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 3 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

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

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

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

· Of the other 2 one must be either animated OR remixed

· Each student must produce a written "review" examining & contrasting the work of one of your peers and the work of one other video maker working on the net (a critical contextualisation). This should be between 800 – 1000 words and should be posted onto the vlog as an unpublished post by 2pm Thursday 17^th December.

· You will also actively publicise leedsvlog on the internet and in turn post comments on the work of other video makes who use a vlogging format. You’ll keep an online “diary” (max 100 words per day) which will give you the opportunity to evidence this activity and take ownership of the links that you have provided, comments you have posted and any publicity you have undertaken. This will be posted to the vlog as unpublished posts.

Grading guide:

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

Firstly a couple of things you absolutely *must* do on any Mac you’re working on ( check this every time).

(A) Show all file extensions. While Mac OS X hides file extensions by default, you can choose to show all file extensions, overriding the "Hide extension" setting in the "Get Info" window. To do this, click on the desktop to activate the Finder if is not already active and select "Preferences..." from the Finder menu.

Mac OS X Finder Preferences

(1) Then click on the Advanced tab in the Finder Preferences window as shown below:

Mac OS X Show All Extensions

(2) Finally, check the "Show all file extensions"

(A) Open QT Pro and go into QuickTime preferences –check “show legacy encoders”

Done that? Good! –now to business:

Make your video in one of three ways (or others –astonish me!)

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

Compress/Optimise/Upload

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 any 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. Here is a template post:

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

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

& this is what it looks like on the site:

templateimage

8. 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:

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:

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>

9. Copy the template post from here & then choose the WRITE tab –paste the template post into the body of the new post and give it a title.

10. Choose “save and continue editing”

11. Upload your poster image – click on the first icon after “add media” at top right of the box in which you write your post, then use the browse function to find your file

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

13. Check your spelling and grammar.

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

15. Hit “save and continue editing”

16. GO to preview –check it all looks OK

17. Let me know it’s done –I’ll check it over & then we’ll publish it.

18. 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/

also online:

‘guide to animation in Director’:

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

bookmark them now!