Swiped from an idea by west coast videobloggers Casey McKinnon and Rudy Jahchan, New Media Office Hours is an attempt to bring new-media pros together somewhere out in the world (away from their monitor-lit caves) and get them to interact with members of the public who have questions about filmmaking, videography, digital editing, A/V compression settings, copyright issues, content management systems, how to get good audio, compositing, or anything else that’s even vaguely related to digital A/V media.

In an email, Casey McKinnon described NMOH this way…

New Media Office Hours [is] a way to reach out to new media creators and help answer questions, build the community and work through problems (technical, business, creative, whatever).  In a way, it’s similar to combining the Yahoo Videoblogging Group with the old Apple Store “Meet the Vlogger” events.

It’s especially about building the community. We want content creators of all sorts to come together and network and learn from each other and even to collaborate. If you’re a filmmaker or blogger or radio DJ or podcaster or TV producer — if you produce and/or distribute A/V content of any kind in any medium, this meet-up is for you. No experience necessary — this event is completely n00b-friendly.

So we’d like to officially announce that the first New Media Office Hours (east-coast) gathering will be this coming Monday evening at The Sapa coffeehouse in downtown Burlington at 5:00 P.M. A small group of new-media pros and arm-chair enthusiasts will be on hand to chat with anyone who stops by about whatever is on their mind (related to new-media, that is).

So stop on by on Monday, have some coffee or tea, and talk shop with some new-media folks! Hope to see you there!

BHS teen filmmaker Graham Raubvogel has written and directed a short film for the high school filmmaking club that met at VCAM on Fridays during the last school year. We shot the film at VCAM with a cast and crew made up of professional filmmakers and film club students, resulting an a veritable master class in filmmaking. Eat your heart out, Maine Workshops!

Art Lovers from Graham Raubvogel on Vimeo.

If you click through to Vimeo you can watch the film in HD.

On Saturday students in the Burlington High School after school film club shot a short film in the VCAM space. The film is called “Art Lovers” and is the brain child of BHS sophomore (and award-winning filmmaker) Graham Raubvogel. Graham and fellow students Keith LaFountaine, Steven Jaramillo and Michelle Martinek were joined by a team of professional filmmakers, actors and technicians for the production day, which was a hands-on master class in filmmaking.

One of VCAM’s security cameras caught all the action, one frame per second. Below is all 12 hours of shooting — from the minute the first crew walked in the door at 8:00 AM, until the last staff person shut out the lights and left at 8:00 PM — compressed into a single minute of video. Enjoy…

VCAM Production Manager Bill Simmon will be running a 4-week long multi-session workshop on videoblogging and podcasting beginning next Thursday evening, February 19. The sessions will run for four consecutive weeks from 6-8 pm. This workshop is open to any VCAM member who can demonstrate basic computer competency skills (file management, web searching, cut/copy/paste, etc.). There is an enrollment limit of five. (Not a VCAM member yet? Call 802-651-9692 to get involved!)

If you would like to reserve a spot in the class, email bill (bill@vermontcam.org). Please only enroll in the workshop if you can attend ALL FOUR sessions. The workshop description follows…

This 4-week course is intended for people who are curious about making their own podcasts and/or video-blogs.  Throughout the 4 weeks, students will build a blog, produce their own podcast or video-blog episodes and publish them online with subscribable RSS feeds.  No prior blogging or podcasting experience necessary.  Only basic computer/web-surfing skills are required.

Open to any VCAM member (basic computer skills required – if you’re not sure, ask the instructor) – 5 students per class.

NOTE: VCAM will provide the computers, software and cameras for this course, but we recommend that students have their own gear as well so that they can continue to explore the world of social media beyond the class.

Want to use your own gear?  Here’s what you’ll need, at a minimum:

•    A late model PC or Mac with firewire and/or USB inputs.
•    The latest version of Apple Quicktime Pro ($30 from apple.com).
•    A digital video camera with firewire or USB outputs.

Cross-posted from Candleblog…

So only half of my intro to filmmaking class showed up last night and it was the week I was to introduce their documentary filmmaking assignment. I went over the process for making a documentary film that I wanted them to use in class, but because so many students were absent, I wound up writing it all down as a step-by-step process in an email to them. So I figured, as long as I’m typing it out, I might as well share it broadly.

This is by no means how every doc filmmaker makes films — I don’t even follow these steps exactly in my own filmmaking — but it’s a good process that works and is easy to follow for first-timers. Were I to write a longer piece or a book on this, I would include tips about getting good picture and audio and on conducting interviews and on different doc forms and techniques.

This process assumes that the filmmaker has access to a digital video camera and a computer-based editing system.  It further assumes the doc you’re making is interview-based. Many documentaries contain no interviews at all. This may not be a very useful process for those films.

1. RESEARCH – What do you think the story is? What’s the conflict? Who is the main character? Who is the audience for your film? Conduct pre-interviews by phone with potential subjects. Who will you interview on camera? What other visuals or archival materials do you have (photos, video, film, documents, etc.)?  If you’re making an argumentative piece, try to understand all sides of the issue as best you can.
2. SHOOT INITIAL INTERVIEWS – Get your main subjects talking on-camera. Make sure they answer in complete sentences — get them to say the things you want in the way you want them to. Don’t be afraid to ask them to rephrase their answers. Make sure the audio is clean and get all subjects to sign a release (MS Word doc)! Shoot targets of opportunity as you interview the subjects. If you’re interviewing an academic expert, get shots of the degrees on his/her office wall, items on the desk, etc. Does the subject mention items nearby that are easy to shoot? Don’t make yourself have to come back later to pick up missed shots. Also, allow yourself to follow unexpected paths. You may have started out wanting to make a film about an upcoming city council vote, but if you discover evidence of government corruption in your research and interviews, be willing to change the focus of your film.
3. TRANSCRIBE YOUR INTERVIEWS – Type, type, type. Include timecode information on your transcripts so the words relate to their location on the tape(s). On average, you want at least 3 or 4 references to the TC on each single-spaced page of transcribed interviews. I like to use a two-column table in MS Word with the first column containing the TC and interview questions and the second (larger) column containing the text of the responses.
4. MAKE A “PAPER EDIT” – sit down with your transcriptions (and a highlighter and a hot cup of cocoa) and select the quotes that support the story you want to tell, then arrange them in the order that best tells that story. You can literally cut them out and arrange them on the floor or you can copy and paste them — but remember to keep the TC info handy for each bit you use. This is how you make the skeleton of your film.
5. CAPTURE YOUR INTERVIEW FOOTAGE – Focus on capturing the selected parts from your paper edit using the timecode info you wrote down with your transcriptions.
6. EDIT A ROUGH CUT – Edit together your interview footage in skeletal form, making sure the audio of the interviews is clean and sounds natural — don’t worry about the picture yet. There will be some ugly cuts in your footage that you’re going to cover up with the footage you shoot in the next step. As you edit, consider the form of the finished film. Will you include voice-over narration, titles, music? What’s your hook? Are you using narrative techniques like reveals? How will the pacing work? Feel free to include placeholders for footage you have not acquired yet — usually blank frames with text describing what will go there eventually.
7. SHOOT “B-ROLL” – Listen to the what the interview subjects are talking about and make a list of “b-roll” footage to go out and shoot. If your subject is talking about the shop where she/he works, go shoot the outside of the shop (an establishing shot) and some footage of the subject doing his/her job. B-roll footage will make up a significant amount of your doc, so shoot lots of it! Make sure it relates to the things your subjects are talking about in the rough edit you made. NOTE: it’s important to shoot your b-roll AFTER you make your rough cut. Before the rough cut, you don’t know which interview bits you’ll use and you may wind up shooting b-roll that is irrelevant to your film.
8. GATHER YOUR ARCHIVALS – Shoot other targets of opportunity and gather your archival materials. Is your film about an event? Go shoot footage of the event. Are you making a film about the history of zombie culture in VT? Make sure you shoot the Church St. zombie walk tomorrow! Scan any photos or documents that may be relevant. If your subject talks about scoring the winning goal in his high school hockey championship game, does he have a photo of his team? Is there video of the game? You get the idea. Gathering these items can happen at any point in the doc-making process.
9. EDIT! – Assemble your film. Remember you’re telling a story just like in fictional narrative films. What’s your hook? Where is the conflict? Who are the main characters? Always ask yourself these questions. Does your film succeed at the goals you had when you began making it?

One of the most divisive programs in VCAM’s 24-year history in terms of viewer response is calling it quits.  Subterranean SINema, produced by Magister Matthew G. Paradise, has aired its last episode on VCAM channel 15.  Matt began producing the show back in 1997 and over the years, “SubSIN” has been notable both as one of the shows that generated the most viewer response, and as a show with particularly high production values.  Matt used to edit his episodes of SubSIN at the channel 15 studios, but as his production skills improved and editing software became more readily available, he started producing the shows totally in his own home, from soup to nuts.

Matt writes…

 … somewhere in there also lurks the reality that much of the material the show was famous for can now be seen around the world by visiting online sites such as Break.com and YouTube. Back in the late-90s, SubSIN was highly sought after, whether its live transmission, VHS copies, or, later on, the DVD. But, alas, the Internet changed all of that and I, intelligently, must change with the times. If you loved the show, the spirit of Subterranean SINema certainly permeates the online world in ways public access television never could on its own. That’s my indirect way of saying that I love you, VCAM — and you need to put a streaming feed of your programming (not just a few shows) on the Internet. Merely a helpful, if not belabored, suggestion.

It was a very good time. Subterranean SINema, like so many things I do, serves as a roadmap through a period of my life — in this case, my 30s. SubSIN, believe it or not, prompted me to go back to college and get serious about video, and VCAM was instrumental in that regard, giving me exposure to editing, shooting, lighting, and producing an actual show. How can I not be grateful to both public access TV and that little controversial show monikered by a pentagram-trapped skull and crossbones?

VCAM is indeed looking at putting all locally-produced VCAM programming online — though probably in an on-demand way rather than as a 24/7 live stream.  There are some organizational concerns to tackle first, which are surprisingly more complex than the technical issues, which seem pretty straight forward.  Stay tuned for more info on that.

Matt also produced the show Satanism Today, which aired on VCAM’s channel 15 a few years ago.  As a result of Matt’s involvement here at VCAM, we are still sometimes asked if VCAM is the home of “that Satan channel.”   It’s interesting that featuring shows like Victory For You!, Calvary Life, Good News Broadcast, Key to the Kingdom, Time of God, Heavenly Sonshine, Revelations, Tomorrow’s World, Living Bread and the weekly Catholic mass (all shows currently in our playback rotation) doesn’t get people to ask us if we are the home of “that Jesus channel,” but I guess the word “Satan” is particularly memorable in a TV show title (take note, future VCAM producers!).

Good luck in your future endeavors, Matt!