Old Coal Plant Smokestack Detonated

Little known to the general public, in order to keep our "mainstream press license", The UpTake needs to release a video of something exploding at least once per year. Here is our entry from St. Paul, MN.

digg story

Embedded using this fine Embed Code Generator for High Quality YouTube Videos.

I am the dork

I am the Media (dainty summer remix) from chuckumentary on Vimeo.

I'm on the Foxxy Teevee

FOX 9 News interviewed me about The UpTake's involvement in "I Approve This Message." What a fookin' Dork.

Video people - that's all of you - help out this project by making a short video of what you'd want to ask the RNC or DNC. End it with, "I Approve This Message." C'mon it's fun!

Dear Republican National Convention...

The UpTake and Walker Art Center have teamed up on a project called I Approve This Message. It's a way of letting "the rest of us" have a voice in the very top-down, scripted event that is a political convention. What would you want to say to a Republican or Democrat delegate – or Obama, or McCain? Make a video and tag it "iapprovethismessage2008."

Here's a little video I made to help kickoff the project. It's from May Day Festival, so it's a little... okay a LOT... lefty. You absolutely must check out the trippy love dude at the end!

Lara Logan Rocks!

"Have we lost our humanity?" asks Jon Stewart on the Daily Show, referring to our numbness to death in Iraq.

CBS Chief Foreign Correspondent Lara Logan says, "Yeah. We have."

Asked if she watched any of the nightly news programs in the United States replied:

"No. I'd blow my brains out if I had to do that. I'd go crazy."

One more reason to love David Byrne

David Byrne, Playing the Building. It's funny to see Xeni Jardin acting like a doting fangirl.

Funny video i find on the colinpowells.com

Hard not to be moved by this

Fox's Bill Oreilly Producer Ambushes Bill Moyers

Please DIGG IT!

Live Barack Obama video feed from Xcel Energy Center

Big links from Daily Kos and HuffPo brought theuptake.org for now, so go to http://www.mogulus.com/theuptake to watch and chat!

Hey television... remember the public interest?

Media Mike will present this clip and others, along with his media reform pioneer guests, at the upcoming National Conference for Media Reform in Minneapolis. If you're attending, please stop by The UpTake's booth. We're unveiling a new design, talking to people on video, and plugging you into our citizen journalism borg.

America

Trippy Fountain

Trippy Fountain (vid)
Originally uploaded by Chuckumentary

This is exactly what I want to do wtih Flickr video. Artsy moments, and also documentary moments.

More vid from Art-a-Whirl coming soon. I'm especially excited by the tipsy sunset footage of The Owls playing on a raft.

MSPIFF Film Reviews

The Minneapolis/St. Paul International Film Festival is in full-swing. Lori and I have seen 5 films between us, and thought it would be fun to review a couple in video flesh. Behold, watch!

iPod/Quicktime  MP3

Public Enemy: Welcome to the Terrordome ***½
There's a lot of good stuff here, but you know there's trouble when you're re-editing the film in your head after five minutes. Worth seeing if you're a fan for insider looks at Public Enemy and some good interviews with Henry Rollins and Rage Against the Machine guitarist Tom Morello.

Traveling with Pets ****½
A gorgeously-shot, immersive essay about a young rural Russian woman (who looks like a young Tilda Swinton) faced with discovering who she is after her unsympathetic husband dies suddenly. Definitely an art-house film, but in the best sense. A few scenes are so striking and magical, it's hard not to feel you're watching something special. It can be a little slow, and some may not have the patience for the pace. I left feeling aglow.

Sextet **½
Disappointing overall, but amusing observations on sex and relationships might make it worth a look. Unfortunately, the structure of a "film within a film" is a distraction and makes the whole thing disjointed. There's also some really unnecessary animation, yet another idea they threw into the mix instead of making the story more compelling and coherent.

You, The Living (Du Levande) *****
My favorite film of the festival. It's full of ugly Swedes, in all their angst and absurdity and despair – and it's funny! The film has a really distinctive, soft painterly look with a palette of pale greens and muted pastels. It turns out that nearly every scene was built and staged in a studio, though this is completely transparent when you're watching. The film is really a series of loosely-connected vignettes, with certain characters recurring along with their dreams. Various members of a Louisiana brass band provide an unlikely and comforting soundtrack. This is a hard film to describe, but don't miss it if it comes back for "Best of Fest."

Clash of Egos ***½
If you've ever hated a Lars von Trier film, Clash of Egos is for you. This Danish film is the perfect palette cleanser in your festival schedule. The crux of the plot is that a blue-collar fellow, Tonny, is furious at the piece of crap art film he and his children have been subjected to. He goes after the director and demands his money back, ending up badly injured on set. Rather than take a money settlement, he ends up co-writing and co-directing the director's new film, turning it into a ridiculous action flick with lots of f-bombs. This satisfying and well-acted plot is diminished by a sappy, boring romantic subplot that ends the film on a predictable note.

What have you seen? We're planning to see Mondo Bondo on Wednesday, followed by the Mid-fest party at Red Stag Supper Club. We're also going to see Lynch, the documentary about David Lynch, and possibly Dean and Me: Road Show of an American Primary to find out how the filmmaker spent $100,000. Finally, we don't plan to miss Encounters at the End of the World, a documentary about Antarctica by Werner Herzog.

UPDATE: Instead of Mondo Bondo, which we heard was so-so, we saw Full Metal Village (***). The quaint, imperfect country folk of a rural German town don't seem to mind the presence of Korean documentary filmmaker Sung Hyung Cho in their daily routines. In fact, a great deal of time is spent on languid still shots that let the often funny details of their farm lives unfold. And then... the death metal festival arrives.

There's something deeply satisfying about a herd of cows running to heavy metal. If you're a metal fan you might be disappointed, since most of the time is spent on the village characters. I found it completely charming and well worth my time.

Lynch ****
This is for everyone who loved or hated Inland Empire. I kinda hated it, but somehow I can't get enough of Lynch telling weird stories, closing his eyes and demanding a one-legged 16 year old girl and a beautiful 23 yr old Eurasian, and yelling "fuck!" as often as possible. Glimpses into Lynch's filmmaking process are rare, and it's a little surprising he chose to let us in on his least cohesive, most haphazardly-envisioned film. Watching this documentary is almost enough to make me sit through Inland Empire again, though certainly not sober.

Guarding Cher's house in Aspen, Colorado

Style Gunn

Click To Play

MSP mag has been hippin' it up on the computers lately. Their Twitter account has come to life, and now they have something called styleparlor.tv. What you see above is a few excerpts from their interview with Project Runway's Tim Gunn - for reals! Watch it to see who he thinks will bring the style to the White House.

A couple weird things: (1) styleparlor.tv is a good name if it's your URL - but it's actually not a URL. That's just kind of strange. At least they didn't call it styleparlor.com. (2) For some reason they haven't made the videos embeddable. They're using Brightcove, so I'm sure it's possible. I'm not sure why they wouldn't want people to share these videos. I emailed my friend over there but haven't heard back yet.

Quiet reverie... or, Jam Session!

[via]

Cheese11 News

"Let me be frank. We think you're all idiots."
I made this kinda-funny video about 4 years ago as a possible way to open my film Blogumentary.

Here's the YouTube version.

Gravelter Skelter

Appalled / Aroused

La Pequeña Hillary Clinton

This dude wants to make love to his muscle.

Meanwhile, something useful: YouTube Reveals Video Analytics Tool for All Users

Let's be sad and beautiful together on Easter

Rock the Red Tail!

Rock the Red Tail is on Saturday. It's a fundraiser for a MN-based documentary about Northwest Airlines, specifically a mechanic who lost his job and goes to Hong Kong to meet his replacement.

There'll be some excellent music: Mike Gunther, Joanna James, Martin Devaney, all kinds of fun. Your tax-deductible donation will help the filmmakers go to China to film the last part of the film. FYI, The airline mechanics in Hong Kong may well lose their NWA gig to China, where labor is even cheaper. And apparently, the repair manuals are in English.

Watch the trailer here and watch for an interview with the filmmakers on The UpTake.

Mooki washes my hair

Mah hare taste lik catfoods? Please rate and comment on YouTube!

God in Our Governments: RAW & UNCUT

The UpTake's "We Need God in Our Governments" video of fundamentalists in Lynchburg, Tennessee has generated a firestorm of interest and heated discussion. Here's almost all of the raw footage, where I ask them about the fabled separation of Church & State, and the fact that our country was founded upon religious freedom.

As I've stated elsewhere: These are good people - some of the nicest folks I've ever met in my life.

Their views are often misguided or worse, and they seem almost impervious to information outside their close-knit religious community, which is frightening. However, piling hatred on them, or dismissing them as ignorant hicks, does no good.

These folks believe they're doing what's right for them in the context of their moral framework. Of course that's miles away from the progressive moral framework. Perhaps someone should give the young girl a laptop with an EVDO card so she might have access to other ideas outside the bubble of Lynchburg, TN.

This is the smartest comment I've seen about the people in this video.

Thank you John Edwards

I just saw Edwards at the St. Paul rally. He was inspiring even though I'd seen his speech many times. I realized nobody else in the race was talking about ExxonMobil making $40 billion in profits, contrasted with how much hunger and homelessness we have around us. That same night, Joe Trippi twittered this:

Sure enough, that didn't bode well. I talked to several people after the Edwards rally who were drawn to his willingness to go after giant corporations and stand up for working class folk. Here's hoping Edwards continues his good work on poverty issues. His presence will be sorely missed in this campaign.

JUST REALIZED: I was on the road with Edwards on the first day of his campaign, and saw him here on the last day of his campaign. Bookends.

The UpTake LIVE: Vegas Snippets

For the 99.999999% of the video grokking population who missed The UpTake's occasionally entertaining and incisive live coverage of the Nevada caucus, here are a few moments I hold near and dear. The whole team did a bangup job. Definitely check out The UpTake's YouTube channel for on-the-ground coverage from our citizen journalists in Nevada, like Corrine McDermid's Politics and the Strip video.

THE UPTAKE, DERAILING THE NARRATIVE: Chuck Tomlinson and Stacker Manfield comment on the exchange between Mitt Romney and Associated Press reporter Glen Johnson - and how it relates to our brand of citizen journalism.

THE MORMON QUEEN: Well, you just have to watch this one... College favorite!

BARACK OBAMA CAUCUS CAROL: Just a real lovely gem of a song, this guy and his ukulele. One of many YouTube clips I dug up relating to Nevada politics.

THE UPTAKE VEGAS PROMO: Check out my 0:30 spot, with the bigtime newsy musics and a little 3D action courtesy of After Effects.

Steve Garfield, Mobile Video Journalist

My friend Steve Garfield is always on the cutting edge of posting video online. I first discovered Steve when I was making Blogumentary and saw him post video of a Howard Dean blogger breakfast. He declared 2004 "Year of the Videoblog" because he's always ahead of the curve like that. Now, he just beat CNN to a scoop about Duncan Hunter in New Hampshire. That's just one of many stories Steve is finding while streaming live video from his Nokia phone using a service called Qik. The UpTake's Noah Kunin caught up with him in New Hampshire, uploaded the footage to me last night, and now here it is for you, dear viewer.

Watch more of Steve's live mobile videos on Qik.

YouTube Politics and Google Elves

Here's an interview Noah Kunin and I did with YouTube's News and Politics Editor (and Carleton College grad) Steve Grove. Some interesting questions got edited out. I asked him if a YouTube television channel is in the works, whether they'll offer HD video like Vimeo, and whether political campaigns lobby him to get featured. His answer to the last question is mostly in the video - it sounds like yes, campaigns do lobby him but he just gives them tips on getting their video out there. As for YouTubeTV and YouTube in HD? They're just focusing on making sure the massive amount of video they have now works well, and sees YouTube as more of a compliment to television than a replacement. However, I don't imagine he'd spill any product development beans.

Oh yeah, and he totally admits there's such a thing as Google Elves. They're like gay gremlins.

My "tard santa" xmas video

I just had Christmas with my friends; we drew names for a "tard santa" exchange. This is my gift to T-bone. The DVD version loops, over and over and Owwwwww!

Gore Vidal on Dem candidates, Ron Paul, neocons

Vlog Santa Series Finale

Off to my mom's house now... merry xmas (etc) to you all!

Iowa Dems Mashup

A bit of fun. Give it some YouTube love if you like.

SEE ALSO: Wreck & Salvage 'Approve This Message'

Xmas Kitteh videoz!

Mooki flings off a blinky Santa hat:

Kiko in a bag!

Just for fun, me grooving with a santa hat.

My Iowa Roadtrip on Veracifier

I'm so excited to see this video up on Veracifier, home of Josh Marshall's Talking Points Memo TV.

This is certainly more entertaining than your usual citizen journalism video (I think), in part out of necessity. I drove to Iowa after a commercial shoot in Minneapolis, arrived just in time to get parked and setup, tape the Dem candidates until my tape was gone halfway through Obama's speech after midnight. In other words, I was missing one of the things that makes a citizen journalist video good: Context, such as interviews with regular folks, or even footage of myself.

I knew it would be weak unless I did a voiceover and somehow recreated my roadtrip down there. So I shot myself against a blue screen, did a screen capture of Google Map's Street View down 35W, and made a fun story out of it. Of course the hockey fans trampling Hillary signs was a nice surprise too, even though I didn't really get footage of it.

A whole team of UpTake CJs will be on the ground in Des Moines and surrounding areas for the January 3 caucus. We might even check in with folks LIVE using Mogulus. "Stay tooned!"

It's a very Epic Fu Christmas

Happy Merrydays to all vloggers everywhere, especially hot live video party hosts Steve and Zadi of Epic Fu. Here's a taste of the festivities in fast-motion, set to Wham's Last Christmas. Pour yourself a mug of wine and enjoy. And please - slow down and read the brilliant witticisms in the live chat, won't you?

Big screen version
Ustream archive of the whole party

Meet Minneapolis - My Kinda Town

Check out the newly-redesigned Meet Minneapolis, the convention + tourism site for my fair city. The site relaunched today, courtesy of my friends at Ciceron. I had the pleasure of producing several videos representing Minneapolis culture and life, including this piece about fashion designer Katherine Gerdes.

Tay Zonday as GOD

You've seen him in Chocolate Rain. He's rocked the mic from First Avenue to Jimmy Kimmel. Tay Zonday only knows one direction: Up. All the way up, to the top. I'm talkin' bout God.

DIGG it please

This is an excerpt from the Electric Arc Radio season finale in Minneapolis. Bonus: Live performance of the Tay Zonday song, "Say No to Nightmares." (Sorry, I missed the beginning of the song due to a technical glitch. Honest.)

Blogger Nerds at YearlyKos Convention

Thanks to the Nerdcore Rising cats for including me in this fine blogger nerd video. Socks-n-sandals, yo. "w00p!"

Thanksgiving in Fridley: Hip to be Square!

Check out this EXPLOSIVE VIDEO.

Steam Punk

A propane tank fell off a truck in front of Lyndale Animal Hospital. Don't try this at home.

Video: Blogumentary in NYC

Join me now, on a magical journey back in time... August 30, 2006. A time when I had a movie screening in the big apple, thanks to Pioneer Theater programmer and Duluth native Ray Privett. You'll also see some behind-the-scenes footage of Rocketboom 2.0, still fairly fresh with new host Joanne Colan. What's not in the video is a bit of drama, those bits of drama that are best forgotten until a cybernetic Ken Burns comes around and interviews aging videobloggers in magic Surround-O-Vision. No, this is not that video – just a personal remembrance.

Mooki's Catnip Overload

Everyone please go rate and comment on the video!

Let the bodies hit the floor

This video "rawks"! (via)

Max Headroom steals the airwaves

During a broadcast of the Dr. Who episode "Horror of Fang Rock" on WTTW Chicago Channel 11, on Sunday November 22nd, 1987, at around 11:15pm, a Video "Pirate" wearing a Max Headroom mask broke into the signal and transmitted one of the weirdest, unauthorized things ever to hit the Chicago airwaves.

Dude was never caught. [via]

WE NEED MORE OF THIS