Archive for December, 2006

What happens when we can see it?

Sunday, December 31st, 2006

The independent journalist, Flux Rostrum, was recently covering a protest outside the Mexican consulate in Manhattan. People were protesting the government’s harsh treatment of the movement in Oaxaca.

While he was recording, the 3 police officers literally stole his camera and the tape inside.
The amazing thing was….everyone was recording what was happening.
So Flux was able to piece together the outrageous theft by the police. It’s pretty incredible.
Watch the video, and read the full story here.


Click To Play

I bet that one policeman had no idea there were so many cameras documenting what he was doing…and that a "crazy mob" could organize to piece together such a powerful document.

Wanting to find out the follow up, I emailed and then called Flux who was at home for the holidays.
The big question I had is this…
Since he has so clearly captured NYC police corruption on tape for all to see…will justice be quick and simple?

Unfortunately, the story isn’t so easy.
Flux got a lawyer, who got the official NYPD response on the incident.
(You ready for this?)
They say the camera was found on the ground and reported lost to them.
All Flux has to do is come to the precinct, show ID, and get the camera.
Flux is unsure if the tape is still in the camera…and this would not do anything to fix the damaged lens.
It’s going to be very interesting to see how Flux and his lawyer can use the video to prove this blatant criminal act by NYPD officers.

The takeway:
It’s sad to see at 30-frames-a-second how people who are supposed to be protecting the public… actually treat the public. Anyone involved in the demonstrations at the 2004 Republican National Convention know that this kind of treatment from the NYPD is par for the course. There is an obvious institutional harassment accepted/promoted within the NYPD towards anyone legally protesting.

It’s great to see how inexpensive digital cameras have now armed each of us to witness reality. And the using the internet…we can spread the info far and wide. We can also archive and organize these pieces of evidence to educate and shape policy. So they can steal one camera….but they can’t steal them all. Here’s a great article detailing another case of how cameras were used in a NYPD harassment cae.

Posted in Other's Videos | 4 Comments »

Building bridges and their difficulties

Saturday, December 30th, 2006

Nagateach

Ryanne just posted this video showing one of the workshops we taught in India.
We took a train all the way to New Dehli and ended up crowding into a local professor’s apartment to teach a group of Nagas how to videoblog. Nagaland is a part of little-publicized East India, an offshoot piece of land that most people don’t realize is part of India. Inhabitants look more Asian than Indian…and the Nagaland government has unsuccessfully tried to become independent from India for years. Who knew all this? The Indian media certainly doesn’t discuss it much. The US media wouldn’t touch this stuff.

So the woman who asked us to come teach a videoblogging workshop is a Naga Advocate…and saw the importance of getting them to start documenting themselves online through video.

We spent a whole day with about 10 young men and women who were extremely sharp.
They had no problem following the Freevlog tutorial…and had good skills editing for the first time in iMovie.
But 2 months later…their videoblogs are almost untouched.

So what’s the problem?
It’s such a great idea to get people from around the world to tell their own stories.
But there’s a lot more at work behind this ideal.
Let me give you my take on it.

First, the Naga kids are smart and talented. So thats not the problem.
But I dont think they really understood why videoblogging was so important to the adults.
Why should they spend time to make and post video for middle-aged white people in North America?
Until they are making it for themselves and their friends…this will always be a boundary.

Second, the Naga kids had access to computer and cameras.
Internet cafes were everywhere…they all checked their email regularly…and were members of the social network Orkut (which is hugely popular with Brazilians and Indians). They did have access to video cameras as well.
But since none of them really owned their own equipment…videoblogging becomes a real chore.
Think about it….when you have a camera and computer of your own…you can work on projects.
If you’re just borrowing a camera and paying hourly to get online, how do you edit and post video?

So a couple things need to happen before we really start seeing video out of developing countries.

  • People got to have computers and internet in their homes.
  • People got to have their own cameras. (even a $100 camera could be a month’s salary or more)
  • And social networks like Orkut need to incorporate video into their sites like Youtube. Instead of direct conversations between Naga kids of a US audience, I think we’re more likely to watch conversations among themselves first…then we’ll get to know each other.
  • If someone could make even $10 dollars a month from their videoblog, they’d have much more incentive in a place where you can live off a couple dollars a day.

To give you a different example…we did also hook up with a group of Indian guys who are now videoblogging. Swajana.com

Why does this project work?

  • The guys are paid a salary to make it.
  • They have their own cameras, computer, and internet access.
  • We have been helping them over the past 2 months. Building the blog, walking them through compression, storytelling, moral support, etc. We are essentially making work for each other.
  • They are video geeks like us.

So here are some notes and experiences on building bridges.
I would love to see examples if you know of any.
I’d also love to be proven wrong in any of this thinking?

Posted in Other's Videos, Problems, Projects | 5 Comments »

VIDEO: Selling out isn’t easy

Monday, December 18th, 2006

Ryanne and I have just signed a one-year deal with Podtech to license our videos on "sustainable culture".
What??!
Watch the video and then read….


Download The Video

For over 2 years now, the Videoblogging Group has discussed money and advertising.
I’ve always been a pretty big opponent of traditional models creeping into our new art form.
Check out this video I made in 2005.
So you can imagine how skeptical I was when Podtech approached us.

Here are three reasons the deal made sense to us.

  1. We own our content. After a year, Podtech will have paid us to create a library of videos. They didn’t even flinch when we negotiated this point. They deserve credit for this alone. Podtech will have exclusive rights to put ads on our videos.
  2. Shows are different than our personal videoblogs. Ryanne and I each have our own blogs where we’ll keep posting our crazy videos. Advertising would never work there. But RyanisHungry is our attempt to create themed content that basically takes the best parts of TV programming and applies it to the web. We’ll be focusing on personal stories of people changing their habits. Here’s an example. So far, Podtech has made clear that we have editorial control as long as we focus on sustainable culture.
  3. Guaranteed money. Podtech is giving us a set amount of money each month. We certainly aren’t getting rich, but one of us can work on these videos fulltime since it’s content we believe in. I’m not sure I trust the "advertising revenue sharing" that other sites like Revver are pioneering just yet. To me, only the most popular videos can make a decent living for ads clicks. I also don’t have time to go out and find customized sponsorship.

I hope that we can set the example for future deals that will be fair to both videobloggers and companies. I give Podtech props for being so progressive during this honeymoon period. We expect to continue working well together. I give a big shout out to Morty Wiggins and Colette Vogel (who wrote the Legal Guide for Podcasters) for helping us through this process.

So watch our for the first videos starting on January 15th. Two videos a week for a year. oh boy.

UPDATE: Some people have emailed asking if we were now employees of Podtech. The answer is no. We are simply licensing video we make to them. Ryanne and I will still be doing outside work. This is the beauty of it. Getting paid to make content. Be your own boss. If you make good, regular content, I believe people are hungry for it. Creators now have the power.

Posted in MY VIDEOS | 28 Comments »

Blogger: Don’t call it a comeback

Tuesday, December 5th, 2006

Ryanneericcaseonbloggerbeta615

Do you use Blogger? Find out how your blog will soon change.

Backstory:
We met Eric Case several years ago when Ryanne and I just started to videoblog.
Eric worked with Blogger which was exciting since the Videoblogging Community was predominantly hacking into the free Blogger to make it friendly for video. We told Eric all kinds of things we wanted to see (Rss 2.0 feeds WITH ENCLOSURES, tags, customizable headers, video specific templates)…..and then he was gone.

In the meantime, video online went crazy.
Youtube led the way with Flash-based social networks.
Many videobloggers turned to Wordpress for all their blogging needs because it was free…and much more customizable. We each just had to learn to host our own blog and do a little PHP.
(See the Vlogsplosion template by Verdi and Rudy, specifically made for video.)

Present day:
Then last month we started making videos about people using alternative ways to fuel their cars.
We found out that Eric had a blog about his biodiesel car.
So we emailed him for a visit.
In the course of the interview about his car, we found out that Blogger had been busy making Blogger Beta. We immediately sat him down on his couch and got him to describe the changes.
We were excited because it sounded like Blogger was finally evolving.

See his interview over at RyanisHungry, the videoblog Ryan and I do together.
Eric gives a lot of good info about how Blogger is becoming much more interesting.
He’ll answer any question you leave in the comments.

Posted in MY VIDEOS | 3 Comments »

VIDEO: Skin Puzzle

Monday, December 4th, 2006

skin puzzle


click here to download

I really like my friend Schlomo who made this video with me.

I submitted it for the latest Carp Caviar project organized by Erik Nelson, a pro-basketball player in Holland (no joke)….and awesome videoblogger.

Carp Caviar is explained here:

Some rules (not really rules, but guidelines…please feel free to do whatever):

1) Make a Carp Caviar promo, but it does not have to be about Carp or Caviar.
2) 10 sec. to 1 min. in length.
3) Either post it on your vlog and let us know about it, or send it this way.
4) Please play.
5) Humor is always a plus.
6) Every entry will receive something in the mail from us.
7) Please do not use copyrighted music, we’d rather you bang on pots and pans.
8) By participating, you clearly understand the cosmos.
9) Try tagging it, “carpcaviar”
10) You can make more than one.

Posted in MY VIDEOS | 14 Comments »

Germans get Videoblogging

Monday, December 4th, 2006

I don’t see a lot of regular Germans posting video about themselves.
Could be that I just don’t hang out where the online German spots are.
But a recent Wired article discussed how videoblogging is getting into German politics.

Pretty amazing to me that the German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, is doing a weekly videopodcast. 

Update: My friends at Xolo.tv made a video on this event earlier this year.

Posted in Random news | 9 Comments »