Distributed Production

I’ve been working as an artist for about 16 years now and in that time I’ve collaborated with dozens of people. But it wasn’t until I started using the virtual world, Second Life, that I started to work with people that not only lived in different cities than me but whom I’d also never met in person. Then I started videoblogging and I became friends with many more people from all over the world who I only knew through video, email, IM and Skype. Suddenly, collaborating with anyone on the planet became very possible. And over the last two and a half years not only has it been possible, it's now my daily life as everyone I work with lives in some other time zone.

The one person I work with the most is Ryanne Hodson. Together we run Freevlog, wrote the book Secrets of Videoblogging, and in collaboration with others, started NODE101 and produced the Vloggercon conference. All the while I've lived in San Antonio and Ryanne has moved from New York to San Francisco.

One of the projects that we initiated that I'm most proud of is getting the tutorials on Freevlog translated into Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, German and Japanese. The cool thing about that was that the volunteers who did the translations for us are literally scattered all over the world. What made that collaboration easier was SpinXpress. We were able to create a private group where the translators could drop their audio and video files at any time. Often this was when Ryanne and I were offline or asleep. The way SpinXpress works, the files would be shared with the other people in the group who where online. And then when we were back online, we would get the files from them even if the original person to share the file was no longer online. How cool is that?

That translation project got me thinking of other ways to work with people. That's where Second Life comes in. One of the neat things about Second Life is that you can be in the same "place" as someone else clear across the planet. The other neat thing about Second Life is you can use it to make movies. Aha! By combining the distributed production method we used on the Freevlog translations with the virtual world real-time collaboration of Second Life, I can now create projects that combine the talents of people all over the world as if we were all in the same physical place at the same time. Instead of being limited by realities of geography and time zones, I can choose my collaborators without regard to where they happen to live.

So I've started a new videoblog called When We Were Robots that is shot on location in Second Life. I'm really excited about it because I get to play with some sci-fi ideas I've been kicking around for a long time and I get to work with people all over the world. So please check out the first episode and don't forget to come back here because I'll use my posts on SpinFlow to document the successes, failures and lessons learned from putting it all together.

Moving Digital Media to the Web

NYC Videobloggers
Location: New York
Gig: Videoblogging Workshops
Site: archive.org and others (see article sidebar)

Click the picture to watch the video.

Something special in the world of digital media and self-expression is happening in New York and across the globe.  A revolution in communication has started.  People are videoblogging.  That's taking digital video and posting it to your web site or blog.  Art, comedy, rants, personal stories and current events are just a few of the things people are vlogging about.

One group of creative professionals is taking this revolution to the streets through a series of workshops aimed at helping people learn to vlog.

Article Links

• fluxfactory.org
• freevlog.org
• Michael's Weblog
• Jay's Weblog
• Ryanne's Weblog
• OurMedia
• Internet Archive
• Vloggercon 2005

Jay Dedman, Ryanne Hodson and Michael Verdi are sharing their time, vision and knowledge to help people publish their own digital works online.  This last weekend, they held the first of a series of hands-on workshops at the Flux-Factory in Queens covering the essentials of video blogging.

Even better, they have produced a short video about the workshop and we have  permission to showcase it here on SpinFlow.

Workshop topics included publishing videos to the Internet, a topic of real interest to SpinFlow readers, as even moving small videos on the web can be a real challenge.  Choosing the best compression settings and finding a place to publish your videos without incurring extra bandwidth and storage charges are important topics to videobloggers.  That's where resources like the Internet Archive and OurMedia.org come in handy.

Besides the workshop and video (as if that were not enough), Micheal Verdi has led the development of the freevlog.org site where you can find a great tutorial on videoblogging.  Delivered in a blog format, this important tutorial makes innovative use of Flickr to walk readers thru the major steps in setting up your own vlog.  I used the tutorial when setting up the feeds for this site and my own.

What's next for this inspiring team of individuals?  Ryanne says that they would like to make a video version of the freevlog.org site tutorial.  We're so excited about the idea that we are sponsoring part of Ryanne's work (and Michael too real soon) with a SpinFlow project grant.  I can't wait to see what they do next.

So check out the video, the freevlog tutorial and assorted member blogs listed in the sidebar.  Part II of the technology initiative workshop is scheduled for May 1st and I'm told there will be more workshops scheduled in the future (if you are lucky enough to be in the NY area).

Want to learn more about videoblogging?  Check out the Vloggercon2005 site (see sidebar) for more videos about videoblogging.

Moving Digital Media for the Video Pro/Producer

Philip Bernosky
Location: Saratoga, CA
Gig: Marketing VP
Site: bernosky.com/marketing

Click picture to view newly edited video in Windows Media Player.  Click here for older QuickTime/MPEG4 version.

After selling Intel on utilizing open-source, peer-to-peer tools to manage a massive multi-media project, Phil Bernosky served as Program Manager, guiding production of a product connectivity demo introduced by Intel President Paul Otellini, during his keynote address to more than 4,000 attendees at the Oracle OpenWorld conference.

“Intel is a very process-oriented company: they like thorough planning and flawless execution. So when we approached the company with a solution, they quickly saw that our peer-to-peer technology might be particularly helpful in the management of a large scale multi-media project they were planning for Oracle OpenWorld 2002, just 6 weeks away," said Philip Bernosky, the then-Vice President of Marketing for Outhink. Intel’s goal was to demonstrate a new microprocessor application for mobile computing that would provide wireless connectivity across the Internet. The presentation would aggregate film, video, graphics, text, music and special effects across a variety of computing platforms, from desktop servers and PCs, to notebooks, PDAs, cell phones and other wireless handhelds.

To produce the demo, a large group of creative, technical and management people, scattered worldwide, were assembled into a virtual team. “The problem the team faced was finding a secure, dependable way to collaborate,” Bernosky said. “ Everyone was on different hardware, software, operating systems and applications—and in different time zones; and they needed to share all kinds of rich files—fast!”

Intel team leaders procured Outhink's collaboration and file transfer software for a group of core team members. “Almost immediately, they were exchanging schedules and timelines so easily that they began adding more team members, including producers, videographers, composers, graphics and special effects artists to their peered groups. “The huge files really started flying!.” Phil says. “There were able to collaborate easily and securely share files they’d have otherwise had to post to FTP servers. They had no problems crossing firewalls or proxies, and they didn’t have to involve IT to move materials around. And most importantly, everyone was on the same page—they all knew what was happening and when.”

The Intel President’s presentation went forward without a hitch. In fact, in commenting on the demo, Otellini said, “The Outhink technology, and other internet-enabled applications, are the wave of the future. They’re the next ‘big thing.’” Phil says the feedback from the project team was glowing. “Even the team skeptics told us, ‘We’ve never had a project go this smoothly.’ We were able to manage it to the level we wanted.’ ‘We would certainly do it again!’ For me personally, it was a wild, but wonderful ride.”