Words You Can Use: The BAVC BLOG

by Carl Weichert, BAVC Training & Resources Strategist

At the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) convention in Las Vegas this week, Adobe is previewing some exciting new functionality in the upcoming CS4 version of Premiere, its editing software – automatic transcription of the audio track of video files.

This is exciting in so many ways I could practically faint –

First, instead of sending off hours of documentary footage to a transcription service, you can now do it yourself.

Second, although not mentioned in the CNET article where I read this, I’m sure that it’ll be able to generate closed captioning and subtitles based on that transcription.

Third - Aargh, I’m so excited I can barely type anymore – as it says in the article, it will make video searchable by text while editing. No more shuttling back and forth looking for a particular word or phrase.

Fourth, this frame-based metatagging will not only be available while editing, but also in the finished product, making web video searchable by names or other terms. As the article says:

For example, a person could search a CNET video review for a product name and a specific feature, such as camera zoom.

All right, I’m going to go sit in a quiet corner of BAVC and hyperventilate a bit. Anybody have a paper bag?

By Alicia Schmidt, Marketing Strategist

Okay, so looking back, the folks at the National Association of Broadcasters(NAB) probably should have thought twice about asking a very famous, politically left, actor named Tim Robbins to give the keynote address at their 2008 show. Apparently, Tim decided against a planned “dialogue” on new media and instead launched into a humorous, expletive-laced tirade about the state of both the country and our media.

Sadly, I couldn’t find any video of dear Tim, but you can listen to his rant here.

Or you can check out other accounts of the day at Broadcasting and Cable.

By Carl Weichert, BAVC Training and Education Strategist

Adobe launched version 1.0 of its iTunes-style Adobe Media Player (AMP) this past Wednesday. AMP is an Air-based application that plays Flash video, either by streaming from the host site or by downloading the video. AMP checks for new episodes of user favorites and downloads them for later offline viewing.

For content providers, AMP offers a lot of control, using the Adobe Digital Rights Management Server. The videos online now are all advertisement-supported, but Adobe plans to add more options, such as paying to rent a video.

How does AMP compare to some of its competitors? In terms of picture quality, AMP delivers really good-looking HD video, and does it quickly. The only other online video service I’ve seen with comparable quality is Hulu. It definitely beats out Joost and some of the other sites I watch video on. In terms of content, it’s definitely lacking compared to other options – Joost and Hulu both have much more, and more varied, content. AMP has partnered with PBS, MTV, CBS, and other content providers to beef up their catalog, but right now, I’d say their strongest offering is Adobe TV, Adobe’s channel of instructional videos. (more…)

by Alicia Schmidt, BAVC Marketing Strategist

Okay, to be honest, this blog is going to be all over the place. That’s cause truthfully I can’t really wrap my head around all of this just yet, but here goes . . .

NPR recently reported that the world’s largest database on reproductive health (POPLINE, run by Johns Hopkins School of Public Health), has been blocking searches using the term “abortion” since late February.

Apparently a medical librarian at UCSF discovered the fact and contacted POPLINE. The folks at POPLINE told her that they had indeed turned “abortion” into a “stop” word – a word that is ignored by search engines – because they are funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development (hello George Bush?) and they cannot by law support “abortion activities.”

The UCSF librarian then complained to the POPLINE administrators AND sent out warning messages to her colleagues through a mighty librarian list-serv. After word spread, the administrators quickly restored the search term. (more…)

by Lauren Sorensen, Assistant Director / Film Traffic at Canyon Cinema
(special to the BAVC Blog)

This last week, I left my post at Canyon Cinema here in San Francisco to travel to the flickering lights of Greenwich Village, New York City to attend the Orphan Film Symposium, presented by my alma mater, NYU’s Moving Image Archiving and Preservation program, and more specifically, tireless advocate and orphan film superstar Dan Streible. The Symposium is a biannual celebration, film festival, and history lesson, attended by independent filmmakers, archivists, scholars, and many other fascinating folks from around the globe. In its 6th year, last week was the first time the symposium found its home in New York City; in past years the celebration-cum-symposium has been held in Columbia, at the University of South Carolina.

When I told folks I would be attending a symposium on orphan films, I (of course) got the question - what is an orphan film? This is not surprising, considering the categories scholars and artists normally have to work with are so limited — independent, documentary, feature, — and the like. The orphan film, however, is much more inclusive:

“Generally, all manner of films outside the commercial mainstream: abandoned by its owner or caretaker. More generally, […] all manner of films outside of the commercial mainstream: public domain materials, home movies, outtakes, unreleased films, industrial and educational movies, independent documentaries, ethnographic films, newsreels, censored material, underground works, experimental pieces, silent-era productions, stock footage, found footage, medical films, kinescopes, small- and unusual-gauge films, amateur productions, surveillance footage, test reels, government films, advertisements, sponsored films, student works, and sundry other ephemeral pieces of celluloid (or paper or glass or tape or . . . ).” – Dan Streible, NYU

This years’ conference covered the gamut of the ephemeral history of moving images, from preserved nitrate films found in the NYU’s recently acquired collection of the American Communist Party, to preserved 2-inch videotapes of late night religious television program “Insight,” (very appropriately produced by the makers of the Twilight Zone) from the UCLA Film and Television Archive. (more…)

By Wendy Levy, Director of Creative Programming

With continued support from the MacArthur Foundation, the Producers Institute for New Media Technologies will happen May 30 – June 8 here at BAVC in San Francisco. The new crop of projects coming into this year’s Institute are part of a documentary-driven conversation focused on finding and engaging diverse audiences, creating social and political networks of participation, the notion of global community, the viability of Web 2.0 social change, emerging mobile media applications, games for change, and interactive strategies for multi-platform storytelling.

Check out full project descriptions from the recent press release: http://bavc.org/meet/news/press_releases/pr_apr_08.htm

The first panel of the Producers Institute will be open to the public this year, and it revolves around marketing social justice media. The always dynamic and uber-literate B. Ruby Rich will moderate. I’ll follow up with details of the where and when, but here’s the panel description. We are hoping to see if its possible for change-the-world stories to expand You Tube sensibilities, to rock CreateSpace, to shock iTunes, to blow out XBOX. And, of course, we want to know if you can actually make money while making a difference?

SOURCING THE FUTURE: MARKETING AND SUSTAINABILITY FOR SOCIAL JUSTICE MEDIA ONLINE

This panel discussion will unpack how documentary, advocacy, art, and entertainment fit together, how producers can catalyze and scale participation in dynamic, interactive sites that integrate with and support their long-form public media projects, and the kind of partnerships and collaborations that must be made to support this work. What is the lifespan of public media online? How do we help funders seed and sustain these projects? What should we be doing now to insure the legacy and impact of digital media and video art for the public good? In a time when audiences are supporting documentaries more than ever before, can Darfur is Dying capture the market share of Grand Theft Auto?

We also have some fantastic mentors coming this year to work with participants. Check out the newest piece by Second Life Reporter Bernard Drax. Last year, he did a great piece of reportage on the virtual Guantanamo prison we built at the Institute (actually Nonny de la Pena, Peggy Weil, and Ben Cunningham built it).

This year, he’ll be teaching machinima, talking about community building in virtual worlds, and reporting on Producers Institute projects in Second Life.

Check back here for more updates on the Institute and blog from the participants as we move forward . . .

by Alicia Schmidt, Marketing Strategist

A couple of months ago, I wrote a post about how Radiohead was engaging its fans in new models of music distribution (the pay-what-you-want album release). They continue to push the mainstream envelope with their newest idea . . . the Nude Re/Mix.

Through the site radioheadremix.com the band asks users to pay (standard song prices) to download the separate “stems” (voice, guitar, bass, drums, and strings tracks) of their song “Nude” from iTunes. The users can take those stems and remix the song using GarageBand or Logic. If you purchase all five stems of the song, you get free access to GarageBand (if you don’t have it already).

Then users post their remixes back to the site, and the public gets to vote for their favorite. You can even download a widget for your Facebook or MySpace pages to encourage your friends to listen and vote.

It isn’t a contest per say since there are no prizes other than that oh-so-coveted web notoriety (the top ten mixes are featured on the front page of the site), and Warner/Chappell Music Ltd claims rights to all the remixes (this is a corporate model after all), but it does offer users a way to engage more deeply with Radiohead’s music. And as an amateur, I have to admit that it is kind of fun to play with the tracks of a song I probably wouldn’t have listened to twice. (more…)

by Carol Varney, BAVC Director of Development

Today’s blog post is brought to you by the serendipity that is the airport shuttle van. It was on such a van leaving the Sundance Film Festival for the Salt Lake City airport that I, by chance, met Lyle Hysen, founder of Bank Robber Music - an indie music licensing company. Lyle was at Sundance because he was one of the music supervisors for the film Choke, which screened at Sundance and was subsequently bought by Fox Searchlight (one of those “rare” success stories from Sundance this year. Or so they say).

On a recent trip to New York, I had the opportunity to sit down with Lyle at his office on Wall Street (according to the security guard at the front desk, the piece of art on the wall in the lobby cost $3 million, and she didn’t think it was worth it) to ask him about Bank Robber Music, how it started, and his thoughts on indie music in big and small budget features, television shows, and documentaries.

Before we started talking, Lyle warned me that our conversation would be full of swear words and that the conversation might sound a little disjointed, but I thought it all turned out ok. You can decide for yourself . . .

How did you decide to start Bank Robber Music?

Lyle: I was at Matador Records for 10 years running their publishing company and doing their licensing work, and when my wife and I had our first child, Charlotte, I realized that I wanted more flexible hours and to have screaming children as assistants. So I eventually left Matador to start my own company. I consider founding the company to be a post-birth hormonal decision. My very supportive wife encouraged the idea, and now I get to work with all kinds of bands and labels that I like.

(more…)

by A. Schmidt, BAVC Marketing Strategist

Ok, I’ll admit it. When I first heard about Twitter early in 2007 from Mindy Aronoff (BAVC’s Director of Training and Resources), I thought, SO WHAT. Sigh. Here is another ridiculous waste of time created by techies looking to create a new nugget of nothing special in hopes of getting snapped up by Yahoo, Rupert Murdock or Amazon.

Mindy and Andy (her partner in crime) twittered for about two days, and then the novelty wore off. At that time, I assumed that was going to be the way of Twitter – a passing fancy that would end when everyone got tired of drunk twittering. Then came an award at 2007 SXSW, and then the stories of how the news media and even the LA Fire Department were using Twitter during the California wildfires last year to send and receive immediate emergency updates from residents and firefighters. Fine. I admit it. I didn’t get it. I was naive, thinking inside the box, refusing to jump on the bandwagon for fear of the bandwagon.

(more…)

by Angelo Sacerdote, TIMA Manager and Senior Preservation Specialist

This past March 13th, I was fortunate enough to go to the opening of California Video at the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles with BAVC’s Development Director, Carol Varney.

We arrived early and were given a tour of the Getty Research Institute’s video vaults and preservation set-up by Jonathan Furmanski, who does all of the video preservation work for the Institute. About half of the exhibit came from the Getty Research Institute’s acquisition of the Long Beach Museum of Art Video Archive in 2006. Jonathan came up to BAVC around then and was given an intensive training by our former preservation specialist, Jon Selsley. Jonathan said he modeled their preservation lab after ours and used their preservation lab to work on many of the pieces in the show.

We met all kinds of people including our host, Glenn Phillip—the exhibition’s curator and senior projects specialist and consulting curator in the Department of Contemporary Programs and Research at the Institute. We also met Bill Viola and Kira Perov (whose work BAVC preserves), Skip Manning, Chip Lord and Doug Hall of Ant Farm. There was a re-creation of Ant Farm’s original video installation “Eternal Frame” which included Heather Weaver’s restoration of the video (which was featured in our preservation DVD, PLAYBACK: Preserving Analog Video). (more…)