Words You Can Use: The BAVC BLOG

by Connie Hwong, BAVC Grants Manager

A couple weekends ago, I attended a Creative Commons 5th birthday celebration – one of many synchronized parties worldwide. Some of the biggest bashes took place within the same 24-hour window in Berlin, Belgrade, Bangalore, and beyond, and true to CC’s information-sharing philosophy, the organizers of smaller house parties and informal gatherings were invited to add their events to a publicly-accessible Creative Commons party wiki.

The SF party attracted several hundred bloggers, tech bigwigs, Internet geeks, music fans, and at least one very attractive, extremely well-mannered infant (didn’t hear him cry once during the entire night). For the music nerds in the house, the highlights included an intimate performance by tropicalia legend Gilberto Gil (one of the earliest adopters of the Creative Commons sampling license) and his son, Bem, followed by a dynamic dance set by aural experimentalist DJ Spooky. For the geeks in the house, the highlight was a keynote speech by Lawrence Lessig, CEO of Creative Commons, and an accompanying Powerpoint presentation by Joi Ito, the Chairman of the Creative Commons Board. (more…)

By Mindy Aronoff, Director of Training & Resources, BAVC

Missing Dexter
Contemplating free online classes at BAVC
Amazed at some people’s children on IMDB
Layin’ low thru xmas
Wondering how our new Python class for ILM will go
Lusting after a better digital camera
Anticipating The Wire
Wondering about

a kitty cam
Curious how I can clean my lap top monitor
Sick of the NY Times Sunday newspaper
Succumbing to thoughts about buying an HD TV
Worrying over my broken tooth
Excited about seeing The Savages

How’d you make out?

by Wendy Levy, Director of Creative Programming at BAVC

On January 21, 2008 at 12:30pm at New Frontiers on Main at the Sundance Film Festival, BAVC will be moderating what will hopefully be a memorable discussion about storytelling for next generation platforms.

In the current digital environment, you can’t really talk about “content” production or storytelling without also talking about funding, marketing, and distribution. Everything is wrapped up together, which is why it is so important to have the people who give or invest money, the people with the passion and skill for storytelling, and the people with the brain for technological innovation in the same room, next to each other, riffing off each others’ ideas and inspirations. (more…)

by Debra Schaffner, BAVC Senior Post Production Technician

Ever wonder what it would sound like to be inside the rib cage of a zebra carcass as vultures pecked away at the fleshy remnants? Well, wonder no longer! Chris Watson has saved us all the trouble of going on that particular safari and brought the sounds back for our listening pleasure.

For those of you who are not audio geeks like myself, Chris Watson is a world-renowned recorder of wildlife, atmospheres, and natural phenomena. His work can be heard in countless BBC wildlife documentaries as well as feature films. The UK label Touch has also released his recordings on CD. Vintage industrial music fans may even remember him as a former member of the English group Cabaret Voltare.

Mr. Watson was in town recently to play a show at Recombinant Media Labs with Florian Hecker. Lucky for me and other folks who could not get tickets to the sold out performance, Chris was kind enough to be the featured guest at the inaugural gathering of BASEbot, a listening salon and forum hosted by Bay Area Sound Ecology. (more…)

by Nooshin Navidi,
BAVC Development Associate

A couple of weeks ago BAVC held a work-in-progress “screening” of media projects from 10 BAVC fiscal sponsors and members. Each maker was allotted ten minutes of presentation/screening time and ten minutes of feedback time. As BAVC Director of Creative Programming Wendy Levy announced at the beginning of the night, the presentations were not meant to dig into the nit picky details of a person’s project, but really serve as a sort of “speed dating” for filmmakers — a time for quick, generous and substantive comments from fellow mediamakers. Judging by the great turnout and the quality of feedback shared throughout the evening, it seems as though this event is well on its way to becoming a regular event for members here at BAVC. In an era where technology has made working at home alone in the dark easier and easier, creating time and space to share projects with other makers and viewers face to face can be invaluable in shaping tight and engaging media masterpieces.

My “speed dating” re-cap of the 10×10 film and media projects presented . . . (more…)

by Debra Schaffner, BAVC Senior Post Production Technician

While most folks were spending the post-Thanksgiving weekend digesting winged birds, I was out in the desert filming creatures of the two-wheeled variety for TVmoto. Namely, motorcycles and riders taking part in the 24th Annual L.A.-Barstow to Vegas Dual Sport Classic.

Riders ranged in age from teenagers to guys in their 70’s and some traveled from as far away as New Zealand while Bikes spanned the decades from a 50’s Triumph to the most modern KTMs and BMWs.

To film the event, I teamed up with Joel Bloom of Oakland’s Fortitude Editorial and Paul Calder who rode in the event. When Paul is not out maneuvering his bike through desert trails, he can be found editing the animated series “Futurama.”

While I froze my fingers off interviewing riders at the 6am start gate, Paul took to the trails to freeze other body parts… and was accompanied by a really sweet new helmet cam called the POV.1. The great thing about this camera is that while other wearable cameras often limit the resolution to smaller sizes, the POV.1 records AVI video at resolutions up to 720 x480 and frame rates up to 30fps. The camera package also sports a remote control that can be mounted on the handlebars while the unit itself is safely stored away in a backpack. Media is recorded on SD cards up to 2GB in size. As far as audio goes, there is a built in mic but you also have the option of attaching an external microphone.

Next time I hope to hit the trails myself.

Watch a sample of the video here.

By Wendy Levy, Director of Creative Programming at BAVC

The roster of films chosen to screen at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival was announced last week, and as always, I rushed to see who I know, who I used to know, who has worked at BAVC, and so on . . .

This year, I was thrilled to see that local boy Brett Simon has a new film, ASSASSINATION OF A HIGH SCHOOL PRESIDENT (now called The Sophmore), that will premiere at the festival. From what I’ve read, it’s a “noir mystery caper a la Chinatown” set in a Catholic High School. Michael Rappaport, Bruce Willis and his daughter Rumer, and Mischa Barton star in the film. I’ve been a fan of Brett Simon from his days as a grad student at UC Berkeley — I showed two of his short films at the Film Arts Festival of Independent Cinema in 2001, the brilliant Counterfeit Film and Switch Fish. Brett moved to LA in 2004 and became a hotter-than-hot music video director – his work includes The Reason for Hoobastank, Somebody Told Me for The Killers and I Just Wanna Live for Good Charlotte, among many more. In 2005, we showed Brett’s collected work on video at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts as part of BAVC’s Digital Movies/Digital Culture series. In his short pieces, Brett’s personal visual style, vibrant use of color, dynamic framing – create really unique works-of-art. He’s gone mainstream, but he has deeply experimental roots. (more…)

by Angelo Sacerdote,
BAVC Media Arts Manager and Senior Preservation Specialist

I was online late one night trying to become a better concerned citizen, when I came across an interactive website called maplight.org. Basically, it takes the information from the Center for Responsive Politics and brings it to a new Web 2.0 level. On maplight.org, you can find out which special interests gave how much to which politicians and you can also view it in relation to bills that may have been influenced by these campaign contributions. One of the most stunning views is the time line view, where you can sometimes find spikes in contributions by interested parties shortly before or after key votes. Another neat feature is that you can add your own information that may not be up there, but unlike wikipedia, it is fact checked by their staff before it is published. The site is relatively new and seems to have some gaps, but as it evolves, it is sure to be a great way to visualize and confirm what you may already suspect about politicians and campaign contributions. Hopefully, this will inspire people to hold congress’s feet to the fire and make them accountable. (more…)