What’s New

2012
05/17

Spring Update

Lots going on around here this spring! At last, here are some updates on what we’ve been doing:

The big one is our new website: in case you missed the launch in March, we are thrilled to have this new design up and running and so grateful to Chris Jordan for his incredible work on it. Let us know what you think.

Also in March, we spent a week in Austin for SXSW Interactive and Film. We had a great time, as always, and posted a separate round-up about all there was to see and learn.

April took us to National Harbor, Maryland for another annual event, organized by the Cancer Research Institute. We documented a lively discussion among a panel of experts during their Scientific Colloquium and are currently editing that video for distribution among industry, academic, and clinical leaders in the cancer immunotherapy field.

For the third year in a row, we are getting our fashion fix with Handbag Designer 101 as they gear up for the Sixth Annual Independent Handbag Designer Awards! Dan spent a fun afternoon in late April shooting their judging panel as they selected the finalists, which you can check out in this newly released announcement video!

Later in May we’ll film their VIP judges as they pick the winners and in June we head to InStyle to shoot the red carpet festivities and awards ceremony.

Last month we got our electro-funk on while documenting a show for Girls Like Bass and we can’t wait to do it again for their spectacular upcoming performance on June 7. More details soon about that, but in the meantime, check out stills from the set at Fontana’s.

May and June are big editing months for us: a short documentary on community-based HIV treatment access in Africa for ITPC, dance performances by students at Eugene Lang College, and interactive exhibits at the New York Hall of Science among others, so we’ll have some new videos to share soon!

As another semester comes to an end,  we would like to say a big thank you to the schools and departments at The New School for whom we’ve documented events this spring:

Just a few of the videos we’ve recently shot that are now online:

(Remember to like us on Facebook to see all of our videos as they’re released!)

Things we like on the Internet:


 
2012
04/01

Things We Like: SXSW Edition

We haven’t been to SXSW since 2009 and man, has it gotten huge. Is it too big? Is it too corporate? It sometimes feels that way. But, like anything in life, SXSW is what you make of it and there are plenty of opportunities to seek out communities, meet interesting people, learn more about the ideas that will benefit your own work, and ignore the rest. Or not. One of the things we like about its size is the exposure to industries and ideas beyond what we see and do in our everyday work.

Full of ideas and inspiration (and yes, tacos), here are a few of the awesome things we saw, did, and learned at SXSW:

Screenings

- Documentary short program, including “Meaning of Robots” (edited by our friend Georgia Dodson) and several other wonderful docs.

- “Trash Dance“: A touching documentary about a choreographer working with city garbage collectors.

Talks

- The Great Cinematography Shootout: far beyond just the pros and cons of cameras, this panel went deep into the aesthetic qualities of different cinematic approaches, technical strengths and drawbacks, always within the context of visual storytelling and film (in the broader sense).

- While promoting their new book, the authors of Get Lucky: Putting Planned Serendipity to Work mentioned a couple interesting ideas that we hope can help us think more creatively on the business side:

  • we tend to rely too much on predictability, planning and risk mitigation; not enough on the intersection of chance and creativity (i.e., serendipity)
  • creativity is the ability to put something good into the world and chance is everything outside of your control

- In the Cut: Editing a Killer Feature Sample: this panel was a big highlight for Dan because there was so much audience interaction and a much more open discussion than one sees on a typical panel, with information flowing in both directions. And as an editor, it was a great learning experience to watch other editors getting peer feedback.

- We loved the innovative ideas we heard coming out of the panel on performance and technology, like New Play TV, Blackbox Series, and ontheboards.tv.

- Talks on next-gen storytelling, online video distribution, and branded documentaries offered a bunch of good tips for nonprofits thinking about video:

  • You have to know where your viewing community lives online to be successful with marketing online videos
  • “Audiences need to be told what to do” through calls to action, requests to share/like on social media channels
  • Use consistent open/close branding (logo, music, slate) that becomes recognizable to your audience the instant they see/hear it
  • Don’t worry about segmenting your audience online, you should be posting videos in as many places as possible
  • Don’t create content in response to (audience, staff, board, constituent) expectations. Original content will deliver the greatest value, and for nonprofits, story of human empathy and dignity win out over sensation/grit.

Across several panels and discussions about video production, especially for advocacy and cause-related purposes, we heard lots of tension over what matters more: the tools or the storytelling? In one talk, we heard that “authenticity now replaces production values,” and then an hour later, a panelist elsewhere said, “low production values send the message ‘we don’t care that much.’” Someone else noted that cinematic tools are now so accessible that often story is entirely missing from online video.

Other Cool Things

- The Digital Bolex: It made us smile to see these inventors attempt something so complex and support it by Kickstarter. Their camera won’t be the killer tool for everyone, but it has the potential to be a real milestone in terms of crowd funding and DIY filmmaking. We wish them great success with the project!

- Interactive Doc Showcase: with so many web video campaigns trying to be interactive in some way, it pays to look at the rich interactivity that filmmakers are now exploring. It’s easy to throw up a bunch of short videos on a theme and call it interactive because the viewer gets to pick which one to watch next, but it takes careful planning to create a deeper web of meaning.

- Live visuals by Dan for the final rounds of the AMODA Laptop Battle. It was great to play alongside visualists Tommy Blackburn and VJDK.

- e-180: A new site to connect people who want to learn from each other, the way you might introduce two friends to each other. It’s Montreal-based, but growing quickly to other cities.


 
2012
02/29

Bring on Spring!

February, we’re glad you’re short. Even in the mildest of winters, somehow February can still be the bleakest, so we were happy to pack it with fun projects and race toward March.

First, in case you missed it mid-month, we are happy to announce that our new demo reel is finally online! Please watch, share, and most importantly, let us know what you think.

With that released, here are a few things that really kept us busy over the last 29 days:

  • Pre-production on a new project with the International Treatment Preparedness Coalition, with whom we produced a video last fall about their work with HIV/AIDS programs in the Caribbean. We’re thrilled to be working with them again over the next few months to produce a short film about their small grantmaking programs in Africa.
  • Helping Glowing Pictures out on the projections for One Step Beyond, the monthly party at the American Museum of Natural History
  • Filming an afternoon of panel discussions about the future of the Occupy Wall Street movement: The Means of Social Change, Ultimate Goals, and Short-Term Tactics.
  • Kicking off a new season of events with the Center for Public Scholarship by shooting a great talk by former Wisconsin Senator Russ Feingold, discussing his new book in conversation with former (and possibly soon-to-be-again) Senator Bob Kerrey.
  • As part of the series of Public Art Fund Talks at The New School, which we’ve always enjoyed shooting over the past few years, documenting this talk by artist Roger Hiorns.
  • Documenting the work of The New School’s Creative Arts Therapy program, including a faculty event on arts and social engagement and three workshops in the Mind-Body Healing Through the Arts series.
  • And just last night, a talk by sculptor Lucy Skaer, our first event of the Vera List Center’s spring season and one in a series produced in partnership with SculptureCenter.

As always, this is just a sample of what we’ve been up to, but you can keep up with all of our comings and goings on Facebook and Twitter.

Our latest favorites

  • In an interview with NPR, George Clooney commented on something that, as documentarians in this mobile, digital age, we have been noticing for a while now, especially when trying to capture audience reactions at events:

    the presence of cameras in the hands of every observer doesn’t just mean too much attention and too much recording; it means the loss of the ability to experience things directly.

    Hear more about putting down your cell phone camera (and, you know, what it’s like to be a famous movie star).

  • We cannot stop watching these young North Korean accordion players covering A-ha’s “Take on Me.”
  • And yes, by now everyone has commented on the new (and apparently first ever) Chipotle commercial. Well, we liked it, too. Of course we love the animation and Willie Nelson. But we really love the simple, show-don’t-tell way that Chipotle is sharing their sustainability story. And we are fascinated by its transmedia journey: it was on YouTube for months and received millions of views there before airing on television as a commercial during the Grammy’s, which generated social media buzz and drove even more viewers to the video online. Here’s more from Mashable on this unconventional new media strategy.

 
2012
02/16

New video production reel

We are excited to share our new demo reel highlighting just a few of the documentary, event and performance video projects we’ve been privileged to produce. Thank you for watching. We’d love to hear what you think.

Many thanks to the clients and collaborators whose videos appear in this reel, as well as to The Octopus Project, for use of their music.

  • New York Hall of Science
  • Microsoft
  • Independent Handbag Designer Awards
  • International Treatment Preparedness Coalition, a project of the Tides Center
  • Cancer Research Institute
  • CUNY Institute for Health Equity
  • New York Festival of Song
  • Loose Change Productions and Spiderwoman Theatre
  • Girls Like Bass
  • koosil-ja/DanceKUMIKO

And if you are interested in learning more about what we do in the way of live visuals and projection design, check out Dan’s demo reel (which is getting its own refresh soon).


 
2012
02/08

Happy New Year! Is it really February already?

The first month of the new year gave us opportunities to reflect on the many wonderful projects we worked on in 2011, reconnect with clients about their plans for 2012, and dive into new productions.

A few highlights from January included:

  • releasing Station, a new short film shot in December at the Robeson Museum in Binghamton, New York.
  • dreaming of a tour through Napa after shooting this panel of wine experts exploring the influence of vintner Robert Mondavi on American wine culture.
  • collaborating with Dawn Fotopulos to create a DVD of her Instant CFO course. Dawn was our teacher in a NYC Business Solutions class over two years ago and we have been applying her rock solid advice and expertise on a daily basis ever since.
  • working with Parsons School of Fashion to produce videos of their faculty development workshops. We loved learning more about the pedagogy of design in the process.

Our latest favorites from around the web:

Big Cats vs Laser Pointers
We like it because it’s cats (obviously), and it’s an engaging way for an organization to help people to get to know them and what they do: building on a meme (cats) and connecting it to a cause.

Length Doesn’t Matter, It’s What’s in the Video That Counts
Experts love to invoke cardinal rules about online video length (no more than 30 seconds! 5 minutes!) but this new study shows that viewers prefer to watch a longer video if it helps them learn more about the subject. The study was limited to product videos but we think it has implications across genres. When you know your audience and you’re inspiring them to want to know more, it’s ok to let the content determine the length.

Breakfast Tacos
Okay, fine. These are an old favorite, not new. But we are pretty excited that breakfast tacos can now be found here in Williamsburg and that we’ll be eating them natively when we get to go back to Austin in March for SXSW!

Join us on Twitter and Facebook for regular updates and things that catch our eye.


 
2012
01/03

Girls Like Bass

Ride (live) – Girls Like Bass


 
2011
07/29

How we're spending our summer

It can be hard to predict whether summer will be hectic or breezy. Thankfully, this summer has been a lovely balance of both. We’re working on several exciting client projects, as well as making time for business development and labors of love. Here is some of what we’ve been up to so far:

  • A new project with the CUNY Institute for Health Equity that takes the Photovoice methodology to video: youth filmmakers from community organizations around New York City are using Flip cameras to document the health issues in their communities. We’re doing some video documentation of the overall project and in August will be working with the team to edit the youth participants’ footage as well as some of our own into an advocacy video.
  • We hit the road to Washington, DC again for another awesome project with YoungArts (we worked with them last year and again this spring on their In The Studio program in New York City). In DC, Dan worked alongside Benton Bainbridge and a team of very talented Presidential Scholars in the Arts on the video projections for their performance at the Kennedy Center on June 21st. If you missed the live webcast, you can watch the show here.
  • On June 15th, we were on location at InStyle magazine, shooting the 5th annual Independent Handbag Designer Awards. This is our second year working with the Handbag Designer 101 team and everything about this event keeps getting bigger and better! Highlight reel coming soon.
  • Although our event videography work at The New School tends to ease up during the summer break, we did shoot one very interesting panel for the Environmental Studies program about Biodiversity in Cities.
  • And one highlight from May (we start summer early around here): remember in the depths of winter when we said we had one project that really made us laugh? Well, now it’s your turn. We had lots of fun doing behind-the-scenes video work on the new JerrySeinfeld.com, which launched on the 30th anniversary of his first network television appearance.

And last but not least…

Our new logo was born!

Thanks to the talented Chris Jordan, we now have a new logo, the first step on our path to a total redesign of our website. We’re really excited about this refresh of our brand and soon we’ll reveal our new site, which is going to make it much easier for us to share our portfolio and latest news.

We’ve got a few other fun things underway that we can’t wait to share in our next update. As always, follow us on Twitter and like us on Facebook for more frequent updates and other interesting things…


 
2011
04/27

March/April updates

Putting the month in the title of our last update might have been a bit misleading. We can see how it might have given you the idea that we were going to start posting these round-ups on, you know, a monthly basis. Well, that was the idea. It’s just that March and April were like a mega-month that ran together. We barely noticed the page on the calendar turning with all this awesomeness going on:

Speaking of working with people who are passionate about what they do…

  • For the second year, Dan served as assistant mentor to the Young Arts In the Studio program, working alongside Benton Bainbridge and a group of very talented cinematic artists.
  • We documented the Remixed and Remastered Conference, which was a great balance of panels, speakers, and film screenings exploring global distribution opportunities for media makers of color.
  • We were behind the camera for several events for The New School Arts Festival, including this great conversation with Frances McDormand talking about her craft.

We also got the rare treat of seeing two performances with ties to our own work:

  • In March, we were the most grateful recipients of tickets to see WarHorse, a production that is beautiful for its puppetry, projections, storytelling, and staging. A few weeks later, we documented a talk with the puppeteers from Hand Spring Puppet Company, the creators and producers of the show.
  • In early April, the Octopus Project passed through town and played a show at the Music Hall of Williamsburg. After lots of long distance, online collaboration with Wiley Wiggins on their projections, it was very cool to finally see their show live, and within walking distance, at that.

 


 
2011
02/28

February round up

We can hardly believe that it will be March tomorrow – not only has this month been short, it’s been busy! Here’s a quick roundup of what we’ve been up to:

  • Dan spent several days covering the International Toy Fair at the Javits Center with 343 Industries – the team at Microsoft behind Halo Waypoint – and had a blast with Jessica and John, shooting interviews about many of the awesome Halo-related toys out there.
  • We produced a new video for Cancer Research Institute of their Breakthroughs at Breakfast panel, held at the Harvard Club of New York on February 8. Fascinating stuff about how immunotherapy is changing the definition of “cure” in cancer treaments.
  • We worked with the Center for Public Scholarship at the New School to document their conference, The Body and The State. You can watch the keynote and sessions from all three days on The New School for Social Research’s playlist on YouTube.
  • Chris Burke helped us out with a shoot of India’s Foreign Secretary Nirupama Rao speaking at the India China Institute about interactions between those two countries. Here’s the video of that great talk.
  • A new video is underway for a new client, PELIE, highlighting the outcomes of a recent meeting on their NESS program – Nurturing Effectiveness in Synagogue Schools – in Philadelphia and the Bay Area.
  • We helped the League of Professional Theatre Women digitize and publish online six more videos in their Women in Theatre television series.
  • We’ve been doing behind the scenes work on a new project we can’t say much about yet except that it makes us laugh, and that’s a good thing.
  • Our office got some major and much needed upgrades – we painted, installed lots of new shelves, and got a new Mac Pro!

And tonight, our last event of the month, is The Military-Industrial Complex Revisited: Eisenhower’s Warning at 50 at The New School. This event will also be webcast live from 7-9 PM EST.

More exciting things are in store for March – as always, you can keep up with us on Twitter and Facebook, where we post links to our whereabouts and to videos once they’re online!


 
2010
11/19

We're on Facebook!

Check out our new Facebook page, featuring a number of recent event videos we’ve shot this fall. We hope you will “like” Really Useful Media Company so you can keep up with our latest videos and projects and leave a comment to let us know what you’d like to see more of from us on Facebook. Thanks!

http://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Really-Useful-Media-Company/123421144374447


 
2010
11/19

Programming visuals with Wiley Wiggins for The Octopus Project

We can’t wait to see video from The Octopus Project‘s show in Dallas last night!

Dan was happy to help out again for this latest round on some behind-the-scenes design and programming to sync the lighting with the theremin-controlled colorsynth.

It’s always a pleasure to work with visualist Wiley Wiggins. He and Dan first collaborated last March for the Hexadecagon show at SXSW, which was a very ambitious, multi-channel audio and multi-channel video performance under a tent in the Whole Foods parking lot in Austin. Dan pitched in with some design and technical problem solving, like performance tuning (i.e., making all the video software run efficiently), making a multi-animation playback system so that different animations could pop up on the screen in different places, and most exciting of all, making a theremin colorsynth. The band and Wiley wanted a visualizer that would take the audio feed from the theremin and turn it into big, glorious fields of color. Watch the video below to get a feel for the show. For more of the nitty gritty technical details, read Wiley’s Hexadecagon wrap-up post.

HEXADECAGON – The Octopus Project from Zellner Bros. on Vimeo.

For anyone who wants to check all of this out live, The Octopus Project will be playing their next show in Austin on December 3rd.


 
2010
05/29

RE/Mixed Media Festival performance

On Sunday night, Dan Winckler will be closing out the RE/Mixed Media Festival at Galapagos Art Space, performing live visuals with DJ c-tor. Starting at 2 PM, this free event has some really great panels, films, and performances exploring the issues of “media mixing as legitimate practice” and the implcations of copyright law on digital media. But pace yourselves (especially with those free afternoon mimosas!) so you still have energy to dance it out when Dan comes on at 11:30.

Check out the entire festival schedule here, where you can also watch a live stream of the festival on Sunday if you’re not in New York but would like to check it out.

RE/Mixed Media Festival, Sunday, May 30: 2 PM-midnight (Dan Winckler and C-tor at 11:30 PM)

Galapagos Art Space, 16 Main Street in DUMBO, Brooklyn


 
2010
04/27

Live webcast for the launch of BestSmallBizHelp.com

Congratulations to Dawn Fotopulos on the launch of her new website, BestSmallBizHelp.com. This site is the culmination of three years of hard work, and we were thrilled to help with some post-production at the end-of-the-beginning, pre-launch stages and to produce the live webcast of the launch event last week at Barnes & Noble Lincoln Center.

We’re working on the video of the site launch presentation and will post a link as soon as it’s ready, but in the meantime, check out BestSmallBizHelp.com. It’s a great resource for anyone who runs a small business and needs some (or a lot of) help, as well as for those who have a business idea they want to bring to life.


 
2010
04/26

Come Meet Us on Saturday May 1st!

Next Saturday, May 1st, from 1-5 PM, we will be exhibiting at the FastTrac Spring Small Business Expo, an event organized by The Levin Institute. We hope you’ll stop by to see us and learn more about what we do and how we can work together.

Other exhibitors, all of whom are FastTrac graduates like us, offer services ranging from catering to printing, investment services to interior design, event planning to insurance to career coaching (and those are just a few examples). This event is a great way to learn about New York based businesses and support the local economy.

We first became connected to the Levin Institute this past winter when we participated in FastTrac Growth Venture course offered by Levin and supported by NYC Business Solutions. This course really helped us with our business development — a challenge for just about every small business — and introduced us to an awesome network.

The details:

The Levin Institute

116 East 55th Street (between Park and Lexington Avenues)

New York City, NY 10022


 
2010
02/08

FORA.tv – Branding Democracy: Barack Obama and American Void

A video we shot for the Vera List Center for Art and Politics at the New School is in esteemed company, having been selected as one of ten videos for FORA.tv’s Best of 2009 series. This was a fun event to shoot — Professor Simon Critchley spoke to a full house, keeping the audience engaged while putting forth a lot of big picture, cultural studies ideas about Barack Obama and democracy. See for yourself:

FORA.tv – Branding Democracy: Barack Obama and American Void.


 
2009
10/29

Yard (To Harrow) art installation by William Pope.L

YARD - high shot
One of our recent major projects came to a close last weekend. Throughout the month of September, we directed the video, audio and lighting design for Yard (To Harrow), William Pope.L’s reinvention of Allan Kaprow’s seminal Yard installation. This piece was presented as part of the opening of the new Hauser & Wirth gallery in New York.

The design was a collaborative effort with the talented [Benton-C Bainbridge](http://benton-c.com) (lighting) and [Chris Burke](http://bongdern.com) (audio).

You can see some of the critical response in reviews from the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, and Time Out New York. Most of them get a couple details wrong; for instance, there were no strobe lights — just ordinary incandescent and fluorescent bulbs that were programmed to flicker (nowhere near as fast as a strobe). We’ll have more details and video posted here in the near future.

Yard (To Harrow) installation


 
2009
06/08

A reminder of how simple business can be when you don’t make it complicated – (37signals)

Last week I spent a lot of time writing a proposal for a new client. At the end of the day — after I’d sent it to the client, had a good phone conversation with them to clarify a couple points, and signed off — Emily sent me a link to this 37signals blog post: A reminder of how simple business can be when you don’t make it complicated. Excerpt:

Yesterday I found a [landscaping company] flyer on my front door.

I’ve been staring at a project in my backyard for a few weeks. Staring hasn’t gotten it done. So I figured I’d see what it would cost to have these guys do it.

I called them. 10 minutes later the guy came by. He was down the street on another job. We walked out back. I told him what I needed done. He looked around for 20 seconds and said $300. I said “deal.”

That’s it. No proposal. No “I’ll get back to you tomorrow”. No “Let me see how much the materials will cost and I’ll drop an estimate in your mailbox next week.”

Just $300. Deal. When can you start? Wednesday. How long will it take? A few hours for a few guys.

He knows his business. I know what my time is worth. End of transaction. It was so damn refreshing.

I know everything can’t be done like this, but often it seems like we’ve slid down a path of formality with so many things that really don’t need it. Extensive contracts, delays, red tape, precise cost estimates based on precise amounts of materials, “let me think about it and I’ll get back to you,” etc. Essential? Sometimes yes, but most of the time probably not. [...]

The whole post and quite a few of the comments are well worth reading — funny how it came along at just the right time. I’d sweated over certain parts of the proposal, gotten feedback from several more experienced freelancer friends, contract advice from a lawyer in my family and thought through the implications of each piece in the pie very carefully. In the end, I think the proposal was the right length: it had the details the client had asked for and the information I thought they needed to know.

Of course, not all proposals can be short. Very large corporate sites may need a more precise definition of scope. Responses to open RFPs (request for proposals) have to show that you understand the clients’ needs since they don’t know you from Adam. It’s all about context: if you’ve worked with the client before and/or you’ve covered all the bases in a conversation, your proposal can be a one paragraph email. These two comments to the 37signals post summed it up well:

Know your craft, and you can communicate what you need to the client with a minimum of effort, and everyone is happy.

A short chat about the basic terms (time, cost, and scope); mutual trust; and, communication — that’s about all that is needed in most cases.


 
2009
05/27

Networked performance by Hunter Reynolds

hunter-reynolds-brain-spothunter-reynolds-drama-queen

One service we really love to provide is designing networked performances, where performers in geographically separated locations perform together live via streaming media. This month, I’m consulting with Hunter Reynolds, a multimedia artist who needed help setting up a performance between him at his studio and visitors to his gallery show at Momenta Art. Hunter wanted to tell the stories behind his artwork — he makes gorgeous “photo-weavings”, tapestry-size grids of photo prints sewn together at the edges — and talk with visitors in realtime.

Since Hunter had done it before (using Skype video chat), he knew what was needed (cameras, mics, a good Internet connection at each location) but not if what was available could provide a stable platform for the performance. He asked his friend Wayne Ashley for help — Wayne is a noted new media curator and arts director — which led to my involvement (via another helpful recommend). After determining Hunter’s needs, visiting the sites and testing, I was able to recommend a stable setup, including hardware, software, bandwidth upgrades and purchases, and guide Hunter and Momenta through the setup at the studio and gallery.

The first performance last Sunday was a success, despite limited holiday weekend attendance, and Hunter will be telling stories to gallery visitors for the next three Sundays from 12 to 6pm. If you’ll be in New York between now and June 15th, I highly recommend seeing his artwork and, if you can make it on a Sunday, hearing Hunter’s stories.

Here’s the exhibit description:

Momenta Art is pleased to present an exhibition of new work by Hunter Reynolds, his first solo exhibition in New York in five years. Since 2001 Reynolds has experienced a series of life-altering events: 9/11, substance abuse, surviving AIDS, Hurricane Wilma, a close friend’s suicide, the collapse of his immune system, and four HIV-related strokes that left his right hand partially paralyzed. These events are the raw material out of which this exhibition was born. Viewers who enter the gallery will be surrounded by a series of large-format works called “photo-weavings” formed by physically sewing together hundreds of smaller photographs. Though stunningly beautiful, the photographs that make up these pieces document a cathartic meltdown during which Reynolds, together with Hurricane Wilma, destroyed his Florida studio in the fall of 2005.

The documented wreckage includes Reynolds’ own paint-splattered and water-damaged work from earlier series, artwork by other artists, CD covers, paper fragments, and shards of broken glass that were thrown and bonded by the forces of wind and rain. Bits of this detritus will be on view in the gallery along with the photo weavings. In addition, Reynolds will present several remote story-telling/conversation performances via Skype and a mini-documentary covering the hurricane and Reynolds’ salvage efforts in his studio, efforts that transform the wreckage and personal history into testaments of survival. All of these elements come together in a complete context; but even as they encompass, they break free. For almost thirty years, Reynolds’ work has engaged with gender identity, body politics, and personal histories. But it is the broad generosity of his work, and this installation in particular, that reveals the artist’s particular strength at forging hope and beauty out of the sometimes dark totality of life.

“Art has always been one of the tools I have used to heal myself and others and to find order in the chaos of my life, by not only telling the story through art, but by transforming myself in the process of making it, using it to rebuild my life, finding hope and beauty and a desire to be alive.”

— Hunter Reynolds


 
2009
04/26

South by Southwest: From Freelance to Agency

All of a sudden, two months have gone by since South by Southwest 2009, and my grand plans for a series of posts about what we learned there have gone poof. That being said, I’d like to share the one session I attended that’s stuck with me the most: From Freelance to Agency: Start Small, Stay Small, which featured a group of top-notch freelancers talking about their lessons learned as they grew their businesses, whether they ended up hiring employees or stayed solo. If you listen to the podcast all the way to the Q & A, you’ll hear yours truly asking a question. Here’s the panel description to give you a taste:

The web has always attracted mavericks and entrepreneurs, and a rocky economy makes the freelance life more desirable (or at least more inevitable) than ever. So what happens when your freelance business starts to grow? How big can you get without getting bad? How can freelancers and small teams compete with traditional agencies? Hip freelancers and cool agency heads will answer questions, compare experiences, and tell their stories.

So what stuck with me? Be yourself. Whether your website speaks in a “we’re a company” voice or an “it’s just me” voice, be honest about the scale of your business, who you are, and what you do. You can have it both ways, as Jeffrey Zeldman pointed out: present yourself as a business on the Home page, introduce yourself as a person on your About page.


 
2008
10/07

Recent videography for The New School

Some of our favorite events we have shot this year for our biggest client, The New School, were Sandra Day O’Connor at the Games 4 Change Festival, Jeffrey Toobin on the Supreme Court, and a panel of food writers remembering Julia Child. Here’s a funny excerpt from the last one, Molly O’Neill’s dead-on impression of Julia Child responding to criticism from PETA.

We have a number of clients at The New School, including the India China Institute, the Graduate Program in International Affairs, The New School for General Studies, the Vera List Center for Art and Politics, and the Wolfson Center for National Affairs. The New School makes most of their filmed events available online through Fora.tv, an interactive video sharing site that presents thought and discourse from some of the world’s foremost think tanks, conferences and institutions. Follow the last link for many hours of fascinating debates, lectures and interviews.


 
2008
09/22

Post-production: I Dig Tanzania

In July and August, we wrote and edited a promo trailer for I Dig Tanzania, a novel summer camp organized by Global Kids, the Field Museum of Chicago, and the Encyclopedia of Life. In collaboration with Global Kids and the other funders, we collaboratively scripted the trailer based on footage and photos shot by the teachers, students and researchers in the field in Tanzania. The footage and photos were of varying quality and size, from Flip cameras to consumer HD cameras, with on-board microphones, and all handheld. We had to massage and sweeten some of the audio and video considerably to make them easy on the eyes and ears, and the clients were happy with the results.

You will need to install or update the Flash Player to see this video. It’s free and only takes a minute.


 
2008
08/26

Teaching and post- for the Virtual Video Project

In May, the really useful media company’s Dan Winckler joined Global Kids’ Virtual Video Project, an after-school program, to replace a departing instructor. In the VVP, the GK Leaders (all high school and college age students) choose an issue of global significance to research and create a film to promote awareness of it. This year the students wrote their film about the effects of racism on youth access to education. And did we mention it was entirely shot as machinima in Second Life? In addition to guiding the students through final scripting, shooting, and editing with co-teacher Tabitha Tsai, Dan assembled the students’ iMovie edits in Final Cut Pro, adding niceties like audio cleanup/sweetening, lipsync tightening, background sounds, color correction, and some custom graphics of the students’ happy faces for the end credits. You can watch their film Race to Equality below and read more about the process on the Global Kids blog.


 
2008
08/13

Bastianello and Lucrezia

On March 15th, 2008 the Really Useful Media Company did a live, two-camera, high-definition shoot of the operas Bastianello and Lucrezia, presented by the New York Festival of Song at Caramoor, a performing arts center in Katonah, New York. After intensive post-production (editing, color correction, DVD authoring), the operas are now up for all to enjoy the performers’ world-class musicianship. Here below is a custom player we made for NYFOS to put on their site, showcasing the two operas. The videos have yet to be released by NYFOS. Many thanks to Benton-C, whose experience, expertise and all-around-nice-guy-ness shines through in the videography (wide shots) and color correction. Thanks also to Adam Abeshouse, the audio engineer and recordist who mixed the superb recording you can hear in these videos. The full credits are after the jump.

Bastianello by John Musto and Mark Campbell
Lucrezia by William Bolcom and Mark Campbell

presented by New York Festival of Song

recorded at Caramoor Center for Music and the Arts, March 15, 2008

Cast:

tenor Paul Appleby
bass Matt Boehler
mezzo-soprano Sasha Cooke
baritone Patrick Mason
soprano Lisa Vroman

pianists Michael Barrett and Steven Blier
director Leon Major
stage manager Kate Scott

Commission, first performances, recording and audio broadcast of Bastianello by John Musto and Mark Campbell and Lucrezia by William Bolcom and Mark Campbell by New York Festival of Song, Inc. was supported by the New York State Music Fund, established by the New York State Attorney General at Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors.

Additional funding for first performance of Bastianello/Lucrezia is provided by generous grants from the National Endowment for the Arts.

Fazioli pianos supplied by Klavierhaus

Videography and post-production by the really useful media company

Audio recording and post-production by Adam Abeshouse

New York Festival of Song
Steven Blier, Artistic Director
Michael Barrett, Associate Artistic Director
Elizabeth Hurwitt, Executive Director
Charles McKay, Managing Director

Caramoor Center for Music and the Arts
Chief Executive/General Director
Paul Rosenblum, Managing Director