Video DSLR's / Waiting

Usually, DSLR’s only shoot still images. But recently, they’ve started shooting videos too. The Canon 5D Mark II is so far the best – it shoots HD video, with full color and exposure control, and it lets you zoom and focus while shooting. It’s so good, in fact, that independent filmmakers are using it to shoot films.

The only problem, though, is that the audio is weak. It only has one input, so if you want high quality or surround audio, you have to use a separate audio recording system. Plus, it’s a very expensive camera.

It’s tempting to buy one right now, just because the idea of having two in one is so much fun. But the quality of the recording isn’t good enough yet. This is still a brand new medium, and it needs to improve a little bit first. It’s still in its “beta” stage. Sometimes it is better to wait for a new gadget to improve than to buy it when it’s brand new. Otherwise, you get stuck spending a lot of money before you get the item you really want.

DJ Paige Railstone

DJ Paige Railstone is an underground DJ and singer/songwriter who became popular in 2003. Her musical style includes rock, country, alternative, and hip-hop, and she plays guitar, keyboard, and piano. But she has never been on TV or in a movie, and she refuses to play in public.

DJ Paige Railstone's mashup of Verve and Eminem

DJ Paige Railstone is not real.

There is a website called 20Q.net which asks twenty questions, then guesses what you were thinking of. If 20Q can’t guess, then it asks you what you were thinking of, and your answers are stored and used to enlarge the database. The Nerdfighters wondered if they could make up a person and have 20Q guess correctly.

So they invented DJ Paige Railstone. Paige is the Nerdfighter who came up with the idea to trick 20Q. Railstone anagrams to “is not real.” A list was made of everything about DJ Paige Railstone, and distributed online to all Nerdfighters. They played 20Q, and eventually, tricked the game.

 There is something inherently fun about tricking something, in figuring it out. The Nerdfighters collectively did this to the game 20Q. For them, the game was to trick the game. They didn’t play the game the way it was intended – they made their own game out of it. This is an example of how everything can be made into a game, depending on the view of the people playing.

I wonder if the makers of 20Q anticipated something like this when they built it.

Audiosurf

First there was surfing. Then there was Surfing USA (Beach Boys). Then we could surf the radio, then the TV, then the Internet. Now we can Audiosurf.

Audiosurf.com is a website based around a game. To play, you upload a song you like, then Audiosurf turns the song into a playable game level.

The game is very simple. You are in a glider, going along a colorful track at a speed relative to your song. As the track twists with the music, you try to catch colored blocks and avoid grey ones. The level intensifies as the song intensifies, and it gets easier when the song gets lighter.

Audiosurf is a fun twist to games like Guitar Hero and Rock Band. What Audiosurf has over them is that it allows you to use any song you want.

Audiosurf gameplay to I Fight Dragons' The Faster The Treadmill

iTunes gives you a thirty second sample of a song. But who can tell from thirty seconds if it’s a song they want to buy? iTunes is not the place to find new music, and it definitely does not help people who are just starting out.

Bandcamp is the place for that. Their philosophy is: you can’t sell your music if nobody has heard it. The header from their website gives a great description: “Viral distribution. We give your fans drop dead easy tools to share your music with their friends, and most importantly we do it in a way that drives traffic back to you.”

On Bandcamp, everything is free. You enter your username, email, and bandname. Then you upload songs. Every song can be listened to in full, in high quality, for free. Then, you can sell your songs in any format (Bandcamp does it for you) at whatever price you want. Bandcamp makes spreading and selling your songs very simple.

This is definitely a great resource for independent musicians trying to get into the music industry. Every other creative medium has a way of getting itself out: vloggers have YouTube; bloggers have Tumblr, Blogspot, etc.; photographers have Flickr; artists have Deviantart… Musicians didn’t have anything until Bandcamp.

IMeem

I would just like to take a moment to mourn the loss of a great friend… *ahem* I mean website…

IMeem was kind to all. It gave everyone the opportunity to listen to anything that anyone else uploaded. It didn’t discriminate; it didn’t force you to have a membership. Its music search engine was fabulous, and its interface was sleek. IMeem was the best free online music player around.

But then it sold out to Myspace, and Myspace changed everything. The sleek interface was replaced by Myspace’s slow, clunky one. Songs are no longer uploaded from everywhere, but gathered from Myspace music players – that means no more rare songs, no more covers. The playlists are supposed to be up in a few days, but who knows what’s changed about them.

Why did IMeem sell out? It had a good thing going. It was becoming big. It could have made it on its own. Why did it sell out so soon? Oh IMeem, didn’t you know? The way to sell a website is to wait until it becomes big enough to stand alone. Wait until it is popular enough that when you sell it, nothing will change. And if you were forcdd to sell out due to copyright violations, you should have known better.

Oh, IMeem. You were a great website. You are already missed.

VidCon

John and Hank Green sure are busy – but they’re professional bloggers, so this is what they do.

This year, they are creating a brand new conference for people who are big on YouTube. It’s called VidCon. It will be held in Los Angeles in January 2010. The conference costs $40 per night and runs for three nights. Lots of the top YouTubers are already confirmed on attendance.

New Media is about new things in the world that are influenced by new technology. Five years ago, a conference based on YouTube would have sounded crazy. But now that YouTube is as huge as it is, and since it has had huge effects on some peoples’ lives, a conference about it seems like a great idea. This is what frequently happens in New Media – things change so quickly that within just a few years, an idea can sound completely stupid and then completely brilliant. A conference about YouTube is one of those things.

Wes Anderson / Style

Wes Anderson is the director of three of my favorite movies – Bottle Rocket, The Royal Tenenbaums, and The Darjeeling Limited. I can always tell when I’m watching a Wes Anderson film because has his own very distinctive style.

1. Most of the shots are extremely wide-angle, showing the barrel distortion from the lens.

2. Most of the shots have a peculiar symmetry.

3. The camera’s movements (when it even moves at all) are very smooth.

4. Every movie has its own color scheme. This color scheme repeats in every scene, all throughout the movie.

It is always a good idea to have a distinctive style (or two, if you’re like Nate Williams). Being consistent with yourself and following the rules of your own design style can help you become more recognized – this helps when looking for jobs or when looking to become well known. All of the great artists (both centuries ago and now) have their own distinct styles. And since film is an art form, each director should have his own distinct style too.

What I love about Wes Anderson’s films is that his style is absurdly recognizable. His style is tremendously different from typical Hollywood films and even from other independent films. His style is by far the most distinctive in the industry right now.