VideoWerque (blog)

Thoughts from Anna Chiaretta Lavatelli on video, museums, and technology.

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ROBERT R. JANES

Janes writes about the need for museums to take a stance on climate change and social issues to remain relevant. He identifies the the complacent privilege or perhaps even denial that prevents us from being an authentic voice and resource to our community to change the world for the better.

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Throwback museum films.

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Tony Conrad is introduced by our director in this video from a couple years back. He directly addresses the camera in a lovely way, where we are given the impression that he is leading us to his work for a one on one conversation.

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I really like the interview style of this video, so rare to see subjects directly address the camera in museum video. I like the idea that we provide the artist voice directly to the viewer surpassing the authority of the interviewer, that we associate with the authority of the institution.

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Proud to have survived my first Ignite talk.

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I had the opportunity to contribute to the MCA DNA blog, which is fantastic by the way, about load testing work I did for the upcoming Bowie exhibition.

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Have you ever gotten tangled in a web of disorganized video and image files? What are the best practices for organizing and storing images, audio and video? What is the difference between interpretive content and collections content? What constitutes a work of art and a backup work of art when discussing file types? Anna Chiaretta-Lavatelli and Emily Lytle-Painter, co-chairs of MCN's Media Production SIG, will explore issues around digital file storage and organization in cultural organizations with the follow speakers: Heidi Quicksilver, The Jewish Museum Crystal Sanchez, Smithsonian Institution Patrick Heilman, DIA Art Foundation This is an informal “radio show” style chat with short “presentations” and Q&A.

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AAM 2014: Video Tech Tutorial

We had a lovely session at AAM on Tuesday morning talking through the process of getting started in video production. I had the opportunity to present alongside Peter Argentine (who worked with Mr. Rogers!) and my fabulous partner in museum video crime, Emily Lytle-Painter. I was very impressed at the number of people who were ready to dive into video production with the most basic of tools.

This enabled me to focus my section of the presentation on the many tricks and tools I implement to create professional grade productions with very simple inexpensive cameras.

AAM 2014: Tech Tutorial: Principles of Effective Video from Anna Chiaretta Lavatelli

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This is an interesting website I stumbled onto that explains details of the complication of compression and the resulting lack of standards (or excess of them). I am of course a total sucker for low-fi diagrams of complex technical concepts, especially when it comes to video technology. (I will be contributing some of my own here eventually)

One of my favorite more lighthearted sections on the site includes a chart comparing Television to PC distribution standards. This comes from the section titled "The Mermaid of Convergence"

TV vs. PC

Delivery models:

Push.  /vs/  File download and pull.

Delivery methods:

Real time with guaranteed quality.  /vs/  Non real time (e.g. FTP and HTTP) or best effort.

Transport:

Delivery-medium aware protocol (MPEG-2 TS).  /vs/  Delivery medium unaware protocol (IP).

Device interfaces:

Based on IEEE 1394 and USB.  /vs/  Based on Ethernet and USB.

Device consumption model:

Based on perennity (i.e. 10 years).  /vs/   Based on planned obsolescence(i.e. 2-3 years).

Device installation model:

Plug and play.  /vs/  Plug and pray (but improving).

Device colour:

Typically black.  /vs/  Any colour

Usage model:

The box is to view pictures and to listen to music  /vs/   The box is used to run applications, including listening to music and viewing video and images.

Access to content:

Via Electronic Program Guides, e.g. based on DVB SI.  /vs/  Via the PC screen or web browsers providing access to search services.

Information consumption models:

Information is consumed “as is”  /vs/  Via interaction with processing of information (e.g. editing).

Information consumption environments:

“Couch potato” - lean backwards - turn your brain off.  /vs/  “Mouse potato” - lean forward - turn your brain on.

IPR management:

Content has copyright protection enforced in STBs.  /vs/  Content used to not be protected (but more and more protected).

Payment models:

Service provider specific.  /vs/  No payment or multiple service provider each with his own payment system.

Advertising:

Carpet bombing.  /vs/  Selective bombing.

Regulation:

Tight.  /vs/  Absent.

  More thoughts as I dig into this in greater depth later, and perhaps I can track Leonardo Chiariglione down for a conversation on the insanity of attempting to establish best practices for museum video production.

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Video Workshop Proposal

So in conversation at MW I have been charged with doing another one of my classic how do you get started in video production workshops... Things requested to be addressed thus far are: 

What is a typical workflow regardless of scale?

What are issues of licensing and copyright to keep in mind?

What are the core things I need to know about shooting to get started?

How do you budget? What resources will you need to start making videos today? (address scale here?)

What does post-production look like and how do you work around that to make it less challenging?

How do you get started? What's a good way to practice to learn from mistakes?

Where do you put video and how could that affect your production approach, for better or worse?

I figure then we will do a couple of practice rounds: one using the DSLR set up to get a cinema look and one smartphone/table shoot for the informal on the fly stuff.

Please share with me other items you would want to see addressed at an Introduction to Video Production Workshop!

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Make Museum Video Now! A fun panel from MCN 2013 in Montréal with David Hart, Vickie Riley and Emily Black Fry. Lots of nuts and bolts on our ideas about making video easy and accessible for everybody.

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Presentation at MCN2013 in Montréal with Jesse and Kyle on the trouble with handling large quantities of video... and we end up on a rant about why YouTube is so great for aggregation.