Videoblogging for artists…

Context/Background

In the last few years there’s been a massive explosion of on-line video, most notoriously in the context of You Tube. Receiving slightly less publicity, but still giving rise to a significant amount of activity has been the rise of the video blog or vlog.

Simultaneously there’s been a mushrooming in the production of online video that is consciously  conceived of & presented as art – the sort of thing that formerly one would only see in a gallery. Some of this work overlaps with the vlogging phenomenon & some of it is archived on other, perhaps less dynamic, forms of web site.

We’re going to look, in a very practical way, at art video & we’re going to do it firmly in the context of vlogging. 

Why vlogging? –because it enables the kind of collectivity, interactivity and community that characterize the most interesting areas of the internet but also because it enables one to gather relatively quickly an interested and critical audience for one’s work .

Required

Over the period we’re working together each student will make 5 short single channel art videos (and your ability to understand and reflect critically on what distinguishes an art video from that of a skateboarding poodle will have no little bearing on your final mark. Of course it’s quite possible a skateboarding poodle could be art. Context is all).

You will be required to post these videos to the vlog which I will set up for you & you also will be asked to comment on the work of your peers and to do some publicizing of your work on the net generally.

Specifically (& I will define all terms clearly for you in class) each student must

  1.  

·       Make five short single channel art videos in QuickTime format of at least 3 minutes total duration (there must be five, must sum to more than three minutes).

·         At least one of these videos must be a  Lumičre ( don’t panic, I’ll explain, but see http://videoblogging.info/lumiere/     )

·         You must submit your Lumičre to the above web site and they must accept it ( as long as you have followed the rules, they will)

·         Of the others one must be either animated  OR performative  OR remixed  OR appropriated.

 

2.        

·       Demonstrate through the links section your knowledge and understanding of contemporary practice:

You must write at least 1000 words in comments on the work of others on the vlog. The nature of the comments will be technical, aesthetic and analytical ( ie not simply “wow, that rocks!” or some such.) This is the only written component but to score highly you need to have done some serious research.

  & “claim ownership” of links provided by you,  dialogues about the vlog on the net initiated/participated in by you & any other relevant evidence of self development,  in a short Word doc submitted to me by hand or e mail by the submission date)

To illustrate this concretely  –  let’s say you discover the amazing video work of Freda Vlogs on fredavlogs.org

 

·         You create a link on leedsvlog .org to her vlog

·         You leave a coherent, closely argued comment about a particular post on her vlog

·         Someone posts a further comment disagreeing with you to which you then reply.

·         You publicise leedsvlog.org on Rhizome.org –someone replies with their take on the work.

 

Your word document will reference all of these &provide links where I can track and assess this activity…it is not the  document I mark but the activity it “maps”…

 

 

Grading:

Highest pass  – your work is very  very  very good – I wish I’d made it & you have a staggering, almost unnatural,  grasp of the area as evidenced by your activity on the net around the vlog.

 

Scrape  –  you’ve done everything just about adequately. It’s all there , it all works, but it lacks originality, imagination and spirit. You show some understanding of the field but little initiative and no originality.

 

 

Check-list

1.       DV camera – Final Cut –export to QT

2.       Animation from stills or scans  – Director, export to QT

3.       Remix/Appropriate -  rework in QT, or export as images then re-animate in Director and re-export to QT

 

1.       Once in QT compress appropriately  and export to Sorenson 3, mpeg4 or H264; sound should be AAC stereo,  192 kbs should be ample.

2.       Ensure your sound/music is copyright free –either you made it or you can show me proof you have the right to use it. No exceptions.

3.       Make sure your movie is flattened and self contained -  choose “save as self contained movie"

4.       Export a single frame for your poster image, QT will export it as BMP file. Use Photoshop to re-save as a  240X180 JPEG no bigger than 15KB

5.       Upload your movie.

 

http://www.somedancersandmusicians.com/leedsvlog/upload.html

 

6.       Log in to leedsvlog:

Vlog location:

 

http://www.leedsvlog.org/vlog/

 

(log in is reached from main page)

 

7.       Go to the template post.  Here it is with notes, ie not part of it, in purple  -

 

 

Location of movie. Just change the last bit ie. the_perfect_human.mov becomes mymovie.mov:

 

             <a href="http://www.somedancersandmusicians.com/leedsvlog/the_perfect_human.mov" target="_blank">

 

Location of poster image. Wordpress will automatically use this location when you upload so, as above, just change the final bit to your image filename:

 

  <img src="http://www.leedsvlog.org/vlog/wp-content/uploads/the_perfect_human.jpg" height="180" /></a>

 

Title of movie size in kilobytes or megabytes, duration:

 

  <em>'The Perfect Human' 15MB 1 min</em>

 

Your accompanying text, with hyperlinks:

 

            The perfect <a href="http://videoblogging.info/lumiere/" target="_blank">Lumiere</a>

 

 

 

 

8.       Copy the template post (don’t overwrite it!)  & then choose the WRITE tab –paste the template post into the body of the new post and give it a title.

9.       Choose “save and continue editing”

10.   Upload your poster image – browse/upload

11.   Carefully keeping all the html intact insert your post details into the template.

12.   Choose categories for your vid –if an appropriate one is not listed then create a new one.

13.   Hit  “save and continue editing”

14.   GO to preview –check it all looks OK

15.   Choose a date and time for publication – the default is now – and hit PUBLISH.

16.   All this might look a bit daunting –it’s not intended to be so, just as comprehensive as I can be. Please ask me if you are uncertain about anything. If it’s not a day I’m in you can mail me at michael@dvblog.org   with leedsvlog in the subject line and I’ll get back to you as soon as I can.

Michael

 

This document is online at

http://www.somedancersandmusicians.com/leedsvlog/

bookmark it now!