The PAWS PSA Contest

The PAWS Public Service Announcement Contest has begun! The Advanced TV Production students each created their own PSA for the Detroit Bully Crew, C.H.A.I.N.E.D. Inc, or the All About Animals Clinic. We screened the videos in class with Ms. Akins' AP Biology students, and voted on our favorites. The top videos in each category were then uploaded to the Fitzgerald's PAWS Facebook Page.

Check out the videos on the Fitzgerald's PAWS Facebook page, and vote for the best one by "liking" it. The video with the most votes by December 16th will win a cash prize!!!

The P.A.W.S. Project Continues

Students in the Advanced TV Production classes met with representatives from local animal welfare organizations to hear about their mission and incorporate information into the public service announcements they are creating.

Last week, Michelle Way from the World Animal Awareness Society spoke to the students about getting the message about animals out to a large audience, and how to incorporate the best images & video into their projects. She gave them information about fair use sites such as archive.org and how to request permission to use other people's pictures and videos. Michelle will return next week to check out the progress on the PSA's and offer her advice.

Students also had the opportunity to hear from the Detroit Bully Crew, and meet their special spokes-dog, Tank. Tank's story touched the hearts of the class, and helped to motivate them to create awareness about the mistreatment of pit bulls, and all dogs. Tank was very well behaved and greeted every student with a slobbery hello. The DBC showed pictures of what Tank had been through and explained why they want to help in Detroit, and the importance of spaying and neutering our animals. They can't wait to see what the students come up with for their PSA's and allowed the students to use their website as a reference. They also gave every one of the students their own Detroit Bully Crew T-shirt which was so generous and thoughtful of them! What an amazing experience for our class!

What did you think of the presentations? Do you have any questions for WA2S or DBC? Any thoughts or comments you would like to share about the P.A.W.S. experience so far?

Advanced TV Production Field Trip

On Thursday, October 27th the Advanced TV Production class took a field trip to All About Animals in Warren. We were able to tour the facility and learn about what they do, in order to help them with our Service Learning Project called PAWS. PAWS stands for Promoting Academics with Service and allows our students to experience real-world application of skills they are learning in class in order to help out their own community. Due to the incredible problem with stray and feral cats and dogs in the Warren community, Fitzgerald staff has chosen this organization to donate their service to.

Advanced TV Production students will be creating Public Service Announcements, filming workshops at the clinic, and helping out with video services in any way the clinic needs. This pioneer project has inspired the students to create motivational music videos, filled with facts about Warren and Detroit's stray and feral animal problem. These videos will be played on the Fitz News Show to help inspire other students to join the PAWS program and also to educate our own community. Check out the pictures from our trip!

We will post updates of our projects throughout the year. What ways do you think you would like to participate? What do you think of the PAWS project? How can Fitzgerald help? What other organizations should we team up with in the future? Leave me a comment!!!

Video Blocks Competition

Hey everyone, as you probably know by now, earlier this year I entered us in the Video Blocks Editing Station Competition. We took a picture of one of our editing stations, entered it, then people could vote on which editing station they liked. We had so much help and support from students, teachers, staff members, friends and family, that we remained in the top 6 throughout the whole competition! After the final count... the results came in... and we took FIFTH PLACE with this picture:



Although we didn't win that brand new camera, we still won something pretty cool, free access to Stock Footage and Production Music! This will definitely come in handy! Out of over 300 entries, 5th place is great! I can't wait to enter again next year! Thanks again for all of your votes and sorry about the constant email reminders!

Check out the video blocks site by clicking here: Video Blocks. For information about how to access the footage and our member login, send me an email or find out in class.


I want to hear from you! If you know how we can do better next year, leave a comment with some ideas! Also, do you think next year we should use a picture of the whole studio, or was the minimalist effect better? Include your name in your comment please!

Seeing Double... Filming 3D Video

Last week the advanced TV students discussed 3D video. We are pretty much inundated with 3D movies, from children's cartoons to action-packed blockbusters, everything is offered with a more expensive 3D tag. But can we create these 3D movies ourselves? Do we need to purchase fancy 3D cameras? Or $150 3D glasses? We watched this tutorial which showed us that with just two similar cameras, and a unique tripod rig, we can create our own 3D videos... and even our own 3D glasses... check it out:



Now that we know we can do it ourselves, we discussed the future video project full of 3D wonder...look for it in the not-so-distant future!

We also checked out a professional video shoot using a few more tools here:



But of course, there is always the most expensive option, to purchase our own 3D, double lens camera!



This Panasonic beauty will only set you back about $20,000.... doesn't it look space-age?!
Is 3D here to stay? Will we always have to wear those glasses? Have you shot in 3D yet?
Leave your name in your comments....

Entering the Blogosphere

It seems hard to believe that people actually survived without blogs little more than 10 years ago. Where did one go to find another anonymous person's musings on hair gel and sandals? With the millions of random blogs out there it becomes increasingly important to ask "how can we know who to trust"? I've spent some time looking at various film and video blogs and have come up with a small but evolving list of a few blogs that I check on a semi-regular basis.

Slash Film
Up to the minute information on everything film. Find out what projects are in the works, what's releasing, what's been cancelled, and even a little humor to make it all the more relevant.
MovieWeb
Similar to /Film, often updated information about upcoming movie releases, including trailers!
On Videos
Although this blogger is now focusing on filming with his DSLR, his ideas and posts still provide relevant information to me and my students, creative ideas and some insightful connections. Unfortunately he doesn't post too often, check every few weeks for something new.
Video Producer Blog
From more of a tech standpoint, this blog delivers excellent production information and advice for the novice to the advanced. Again, not updated as frequently as one would wish.
Pixelriffic
Another cool techie blog, this one is updated monthly with good advice and software information.

What blogs do you read? Do you prefer a blog to update daily? If you were to write a blog, what would you write about? Can you find any other video production or film blogs that are relevant to our class? Happy Blogging! Share your comments for extra credit.

Interactive Music Video

Earlier this year we talked about the evolution of the Music Video into an interactive fan forum. Where will the future take us? In reflecting on the unique take on music videos, I came across even more surprises and formats than the unique Arcade Fire put yourself (er, your house) in the shot interpretation.

First, there's this: Bon Jovi is asking fans to create their own slideshows using Animoto with the promise to cycle through them on their live tour. Not only can you be a part of their music in your living room, now you can be a part of their music in front of thousands of people. Here's Bon Jovi explaining the contest:



There's also this: a fan tribute to Johnny Cash, a frame-by-frame music video that combines thousands of portraits from fans showing how the Man in Black inspired them. You can view the video in a number of ways, in an ever-changing and evolving body of work that has reached a large audience. Check out the documentary here:



So what do you think? I'll ask again... where is this taking us? How will this evolve, and what new outlets for artist and fan collaboration will arise? Will the interactive music video replace the high-cost over produced karaoke style of music video that we know and (love) today?

Everything is a Remix

A fellow Broadcasting teacher shared this video, and I thought it was too good not to pass along. Perhaps we will even debate this in class as well.

"Creation requires influence. Everything we make is a remix of existing creations, our lives, and the lives of others." What does that mean to you? Does a truly original idea exist? Does taking an already used idea and twisting it count as original? Watch the video and let me know what you think.

The idea is simple: that the idea is simple and most likely not original.
Many popular movies (including Avatar, Star Wars, and even Kill Bill) may be a little more inspired than you might have believed. Check out this video for a full breakdown. After the credits roll, stay tuned for more...

Everything is a Remix Part 2 from Kirby Ferguson on Vimeo.

Looking forward to reading your comments!

I just had to share this...

Usually I just "favorite" videos on the class YouTube Page when I find one that's relevant to what we're doing in class, or just stands out as cool or inspiring; and hope that you'll check them out, but when I came across this one, I wanted to make sure you had a chance to see it.

The short is called Tick Tock and was created by Ien Chi for a film festival at Emory. Chi says of his film: "Never have I put in so much effort into a single short film. This project is the result of hundreds of hours of work from many people. Originally made for Campus MovieFest, this film is definitely the biggest scale and most ambitious project I've ever done."

What's exciting about this video is its unique format, shot all in one take, then reversed for the final effect. Some more information about filming: "Filmed with a 5d mark ii camera with a 24-70mm lens on a steadicam merlin. We did 36 takes to get the right one. Morgan and I went running weeks before to get our cardio into shape for the shoot. Yes, the final film is all in one take. Everything was shot on the Oxford College of Emory campus."



What do you think? What are your initial reactions to the film? What can you incorporate into your productions? What do you think about the quote, did it surprise you in any way? How about the speaker of the quote? What critiques do you have? Compliments?

And for those who love to watch the movie extras on a DVD, here you will find the "behind-the-scenes":

Facebook Domination

If you haven't heard of Facebook, it may be time to crawl out from under that rock, dust off your 1993 Toshiba laptop and log in. In the past year, Facebook has reached an ultimate high - from it's Academy Award nominated "loosely based" film, to it's over 500 million active users - it has creamed it's competition and forced it's name into everyone's mouths. A place to showcase your vacation photos, check up on that ex-girlfriend or boyfriend, create "groups" that can organize thousands of demonstrators and overthrow governments or get funding to build statues in Detroit, play games, post your innermost thoughts, and yet you wonder... what else can Facebook do?

Good thing you asked! Introducing Facebook's newest venture...Video Rental Company! Er... ?? That's right, according to an article on businessinsider.com Facebook's movie rental experiment may be the future of media. As an "experiment" Facebook will be offering digital rentals of Batman: The Dark Knight through the site. Users can buy the rental with Facebook Credits, and Facebook takes a cut. This puts Facebook in direct competition with Hulu, Netflix, and other companies looking for a piece of the digital media pie.

The overall business strategy of Facebook is to have as much activity go through its social graph so it can take a tax on that activity, and give the businesses something back in return. For example: if games on Facebook go viral, Facebook takes a 30% cut of the virtual credits plus the millions in advertising for games.

So now it's your turn. I'd love to hear what you think about the Facebook Domination. With as many users as Facebook has, will it ultimately turn into a digital media GIANT that will gobble up the "lowly" competition? Have you seen the Blockbuster stores going out of business? Where do you think Facebook will "experiment" next?

The Power of Words

A teacher shared this with me a little while ago, and I just got a chance to watch it. What a fantastic video. This short film illustrates the power of words to radically change your message and your effect upon the world. He said "there is no better way to teach the importance of words than with this video." It is really beautiful how it is put together. Take a second and watch this short video and let me know what you think.

This short story winner of the 2008 Cannes Festival shows how the kindness of strangers can have a big impact. Film produced by Alonso Alvarez Barreda.

Subtitled Version (original)


English Version

Music by: Giles Lamb
Filmed by www.redsnappa.com
Director Seth Gardner

What did you think she was going to write? How did you feel after watching this? What other concepts like this can you think of? What message is this video trying to send? Why do you think now, more than ever, words mean so much? I'd love to hear from you!

Detroit Dog Rescue: Denied

Rapper Hush has reached over 50,000 views in just 4 days on a 4-minute video he posted to YouTube. His video documents the problem Detroit faces with stray dogs. With over 70,000 abandoned buildings, the city's stray dog problem has reached numbers exceeding an estimated 50,000 and continues to climb.

Teaming up with California producer Monica Martino (of Whale Wars and Deadliest Catch fame), the Detroit rapper intended to produce a 10 part series for the Discovery Channel that would shed light on this problem; raising awareness and funds to do something about this in a compassionate way. All of these intentions came to a halt when the city shut down the project.

Claiming the documentary series would shed a negative light on the city, the city also implied that dogs which should be considered dangerous and captured would be used as actors for the show. According to the Detroit Free Press, the proposed show would have spent $1.4 million in the city for production.

Hush and Martino now plan to continue to raise awareness through town hall meetings, and have set up an online site for donations and information at detroitdogresuce.com.

Take a look at the video and let me know what you think. Is the city correct in their statement that the potentially dangerous dogs would be used to "get a good shot" rather than actually being rescued in the series? Do you think that the controversy surrounding the issue is actually working to raise awareness more than the series itself would? How does this infringe on the idea of the media's "freedom"? Does the city actually have the right to say no? I'd love to hear your thoughts. Remember to include your name when posting.

The Lens Skirt

Check out this new gear! The Lens Skirt is an attachment for your camera that will allow you to shoot shoot timelapses and video through windows without the reflective issues that often show up.



The LENSKIRT is a portable, flexible hood which you attach to the end of your camera lens. The LENSKIRT allows you to shoot pictures and video through glass without internal environmental reflections such as people movement, room lights, camera flashes, light leak from under a door, etc showing up on footage.



The LENSKIRT seems reasonably prices, totally portable and easy to use. Simply attach the four corners of the LENSKIRT to a clean glass surface via the heavy duty suction cups. Setup your camera and insert the lens through the flexible opening. Tighten the enclosure and you are ready to shoot.

What do you think? Cool idea or waste of money? What other ways might you eliminate reflections when filming through glass? How have you dealt with this issue in the past or what might you do in the future? Have you ever shot time-lapse video? When might you use that? Remember to include your name in your comment for extra credit.