Blogumentary [chuck olsen]

Altman

Eleanor Mondale video

A few weeks ago my head was spinning. No, not because I was hungover or on drugs. Nobody hit me in the head with a pipe wrench, much as I deserved it. No, my head was spinning from running around with my video camera taping people like Howard Dean and Eleanor Mondale. If I had a moment to rest I would've thunk, "Hey, this is pretty freakin' cool!"

Here's the video of Eleanor Mondale and article on mspmag.com. It's just a foo-foo magazine shoot video, but she did end up singing everyone's favorite Suburbs song, "Love is the Law." She's a towering, radiant figure in person. She's sassy and immediately likable. After reading the article, I have a new appreciation for her and for the power of optimism.

Lame, pointless web site

Fast Food Nation is an excellent film directed by Richard Linklater. It's a fictionalized version of the (I'm told) excellent book. Here's Lorika's review.

However, some junior fuckhead at Fox Searchlight pictures is marketing the film through a lame, stupid web site "doyouwantlieswiththat.com". They have pretty cool "burger-and-crossbones" stickers with that URL, but the site makes you admit you're a liar and ultimately just redirects you to the actual film web site.

Worst. Website. Ever. (But go see the film! Beware if you get queasy at the site of cow blood.)

MN vloggers on MPR (audio)

Cathy Wurzer devoted about 13 minutes of MPR's Morning Edition to Chasing Windmills and Minnesota Stories this morning. Here's the audio - it's worth a listen.

Chasing Windmills piece MP3
Chuck talking about the mnartists online video series MP3

Valleywag? More like... Valleylame

Apparently Valleywaggers have never seen a videoblog before. They dutifully reject any editing style or content outside the rigid confines of network television. Poor saps. Nice try on the video though -- not particularly entertaining, but I applaud the effort.

Valleywag's new post-Nick Douglas logo says to me, "amateur cyberporn thriller." I can't beat this comment though:

How many photoshop filters had to throw up before you got that logo treatment? It may be the single most ugly thing I have ever seen in my life, and I just saw the "Naked Jen" flickr set from Dave Winer.

See also: Memo: Valleywag Gets Down to Business, 10 Zen Monkeys

MN vloggers on MPR

Minnesota Public Radio will air their piece about Chasing Windmills tomorrow (Thursday 11/15) around 7:50am. After that, I'll be on talking about the Minnesota Stories/mnartists.org video series profiling Minnesota artists.

Also? Vlog-swinger Dan McVicar will be on the Late Late Show on CBS tonight.

Congrats Amanda

Play the motherfunker

BusinessWeek: From Rocketboom to ABC
Q&A with Amanda Congdon

Amanda sez: I don't feel like I'm "crossing over"-- I have one one foot firmly planted in each world, new media and old.

I'm so happy for Amanda, and happy she can finally announce all this great news. The Rocketboom breakup was painful for everyone involved, but my hopes have come true: Both Rocketboom and Amanda are doing great things and pursuing their own dreams.

I'm currently uploading one of the last videos for Amanda Across America, an interview with Doc Searls. It's been a long crazy ride editing videos from her road trip. It's made me smarter about many environmental issues, like biodiesel. It also served as an excellent introduction to Democratic candidate for president Gov. Tom Vilsack. My favorites, though, are the fun ones like hunky actor Daniel McVicar and the wicked parody of Rabbit Bites. I hope I can keep working with Amanda and Mario in some way.

Nevertheless, I'm looking forward to getting on with my own projects. I have some ambitious goals for the Vloggie-award-winning Minnesota Stories, which has been neglected lately. Why, I haven't even posted here about The Vloggies. Yeah, Minnesota won big! Woohoo! That's a future post.

For now, my head is spinning with all the morphing opportunities we have putting video online. At the first VloggerCon in Jan. 2005, people whispered about Ryan Hodson's secret desire. She wanted to do this for a living. Vlog for a living? Absolutely radical, and highly unlikely. Well here we are, doing just that.

But it's more than that. We have unprecedented opportunities to be creative, to share, to influence, to learn, to encourage world peace. Oh yeah, I went there.

UPDATE:Slashdot is funny. I'm surprised that many g33ks still haven't heard of Amanda Congdon. You guys are losing your street cred. Err, your panelled basement cred?

Also: What's a guy gotta do to get listed in the Techmeme conversation? Oh, who cares.

November 14, 2006 at 01:46 PM in Videoblogging | Permalink | Comments (2)

Minnesota Stories + mnartists.org

AWESOME ANNOUNCEMENT
mnartists.org teams with Minnesota Stories for a video series on Minnesota artists

I'm so excited to kickoff this series, and to be working with mnartists.org. I know that sounds like press release language, but it's true. Nothing is more rewarding to me than documenting artists in their space, learning the how/why/where behind their art and crafting their story in video form.

The first artist is my longtime friend Jon Nelson, most famous as host of Some Assembly Required and his sound collage alter-ego, Escape Mechanism. What you may not know is he creates beautiful visual mashups of old theater lights and other objects, such as suitcase and shovels. Jon is aprt of a show called "create • destroy • repeat" opening Dec 1 at Rosalux Gallery.

November 2, 2006 at 05:12 PM in Art/Design, Local, Minnesota Stories | Permalink | Comments (4)

Vloggies or Bust!

Lorika and I are soon headed to San Francisco for The Vloggies. How crazy is that? Minnesota Stories is nominated for "Best Community Videoblog" along with some other excellent contenders, such as Bill Streeter's Lo-Fi St. Louis and the righteously popular Scriggity.

The premiere episode from our grumpy friend Vlog Santa is nominated in the Funniest Video category. The competition is ridiculous: Ask A Ninja, Adam Quirk's Singing Woodchuck Variety Minute, Human Dog's VanTorre Celebrity Roast, and a couple from gifted vlog-humourist Richard Hall. Whew! I certainly should've nominated something from Carl Weaver, who is one of the funniest guys I know.

Everybody's a winner. But in the end, one person must be killed. Sorry about that.

November 1, 2006 at 09:51 PM in Minnesota Stories, Videoblogging | Permalink | Comments (5)