A call today from a local TV talk show producer looking to book me as a tech “expert”, alerted me to YouTube’s 5th birthday today (here’s my segment).  I wish I had known about the video streaming site’s public beta test back in May 2005 — at that same time, I was struggling to compress, upload and share clips from my documentary-in-production, Independent America: The Two-Lane Search for Mom & Pop using less user-friendly video solutions.  Today, that struggle to produce multimedia and share with the world is over.  And the easier it gets, the more we all have to fight for attention.

Oklahoma sixth-grader Greyson Chance didn’t have to fight too hard.  On April 28th, he uploaded a shaky video of his performance of Lady Gaga’s “Paparazzi” to YouTube (embedded above).  Two weeks later, he has 16 million views and counting, an appearance on the Ellen Show, and a rumored record deal (I’m actually intrigued that his amateur video has so many hits, while his more professional produced performance on Ellen has a few hundred thousand).

Blink and you’ll miss the latest digital media phenomenon story.  Wasn’t it Justin Bieber just a few weeks ago?  Susan Boyle last year?  And yet, there is suspicion about certain timeless forces of promotion and Big Media manipulation even in this Cinderella Story of amateur rags to mainstream riches.

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Throughout this quarter, Flip the Media will be featuring some of the best video projects from the winter Multimedia Storytelling classes.

“Molly Nordstrom talks about her 2009 Climb for the Community Experience” by Madeline Moy

The subject of this video was Molly Nordstrom, the current board chair of United Way of King County who participated in our 2009 Climb for the Community. In the video, Molly shares what it was like to climb Mount Rainier and participate in this fundraiser for people in need. The goal of the video was to get prospects for the 2010 Climb interested and excited about participating.

I shot it with a Kodak Zi8 and a JVC DV-500, used a Rode shotgun microphone for sound and edited with Adobe Premiere.

On the advice of fellow MCDMer and interviewer extraordinaire Ross Reynolds, I worked really hard to take Molly back to the moment of doing the climb up Rainier. And then once I got her there, I had her do most of the talking. My follow-up questions consisted mostly of “What happened next? And then what?”

I also learned to shut up and listen when interviewing someone. Let your subject do most of the talking and wait until he or she is completely finished before you chime in.

Microsoft recently announced that the consumer version of Office 2010  will soon be available for free: Office Web Apps. This might just make Google start sweating. If not, it should.

Let’s face it: given the choice between Google Docs and the polished, well-tested and universally approved Microsoft Office, which would you choose? Yep, Office. After all, then you know your recipient will be able to open, read and edit the document, know how it works and not have to sign up for any new account. Office is the industry standard. Now you can access the docs everywhere, without e-mailing them, carrying them on a flash drive or bringing your laptop to the site where you need your docs. You can log into any PC and get your stuff. You can get the docs on your mobile phone. It’s where you are when you need it. Read more…

Like blogging, vlogging (video blogging) is a way to share your insights on a subject with an online audience. However, vlogging goes beyond the text of a blog post, transforming your content into an audio-visual broadcast. If you’re interested in vlogging, but don’t know how to start, here are some tips:

The first thing you’ll need is the right equipment, and the good news is you don’t need much, just a camcorder or a web camera and a good microphone. Also, for a vlog that has a more polished look, you’ll want to learn how to use video-editing software. This will enable you to add music, subtitles, etc. to your vlog. There are numerous online programs like Wax or Zwei-Stein Video Editor that you can download for free. Also, Apple iMovie and Windows Movie Maker are both easy to use and come pre-installed on Macs and PCs.

Once you’ve assembled your equipment, I recommend experimenting. Test the sound quality of your microphone; make sure there is sufficient lighting where you’re recording your vlog and figure out how you want to look on camera. Remember that vlogging is a form of communication, so you want to not only be visible (no low lighting), but also intelligible. Most vlog “episodes” should be one to three minutes, keeping the amount of bandwidth needed to host them to a minimum. Therefore it’s a good idea to rehearse your content. At the very least, I recommend preparing a script or some type of plan before each video so that you can deliver concise, focused content. Finally, don’t be afraid to have fun with your vlog. Depending on your audience, you’ll want to be more than just informative; you’ll also want to be candid and entertaining. Like blogging, it’s important to pick subjects you love and can explore in a series of posts. One episode doth not a vlog make.

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Throughout this quarter, Flip the Media will be featuring some of the best video projects from the winter Multimedia Storytelling classes.

“Without A Clue” by John Stang and Terry Short

“Without A Clue” is a documentary about Jet City Improv’s production of “Clue” in Seattle. Footage of a live performance is complemented by interviews with the director and actors to show how the cast incorporates suggestions from the audience to spontaneously create the characters and plot for a two-act murder mystery loosely based on the classic board game “Clue.” In the film, the actors reflect on the rewards and challenges of the improvisational process.

We used three Canon Vixia HF S10 high-definition cameras and edited in Final Cut Pro. The audio for the interviews was recorded on a Sony PCM D50 digital recorder. We congratulated ourselves for taking the Sony along as a back-up because the shotgun mic that was our primary device failed after the first interview.

This was a good experience in shooting a live event in a crowded venue while having to be completely unobtrusive to the audience and actors. Since we couldn’t move around in the theater to capture the performance from various vantage points, having three cameras locked down and out of the way gave us a sufficient variety of perspectives.

Throughout this quarter, Flip the Media will be featuring some of the best video projects from the winter Multimedia Storytelling classes.

“Henry: Portrait of a serial muralist” by Ross Reynolds

The subject of the video was Ryan Henry Ward, an artist known for his murals found on automobiles, buildings, retaining walls, coffee houses and schools in Seattle. He was living in his car when he decided to make murals, first by finding blank walls and asking if he could paint something there. Today private collectors commission his work, and he can afford the rent to live in a shared house. He recently painted the wall of Value Village in North Seattle.

The goal of the video was to convey the vivid whimsy of his work while telling the story of his artistic life.

I shot the video with a Panasonic Lumix camera, recorded the audio on a Marantz digital recorder and edited it in Final Cut Express.

One thing I think I learned was what to leave out. I considered narration, music and interviews with other people, but in the end opted for the simpler elements of the murals and Ryan telling his story.

One of the most memorable moments of the 20th century — Apollo 11′s moon landing in July 1969 — was broadcast live thanks to some pretty spiffy video compression techniques.

We take video compression for granted today; I continue to marvel at how we can transmit live to the world from our smartphones and laptops, largely for free.  Live video streams are now a fundamental component of any communication strategy.

In our digital media masters program, we believe in communicating by sharing our ideas and discoveries through public events.  That’s what our very successful TEDx Seattle at the Pacific Science Center was all about (where as one attendee stated about our transformative “brains on trampolines” event “the space age met the digital age”).

But with all the multimedia communication platforms available to us, we now understand that the event itself is just the first step.  With TEDx we shared our speakers across space and time, by partnering with Livestream to share a live feed with the world, and simultaneously recording it for a YouTube video archive (watch all our TEDx Seattle talks here) — such as Cheezburger Network CEO Ben Huh’s inspiring presentation about his life’s goals:

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