“Next To Heaven’s Rob Parrish retires to his video laboratory and downloads public domain films from http://www.archive.org. He then writes and records short monologues based on the images from the films, and then re-edits the films to the newly recorded narrations. The result: Unique short videos (aka “video bonbons”) that are full of flavor!”
via NewTeevee
“iChannel is a collaborative web series about a young man who has his life magically taken over by an audience… YOU. Our goal is a compelling original series where the audience can interact with the creators and the show’s characters in unique, unprecedented ways.”
What I really like about this interactive web-series is it’s ironic and humorous tone. In the first episodes the protagonist is really scared by the audience influencing his life but later on he even asked them for advice.
The second part of the Video Vortex Conference initialized by the Institute of Network Cultures will take place on January 18th and 19th in Amsterdam. Registration has opened!
In response to the increasing potential for video to become a significant form of personal media on the Internet, this conference examines the key issues that are emerging around the independent production and distribution of online video content. What are artists and activists responses to the popularity of user-generated content websites? Is corporate backlash imminent?
After years of talk about digital conversions and crossmedia platforms we are now witnessing the merger of the Internet and television at a pace that no one predicted. For the baby boom generation, that currently forms the film and television establishment, the media organisations and conglomerates, this unfolds as a complete nightmare. Not only because of copyright issues but increasingly due to the shift of audience to vlogging and video-sharing websites as part of the development of a broader participatory culture.
One Band, One Song, One Shot!
The Take Away Shows are a video blog by Vincent Moon. He meets a band for an our and they record a song onetake. It’s not about shooting a technical perfect music video, but about the authentic atmosphere of the recording. I think it’s a perfect concept for a video blog, it’s short, it’s simple but intelligent, it’s informative but entertaining.
Vincent has done over 70 shows. Some of my favs besides Final Fantasy are Beirut and the Arcade Fire.
Quaterlife, the most expensive exclusive web series up to date, has aired the first two episodes.
In terms of narration and acting it I think it’s really awesome, it’s setting new standards for web fiction formats. I`m agreeing with Karina Longworth from NewTeevee that the basic idea of one of the main characters talking about his flatmates’ lives on his blog seems a little odd. It’s not very interesting to see the main character explaining everything through voice over while you actually see it in the acting yourself. Leaves only little room for your own interpretation and makes the plot very predictable.
But moreover, I think the series will become very popular. As I said, narration and acting are to the point. Especially the male and female protagonist will catch the attention of the mySpace audience. This coming-of-Age theme, struggling between your big dreams becoming an artist and your everyday (love)life has always worked. Why should it fail this time.
See Episode 2 here.
“VideoDefunct is a Collaborative Research project by Seth Keen and Keith Deverell, with the aid of David Wolf at RMIT University Melbourne Australia. The project is an experimental work that focuses on producing a hybrid form of video blog. Currently as a work-in-progress, a number of prototypes are being developed in the open source blog publishing system WordPress. A key objective of the project is to explore the way video is presented within the structure of a blog from a ‘poetic’ perspective.”
MySpace airs a new exclusive web series today. It’s a co-development with Iron Sink Media which, according to MySpace, was developed with the MySpace audience in mind.
The series follows the lifes of 8 friends after their graudation from college. All the characters from the series communicate with the audience through vlogs and mySpace profiles, moreover the fan community will have the oppurtunity to affect the storyline.
I have to admit, that the first webisodes looks very boring. The concept seems to be mainly about showing some beautiful girls fighting each other. But have a look yourself.
via NewTeeVee.
“An intimate look at a place where time is measured not by the movements of the sun but by the rumbling of the el train. Philadelphia, Front St./Kensington Ave.“
Shadow World is a Vlog by David Kessler similar to 1000 Stories, although is concentrating on a very local area around his neighborhood. He is collecting short interviews with people living arounf this area.
I think there is whole new category of web video content developing, somewhere between documentary and private diary, very intimate, very raw, very direct.
Via Ticklebooth
The Blog/MySpace-Widget of German female rap-artist Sabrina Setlur is a conceptual mix of an audi/video guestbook and a fan mashup/remix of her current single (probably becoming the worlds longest music single ever).
1000 Stories is a project by Florian Thalhofer and Mark Simons.
Starting in New York on October 1, Florian Thalhofer, a new-media artist and documentary filmmaker from Berlin, will travel all over the United States by motorcycle (generously provided by BMW), while U.S. filmmaker Mark Simon will travel throughout Germany by car. During their month-long journeys, each filmmaker will write about his experiences, collect stories, and conduct interviews, all of which will be posted daily at www.1000stories.com � their video log.
Their route will be determined by interested folks in the U.S. and in Germany who reply to their �Americans wanted�/ �Germans wanted� ad on the web. Readers are invited to get in touch via www.1000stories.com to suggest itineraries and potential interview candidates and to comment on the project.
via Seth Keen.