Maybe this would be best when we hit video assignment week. But because #ds106 is having this discussion about what media can be, I feel strongly that you should see this same sort of discussion underway in the videoblogging community circa 2005. Two things to view by my friend Michael Verdi, one of the first videobloggers, back before YouTube:

First watch Vlog Anarchy and then if you are fearless, and heeding all warnings, continue on to The Yang of Vlogging.

Kath published some intriguing thoughts about time, the data-body, and outsourced memories along with her video. Her piece begins with a quote from “Time Squared,” a Star Trek: The Next Generation episode. Which is kind of funny because when I think about time, I always come back to Delmore Schwartz’ poem Calmly We Walk Through This April’s Day, which, of course, provides a big theme for the Star Trek Generations film: Time is the fire in which we burn. And I also come back to Don Charles’ song, “Little Pieces,” performed by D-Squared, which I used as the soundtrack. As Charles says, we’re all just “walking, talking, burning little pieces.” And for the origin of both, you can always look back to Heraclitus.

Ryanne and Verdi get their FreeVlog dolls! from laureng on Vimeo.

Jeffrey Taylor and I ambushed Ryanne and Verdi with the dolls that Cheryl and Rupert made for them, as thanks for freevlog.org ~laureng

So Ru Howe and I brainstormed an idea for an Open Source Online Video Award. Something anyone can give to anyone involved in online video. No awards shows. No voting. No approval process. No bullshit. Someone does something with online video that you think is wonderful or weird or amazing or moving? You can give them an award for it. We were thinking the only thing we’d ask is that people giving an award actually take the time to present a physical token of some sort, like a certificate or a little trophy. And that award recipients make time within a few months or a year to give out another award, so that it keeps going.

We thought we’d start it by giving an award for Outstanding Services to the Videoblogging Community and give it to Ryanne and Verdi for making Freevlog. The intention was to send it anonymously, so they wouldn’t know who’d done it, they’d just get the award. We had half-baked plans to mail the award to, say, a relative in a tiny rural town, who could post the final packages in the hopes that Ryanne and Verdi would never figure out where the award really came from. Like a Valentine from a Secret Admirer.

We enlisted Jeffrey Taylor to deliver our “trophies” at the Open Video Conference this weekend. There couldn’t be a more perfect place to give out the first Open Source Online Video Award.

Unfortunately, the anonymous part of the plan was lost in translation, and the award collaborators stand revealed. Best to just own up and take credit for the plan. It wasn’t an extraordinarily well executed plan, it didn’t have any pomp or circumstance. But it was accomplished with the characteristic authenticity – blemishes and all – that I love so much about videobloggers. Congratulations to Ryanne and Verdi on your award, such as it is, and thank you for your immeasurable services to the videoblogging community. You are appreciated. We just wanted you to know.

Of course, this video made all the hours it took to make doll hair well worth it! I’m grateful to Jeffrey for remembering to mention that my mom helped make the dolls. And if Ryanne and Verdi want a graphic to show off their award, here it is:

I made some screen grabs of a few of the participants during the Vlog Global Flash Meeting hosted by VlogEurope on October 18, 2008.

View Larger Map

I don’t see myself finishing out VloMo. I’m not making quality posts with any kind of thought to them this time around. I’m not enjoying what I make, and it shows. I can either finish, or enjoy watching and commenting on other people’s work. I need to take some time off and evolve a little. So I’m going to go enjoy my holiday with my family without guilt, and I’ll catch you on the flip side. If I can do some halfway decent storytelling, or share a sweet or funny moment, I’ll post it, and there will be some sort of revamp in 2009, hopefully early 2009.

I’ll leave you with a nice thought from @brookhinton:

sticking with something that isn’t enriching you is rarely a good plan

Comments and video responses welcome. Talk to me.

Keep it in context, too. Check out the sites I mentioned:

• 12/11/07 EpicFU: rockband tips and tricks, santacon, seesmic
• VuGoesVegan: Promo Video and Vegan “TV Dinner”, Kinda
• Mahalo Daily: Watching Footbal as a Couple

Anyway, I was going to post something silly, but instead I decided to say thank you to you all.  I can always post the silly thing tomorrow. This month has meant the world to me. I can hardly believe I made a video every day for thirty days. Makes me wonder what else I can do. Let me tell you, that’s worth everything.

NaVloPoMo has been a pleasure. I’ll miss it, especially the increased watching and commenting, the back and forth that was going on between old friends and new. Maybe we can keep it up? I might try! Perhaps bi-weekly if not daily. I’ll see you on your vlogs, people!

We’re over the “hump” today. We know how to say “NaVloPoMo” and we’ve got this posting-every-day thing figured out! Keep it coming everyone! Vlog on!

These are some scenes from PodCampAZ. I truly stink at vlogging my own presentations (thank zod for everyone’s Flickr photos). I only got the very start of my Show In A Box session. But you can see what a fun day it was. I am thunderstruck with awe at how great a job Brent and Michelle Spore did putting this thing together. It was awesome and truly inspiring. Here’s to you, Arizona vloggers. As Clint would say, “Vlog on, bitches.”

It has the potential to be so great, but right now it only works because Rachel can afford the rent. Neither of us have the time to write grant proposals or run around marketing the thing with every breath we take. We’re just doing what we can, when we can.

I can feel the time we have slipping away already, even though we just started. What if I am not doing enough? What will we have to show for our efforts besides these little videos I’ve managed to make so far? Will I end up being a crappy partner? Will I let my friend down? Will I ever have more time and energy than I do this month? I worry about those things. But I’m just doing the best I am able. I don’t know how else to learn what does and doesn’t work.

Don’t worry, it won’t all be serious. I can’t do anything without at least some sarcasm.

2See opens its first community-built art show on Transitions & Change this Friday November 2 from 6 – 10 p.m. My work is being screened, along with videos by Wendy Hicks, David Howell and Mary Matthews. I’m honored to be in such great company! I hope you will stop by if you’re in town.

Yes, I am one of the gallery’s principals, and I helped gather the videos for the screening, but the final choices for what to screen were made by the community we’re building. Our experiment is working! This makes me happy.

If you’d like to come, get all the details here.

This is just the tail end of the videoblogging session I gave with Ryanne Hodson and Roxanne Darling. I told the participants I would put photos of what we wrote on the whiteboard up on my site, so here they are as promised (click for larger view).

Web Sites, Software, Equipment

Editing Workflow

More photos from this session are available over on my She’s Geeky Flickr photo set.

Oh! And for Windows users, here’s the free software that converts WMV files for playback on the iPod.

Gena Haskett, Robyn Tippins and I presented an Advanced Video Lab at BlogHer today. We touched pretty briefly on video compression before splitting into small workgroups covering storyboarding, lighting on the cheap, and editing tips to help the BlogHers kick ass at videoblogging.

I promised the attendees a handout covering basic video compression settings and a brief review of three software applications that convert video from one format to another. Here it is:

I have to apologize for not adding hyperlinks to the PDF file. I thought it was more important to get the document up quickly than to bell-n-whistle it up. When I get home I will do that, and replace the PDF file – at which point this paragraph will be displayed crossed out (strikethrough).

Coming ASAP, I’ll put up some video of my cheap lighting tricks.

The biggest thing people were surprised about was that I recorded the audio live (instead of using pre-recorded audio from a CD), and that I did it in only three takes. Actually I should clarify – I did three stationary takes for the audio, then three more to get the shots where the camera is moving around the singers (and those were without audio). The natural next question from a lot of people was “what mic did you use,” or “what was your audio set-up?” So here follows a list of the equipment I used and a description of the recording set-up. (Please note, if the product link is to a seller rather than the manufacturer, it’s not because I necessarily recommend that seller. Some manufacturer sites make you select a language before entering the site, and that messes up direct linking to their product sheets.) I’ll start the list with the mic and work my way back to the camera.

• Microphone: audio-technica AT831b omnidirectional lavalier mic, wind-screen ON
• 60ft XLR cable
• XLR to mini adapter: BeachTek DXA-4 dual XLR adapter (warning, link contains flash with audio)
• Camera: Panasonic PV-GS65 3-chip mini-DV camcorder
• Cheap .5x wide angle lens attached to the camera
• good stationary tripod or poor man’s steadicam or handheld for the shots
• and of course headphones from the camera to my ears to make sure I was getting something

And the arrangement for the 3 audio takes were with the camera stationary on the tripod, and the mic run up the branches of the mesquite tree and taped there with black gaffer’s tape to hide the wire from the camera. The mic was approximately centered between the two musicians and three feet above the singer’s head.

The audio you hear of a bird was just one that happened to be nearby during recording, and it chose that moment to jam with the band. The audio of the guns going off was from the camera mic on a handheld shot. We got permission from those guys to shoot video of them. They were actually out there doing it right – practicing gun safety and cleaning up after themselves. But we weren’t finding any gangstas or marine wannabes that day, and we needed something!

If you have more questions regarding the setup or any of the shoot, ask in a comment and I will answer there. Subscribe-To-Comments is now on by default, so deactivate it if you don’t want to hear back via email.

I’ll have to invent some kind of parable about the vlogging class that sings together…

And here’s a nice little graphic illustrating the videoblogging workflow I teach my students. You can grab a larger version over at Flickr, under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial license.

I’m posting everything here because the NMC conference is a for-pay walled garden that’s only available for 60 days. While this information will probably be out of date in a year or less, I’d still like it archived and available for reference to anyone interested in vlogging.

Click to Play

I bought a ten foot firewire cable and stuck my iSight camera out a window, rigged it to a tripod, and taped up the window in order to get a view of higher up the tree. There are two more of these to go, and I’m trying to figure out how I can record them to give a better view. Maybe my neighbor across the street will let me record from his house. There is no way I am taking my nice shiny new MacBook Pro outside during this stuff.

Again, this video is licensed as Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial, and the 640 X 480 version with attribution info is over at Blip.tv.

Almost every mayonnaise on the market is encased in plastic, and I’m sick of it. My husband is the type of person who keeps a spare of everything. We always have one jar of mayo in the fridge, and one in the pantry. Over the last year we have watched our choices of brand diminish as more and more of them switch to plastic jars.

We bought some mayonnaise in a plastic jar exactly once, when we had no other choice in the grocery store. By the time it went from our pantry to the fridge, three weeks tops, it had gone bad. It smelled, well, wrong, and we dared not eat it. Now, the only place I can get mayonnaise in glass jars is the local organic or health foods stores, where it is approximately twice the cost of regular grocery stores, at least here in my neighborhood.

Glass is better for two huge reasons. First, it isn’t permeable like plastic, and your mayo won’t go bad, at least not in the next several years. Second, you can reuse the glass jar for a long time, and then you can readily recycle it. (Phoenix only recycles #1 and #2 plastics, and not all plastic food containers are accepted.)

So one of my resolutions this year is to drop out of the mayo market. I am no longer a mayonnaise consumer. I am a mayonnaise creator.

Oh, and in keeping with another new year’s resolution, this video is compressed using the h.264 codec using the multi-pass setting, as per Freevlog‘s latest screencast. It’s still iPod compatible, and I can do it from my MacBook Pro.

Happy New Year, everyone!

Luckily, the press release generated some interest and was picked up by the Arizona Business Gazette. I was interviewed by reporter Alison Stanton on December 4, and her article was published yesterday. She was nice enough to email me and let me know.

I’m looking forward to Tuesday, January 2, when I can go see whether the article had any immediate effect on enrollment.

To get me back in the vlog groove, I’m going to vlog one Thing per day for five days, momentshowing style. On the last day I’ll tag some unsuspecting souls and spread the meme some more. Thanks for the motivation, Jan! Without further ado, I present:

Thing 1: I share pizza with my cat.

The class is based on Jen Simmons‘ course – many thanks to Jen for permission to adapt her syllabus. And thanks to Dale Doubleday, Art Department Chair at Phoenix College, for her support and forward thinking ways.