London (harder, better, faster, stronger) from David Hubert on Vimeo.

Technorati Tags: video, time lapse, dslr, vimeo

Technorati Tags: unity, community, hope, twitter, seesmic, United States

What a cool looking gadget! Love it. Might have to make one myself.

We also have many ways of telling our stories. Novels, blogs, photos, movies, plays, musicals, newspapers, magazines and the like are all modes of what we call “communication.” These media - all media - are the focus of this blog. And yet.

I have a problem. The only way I’ve ever felt comfortable telling my stories are through photographs. I’ve never connected with something so wholeheartedly, so perfectly, as I do when I press an SLR to my cheek, peer through the viewfinder, and squeeze the shutter button. I’ve tried writing, but words come to me only in formal and sometimes stilted spurts. Professionally I’m a TV and video cameraman, but even then I’ve never been a great storyteller. Something about the hurried nature of the moving image makes for a difficult transition from my mind to the screen. The only exception to this is my documentary work, which I think I’m fairly good at. I suppose because it’s more passive storytelling - not a bad thing.

When I look through the viewfinder of a still camera, though, entire stories play out in front of me. I see the whole scene through that viewfinder, a story that perhaps an author could spin into thousands of beautiful words. It’s said that a picture is worth a thousand words, but for me, that picture is actually saying those words. The image… well, it speaks to me. And yet.

I have hardly picked up my still camera in years. There are any number of reasons why not, from costs to lack of inspiration to lack of time to… too many excuses. I’m looking into purchasing a DSLR, a technology which I’ve staunchly refused for love of film. But I think it’s time.

And yet…

I’ve been on a story kick recently. My good buddy Rob Blatt made a Twitter post the other night:

It’s funny, the relationships we make in SM (social media) tend to be “from this point on” and we don’t generally know back stories until we meet in person

That post prompted me to ask the question, “What is your story?” I made a video post on Seesmic, asking people to tell me a story from their past, and got some interesting results. It’s something we don’t often think about in real life, because our IRL friends tend to be people with whom we have a history. The stories are built in.

How do you tell your backstory? In this time of living in the moment media, how do you convey to people you’ve only met online or remotely who you are? What medium - or media - do you use to tell your stories? You may tell them in ways you’ve never thought possible, but the stories are there nonetheless.  Leave a comment below and tell us your story.

Technorati Tags: stories, backstory, camera, visuals, photography, videography, social media, media, seesmic, rob blatt, communication

When we were developing the show, we realized that we’d be talking to and teaching three distinct groups of people:

Creators - Those who make content and put it out for the world to enjoy, learn from, and pass on.

Consumers - Those people who take content in via  television, movies, books, magazines, etc., in the traditional “time based” method of content consumption.

Deleters - The newest group consists of people who take mostly web based media by downloading and/or “time shifting” the content.

It’s an exciting show that I hope will appeal to people of all expertise levels who are interested in media creation and consumption.

You can check out the website at www.createconsumedelete.com or subscribe to the show on iTunes. We also broadcast live via Ustream when we record a show at: www.createconsumedelete.com/ccd-live. And of course, you can follow Rob and myself on Twitter at twitter.com/robblatt and twitter.com/chriscavs.

Honestly, though I do dislike television news, I’m looking forward to this job. It’s freelance, for one, so it affords me flexibility in my scheduling, which is important to me. More important, however, is the opportunity to shoot on a regular basis in a fast paced environment and edit on a deadline. These are skills I think every shooter and every editor should have in their toolkit. The ability to think on your feet and make informed decisions quickly is a skill not many people have, and in our business, it could mean the life or death of a project. I’ll be training to run the microwave/satellite trucks as well, which I’m really looking forward to.

What this means to me is having the opportunity to see journalism from both sides of the wall. I like the idea of citizen journalism - even with the recent hoax scandal - and I want to be able to compare it to traditional news media. Granted, this is only a local news station, but I think it presents a unique opportunity to both be an outsider in an insider’s world as well as gain some experience and practice.

Make sure you check out my audio show with Rob Blatt, called create/consume/delete. This week we’ll be talking with Dan Patterson of ABC News about citizen journalism, it’s origins, it’s effects, and it’s future.

In the end, of course, I’m really in this for the press badge.

Technorati Tags: news12, new jersey, rob blatt, dan patterson, create/consume/delete, podcast, news, television, rnn, steve jobs hoax, citizen journalism ]]> http://filmosity.com/ioreality/2008/10/06/film-at-11/feed/ http://filmosity.com/ioreality/2008/10/01/things-i-love/ http://filmosity.com/ioreality/2008/10/01/things-i-love/#comments Wed, 01 Oct 2008 12:36:10 +0000 Chris Cavs http://filmosity.com/ioreality/2008/10/01/things-i-love/ Every so often, you need a brain dump. Today, mine is overwhelmingly positive, as a counter to my foul mood from last evening. Here are some things I love.

It’s a question I’ve been asking myself often as I attend an increasing number of social media events. More often than not, these events are populated by people older than I, professionals who have jobs, homes, and children. My demographic - 18 to 34 year olds - is surprisingly absent. I’ve been fortunate to find several people who are in my age group and very active in social media, but there are few below the age of 24. I’m fairly certain I know only 2 current college students, and both of them are seniors on the way to graduating.

As I was browsing my Twitter page a few days ago, I was blown away when one of my friends posted this exchange with a college student (I’m paraphrasing):

-Twitterfriend: “Why aren’t you using Twitter?”
-Collegekid: “Twitter is for old people.”

Now this is an interesting perspective, one that I hadn’t thought about before. College students are undoubtedly on the forefront of just about every major technological advance as it happens. They’re usually the first to embrace new technology and use it toward their own ends. So why does the 18-34 demo believe that new media “is for old people”? Why haven’t they embraced it?

When Facebook opened to the general public after having been open only to people with .edu email addresses, students protested. They were upset that this one place they could congregate without the prying eyes of their parents was now open to anyone. This attitude is understandable. They’re on their own for the first time in their lives, and they want some freedom to do the things college kids do without the overseeing eye of their parents (or “old people” who may represent their parents). Perhaps this is part of the reason for the lack of acceptance on the part of college aged people. Unfortunately, this theory doesn’t explain the lack of participation from twentysomethings.

We social media denizens are certainly living in an echo chamber. Mainstreamers don’t know what social media is - aside from the occasional myspace page - or why they should be interested. They do understand that the majority of people involved would be considered “geeks,” and that can be a turn-off. Or perhaps it’s simply because this demo consists of people just beginning their careers and adult lives. It can be seen as a distraction, especially if the person’s career path has little to do with media.

So the question is, how do we spread the word and open up the echo chamber? How do we get a younger, more mainstream demographic into social media? Is this important?

Technorati Tags: social media, old media, new media, college, university, demographics, echo chamber ]]> http://filmosity.com/ioreality/2008/09/30/new-media-demographics/feed/ http://filmosity.com/ioreality/2008/09/29/a-new-era-in-community/ http://filmosity.com/ioreality/2008/09/29/a-new-era-in-community/#comments Mon, 29 Sep 2008 19:41:53 +0000 Chris Cavs http://filmosity.com/ioreality/2008/09/29/a-new-era-in-community/ Late last week, the Seesmic community learned of the tragic death of one of its well-known and loved members, Craig Manganello. Craig had been ill for quite some time, but he fought courageously and managed to keep posting to the site, updating members on his health status. He often posted how sad he was that, because he was housebound, he couldn’t come out to enjoy time with other members of the community. Early last week, Craig posted that he would be going back into surgery to help with his congestive heart disorder and that he’d see us on the flipside. Unfortunately, several days later, Craig passed away due to complications resulting from the surgery.Early Saturday morning, Cathy Brooks - a seesmic employee and community member - posted the following to Seesmic:

Re: A man died just now outside my house.