Andreas Haugstrup Pedersen | solitude.dk

As I'm writing this I have just added two more lumiere videos to the lumiere project. This brings the total amount of videos up to 523 videos from 78 different participants. The volume of videos is striking and it's not something I expected when Brittany and I began posting these videos back in late May. I'm thrilled and I'm looking forward to the next milestones of 750 and 1,000 videos posted.

I thought I had more time to write the update on video number 500, but Michael has introduced the lumiere videos to art students from Leeds and they posted a great number of them quickly. You can see them at Leeds Vlog where they are posting many videos, not just lumieres. Video collections from courses and classes are always fun to go through just because you get so many different types of videos.

It would be very wrong to talk about the lumiere project with mentioning Sam Rensiew from patalab. This elusive Dane has posted almost 70 lumiere videos and is showing no signs of stopping soon.

One thing I think has helped the success of the lumiere project is that the whole thing is completely de-centralized. We don't host your videos, there's no special upload process. The project page is just a collection of links and you participate by just posting on your own blog. This makes sure each participant is still in full control of his submission (just delete your video if you don't want it anymore) and it also gets the word out because people are posting their videos where they usually post videos. Spreading the word person-by-person has lead to many new people posting lumiere videos - I know that from the people who have e-mailed us. Unlike our mention on BoingBoing in late September which led to very few new videos (but a lot of anonymous visitors who never came back).

If you are a new-comer and interested in participating just follow the "Submit" link on the video collection page to add your video. You need to post it to your blog first though. The rules are simple meaning anyone can record, off-load from their camera and post:

• 60 seconds max.
• Fixed camera
• No audio
• No zoom
• No edit
• No effects

In a public attempt at reflection here are the first two lumiere videos I recorded during a bike ride to the beach this past spring:

• Rust
• Crops+Artifacts (challenging the no effects rule by showing the effects of video compression)

Susan has created something quite fantastic. I'm talking about the videoblog collaboration I mentioned in my last post. She shanghaied 35 people into submitted one or clips for a music video for the Adam Ezra track Basement Song. The result is stunning:

After being pushed I submitted clips for two sentences and that resulted in three clips in the video. One is pretty obvious (is has the Danish flag in it), but I'll let everyone hunt for the rest. Half the fun is trying to figure out who submitted what.

I think Susan did a great job with a great idea editing this video together. This is evidence of what can be accomplished when you have a group of people around the world who think that creating media is fun.

For completeness sake here is a list of everyone who did one or more clips for the video.

• aliak.com
• alternativekitten.blogspot.com
• batmangeek7.blogspot.com
• bottomunion.com
• bullemhead.com
• cirne.com
• daughtershow.com
• davidmeade.com
• dltq.org
• fauxpress.blogspot.com
• feederreader.com
• findingjohn.com
• funnytheblog.blogspot.com
• galacticast.com
• graodegente.blogspot.com
• human-dog.com
• imakethings.com
• joshleo.com
• kitykity.com/vlog/
• mbfreeforall.blogspot.com
• mhudack.com
• michaelverdi.com
• mikemoon.net
• momentshowing.net
• nealey.blogspot.com
• oneeyedview.com
• outhink.com
• pjkproductions.blogspot.com
• ryanedit.blogspot.com
• seeasilverlining.blogspot.com
• schlomolog.blogspot.com
• solitude.dk
• stevegarfield.com
• trine.blogs.com
• unholyknight.com
• zipzapzop.com

Through Esben Fjord I discovered that the Danish duo Junior Senior has had a lot of help from their fans when creating their latest music video fior the song Can I Get Get Get. Fans from around the world sent in video clips and the duo edited them together themselves. You can watch quicktime and youtube versions from their myspace page. Where Jeppe Senior also writes:

we feel the beauty of this video is really that its a gathering from around the world and it's showing the sweet individual side of people rather than some styled, fabricated music video. It's very feel good and embracing in its way

Esben uses the term customer-made to describe the project, but that leaves a bit of a sour taste in my mouth when describing a feel-good video from a feel-good band. Can we call it a collaboration instead?

Speaking of… In 10 days Susan Kirkpatrick will premiere the music video she and a whole bunch of other people made for Adam Ezra Group. It was an open invitation — anyone who wanted to could participate. You were sent a copy of the mp3 and the lyrics. You would then pick one or two lines from the lyrics and make one or two short video clips to go along with them. Susan has then edited all these pieces together to one whole. I submitted two clips and I can't wait to see the finished video.

Thursday I ran a videoblogging workshop. I arrived to Copenhagen Wednesday to catch the last half of the (text) blogging workshop that the same participants went through. Partly because I wanted to meet up with the organizers early, partly because I wanted know what the participants had learned about text blogging. As an added bonus I shot some footage that I could use to demonstrate editing in Windows Movie Maker. The video here is actually re-edited from scratch in Quicktime Pro. I had compressed the Movie Maker sources files very hard, and I wanted better quality. Fortunately the cut-and-paste editing in Quicktime Pro is a breeze. It is certainly much easier to work with b-rolls!

The video is of the E-mediators running the same co-creation exercise they ran with Johnnie Moore.

In a recent interview with Andy Budd I found out about SkillSwap. A group of newmedia (whatever that is) people from Brighton get together once a month to get attend a talk by one of the members. In their own words:

The idea is that on a semi-regular basis, people from the local new media community volunteer to give up some of their free time to train a small group of their peers in a subject that interests them.

The setting will be small and informal and the subjects can be anything from hardcore programming topics through to softer business skills. Basically anything you'd be happy talking about that you think would be of interest to the new media community.

Judging from the interview SkillSwap is popular, and why wouldn't it be? This is one of the best ideas I've heard in a long time. Knowledge should be free after all. It won't make any companies rich, but it will make people happy. That's how it works in my world anyway.

I don't know if there's a basis for something similar in Aalborg, but if anything does gets started I would volunteer in an instant. If people wanted to hear me speak of course.