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I remember watching Errol Morris’ Vernon, Florida for the first time and thinking about how everyone can be compelling if you can just figure out how to get them to talk about what’s interesting to them.
I’ve always loved watching Errol Morris’ interviews. He has no problem using extremely long takes of someone just talking. These days it’s almost bizzare to see such long stretches of footage, unmolested by edits.
I love this bit of philosophy on picture-taking from Vernon…
I think YouTube is icky and creepy and commercial-y. I think the site is ugly and their compression is for crap and I try to avoid it at all costs. But when I started my position doing media production, it was the only video sharing site I really knew about, so I started uploading our videos there. However, after a little research, I came across Vimeo. Right from the welcome page, the look and feel of Vimeo is completely different from YouTube. The site’s design is thoughtful, sleek, and very user-friendly.
Despite it’s rapidly expanding size (280,000 users and growing strong), Vimeo manages to cultivate a tightly knit community feel. Vimeo was created by people who make videos and who were not satisfied with the existing video sharing sites. They have a real presence on the site and I think that really contributes to the sense of community.
After signing up for a free account, you can create groups based around certain subjects and participate in all kinds of ongoing discussions and forums. You can also make contacts and subscribe to other user’s videos. You’re allowed to upload 500 MB per week. Uploading is easy, and the image quality far outshines YouTube and Google Video. Vimeo has higher bitrates and better resolution than either of those sites, and it shows. Vimeo also offers HD support, which neither of those sites do (yet. I’m sure they will and I’m sure it won’t look as nice and shiny).
I emailed Vimeo with a technical question when I was getting started, and I heard back from Mr. dalas verdugo (he insists on using those lower case letters), Vimeo Community Director, literally within five minutes. (Side note: I have a kind of internet crush on dalas- it might have something to do with his unruly facial hair. Check out his site , if you want to care about my internet crushes.)
So, in summation, Vimeo is the best. You should use it. I set up an account for library videos, plus I have my own personal account. I also recently (yesterday) started a lovely group on Vimeo called “Vid4Libs,” or “Video for Libraries”. I thought it would be nice to kind of round up all the video-producing library folks out there and create a place for us to share videos and exchange ideas. Come hang out with us at .
P.S. Here’s a good picture of dalas:
I stumbled across this site the other day- it started in 2006. Took me a while.
is a project conceived by media artists Jonathon Harris and Sepandar Kamvar. The system they created routinely searches recent blog posts from all over the world for the phrases “I feel” and “I am feeling”. The result is an interactive database displaying thousands of these “feelings” as they are posted. Other data harvested from the blogs such as the poster’s age, gender, location, and current weather conditions are also integrated.
From the site:
At its core, We Feel Fine is an artwork authored by everyone. It will grow and change as we grow and change, reflecting what’s on our blogs, what’s in our hearts, what’s in our minds. We hope it makes the world seem a little smaller, and we hope it helps people see beauty in the everyday ups and downs of life.
The interface is beautiful- the “feelings,” like hybrid lightning bugs/fruity pebbles, race around your screen and cling to your mouse as you move it. Of course I’m always the voyeur, so I found it pretty interesting to be able to catch these glimpses of nearly real-time thoughts and emotions.
Here’s my contribution:
I feel kind of fuzzy-headed today because Pema was making little noises from about 3 o’clock on, and I’m a very light sleeper. Besides that I feel pretty awesome- the weather is perfect and I’m thinking about taking P to the zoo this weekend. She’s never been.
How do you feel?
In December of 2001 I moved from Kansas City to to live by myself and make a film. I stayed in a house my grandparents built when they retired in the 1970’s. The house sits far back on a county road on 80 acres of forest. When I was younger my family would gather at the house for Thanksgiving, the Fourth of July, and other occasions. My grandparents got older and we realized that they couldn’t stay there by themselves much longer. The house was too far from town and they needed someone to check on them every once in a while. My grandma fell and hurt her hip, and it took a long time for the ambulance to arrive. They finally moved to Pawhuska, Oklahoma to be close to my aunt.
My family wasn’t sure what to do with the house. At first my grandparents thought they would sell it or rent it, but it had so much of our family history bound up in it that it was hard to imagine anyone else living there. Finally my dad decided he would buy it. He still lives with my mom in Oklahoma, but they go to the house to maintain it and just to relax now and then. My aunt and some of my cousins stay there sometimes, too. My grandparents have since passed away.
I lived alone in the house for four months. When I got there I wasn’t totally sure what I was going to make a film about. I had received a grant to work on the film, and in the grant proposal I said it was going to be about chicken farmers. I did actually interview a chicken farmer but I was more interested in what it was like to live in Huntsville and what the farmer knew about my grandparents.
After a few weeks I started to feel very lonely. I was getting a lot of reading done but I was craving more human interaction. I decided to try and find a job. I started working at the Sonic in town, and that’s where I met Jere. We started hanging out and I told her I wanted to interview her. At first she didn’t want to be interviewed because she was very shy and didn’t think she could do it. I waited a little while and then asked her again, and that time she said OK. I interviewed her in the room she shared with her husband, Trent, which was on the second floor of Trent’s parents’ house. I was grateful to her because I know she was nervous. This is her interview. The video in it’s entirety is called House in Season.
P.S. My little sister did the music.
