: nothing is predetermined at this point and collaboration among independent filmmakers is crucial if we’re going to develop an alternative way to build and connect with audiences and develop a healthy distribution ecosystem, the mainstream mechanisms are breaking apart and we have an opportunity to fill the cracks with a vibrant alternative way to fund our films, find an audience, make our films, find collaborators, deliver media, and engage in a two-way conversation, but we have to do it, we being independent filmmakers. The media technology is in our hands. What will we build with it? How will we build it? In the process of distributing our films, we also have to reinvent the ecosystem in which we distribute our films. A good place to start thinking about this is with the resources gathered in The Workbook Project, started by Lance Weiler.

Shout-out. Kudos to the organizers for assembling a wonderful group of people to discuss, in a productive and meaningful way, the tectonic shifts in communications technology and social media that are rapidly redefining the independent film marketing and distribution landscape. The conference was organized by Scott Kirsner (CinemaTech; author of Fans, Friends And Followers: Building An Audience And A Creative Career In The Digital Age), Tiffany Shlain (Filmmaker; Founder, The Webby Awards), and Lance Weiler (Filmmaker; Editor of The Workbook Project) and hosted by Ira Deutchman (Managing Partner, Emerging Pictures; Professor of Professional Practice, Graduate Film Division, Columbia University School of the Arts).

1. Filmmakers Collaborative (Site | RSS). A non-profit support organization for independent media makers that provides fiscal sponsorship and hosts events including their annual Making Media Now conference. I’ve placed them first on my list because I’m biased (I sit on their board).

2. Center for Independent Documentary (Site | RSS). Another wonderful non-profit support organization for independent media makers, they provide fiscal sponsorship and host the amazing Filmmakers Workshop series on a monthly basis as well as the Filmmakers Workshop online community.

3. Center for Social Media at American University (Site | RSS | Twitter). The Center for Social Media (a part of American University’s School of Communication) investigates, showcases and sets standards for socially engaged media-making. They organize conferences and events, publish research, create codes of best practices, and incubate media strategies.

4. The Independent (Site | RSS | Twitter). The Independent was formerly The Independent Film & Video Monthly published by the AIVF (Association of Independent Video and Filmmakers), it has been resurrected as an online publication.

5. Documentary Tech (Site | RSS) An open-source collaborative project exploring documentary filmmaking techniques and technology. A project by The Rhode Island Film Festival and several sponsoring universities.

6. Cinema Tech (Site | RSS) Scott Kirsner writes about how new technologies are changing the way movies get made, discovered, marketed, distributed, shown, and seen.

7. Documentary Educational Resources (Site | RSS)A Watertown-based distributor of documentary films that also provides fiscal sponsorship and other support resources.

I suggest reading these using Google reader, which you can read as a stand-alone RSS reader or embed into your iGoogle page. If you’re not already using iGoogle, check it out, it’s a nice way to organize headlines from various sources along with a wide range of other gadgets, for example, here’s part of my iGoogle page:

Part of my iGoogle page

In the top left I have the RSS feed from the Filmmakers Collaborative web site, and below it the latest leadlines from Google Reader. I’ve also got a gadget showing the IndieWire RSS feed, as well as several Google News feeds using key words like “filmmaking” and “documentary” as well as headlines from the New York Times, NPR, etc. In the morning over a latte I scan the various headlines to see what’s going on. There are a variety of other feed readers, some online and others for Windows, Mac, or Linux, however, Google Reader is the best of the online readers by far.

Oh yes, and there’s my own site which you’re reading right now, but it would have been too cheeky to include myself, huh?

Front page photo: Steve Finer holding a Sony HVR-V1U.

Bard’s work is the kind of machine-assisted participatory filmmaking that brings Vertov’s vision into the new millennium and enabled by computers and the net. I’m sure Vertov would have loved it. Man With A Movie Camera was Vertov’s mechanical vision of a new socialist society with Vertov as auteur, Mikhail Kaufman as the cameraman, and Yelizaveta Svilova as editor, and with Soviet society and the machinery of the industrial age as the protagonists. Bard’s project presents a global social reality in the new millennium. Man With a Movie Camera: The Global Remake, or as I like to think of it, “People with Video Cameras” brings the machine and ordinary people into the process of movie production and delivery, providing a collective vision consistent with Vertov’s futurist masterpiece of the modern era but remade in a postmodern setting with the media and tools of our generation: participation, camcorders, the internet, and computation. The perspectives of multiple contributors is consistent with Vertov’s philosophy, Joseph Schaub wrote in his essay, “Presenting the Cyborg’s Futurist Past: An Analysis of Dziga Vertov’s Kino-Eye“, “Kino-eye, then, is a cyborg construction that contains multiple positions for the production of film meaning.” OK, I’m stretching a little, but ideas are fun to play with, I see them as guides to possible worlds.

Man With a Movie Camera: The Global Remake provides a crisp example of the first, second, and fourth characteristics that Janet Murray suggests in her book, Hamlet on the Holodeck, make new media a powerful vehicle for literary creation: 1. Procedural, 2. Participatory, 3. Spatial, and 4. Encyclopedic. The site does not make use of the spatial dimension (except for some aspects of the interface, which traditional cinema lacks completely), however, It’s pretty easy to see how the project could become more spatial in an interesting manner by adding geographical information related to the video when it is uploaded to the site, underscoring the truly global nature of the effort. Regardless of being light in the spatial dimension, Man With a Movie Camera: The Global Remake is one of the most interesting participatory video projects I’ve had the pleasure to experience and points the way to the future of cinema. While theater owners worry over sagging ticket sales and studio moguls fear the audience’s move to net, as creators and participants we can move beyond the industrial practices of the past and look forward to a re-invented, participatory, global, postmodern, Kino-Eye.

This post is based in part on a post written for my Design Seminar II class at MassArt in response to Scott Kirsner’s Media Tech Tonic presentation, “Inventing the Movies.”

1. Weaving the Web: The Original Design and Ultimate Destiny of the World Wide Web by Tim Berners-Lee presents a detailed account of the origins and evolution of the web, and who better to tell the story than the inventor himself, who is currently Director of the World Wide Web Consortium (the organization responsible for setting web standards) at MIT. In the 1980s while working at CERN, Berners-Lee defined the core standards and wrote the first web server and browser that began the growth of the Web, which transformed the Internet into a document universe (similar to Ted Nelson’s docuverse but much simpler in design) by allowing users to hyperlink between documents that can reside on any computer connected to the Internet. The design of the Web balances decentralization and centralization in a manner than retains simplicity and allows for unrestricted growth and innovation. Berners-Lee’s writing is clear and concise, which should appeal to a wide audience. A lot of books have been written about the web. You have to be very careful when reading histories of the Internet and the World Wide Web, there are many articles, and even books, that present misleading histories. For example, Architects of the Web: 1,000 Days that Built the Future of Business by Robert Reid gives much of the credit for the development of the World Wide Web to people who did not actually invent it and fails glaringly to properly credit, and sometimes even ignores, those who played key roles in the design, development, and evolution of the Web. For example, Tim Berners-Lee receives very little space in the book and other important figures are completely ignored. On the other hand, Weaving the Web is written with tremendous humility and grace and helps to set the record straight.

2. The Wealth of Networks: How Social Production Transforms Markets and Freedom by Yochai Benkler might at first appear to be a dense academic tome best left on the shelf, however, don’t let that stop you from making the effort to read it cover to cover. It will reward you with a comprehensive and insightful perspective on the networked information economy. The book passionately discusses how the Internet empowers individuals and groups working outside of the market economy to become (in some contexts) more productive than for-profit organizations. Examples include projects like Wikipedia and Linux. The production of information, knowledge, and creative works outside of the market system has profound implications for democratic discourse, culture, and justice. There are serious dangers posed by government regulation that protects old-world information companies, for example, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Benkler makes a persuasive argument that non-market production and innovation is a good thing that should be allowed to exist and thrive alongside the industrial information economy. The book provides a clear picture of the state of the internet and shows the Internet enriches peoples lives and has become an essential component of a free and open society. If we want to remain a vibrant liberal democracy, we must push back the dangerous encroachment of corporate interests that want to restrict the free flow of information on the Internet which is critical for the proper functioning of an open society and continued technological innovation. Benkler demonstrates a clear understanding of the information economy worthy of the title which is evocative of Adam Smith’s The Wealth of Nations. Lawrence Lessig wrote that The Wealth of Networks is “the most important and powerful book written in the fields that matter most to me in the last ten years.”

3. Small Pieces Loosely Joined: A Unified Theory of the Web by David Weinberger provides a fascinating definition of the Web as an idea rather than a technology and discusses how it is challenging fundamental concepts of our culture. Weinberger writes: “If the Web is changing bedrock concepts such as space, time, perfection, social interaction, knowledge, matter and morality–each a chapter of this book–no wonder we’re so damn confused. That’s as it should be. A new world is opening up, a world that we create as we explore it.” The book provides thoughtful answers to questions such as: Why do we perceive the Web as space when it’s not? How is the Web threading and weaving our concept of time? Why does Tim Berners-Lee, the creator of the Web, say it will always be a little broken? How does the web resolve the contradiction between viewing ourselves as members of a mass culture and as unique individuals? How does the Web change our concept of knowledge? How can the Web be so social and meaningful while traditional notions of technology has been that it’s alienating? How does the hyperlinked architecture of the Web reflect the structure of morality? David Weinberger answers these questions with clarity in a manner that will delight readers from both technical and humanistic backgrounds.

4. Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide by Henry Jenkins explains how media convergence is changing the relationship between audiences, producers, and creative work in the context of the emergence of participatory culture. Jenkins stresses this is not a technological revolution, but instead it is a cultural shift from a focus of literacy as individual expression to a process of community involvement. Jenkins presents examples like Survivor and The Matrix to demonstrate how participatory culture can be harnessed by big media who up until now have not been able to capitalize on fan-generated content, which has flourished outside of commodity economics, but is now in the sights of big media.

There are lots of excellent books on this and related topics, but this is my short list as of 2008. In future posts you can expect me to discuss more titles worth a read that cover specific applications and issues related to the Web and Internet.

Note: If you plan to purchase any of these books, I would appreciate it if you start from the links to Amazon on this page, as this will provide a small commission to Kino-Eye.com that goes towards hosting and production costs. Every little bit helps to keep this blog going. Thank you!

Who should attend? Anyone who makes creative work: film, video, music, games, especially if you would describe yourself as an independent filmmaker. The day consists of both structured and free form activities to encourage open discussion and the opportunity to break into groups and get everyone talking to each other. Register now, the event is free but space is limited due to the size of the venue, designed to encourage an active and participatory discussion among participants.

This conference, inspired by the success of “unconferences” in other professions, is quite special because it’s being organized by filmmakers and supported by generous sponsors, hosts, and volunteers, rather than driven by vendors. It started last year when filmmaker Lance Weiler (Head Trauma, The Last Broadcast) reached out to Arin Crumley (Four Eyed Monsters) and Mike Belmont (We Are the Strange) with the idea to create a virtual conference and festival. After a series of discussions they decided that the virtual event would be a way to connect filmmakers directly with audiences and the event itself could become a model for open content distribution, one which allowed filmmakers to have a say in how their films were reaching audiences. It also enabled them to take concepts from the Workbook Project (an open source project for content creators) and to put them into practice. To make a long story short, the virtual event evolved into an online and real world event in two parts: (1) The From Here to Awesome festival which is playing out in theaters, living rooms, online and via mobile devices and (2) a series of live conferences with participatory discussion know as DIY DAYS.

The organizer’s goal is to create an open discussion and debate that will evolve as the conference travels around to several cities. At the end of the process, the organizers intend to share the results and then go back to the drawing board to plan for year two. I’m excited that this conference is coming to Boston, and being hosted in such a wonderful location. See you there!

This post is a follow-up with related links and references to my participation as a panelist on “Distribution in the Digital Age” at the Roxbury Film Festival. My fellow panelists were Cynthia Close (Executive Director of Documentary Educational Resources), Nettrice Gaskins (Computer Arts and Community Liaison, Massachusetts College of Art and Design), and William Murrell (BlackSoftware.com, Smallwall.net). The panel was moderated by Lisa Simmons (Director, Color of Film Collaborative).

Below are links and notes related to the topics I presented, divided into six sections: 0. Independent Film Distribution Economics 101; 1. Resources for independent filmmakers; 2. Good blogs to read; 3. Distributors, organizations, and start-ups doing interesting things; 4. Articles, interviews, books, etc.; and 5. Industry Publications.

0. Independent Film Distribution Economics 101

Consider this, with a typical home DVD release, the economics look like something like this:

Retail price: $19.95
Wholesale price: $9.95 (price to retailer)
Royalty to you: 20% of wholesale: $1.99 per DVD
Distributor takes care of marketing and advertising expenses
Profit to distributor: Mysterious accounting

The distributor is taking care of management, marketing, prints, replication, fulfillment, advertising, etc. costs. Any theatrical release, becoming more and more rare for independent films, is likely to lose money, but it is a marketing activity to create value in the DVD segment which does help sell more DVDs. So the theatrical factors into the economics as a marketing and promotional cost. Any money comes from DVD sales for all but the largest grossing films. Look at the box office figures for small indie films, they pale in comparison to the cost of marketing, managing, and advertising a theatrical release.

In a self-distribution scenario, the economics of selling DVDs from your website would be:

DVD price: $20 + $5 shipping and handling: $25 revenue
Cost of replication, shipping, handling, and e-commerce transactions: $7.00
Gross evenue to you: $18.00
YOU take care of marketing and advertising expenses on your own.
Net: you know your own numbers.

This is about disintermediation, and even if traditional distributors get out of the way and you have direct access to you audience, someone still has to do the hard work. Attention is the scarce resource today. Viewers have so many options, so many screens, so many things competing for their attention. Then it was the distributor, now it’s you and your partners. There is no panacea. The difference with the DIY scenario is you can build a fanbase that you control, you can build relationships with organizations that have compatible agendas around a cause, and everything you do to build relationships you are in control of. This relationship can be very similar to the time-honored relationship of artist and their supporters and patrons. There is a trend towards an increasing number of filmmakers who are developing fanbases numbering thousands, if not tens of thousands, to whom they can sell DVDs and other items. While DVD will be the staple for some time, I expect a dramatic increase in direct digital distribution. There is a huge intangible value in creating this relationship.

There is a huge tectonic shift occurring in independent film distribution. Today it looks nothing like it did when I was in film school, and in ten years I’m sure it will be different from today. It’s a wild, wild west out there. What follows are some of the resources, blogs, and articles (some of which I mentioned during the panel) that will help you better understand alternative distribution models and to navigate this rapidly changing environment. If you’re in a hurry, start with some of the articles I link to.

1. Resources for independent filmmakers

• The Workbook Project
  A resource for content creators that will become a user contributed repository of information. The concept is part of an open source social experiment, the workbook is meant to be spread and edited. This means that content creators can add their own info, war stories, advice etc. We’re hoping that the workbook can grow as a resource. It’s being built with an open source client side wiki called tiddlywiki that can be saved to the desktop, edited and then uploaded again. Contributors include Lance Weiler, Alex Afterman, Arin Crumley, M dot Strange, and many others. The site offers great stories, tips on building an audience, information on tools and techniques, and pointers to the best resources on the web for DIY filmmakers.
• Independent Feature Project
  Now almost three decades old, the Independent Feature Project (IFP) is a non-profit membership and advocacy organization that has evolved into a vibrant organization that supports and serves the independent film community by connecting creative talent and the film industry. The IFP has grown to informing and supporting a network of 10,000 filmmakers in New York City and around the world.
• The D-Word
  A leading worldwide community of documentary filmmakers that hosts discussions about the art, craft, business, and social impact of documentary film. Public Topics are open to all, professionals can become Members of The D-Word and access a wide range of ongoing discussions in our Business, Creative, Social, and Technical Topics. The online community has grown to over 2,000 documentary professionals from around the world.
• DOCULINK
  The DOCULINK community, consists of an active email mailing list providing a forum for quickly shareing information and engage in ongoing discussion about documentary filmmaking; a website providing information and resources for documentary filmmakers; and monthly meetings in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Vancouver, BC and occasionally in New York, which alternate between guest speakers, work-in-progress screenings and socials. The community, launched in 2002, now boasts over 2,000 members.

2. Good blogs to read

• Cinematech
  Scott Kirsner, a journalist, writes about making movies in the digital age. CinemaTech focuses on how new technologies are changing cinema – the way movies get made, discovered, marketed, distributed, shown, and seen. He attends a lot of events and meets many people along the way and he shares his insights in this blog.
• Springboard Media
  Comments on the future of the media arts field by Brian Newman, CEO of the Tribeca Film Institute.
• All These Wonderful Things
  AJ Schnack’s widely read blog focused on documentaries and nonfiction, he is a filmmaker and writer based in Los Angeles.
• DIY Filmmaker Sujewa
  A blog written by DIY, ultra-low budget, self-distributing, Washington, DC area & NYC based independent filmmaker Sujewa Ekanayake. Recent projects: Indie Film Blogger Road Trip (’08), Date Number One (’08, ‘06), Magnus & The Air Quotes Woman (’07), Rock Collection (’07).
• Self-Reliant Film
  Paul Harrill’s blog that champions small-crew, low-budget, and regional filmmaking.
• Kino-Eye.com
  Yours truly writes about digital filmmaking, new media, and more.
• Resources
  A blog project of Tribeca Film Institute.

3. Distributors, organizations, and start-ups doing interesting things

• DIY Days
  A series of intimate roundtable-style filmmaker events covering the word of DIY filmmaking and distribution. Recently held in Los Angeles and coming to Boston on a Saturday in September (date to be arranged). Last year Lance Weiler (Head Trauma) reached out to Arin Crumley (Four Eyed Monsters) and Mike Belmont (We Are the Strange) with a concept to create a virtual conference and festival. The virtual event has evolved into an online and real world event. It is broken into two parts. The first is the festival From Here to Awesome (described below) which will play out in theaters, living rooms, online, and on mobile devices. The second part is this series of conferences happening in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Boston, New York and London. Very cool, I’m looking forward to the event in Boston.
• From Here to Awesome
  An open-source discovery and distribution film festival that kicks off July 26th in Los Angeles and rollouts out over a six-month period with stops in New York, San Francisco, Boston and London. Filmmakers retain all the rights, see direct revenue from each of the outlets and enjoy access to global audiences. The festival’s goal is to create a direct connection between filmmaker and audience. There are no submission fees for filmmakers. They attempt to create multiple revenue opportunities for filmmakers by providing a platform that enables distribution across multiple outlets – mobile, online, living rooms and theaters. It’s not only distribution that is being re-envisioned and re-imagined, film festivals are also part of the old system and are thus also changing.
• Breakthrough Distribution
  Breakthrough Distribution was formed in April 2006 to connect content creators and fans in new ways, helping content creators take advantage of new distribution possibilities via online, retail, and other channels, beyond the traditional theatrical and broadcast options.
• Truly Indie
  They have a model to help you act as your own distributor, providing tools, guidance, and resources. Truly Indie has created a process to vet films from interested filmmakers who will then be able to choose which markets they wish to release their film in, and Truly Indie will dedicate customized marketing resources to the advertising and publicity of that film. Upcoming films include Fall to Grace, Cavite, and Tibet-A Buddhist Trilogy.
• IndieGoGo
  An online social marketplace launched in 2008 connecting filmmakers and fans. The platform provides filmmakers the tools for project funding, recruiting, and promotion, while enabling the audience to discover and connect directly with filmmakers and the causes they support. IndieGoGo enables a “filmocracy” by providing filmmakers an open platform to pitch their projects to the world, and giving the fans a vehicle to experience and influence the once inaccessible world of filmmaking. Filmmakers get new resources to build and engage a loyal fan base while fans get the opportunity to discover and impact new films while getting insider access and VIP perks for their contributions. Check out their blog as well.
• Mediastile
  A new service that provides broadcasters, film studios, and content owners with the tools necessary to manage their own digital distribution. They offer a royalty tracking systems for handling sales via a digital pipelines, and offer a way to get your media on you own store front as well as services like Apple iTunes, Microsoft Zune, Amazon Unbox, and more. They work with major media companies and small independents alike.
• Open Television Network
  A service launched with the goal of providing a distribution network the “middle class” of media publishers. It’s a framework that allows you to small media through iTunes using RSS feeds. Right now Apple will sell you media making tools, but they will not talk with you about getting your media on iTunes unless you are a established distributor. But OTN offers clever twist that does an end run around that, allowing viewers to access your video through iTunes with a technology called KlickTab. Now you viewers can watch your videos on their Mac, iPod, iPhone, or AppletV through iTunes. Read more about it on the OTN site. 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. As Philip Hodgetts of OTN has said, “it’s about making it, easier than piracy and almost as cheap.”
• TubeMogul
  Helps you distribute videos to multiple sites and track analytics. Not for feature length distribution, but a good way to get short promo videos out there widely.
• Jaman
  An online community that helps viewers find and discuss world and independent cinema. Members can download films to watch on their computer or television. They offer a player download that manages downloads, provides a full screen experience, and handles DRM. The Jaman Cascade Network helps the player obtain movie files from the nearest source, so it’s like Bitorrent in that way. Rentals are for 7 days from when you download and viewers can watch as many times as they want. Their royalties to filmmakers are not as generous as many of their smaller competitors offering digital downloads (many without DRM which is problematic), but we’ll see what market pressure does to that. Watching Jaman films on the iPod or AppleTV is not available, since Jaman’s DRM is not compatible with Apple’s FairPlay DRM and Jaman does not offer a non DRM option for filmmakers who would like to spare their fans the hassle.

4. Articles, interviews, books, etc.

• Can the Internet Save Indie Film? by Fred Schruers, Wired, June 26, 2008
  There was a time in indie film when specialty houses from the major studios stalked the earth, reaching into deep pockets to acquire the rights to distribute the best films at the coolest festivals like Sundance, but that is changing. The statistics are startling, indie/speciality films are tanking at the box office, indie/specialty distributors are dying, and the growing role of the Web in consumer culture is part of the problem, can the Web be part of the answer?
• Yes, The Sky Really Is Falling by Mark Gill, FIRST PERSON: IndieWIRE, June 22, 2008
  At the Los Angeles Film Festival’s Financing Conference, Mark Gill, CEO of The Film Department (and former President of Miramax Films) declared provocatively, “Yes, The Sky Really Is Falling.” He detailed many challenges currently facing independent film. Here’s a quote from the article: “If you want to survive in this brutal climate, you’re going to have to work a lot harder, be a lot smarter, know a lot more, move a lot faster, sell a lot better, pay attention to the data, be a little nicer (ok, a lot nicer), trust your gut, read everything and never, ever give up. If you’re looking for a cool lifestyle, you’re in the wrong business. If you want work-life balance, go get a government job. But if you really want to make movies–even after all the unvarnished bad news I’ve dumped on you today–then by all means do it.”
• The Long Tail
  Chris Anderson’s seminal book explaining the “long tail” of digital distribution, an insightful big-picture look at the tectonic shifts changing our industry.
• Hollywood Has Finally Figured Out How to Make Web Video Pay by Frank Rose, Wired, July 21, 2008
  Scrambling to find new economic models that work is not just the challenge of indie artists and filmmakers. Here’s a key quote: “Sure, the YouTube explosion was fueled by amateurs, but it will be showbiz professionals who cash in on Web video. That’s because most big corporate advertisers want a safe, predictable environment — not the latest YouTube one-off, no matter how viral. Once the major brands get on board, millions of ad dollars will follow. Which is why when the writers’ strike idled most of Hollywood last winter, talent agents fielded calls from clients eager to try their hand. At the same time, the fact that a three-minute clip can be shot for as little as $2,000 means Web video will be more open to ambitious neophytes than television ever was — witness the guys behind Lonelygirl15, who now have a second hit Web series called KateModern and a deal to develop more for CBS.”
• Theatrical Docs Down, But Not Out by Agnes Varnum, IndieWIRE (July 30, 2008)
• No Film Distributor? Then D.I.Y. By John Anderson, New York Times, July 30, 2008
  Increasingly, indie filmmakers find themselves facing a flooded marketplace with too few theaters and too many movies. The basic laws of supply and demand have depressed the economic returns for independent film.
• Jon Moritsugu Interview by Sujewa Ekanayake
• Rethinking Film Distribution by Rebort, iofilm
  Peter Broderick, President of Paradigm Consulting, speaking about alternative distribution channels, he says filmmakers should consider new strategies for distributing their films to avoid future disappointment.
• An Annual State of the Industry Post and Some Festival Advice for Filmmakers, by AJ Shnack, June 2, 2008
  With all the hanges in the independent film world, it’s become necessary to take a yearly look at the state of film festivals and ask the question, are we are abiding by an old, outmoded system?
• DIY Film Projects: 6 Thoughts on DIY Projects, from Self Reliant Film
• Roll Your Own Docs by Rebort, iofilm
  As DVD projection costs come down, filmmakers are finding it more easy to connect directly with their core audience.
• Cinemocracy
  A platform for commentary and inspiration for citizen reporters, activists and filmmakers. he films which garnered the most praise, interest and online votes (will be) screened during the 2008 Democratic National Convention.
• Screenwriters strike back: ‘Dr. Horrible’ leads Web charge, by Cynthia Littleton, Variety

5. Industry Publications

• The Independent
  The Independent is a lively online magazine that was started with the intent of rescuing, re-envisioning, and re-launching the print publication, archival records, and online resources of The Independent Film & Video Monthly, an respected publication for the community of independent media-makers from 1978 through July 2006, at which point it ceased publication when its parent, a nonprofit organization called the Association of Independent Video and Filmmakers (AIVF), closed its doors.
• Moviemaker Magazine
  A print and online magazine founded in 1993 (web site was added in 1995) focused on the art and business of making movies directed at both the audience and filmmakers.
• Filmmaker Magazine
  A publication of the IFP covering independent filmmaking. Also check out Filmmaker Magazine’s blog.

It’s never been a more confusing time to be a filmmaker, nor has it every been more exciting than this.

If you’re interested in blogging, podcasting, video on the web, social networks, and how you can get the most out of Web 2.0 and new media, PodCamp is the event for you with two days of great conversations, knowledge sharing, and insights into the leading edge of new media.

Check out the schedule, you’re sure to find something of interest. Yours truly will be doing two presentations on Saturday morning following the Opening UnKeynote: “Improve your video using cinematic language technique” (10:00 – 10:45 am) and “Art of the Interview: Strategies and Techniques for Better Video Interviews” (11:15 am – 12:00 noon). I’m also participating in the “Project Reviews” session with Larry Lawfer on Sunday morning. Hope to see you there!

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.

Enjoy, feel free to contact me if you have any questions.

Steve Garfield spoke about the debates on television last week, Dave Winer opened up a chat that Steve participated in, 30-40 people chatting during the debates, they will be doing it again, Steve really liked it, check out Scripting News (Dave Winer’s blog) for info on joining the IRC chat. Chatzilla works if you don’t want to do IRC the old fashioned way. Steve will be at SXSW this week blogging, shooting video etc. so keep an eye out for that.

Steve also mentioned that the Independent Film Festival of Boston (which takes place on April 23-29, 2008) wants Boston media makers involved with the festival this year. They will be attending the April meeting to talk about that.

John Herman is launching Gravityland tomorrow, has been working on it for six months, first two episodes debut tomorrow. They will be posting episodes once a week and blogging five days a week.

Philip Kliger (unclephilms on YouTube) had a camera attached to his head and was shooting video of the meeting, which he’ll use in some way. He showed us the camera/recorder he was using, the Archos 404 Pocket Digital Media Player and Camcorder that has an internal 30GB disk for long recording times (limited to battery life, which is under two hours while recording). It can play a variety of video formats and records MPEG-4 (AVI 640×480 at 30 or 25 fps). It appears to work only with it’s own proprietary camera. Too bad it can’t record from any video camera. In addition to his YouTube presence, Phil is an actor working on Gravityland, does the Uncle Phil Music Show as well as Tune Buggy, kid-friendly rock music.

Alecia Orsini is a filmmaker (Combustible Russ), artist, and is currently working with the Miele Law Group which represents artists, entertainers, and inventors. They do a lot of free consulting, they share a lot of information with media makers, it’s good to say, “I know a lawyer” whenever you have to negotiate contracts with other parties. She started working with then when she was swamped in paperwork, they helped demystify the legal process.

Scott Lebeda is also working with the Miele Law Group, he does research for them, he’s a filmmaker, does graphic design work, and starting up a multimedia site for film, art, etc.

Also mentioned in the group was the Citizen Media Law Project and Volunteer Lawyers for the Arts.

Yours truly talked about the upcoming 18th Annual Pro Video Show taking place at Stonehill College in Easton, Massachusetts on Friday and Saturday, March 7-8, 2008. Read my blog post about the show for a description of the three seminars I’m doing at the show.

Brian Alves produces The DV Show, a weekly podcast dedicated to answering questions related to digital video. The DV Show has been running since March 2005 and has become a respected resource on the we. They will be streaming some of the free sessions from the 18th Annual Pro Video Show, very cool.

Jessica Burko does design and arts marketing for other artists, she encourages us to sign up for her mailing list, it’s one email a month with info on shows and art events. She’s also involved with Boston Hand Made, a gathering of colleagues who create a variety of handcrafted art and every spring they do an artisan fair in Jamaica Plain.

Steve Sherlock has a number of projects underway, including sherku, his form of haiku. As Dorothy Parker once wrote, “brevity is the soul of lingerie.” So here goes an attempt to write a haiku about the meeting (19 syllables):

media makers meet
each first sunday to share
knowledge, ideas, and cheer.

Joe Cascio is a software engineer who is currently working on SociaLogic, an experimental system devoted to research and development in social networking that among other things can help us manage our online social network memberships and identities, he’s also working on a better SPAM filter, a new email protocol, all sorts of cool stuff. This summer he’ll be sponsoring the Social Media BBQ (look for it on upcoming) at his house in CT. Some locals who are bummed they can’t attend SXSW this year have started up their own virtual experience, NONE (North by Northeast). Joe is also involved with two blogs, Start Rocket and Media Disruption

Reiko Beach of TRB Design talked about Stixy, an online bulletin board (which they call Stixyboards) that allow you to create tasks, appointments, files, photos, notes, and bookmarks organized in whatever way makes sense to you. You can share Stixyboards with friends, family, and colleagues. Are there other tools out there she should look at? Some folks suggested JotSpot (Google recently acquired them), Big Tent, and Remember the Milk. Another thing that works well for simple collaboration is Google Docs. Tom Beach mentioned they are looking for someone to help them put together a customized WordPress template for their new site.

Rick Burns working on a site called 9neighbors designed to feature locally created on a neighborhood level, they are currently covering the Boston area (including Cambridge, Somerville, Newton, and Brookline). You can add your feed and they will filter it. It’s a new way of surfacing content that has local relevance. Check out their site, they are currently looking for feedback as they refine what they are doing.

Rachel Happe is a technology analyst at IDC who leads research on the digital business economy, and she blogs at The Social Organization.

Ted McEnroe is an Executive Producer with New England Cable News. He’s looking around to see where broadcast television is going, he just moved over to work on the NECN web site, recently relaunched as a video-driven web site, and he hopes to take it beyond where it is now, do more aggregating of media from across New England as a whole, he’s thinking about the best way to bring in community voices from around the region.

Dale Cruse is a website developer who does Drinks Are On Me, a popular wine blog and he’s also the weekly drinks columnist for Bostonist (a blog covering news, events, bars, and restaurants in Boston).

Pam Rosenthal is a social media consultant helping companies use online communities to engage in meaningful conversations with their customers. She’s interested in connecting with folks who do video as she may need to develop content in the future along the lines of customer testimonials and training videos.

Mike Walsh is working on putting together another Barcamp at MIT or a similar venue soon, possibly in April.

Rekha Murthy is an interaction designer, radio producer, and graduate of MIT’s Comparative Media Studies program, check out her blog, Punctuated Equilibrium. Her research at MIT focused on street media in urban spaces, urban annotation practices, and more with a focus on Central Square in Cambridge, and this may evolve into a book, she’s open to people’s experiences and ideas in terms of book agents and self-publishing options.

Adam Weiss suggests we check out the Museum of Science exhibit on baseball coming in June put together with the Baseball hall of fame, in addition to his work at the Museum of Science, Adam does Boston Behind the Scenes, an excellent podcast. He’s is looking for new adventures in new media and podcasting if you have any ideas for him.

Nate Aune is working on Jazkarta an open source videos sharing application, your own branded YouTube, your own logo, commenting, rating, tagging, etc. Check out an example at plone.tv. He’s also working on BostonJazz.net, a site to showcase Jazz Music in Boston.

Matt Searles continues to work on Asymmetric Biz Cult, a fascinating podcast that mixes philosophy, art, business, new media, and provides unique perspectives on what is most commonly called convergence. Who else has managed to include Michel Foucault, Carl Jung, and Jack Welch in the same podcast?

And on that note, I’ll remind you that the next meeting will be on April 6, 2008. Boston media makers gathers once a month on the first Sunday of every month at Sweet Finnish Cafe in Jamaica Plain. We go around the table and people talks about what they are up, ask questions, announce events, and more. In addition, there’s plenty of mingling before and after the meeting.

When we started out to do [quarterlife], and people heard it was going to go to NBC, we were sort of damned if we did and damned if we didn’t, because a lot of people said “oh, it’s just a television show in disguise, and these are old television guys, and they are just doing television,” in fact, the difference for me was I went back to my early days, I just recently looked at the pilot of thirtysomething, and I was not so brainwashed in those days in the world of television, and the pilot of thirtysomething is so raw, and so real, it doesn’t look anything like a television show, it’s not lit like a television show, they don’t sound like a television show, and that’s what I went back to, in other words, I didn’t say, “what is the internet, I have to do an internet thing,” I said, “let me let go of the shit that I’ve been doing that I’ve taken on over the years without knowing it,” these voices in my head saying, “oh, will they like this character, you know, will people understand when you say this, will they stick around,” all these kind of things that network executives are scared of I just said, “forget it, I’m just going to do my thing for this, that”s how I did it differently, and low and behold you know what? It ain’t a television show, and it was proven last night it was not a television show (laughter in the room), it’s too specific for a big network, and that’s fine, cause we’re going to find a home for it, that will work for what we do. But that’s the difference, is I went back to my own voice.

It’s ridiculous to call quarterlife a failure, it’s simply a proof point that crossover is not always a good idea, that the audience for broadcast television and internet episodics is different, and twenty-somethings are growing up in a vastly different media world. They are not going to watch broadcast television the way my generation did. And why are we even talking about online shows making the jump to television? As if this was somehow the holy grail? Why look at new media through the lens of old media? As Herskovitz said, quarterlife is not television, it’s something different. It does not belong on prime time, which is about mass audience and lowest common denominator, it belongs on a niche cable station if on broadcast at all. Why do so many broadcast industry people talk about the internet as a new breeding ground for television shows? They sure would like to outsource creative development. But the internet is not a new old thing, it’s a new new thing, and internet entertainment properties should be judged on their own terms as their own thing. The new media revolution will not be broadcast, nor will it be rebroadcast. It will be streamed, downloaded, and shared as part of a community experience as you see happening right now on the quarterlife site. When quarterlife first launched I did an interview with Marshall Herskovitz that you might find interesting.

Personally, I find quarterlife to be one of the more interesting pieces of entertainment to come out in 2007, and part of what I like about it is its rawness, the feeling that it’s a work in progress, something evolving, and that there’s a community around it. It’s in a very different “voice” as Herskovitz said. And that’s part of the appeal for me, and probably not right for mass audience appeal. But in the world of long tail media distribution, it’s about finding a niche, not the mass audience. What is being done with quarterlife may not translate to the model for the future of television, but it’s sure working by many metrics of success. Without spending time watching all of the episodes and spending time observing and/or participating in the community, you can’t really grok what quarterlife is. Innovators in entertainment have created some flops that have made cinema/television/new media history, but at the same time where would we be without the innovative projects that showed us that there are other forms that entertainment can take, and new ways of interacting with an audience? It’s too soon to call for a verdict on the quarterlife experiment and premature to make claims of it’s demise.

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.

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!

Michael Wesch, an assistant professor of cultural anthropology at Kansas State University who studies the impact of new media on human interaction, said: “I watch students come to the realization that there’s an internal contradiction in their lives. They both want to be famous and they want to be authentic, and yet there’s something in their striving to archive their lives that’s inauthentic.”

One of his former students recently posted his own proposal photographs on Facebook, he noted. That site and others like MySpace “allow them to be their own publicists,” he went on. “Which ties in with the marriage thing. It really is a fascinating phenomenon. It’s almost like if it’s not on Facebook, it didn’t happen.”

I’m starting to wonder if we should produce less media, rather than more?

I asked Aaron Swartz about the genesis of Jottit and he explained to me that he had a site called Google Weblog with a submit form for people to submit ideas for posts. And he found that, “people coming to the site through Google kept submitting their stories of their day,” and so on and so forth. Aaron explained that they thought, “it was just the way to post stuff to the internet.” So he thought, “why not just make posting to the internet that simple?” And thus Jottit was born. Code is poetry and Jottit is the latest haiku.

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.