by Dave RileyWhile I still haven't got my video camcorder back from the proverbial shop I've been shooting video on my very simple digital camera (Read DIY info).
These units are about the size of a packet of cigarettes and will fit into a breast pocket.
They shoot video as well as still and have a crude inbuilt microphone which is tolerable to record audio with.
I've shot enough 'footage' for me to open my ownRatbagMedia internet TV station. I used a great new Blogger template to remodel one of my old blogs -- Life of Riley.
So I'm off on this wonderful videoblogging journey.
New look -- for new media!
To give you an idea of how sharply creative this medium can be and how accessible its tools are, watch this short video shot on a mobile phone:
Tropfest NY 2008 winner, Mankind Is No Island by Jason van Genderen.
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I'm fascinated with the almost haiku like quality of one minute videos formatted by The Lumiere Manifesto which can be viewed here. But when you get into the medium of videoblogging you are exposed to many creative options in way of pitching something to say within the space of one to 10 minutes of recorded digital time..
I think this is important because there is a lot of poor quality advocacy passed around as video on the left. It has to be about cogent and concise content -- not video for its own sake. It's as though there's this world in front of our noses (and cameras, cell phones...) but all we can think about is trying to ape the mainstream broadcast networks as we try to capture it.
Over at Yahoo groups there's an Videoblogging discussion engine room, originally set up by Jay Dedman which is well worth monitoring because it gives you a feel for the breadth of this phenomenon. Dedman is touring/lecturing here in Australia, he tells me, in May next year.
Dedman, like a few in the vlogging milieu, are Obama Democrats -- and there's no shortage of that kind of partisanship: liberal in its outlook . His partner, Ryanne Hodson, runs a highly respected video blog too. Her post on the day of the US election, recording her polling booth experience -- Yes we did -- captures the Obama phenomenon by deploying a few very short segments shot during the day.
All this reminds me of Walter Benjamin's insightful essay on 'new media' from the POV of his outlook in the 1930s:The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction.
Read it and consider....
