Blogumentary [chuck olsen]

INdTV

I'm getting excited by INdTV. They're looking for indie producer-types, comfortable on-camera, with a documentary/comedy vibe. Uhh, hello? Like, umm, hello?

Umm, helloooooo? A-doy much? Drrrrrrrr...... (farting noise) Yeah, umm, hi.

Why TV sucks.

BLOGGER PROFILE: STUART HUGHES

Blogumentary presents a profile of BBC journalist, blogger, and Amputee of the Millennium (I just made that up) Stuart Hughes. Stuart began blogging when he was dispatched to northern Iraq in early 2003. His life, and his blog, spiraled through tragedy and transformation in the weeks and months that followed.

This is my second crack at telling his story - made much easier by the video interview he shot of himself and wealth of BBC News Iraq video he graciously provided me. He must have really good vision, because he's looking at me off-camera but I'm in fact thousands of miles away, nodding meaningfully.

Again, your feedback is greatly appreciated. I should note my VO here is leftover from v1.0 ("the 2003 Iraq War" - ahh, if only it ended in 2003!) This piece might be a little long (almost 7 minutes) but I felt every detail of Stuart's story was compelling. I'm working toward a 60 - 70 minute documentary, so naturally I'll start long and tighten it up later.

Stuart Hughes profile [Quicktime, 24 MB]

More Blogumentary clips:
• Blog History
• Power Line on Fahrenheit 9/11

Related BoingBoing post
OJR: U.S. Military bloggers and Iraqi bloggers discuss war-time experiences

NEW PATRIOT MENTIONED ON MAJORITY REPORT RADIO!

We're creaming our pants right now. Majority Report Radio's Friday show, with our friends Janeane Garofalo and Bill from Liberal Oasis, mentioned BushOut.tv and New Patriot on the air! Unfortunately he said NewPatriot.com instead of NewPatriot.org, but their web site link is correct. Here's the snippet:

New Patriot mention on Majority Report [1.5 MB]

We owe it all to our man with the plan, Luke Francl.

JIMMY CARTER VISITS GOOGLE

Blogger-whiz Jason Shellen caught a couple snapshots. Also: How Google Works

Blogger co-founder Meg Hourihan realized computers aren't her passion, and finds new sparks in the kitchen. Wonderful news.

Meanwhile, Lorika and I have (had) a warbler in our front porch.

NORTH STAR: MINNESOTA'S BLACK PIONEERS

North Star: Minnesota's Black Pioneers airs tonight on tpt-2. I'm so proud to have worked on this, and to know visionary documentary filmmaker Dan Bergin. I was at a special screening for the Minnesota Spokesman-Recorder and was in awe of their reaction. I can only imagine what it must feel like to have your forgotten history unearthed, to hear stories of those that walked before you on the same streets.

Star Tribune editorial

BLOG HISTORY

Howdy-doo chappies and chappettes. This is a clip from Blogumentary going back in time, showing a bit of weblog roots and evolution. Some context: This clip follows an interview with Rebecca Blood talking about how the early webloggers were explorers, combing the web for interesting links and adding a bit of commentary.

We ramp up to 1999, when LiveJournal and Blogger both opened the blog frontier to non-techies. After a fast-forward sample of that blog explosion, we jump back to ancient history... Samuel Pepys, and American Revolution pamphleteers - aka the original citizen media.

Blog History [Quicktime, 12 MB]

Speaking of blog history, my belated farewell to one of the first black bloggers: Aaron of Uppity-Negro.com. I'm sorry to say I did not know him. But George did.

TOP 10 BUSH TAX PROPOSALS

Anbody gots video of Kerry on Letterman? I hear it was good.

Kerry's "Top 10 Bush Tax Proposals" are:

10. No estate tax for families with at least two U.S. presidents.
9. W-2 Form is now Dubya-2 Form.
8. Under the simplified tax code, your refund check goes directly to Halliburton.
7. The reduced earned income tax credit is so unfair, it just makes me want to tear out my lustrous, finely groomed hair.
6. Attorney General (John) Ashcroft gets to write off the entire U.S. Constitution.
5. Texas Rangers can take a business loss for trading Sammy Sosa.
4. Eliminate all income taxes; just ask Teresa (Heinz Kerry) to cover the whole damn thing.
3. Cheney can claim Bush as a dependent.
2. Hundred-dollar penalty if you pronounce it "nuclear" instead of "nucular."
1. George W. Bush gets a deduction for mortgaging our entire future.

Meanwhile: Baby Baby, It's a Wild World

Meanwhile, Part II: I'm still under the Blogumentary rock. I'll post some video tomorrow.

MITCH BERG, UNPLUGGED

Check out this extensive interview with Mitch Berg [Shot in the Dark] on a blog that's new to me, Bogus Gold. Another Gemini blogger from Friendly Fridley. Someday I may post my Fridley High School graduation picture. I'm sporting both a mullet and a perm - totally sweet.

I posted an excerpt below where he talks about New Patriot, some of whom he finds "interesting" and others "whackos." Yessir, that's us!

Thanks for the heads-up from Gisleson. Take his quiz.

Then I try to sort through some of the new blogs. I’ve been reading more opposition blogs lately. Um… there’s a group of lefty bloggers who’ve tried to form sort of an instant association. I guess I’ve heard through the grapevine that they’re trying this as sort of a leftwing answer to the Northern Alliance… called the New Patriots. They have a website. It’s a group of ten local lefty bloggers, with a variety of writing skill levels. And I find myself reading them. Not that I ... probably because I enjoy some of them. Some of them are interesting writers. Some of them are… um… are whackos. And, um… I’ll let the discerning reader tell who’s who. And I read them. And I’ll find myself going out on some of the lefty blogs… with the… to get ideas to write about. And some of them are interesting… some of them are… I went through a process, probably a month, month and a half ago. Trying to... as one of my posts said... trying to find a good lefty blog. And I found a few. I mean there’s a few left blogs that I enjoy reading around here now. I enjoy... uh... rphaedrus, Jason’s blog, who... I think you met Jason at one of the blogger get togethers here [I did. – ed.]. Great guy. Worked with him… He and I and “Plain Layne” used to work together. Let’s see... um... Chuck Olson. He’s just a personable guy, and he writes a presentable blog that I enjoy reading from time to time. I do read his blog. I do it fairly regularly. And all the other lefty blogs less so. There’s kind of just… this bitterness to a lot of the local lefty blogs … and I find it just sort of unbecoming. It’s kind of just off-putting.

SILLY PANTS TIME!

Sorry, false alarm. It's not actually silly pants time; I'm just making sure I remain Google's #1 pick for Silly Pants Time.*

BORING BLOGUMENTARY UPDATE-BOT #1:

It's really hard to record voiceover when my nose is plugged full of gunk.

I'm trying to find a somewhat recent blog post to demonstrate what a blog is. I have very few "classic"-style blog entries (News link, source, commentary). Right now this is my top candidate. Short, simple. And my commentary is "duh." Maybe I should stick with my original?

Right now I'm working on the ancient blog history. Samuel Pepys was sharing political and personal nuggets on a daily basis back in 1660. Well, except nobody read his diary until later - so he lacked an audience. Samuel Adams, however, was organzing Committees of Correspondence - letters and pamphlets written to inform and persuade people. These are the original political bloggers, you might say – historical inspirado for us New Patriots.

Somewhere along the line mass media took over for these personal voices. An engaged public became a passive audience. Voices became eyeballs. Television has been the ultimate weapon of mass persuasion since the Nixon-Kennedy debates of 1960. That is, until blogs set things right-side-up again.

* NOTE: I'm not wearing any pants. To keep things quiet when recording voiceover, I close all the doors and windows in the house. Then it gets hot, and I take my pants off. So maybe it is "Silly Pants Time" after all.

September 20, 2004 at 02:17 PM in Blogumentary | Permalink | Comments (6) | TrackBack

BLOGUMENTARY PROMO IMAGE

Whaddya think?

September 19, 2004 at 04:58 PM in Blogumentary | Permalink | Comments (11) | TrackBack