Quick Focus
User Groups
Existing Groups
Video Ink
2821 So. 2300 East
Salt Lake City, UT 84109-1852
Contact: Tom Perry
Phone: 801-273-1703
E-mail: VideoInkDV@aol.com
Meetings: 2nd and 4th Thursdays, 7:00 p.m., 2821 So. 2300 East
Thousand Oaks Videomakers
30 Kanan Rd.
Oak Park, CA 91301-1105
Contact: Roger Garretson
Phone: 818-706-8136
E-mail: rgarretson1@juno.com
Meetings: 2nd Mon., 7:30 p.m., 4373 Park Terrace Dr., Westlake Village
New York Film/Video Council
P.O. Box 1685
New York, NY 10185
Contact: Ingrid Scheib-Rothboart
Phone: 212-330-0450
Web site: http://www.nyfvc.org
Meetings: Monthly, time and location varies
Seeking Group or Will Organize
Charles Caravetta
1551 N.E. 9th St.
Homestead, FL 33033
Charmaine Gunnell
9320 Vista West Drive
West Jordan, UT 84088
Mario Mauricio
3234 Ashlock
Houston, TX 77082-2212
Videomaker's User Group Resources
Free Listings
Let new members know about your group.
For inclusion in our user group listing, submit your request to "User
Groups," c/o Videomaker, P.O. Box 4591, Chico, CA 95927; fax
530-891-8443; e-mail editor@videomaker.com. For a list of existing user
groups and/or video enthusiasts seeking or willing to organize a group in
your area, send an SASE to our mailing address.
Web Home Pages
Expand your user group's horizons by posting your home page on the Videomaker
Web site. If you don't have a Web page, we'll create one for you. For more
information, send e-mail to dtaylor@videomaker.com
Online Forum
Visit the Videomaker Online Forums at http://www.videomaker.com/forument.htm
to network with other user group members and organizers.
User Group Startup Kit
Videomaker's user group startup kit contains everything you need to
start and run a successful user group: how to find members, publicize meetings
and conduct screenings; sample newsletter, newspaper ad and meeting agenda;
discounts off Videomaker merchandise and more. For more information,
call 530-891-8410, ext. 242.
Web Watch
National Alliance for Media Arts & Culture: http://www.namac.org
Here's a place where video producers
can find out about the production and other services offered by the nation's
nonprofit media arts centers and related groups. The online support center
for independent media (video, film, audio and multimedia) hosts a directory
of media-related organizations, resources links, job announcements and news.
Entry Deadlines
The fifth annual Chicago Underground Film Festival is seeking the best "cutting-edge, subversive, controversial and defiantly independent" videos of all kinds: features, shorts, animation, documentary, experimental. Cash prizes will be awarded to the best entry in each category. Early deadline is May 15; late deadline is June 1. For more information, visit www.cuff.org, send e-mail to info@cuff.org or write to Chicago Underground Film Festival, 2501 N. Lincoln Ave., Suite 278, Chicago IL 60614.
Prestigious directors and actors will judge the fourteenth annual Visions of U.S. home video contest. Entries are received in five categories: fiction, nonfiction, comedy, experimental/music video and young people. Winners will receive Sony video equipment and the grand and first prize winners of each category will be flown to Los Angeles for the awards ceremony. Entries must be received by June 15. For more information, call 213-856-7869, send e-mail to visions@afionline.org, or write to The American Film Institute, P.O. Box 200, Hollywood, CA 90078.
Quick Focus
The News You Don't See on the News
A channel-surfing alien in middle America
might assume that we only use our camcorders to supply videotapes to blooper
and reality-TV producers. On the other side of the Atlantic, however, a
group of Brits is putting consumer camcorders to more productive use.
They call themselves undercurrents, and they've been providing media support to environmental and social justice groups for the past five years, helping them to create, control and distribute their own video footage. The non-profit organization aims to put Hi8 camcorders in the hands of community activists, show them how to use inexpensive video equipment, and teach them how to sell their footage to local and national television.
The group's main project, undercurrents Videozine, is an alternative news service published twice a year on video cassette. (See some back issues at http://www.undercurrents.org.) The tapes are distributed by mail-order to about 40,000 people. undercurrents also maintains a footage archive which it sells to over 100 mainstream television stations around the world. Now that's a creative use of a camcorder.
Don't Get Run Over by the Millennium Bus
This Fall, a crew from New York's Downtown Community Television Center
(DCTV) will begin a year-long tour of the nation in a specially equipped
Millennium Mobile[TM]. The truck will be outfitted with cameras, editing
and broadcasting equipment as well as an external video wall. The crew plans
to record Americana along the way and edit it on the road for exhibition
in pre-selected locations. At each stop, local videographers will have an
opportunity to showcase their work on the Millennium Mobile by submitting
tapes to a Millennium Moments contest. Rekha Menon, project coordinator
for DCTV, says they are working on arrangements with U.S. broadcasters to
feature portions of the videomaking odyssey on national newscasts.
Although the Millennium Mobile and Millennium Moments contest are still in the concept phase, according to Menon, "We're discussing sponsorships with several companies, including HBO, Panasonic, Sony, Fuji TV in Japan and some European broadcasters." She says that prospective sponsors would like to use the journey to feature HDTV equipment, "as a testing ground for the new technology." DCTV plans to continue the millennial tour around the world in 2000.
