On-line sources for video content of all sorts, from artistic to instructional to experimental, are multiplying at a dizzying pace. Video collaboration, particularly collaboration “in the cloud,” is a quickly maturing concept.  And behind these sites for online video collaboration is the basic motivation for film makers and graphic artists to find new muses and wider audiences. Clearly there is no shortage of inspiration for those of us who are as passionate about video as we are about music, art, science, technology, and more. One of my favorite sources for such inspiration is the exceptional TED.com.

TED talks have been around for a long time now and many of us are in the habit of regularly visiting TED.com to check out the latest on-line releases. On a recent web surfing excursion to TED, I came across an extraordinary piece featuring an exhilarating example of collaborative on-line video editing. (Videomaker has blogged on this topic recently: see Daniel Bruns’ excellent blog posted August 8^th on the phenomenon of leveraging HTML5 for music video production by bands like OK Go, Arcade Fire, and Danger Mouse.) Some of you are likely very familiar with Aaron Koblin’s work. Koblin’s TED talk, “Artfully Envisioning Our Humanity” posted this past May is a marvel.  If you haven’t already, you really need to check out Koblin’s TED talk.

Koblin has built an online environment wherein artists and videographers can contribute to a collaborative video featuring the late Johnny Cash’s final recording Aint No Grave (Can Hold My Body Down). It’s an astute choice, not only because this is a wonderful version of this song about living on through one’s legacy. Cash has been missed by many of us since his death in 2003. Koblin’s choice of Aint No Grave is also astute because there is no “holding down” the creativity of the still image contributors building a video and embracing Koblin’s site and his vision. As more and more images are added to the montage, it is clear that this site is tapping into both profound reverence for the artist (Johnny Cash) and into an enthusiasm for collaboration in video. The very nature of this project means that there is really never an “end-product” or a finished video, but rather iterative experiences that change with nearly every viewing, as long as the contributions keep coming and the video keeps evolving. Collaborative endeavors such as these inspire us to return again and again, to both add to and to admire the outcome. If you haven’t already, you really should check it out. (Visit The Johnny Cash Project.)

Many video producers toil to perfect their craft in simple DIY studios at home, or in temporary rented space, or simply out in the world with their camcorder in their hand. Unless you’re working closely with a cadre of fellow practitioners of the video craft (which luckily, many of you are), the work of video is usually less an act of collaboration and more often a solitary enterprise. You often shoot alone, edit alone, and release your video alone, hoping to capture a wider audience as your videos catch on via YouTube or Vimeo or elsewhere. But projects such as Aaron Koblin’s remind us that we can do amazingly creative things when we work together.

I want my MTV

Anyone over the age of 40 can probably still recall that moment when they saw a music video on TV for the first time – it was magical, mesmerizing and enthralling. I remember walking into a friend’s house that had that new-fangled “Cable TV” hooked up and she said, “Check this out, it’s called MTV”. It was hypnotic – and we sat for what felt like hours watching without talking.

MTV,  the music video channel that literally changed the “look” of music, was launched 30 years ago this month with, appropriately enough, the music video, “Video Killed the Radio Star”, by the British New-Wave band, The Buggles.

When MTV first went on the air on August 1, 1981, it’s main purpose was to bring music videos to an eager audience. Previously, one couldn’t see a recording artist play except in live concerts, or on TV specials. Most musicians didn’t have, (or need or want) a “Music Video” and opponents to the show suggested that the music videos would kill the viewers’ desires to see the bands play in person. Being a new channel, and the fact that Cable TV was just a fiber-optic gleam in many a programmer’s eye, MTV wouldn’t catch on for a few years and only a small number of viewers in New Jersey actually saw that first video play. But as soon as “specialized” cable TV shows were available regionally, MTV’s “message” spread across the country like the proverbial wildfire – a new generation of musicologists was born.

Around that same time, as a college student at California State University, Fresno, I was enthralled at the idea of creating music videos. I was enrolled in the “brand new” major: Radio-TV Production, but there weren’t a lot of classes, choices or subjects to study at the time. One class I had, called “Careers in Media Arts and Entertainment”,  was supposed to expose us to all the different areas of study, but, in reality, all we did was research books on our own at the library and write essays every week on a different focus. Eager to learn more about making Music Videos, I devoured every periodical I could about MTV and music videos, (there were no making music videos books yet published, so my major reference “library” was Rolling Stone Magazine.)

I wanted to make Music Videos and I wrote in my essay: “A video editor has the chance to be creative beyond the norm and break the rules as an artist, not just as a cut-n-splice editor.” Dr. “M”, the instructor who lectured to us about “the Golden Days of Hollywood” but knew nothing about the current trends or popular culture, gave me a “D” for my essay – the only “D” I ever received at college level. He wrote: “MTV is just a fad, as is cable TV. No one is going to spend longer than 20 minutes watching that slop. You’re wasting your time and you missed the point of the assignment: to research a valid career that will sustain you in a worthy occupation.” I still have that essay – and I love to laugh at his words from time to time.

MTV DID sustain itself, for a very long time, despite being “a music video channel”, and a new business in the entertainment world came into being. The business of creating music videos became a lucrative career for many film and video producers including  John Landis who produced Michael Jackson’s famous “Thriller” video and Spike Jonze.

Music video became big business after MTV’s launch. There’s not a band today that hasn’t made (or attempted to make) a music video. And in many ways, yes, the music video DID kill the radio star. Looks, eventually, along with dance routines and catchy videos and effects were just as important to a band’s success as the lyrics and tunes they played. If a VJ loved your video, you were gold. VJ – for Video Jockey, a play off the DJ-Disc Jockey phrase, was another career launched with music videos. The old joke about “a face for radio” wouldn’t hold anymore.

The beginnings of music videos actually goes back to the beginnings of “talkies” – movies that had sound, but the Music Video by itself for a recording artist didn’t become popular until the 1960s with choreographed videos for the Beatles 1964 movie “A Hard Days Night”. Music videos evolved in the 1970s into programs such as PopClips, a TV show developed by Mike Mesmith, of The Monkees fame.

According to a report on wikipedia, MTV’s original music video taglines were “You’ll never look at music the same way again,” and “On cable. In stereo.” The early days of MTV were so “raw” that programming would often go black while a tape-op switched tapes in a VCR!

In 1996 MTV 2 was launched, an all music videos all the time channel. By then, MTV had changed a lot, music videos had become much more polished and had a purpose that supported the lyrics, rather than random “60’s-ish” floating spots and effects. MTV was now airing  “Real Life” shows with “The Real World”, credited with starting the “Reality TV” genre, and “Road Rules”, along with a half-hour news segment. By then I was working for network TV and I remember a poll taken by our network sometime in the 1990s that found that a huge majority of young people reported that they got their news only from MTV’s “newsertainment” show.

courtesy: www.creativereview.co.uk/cr-blog/2010/february/mtv-refreshes-logo

MTV’s logo has also evolved over time, going from: “Music  Television” to just “MTV” since it eventually aired more than just music videos.  As an interesting fact, the original MTV man-on-the-moon image with the MTV logo pasted over the American flag  was created with dual purpose: to state that the channel was universal, but to also use Creative Commons and Public Domain images so they didn’t have to spend money creating or buying images for a show that might not make money.

Many former viewers of MTV lament the days of “all music all the time”, MTVs original mission, but for better or worse, the channel still thrives – and is doing well. Ironically, I have a friend in Hollywood who is my age who was up for a job editing a video for a pilot for a new soon-to-launch show. He was turned down with a sleazy excuse that they were looking for an “edgy funky non-traditional” type of editor, “you know, MTV-ish”. His frustrated reply: “Man, my generation INVENTED MTV!”

As for me, I did make a few music videos for local bands back then, I know of one band still using my video for their promotional website, and I created many “Video Essays” using popular songs wrapped around video of local festivities for the news stations I worked at that ran in the weather segments. My dream to actually work for MTV ended when a friend of mine, who worked for the network and was trying to get me a job there, died in one of the 9-11 planes that hit the Twin Towers in New York.

I cut my editing chops watching music videos, and learned about pacing, precise timing, and “how to break the rules” and I think the MTV of old helped me be a better video editor today. I want my MTV – still.

Hollywood was putting on the Ritz this month, celebrating the 100th anniversary of the birth of Lucille Ball, the amazing iconic redhead of the longest syndicated-running show on television: I Love Lucy.  But Hollywood wasn’t alone, there were worldwide festivities celebrating the comedienne’s role “Lucy Ricardo“, as the  I Love Lucy show moves into 60 years of making viewers laugh.

Hard to believe that “Lucy Ricardo” could be 100, or that the show is six decades old, but generations have grown up watching the program, and to us, she will forever be immortalized as the 1950s era New York housewife, married to the Cuban band leader, Ricky Ricardo.

What was “just a show” to most viewers, to we video producers it was the program that launched the technical set-up and format to TV producing that many of us follow today. I Love Lucy was the first show recorded with a live audience, and it was also the first show to use 35mm film, instead of 16mm kinescope. The 35mm film was of a much higher quality which is one of the reasons we can still find I Love Lucy in syndication.

The builders of the  I Love Lucy show were also the first to design the recording studio in a classic 3-camera setup,  which is the design still in use today. Other firsts included using a large muted light grid, eliminating annoying and “false” shadows, giving an even tone and more natural look to the set. It was one of the first to feature a pregnancy into a show’s storyline.

CBS, the show’s original owner, had reservations about using Lucille Ball’s real-life husband,  Desi Arnaz, as a main character because he was Cuban, but Lucille Ball held strong to her demands.

Although people have heard of all the behind the scenes drama including Lucille Ball’s and Desi Arnez’s breakup, the two were quite the team, financing part of the show themselves, and were eventually able to buy the rights from CBS, creating Desilu Studios which controlled I Love Lucy and also brought many other popular shows under it’s wings including  The Andy Griffith Show, The Dick Van Dyke Show, My Three Sons,Star Trek, Mission: Impossible,  Family Affair,  The Untouchables, I Spy, That Girl, Make Room for Daddy and more and more and more.

Lucille Ball was born August 6, 1911, and I Love Lucy premiered on CBS on October 15, 1951 a few months after her 40th birthday. The I Love Lucy show has been running almost daily – somewhere – worldwide for the past 60 years.

The former “Ziegfeld Girl” dizzy comedienne was nothing like her TV alter-ego, she was tough, driven, and financially savvy enough to be the first woman to head a major studio after she bought out her husband’s share of Desilu Studios following their divorce.

Lucy’s character was so different than what we are forced to ‘relate’ to today: plastic “Stepford Wives” clones of every-other TV no-name ‘talent’ who will fade into nothingness the first season their show is no longer on the air.

Why – of all the TV shows that have come and gone, is this one still entertaining viewers: good writing, perfect comedic timing, and castmembers that knew their roles and played them well.   oh.. and it was one heck of a funny show. We should all be so lucky to produce such an iconic show that will live long after the physical TV set is no longer in every home in the world.

Last night Videomaker friends, family, staffers and alumni gathered for a festive event to celebrate 25 year’s of publishing tips, techniques and tutorials on making video – and we streamed it live to a worldwide audience.

When Matt and Patrice York first launched Videomaker magazine, there was no other publication like it that was targeted to the consumer video enthusiast. A few magazines existed for the professional producers, but nothing for the home video market. Matt’s vision was to create a warm, friendly environment where people interested in taking their home videos to a higher level by using better techniques and creative composition could ‘drop in’, ask questions, and not feel intimidated by the technology or snubbed by the elitists in the pro world.

Back then, video cameras were incredibly clunky, some still separated the camera from the recorder deck, and they were called “affordable video cameras for the consumer” for “only” $2,500 -  quite a bit of cash in the 1980s economy!

If you desired to edit your video – good luck! You had to have two VTRs, one to play your video out, the other to record your video to, and each time you dubbed footage down you had what they called ‘generational loss’, which was pretty bad in many cases because the original footage had poor quality to begin with, no real colors, poor contrast, and a complete loss of details in low light.

Then there was the problem of distribution. Once you had your footage shot and reasonably edited, you had to deliver it to your audience somehow, which usually meant dubbing it once again to a VHS tape and mailing it or hand-delivering it to someone.

Now everyone can upload their video to any number of free internet sites like YouTube and Vimeo, and anyone can stream their footage – live – via many sources and the quality is pretty good. Back in 1986, when Matt and Patrice launched Videomaker, only Broadcast TV stations had that ability, now we’re all broadcasters in our own right. And, believe it or not, we have Matt York and Videomaker to thank for some of the changes in the market through Matt’s personal contact with the manufacturers of the products you use and his battle at many levels to make video making no longer an elitist game, but an Every Person game. Congratulations, Videomaker, for 25 years. I’m glad to have been part of that history.

Happy 25th Anniversary, Videomaker!

To help us celebrate 25 years of teaching video techniques, we created a forums page called “How Videomaker Helped Me”.  This link takes you to our 25th Anniversary “Letters to the Editors” page with comments and congratulations and you can read more or to add celebratory comments on our forums page.

The most famous British royal couple of the day, Prince William and Kate – newly married and newly titled as Duke and Duchess, are probably still attending the many celebrations, formal functions and royal pageantry from today’s wedding.  Many people all over the internet have quipped: “Who cares?” Well,  apparently, according to the polls, millions of people do.

As I was watching the news this morning I was amazed at the amount of coverage this wedding garnered, on all stations, networks and satellite feeds. It made me wonder – how many cameras to you think were covering this event?

How many TV news cameras?
How many newspapers and paparazzi cameras?
How many home video enthusiasts were shooting with their camcorders?
How many Smartphones and cell phones recorded the event?

The Wall Street Journal posted a report that CNN was sending 125 journalists to the event, whereas CNN only sent 50 to cover Japan’s earthquake. Then there’s ABC, CBS, NBC, BBC, and the rest of the worldwide press.

It’s daunting, actually, to think of all those cameras – I’d wager at least one camera for every 4th person watching the fanfare outside, and there were thousands of people outside. Inside was a different story. It seemed like every angle was covered. And the images were so clear and in perfect focus! No shadows, no shots of the bride lost behind a huge bouquet of flowers, no contrast issues or low light/bright light concerns. None of the usual “Wedding Video Woes”!

Can you imagine the pressure on the crew hired to be the official wedding video producers? Wedding videography is a big booming business, but we all know sometimes the best shots are lost when the unexpected happens,  your battery dies, someone bobbles the camera, the best man drops the ring or a bridesmaid faints.

Weddings like this one are choreographed to the nth degree, still, things can happen. With live coverage costing the television networks millions for a link to the live feed, I’d assume an intern wasn’t manning a camera!

It sometimes seems that everyone with a camcorder nowadays calls themselves wedding videographers, and many terrible wedding videographers have made the rest of us true event videographers look bad. Videomaker recently won a Telly Award for our Wedding Production DVD series, if you want to stand out from the crowd, royal wedding or not, be sure to check that out. And for more tips on stellar wedding shooting, here’s a “Sneak Peak” at a well-written feature from our upcoming July 2011 issue, “Make Wedding Videos that Wow!” by Jay Montana.

Just for fun, (it’s Friday, after all!) Here are a few statistics about the numbers of people watching at some major televised events and historical moments:

According to the Wall Street Journal and Nielsen research:
180 million watched the 1963 coverage of President John F. Kennedy’s assassination and funeral and murder of Lee Harvey Oswald.
600 million watched the 1969 Apollo 11 moon landing and the first man-on-the-moon walk.
750 million watched the 1981 wedding of Prince Charles and Lady Diana.
2 billion watched Princess Diana’s 1997 funeral procession.
715 million watched the Italy vs France 2006 World Cup soccer final game.
1 billion watched the Summer Olympic’s 2008 opening ceremony in Beijing.
1 billion watched the 2010 coverage of the miners being rescued in Chile following 69 days of begin trapped underground.

With the internet and the over-abundance of coverage at today’s wedding, I wonder how many people watched at least a part of the ceremony or following events. Makes me glad I’m not manning a TV news camera anymore!

Researchers from Forrester Research have finally made official what we all knew would happen for years: people are now spending more time on the internet than watching television.  This comes as no surprise. With services like Roku, Hulu, Xbox, and PS3, there has never been a better reason for cutting your subscription to cable TV. According to this study, time spent on the internet has risen by more than 121% over the past 5 years. With this increase in internet time, it was inevitable that 30% of people in all age groups now watch television content online compared to a measly 18% in 2007. All of these facts add up to some real tough times for cable television providers. These companies are not only losing ground to television broadcast on the internet, but they are losing ground to cell phone companies as well who are trying to convince subscribers to use their 4G networks for internet use instead.

The news is not all bad however. The data from Forrester Research does seem to suggest that people are still spending as much time watching television as they have in the past, however they have given up other activities like reading newspapers and magazines in order to devote more time online.

At the same time, many companies such as VIZIO, Sony, Panasonic, Samsung, and more are beginning to make the internet part of the television experience. By doing this, they can offer much of the same content that cable can provide, albeit at a much lower price. With all of this in mind, and with a bevy of internet-ready devices hitting the market, it may just be a matter of time before everyone replaces their coaxial cables with ethernet cables.