Andreas Haugstrup Pedersen | solitude.dk

I did a short talk on videoblogging at AAU yesterday. We had a very good discussion afterwards, but unfortunately I can't put that online. So here are the slides instead (it includes links so click around):

• Slides from videoblogging talk (PDF document)

Earlier today I did a talk at Aalborg University as a part of a seminar on videoblogging and new media. Here are the examples I used in my presentation:

• Momentshowing: Looking at Things…
• Human Dog: HD LAB MEMO - PILLS
• Steve Garfield: 2004: The Year of the Video Blog
• Two Carpenters: It Snows Here
• Squeeze Project
• Vlog Your Face
• Crash Test Kitchen: Cracking Creme Brulee
• Rocketboom — March 9th 2006
• Road Node Video Quote
• One America Videoblog
• Human Dog: The Haberek Part I, Part III
• Board Games with Scott
• Clerks 2 Videoblog

What I wanted to use, but didn't because my presentation was in English and the video is in Danish:

• Kristjansson: Jeg er meget fotogen…

This afternoon I returned from a three day stint in Stockholm in the company of Anders and Raymond. As the last time it involved a good amount of talking about videoblogging and general hilariousness. Along with Raymond I did a two-hour open lecture on Wednesday about videoblogging in general, and Thursday the three of us did a full-day workshop on the practicalities of videoblogging — both at Medieteknik at Södertörns University College. This combination worked really well as we could paint broad strokes at the lecture and get nitty-gritty the following day.

I didn't record any video there — that was the students' job, not mine. You can find links to the student blogs and other randomness (like videoblog examples) on the workshop blog. I have also put up some photos on 23 and I'm sure Raymond and/or Anders will put up photos and/or video later.

I did learn a lot at the workshop myself. After seeing the students run around with their own digital cameras (and playing with the Ixus 750 that both Anders and Raymond use), I'm convinced digital still cameras are the way to go for videoblogging. Those are awesome tools, the quality is good enough and the ease-of-use beats anything else. I was also surprised at how fast the students all grasped how editing in Quicktime Pro works. I was prepared to spend much time explaning the logic behind Quicktime's editing interface, but it was intuitive to all of them immediately.

Finally it warmed my little, interactive heart to have two students create a credits page for their movie and without any encouragement ask Anders how they could make their links clickable. Sadly, there is not a really easy way to do this yet (we didn't have time to explain eZedia and similar). It was great to see that they had gotten that videoblogging is video crafted for the web and not traditional video.

Thanks to Anne and Hannes who took care of us, and to the rest of the faculty for dealing with us during lunches and dinner Thursday. It was great talking with everyone and I learned much about media education in Sweden.

In this age of blogging feedback is public, so it's fantastic to see Annika write:

Idag har vi haft en videobloggworkshop. Det var kul och lärorikt, det var inte så krångligt som jag trodde att det skulle vara, en bra workshop! Jag får väl skaffa mig en kamera som jag kan filma med så det blir fart på mitt videobloggande.

It is also great to see how verbs are conjugated in Swedish!

Today I attended a lecture by Christina Wodtke on the Future of IA. Although I was the only student there from the communications program more students from the program could've gained something by attending. Especially the links between the taxonomies used on websites and the meaning created in the visitor's mind. She even mentioned George Lakoff! I don't know anyone studying Communication at AAU who hasn't read at least parts of Metaphors We Live By.

It's a pity that the Communication program doesn't deal more with things like this. Some times it's like the web doesn't exist, or when you publish something on the web it suddenly loose all meaning. There's not a lot of vision in that. Sure it's geeky, but why should the engineers have a monopoly in geeky, when it's so relevant to the other topics we study?

Update

It would appear that Christina Wodkte has removed the slides from her server.

Another Update

The slides are back. Annotated and everything!

Today I attended a lecture by Jim Martin from the University of Sydney. It was a part of a two-day seminar on genre systems and culture, but as a measly student I can't afford to go to a seminar like this. Jim Martin was talking about his work with how to uses genres in language education in primary school. Part of the work was categorizing the different kinds of texts produced by pupils into genres.

One such genre was the “recount” — apparently a very popular genre among children. The recount is a story where you recall events that have taken place. They are the trivial monday stories like how you bumped into a friend at the grocery store. Usually we reserve these recounts to close family and friends, because — as Martin jokingly pointed out — they are quite boring. At the same time these recounts are also something that we base our social relationships on so they are important.

It had me wondering if we can consciously use this to screen potential friends and love interests. On a first date you could pay attention to recounts and if you are bored you know to move on to the next person. If only it was that easy!