Reminder: 24-7 DIY Video Summit at USC

Regular readers of this blog will remember a posting I made last year mentioning the 24-7: DIY Video Summit at USC. Well, we're nearly at that point on the calendar -Feb. 8-10th. I will be presenting a selection of Machinima works, along with several other curators , who will each present works from their respective crafts. The event, will have quite a few great speakers on hand as well, including Prof. Lawrence Lessig, Henry Jenkins and Joichi Ito.

Below are the event details - but also visit the 24-7: DIY Video Summit site as well as their blog.

24/7: A DIY VIDEO SUMMIT
February 8-10, 2008
School of Cinematic Arts, University of Southern California

Conference web site: http://www.video24-7.org
Blog: http://diy.video24-7.org/

Registration is nearly full for the the academic panels and the
workshops. The video screenings are free and open to the public.
Please help us spread the word about this event.

24/7: A DIY Video Summit will bring together the many communities
that have evolved around do-it-yourself (DIY) video: artists,
audiences, technology providers, academics, policy makers and
industry executives. The aim is to discover common ground, and to
chart the path to a future in which grassroots and mainstream,
amateur and professional, artist and audience can all benefit as the
medium continues to evolve.

This three-day summit features:

SCREENINGS OF DIY VIDEO
On February 8 and 9, there will be screenings of DIY video that are
open to the public. These will feature curated programs on design
video, activist documentary, youth media, machinima, music video,
political remix and video blogging. The video program will culminate
in an evening program and reception on February 9 that will draw from
all of these video genres.

ACADEMIC PROGRAM
Registered attendees will have access to the academic program on
February 8 and 9 that features panels on The State of Research, The
State of the Art, DIY Media: The Intellectual Property Dilemma and
DIY Tools and Platforms. Featured speakers include Yochai Benkler,
John Seely Brown, Joi Ito, Henry Jenkins, Lawrence Lessig, and Howard
Rheingold.

WORKSHOPS AND BIRDS-OF-A-FEATHER MEETINGS
On February 10, the day will be devoted to practical and hands-on
workshops for registered attendees on topics such as intellectual
property, media creation, distribution and new-media design tools.
Attendees will also have the option of organizing their own birds-of-
a-feather meetings to connect with other attendees.

As it was mentioned, we would really appreciate spreading the word about the event (and tell 'em Paul sent ya!). Thanks!

WeGame: A (Better?) YouTube for Gamers?

WeGame launched just a short while ago, with a tag line of being a "YouTube for gamers". With the recent advances of machinima into areas increasingly closer to mainstream media, I immediately had two questions. Feel free to chime in:

1) For serious machinima, does it make sense to key into an audience of gamers-only?
and
2) Are you tempted to switch?

To put things into perspective, you do get some perks with WeGame. The site actually distributes their own recording software, for free. Furthermore, they have streamlined the process of uploading clips - as you shoot videos, they are immediately available in a little dashboard. You can then upload to the WeGame site. The agile software encodes the video for you and uploads it.

Another bonus: I have not seen the usual compression artifacts that you typically see with YouTube.

I'd love to hear other people's experiences with WeGame. The final quality of my test video made me very happy. I'm curious to try uploading some QuickTime or Windows Media machinima and see how it measures up.

This Weekend: Sleepless in Second Life

This weekend marks the start of an exciting film event in Second Life. The famous 48-Hour Film project that tours the world is reaching a virtual world. On Friday, January 11th, contestants will be given a character, prop, and line of dialog as base for their machinima. Then, the teams have 48 hours to turn around a complete production.

More information from the 48-hour film Second Life site:

"The competition kicks off Friday, January 11th, at 4:00 p.m. Second Life Time (7:00 p.m. Eastern Standard Time) with a representative from each team meeting in Second Life to receive a genre, a character, a prop, and a line of dialog to be worked into their film.

Teams have until Sunday, January 13th, at 4:30 p.m. Second Life Time (7:30 p.m. Eastern Standard Time) to submit a completed entry.

On the following Wednesday and Thursday (January 16th and 17th), screenings will be held "virtually" in Second Life at the New Globe Theater." [To teleport to the event location, click here]

There should be some cool short movies coming out of this contest, hopefully they will also be posted on youtube so we can all watch (outside of Second Life).