Blogumentary [chuck olsen]

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!"

Vlog Santa returns

Well, this is what he slapped together anyways, what with the writer's strike (whom he calls "dirty gay butt hippies" or "commies", I believe). VlogSanta.TV. Just one more video to get up in time for Xmas - where you finally what happened to Sprinkles the Magic Elf slave.

"also HOT"

Vloggers: Come to Iowa

The UpTake is heading to the Iowa caucuses with a team of citizen journalists to cover it from any interesting angle we can find. A video or two will likely make it on Veracifier. This will be our biggest citizen journalism project to date, and we want to make an impact.

Our team is small though, so here's me asking you to JOIN US. You there, with your own camera and laptop, you know what you're doing. No really, you do - I've seen your stuff (if not, show me). We need you. We can't offer much, perhaps some lodging and the excitement of being right in the thick of our political process, making our own media with an askew critical hat.

So come to Iowa: Fields of Opportunity.

The UpTake partners with Veracifier

Big news!  The UpTake now has a new outlet for the video it produces.  We just launched a strategic partnership with Veracifier.com to recruit, train, and showcase independent video journalists from around the country during the 2008 election year. That means our citizen journalists have the opportunity to have their work featured alongside video from Talking Points Memo. Needless to say, we're very excited by this partnership.

Mike McIntee posted the Press Release. Mike, by the way, is executive producer for The UpTake who used to run television news rooms. He's really been running the citizen journalism operation - everything from organizing citizen journalists to training, editorial, and helping setup our new UpTake Headquarters right across the street from the Xcel Center. We'll have a front row seat to the Republican National Convention in 2008, and we hope citizen journalists from around the country and beyond will join us.