RSS feedStill looking for whales, in the town of Sale…
Sitting on a bench in Melbourne, 900 Kms away, with only a motorcycle to help us get home.
And so Josh remixed my last video, which was a remix of Zadi‘s Giuliani video. Yeah, I like it better this way.
What started out as a simple remix of Zadi‘s recent video Giuliani Back in the Day…, turned into an exercise to test my audience in the U.S. but I didn’t take it far enough.
I don’t see what the U.S. media presents to the U.S. populace about the rest of the world, but I’m guessing it is a facade, a big xenophobic filter, misrepresenting to Americans this false world in which we foreigners either yearn for the American lifestyle, or wish to burn it to the ground. Although this seems to have changed a lot in the U.S. since 9/11, as Americans start to see how the rest of the world has always perceived them.
We all have our cultures, our lifestyles, our worldly views, just like America does. However we also have independent community radio, we have a national public (and government funded) television broadcaster whose sole mission is to connect us audiovisually with the rest of the world, and we are a multiculturally diverse nation. Our perception of the U.S. is one of how do we knock some sense into America, and help her integrate peacefully with the rest of the world.
I’ve met a lot of good American people over the years, both online and during my many trips to the U.S., some of whom are reading this now. I so wish you could see what we see, and could have what we have. Hang in there, with our new media, the revolution is coming.
Update: David commented that I was basically full of it. He implied Zadi’s video said the same thing, and I should be concentrating on the same issues here in Australia. Well, Zadi’s isn’t the same, she posted the entire speech as a video of record. Those with the patience to view it in its entirety, are mostly likely already the converted. It’s such a great video, I just wanted to pull out the bits that were key to me, and pop those into someone’s ANT queue to see before they could skip over it. I was going to add a closing soundtrack, NoFX’s song “Murder the Government”, but that and several other changes just took me back 30 years to my youth. Maybe David’s right in another way. By not making the video I had originally planned, I’ve conformed to the censorship and risk aversion that I’m typically against. Make a comment, I’m interested in your thoughts.
Some quick thoughts on the meetup, once I got back to the hotel.
I’ve been doing the lights for a show recently, and I haven’t really had time to sort through my Melbourne trip footage. Almost two weeks on, and this is the closest you’re going to get of that first meetup.
It was really dark, and while I did take a full lighting rig with me, to satisfy our light sensitive videobloggers, the pub wouldn’t let me set it up. Something about it not fitting through the door. I don’t know, I managed to fit it on the back of the bike, much to Singleton’s chagrin.
So with running out of fuel, getting a nail in the rear tyre, and countless other delays, I managed to turn up 45 minutes late. They were hiding in the back corner of the room, which for some reason ironically screams “videobloggers”, and I couldn’t find them for about 5 minutes. I thought they’d left already, wondering why I’d bothered to ride for 10 hours just to miss a meetup.
Anyway, I found them in the end, and we hung around for another few hours. You’ve probably read some excerpts on other blogs, so I won’t repeat them here.
So here’s several minutes of blackness, ambient pub noise, and an infrared shot of Jim Stewart trying to get his camera to work. Go figure.
Next time I think I’ll fly down. More equally exciting footage to come of the return journey.
On the way to the Melbourne videoblogger meetup, we got a nail in the rear tyre. 6 hours out, 5 hours ’til the meetup. Instead of having it looked at, making us even later, I decided to take the risk and see how long it would last. The tyre ended up being fine, in fact the nail’s still in there, as it never penetrated the tube.
One of the great things about videoblogging, is the immediacy of the medium. I can read a blog, an email list, or watch a videoblog, then record a response, and have it online as a reply within the hour. And I’m in another country (Australia) from the majority of people I’m having a discussion with.
But whenever I try to use the medium this way, something always goes awry. In this case, I get back from Melbourne on Friday, manage to read my email on Saturday, only to find a discussion slagging my Wikipedia changes, from the previous Monday. So I record a response video, and upload it on Saturday night, but Ourmedia crashes on me, and it’s not until today (two weeks after the initial discussion took place), that my video gets published.
I’ve calmed down now, I haven’t read the videoblogging email list for over a week, and I was seriously considering just deleting the video and getting on with my life. But one of the fun things about videoblogging, is just making video and publishing it, taking a risk, and living with the consequences.
So here it is, recorded just after I read the original “What is videoblogging?” bitch-off on the email list. My apologies for the language, or if I offend anyone. My opinion on the definition hasn’t changed (it’s gone back three months to the pathetic description it used to be), and my refusal to go back to Wikipedia hasn’t changed, but I’m now comfortable with that decision. Oh, and I don’t really mean “Fuck Wikipedia”. Just “Fuck the Vlog entry on Wikipedia…”