[253] Video Festival

[Richard Smith <smith@sfu.ca>]

Dear 253,

I am so pleased about the video festival. I know it is sometimes very  
discouraging to hear / see your work on the big screen when the  
compression makes things less than optimal, but you need to balance  
that by knowing that your work is on the web now and immediately  
accessible to everyone in the class and potentially the world, if you  
choose to do one for a wider audience. Remember the project on web  
shorts - you are all capable of doing one now!

For me, this project is mainly about having you experience "new  
media" in a visceral way. I hope you won't forget the challenges of  
combining sound, graphics, text, and video and then work with  
computers and networks to get it in front of a viewing audience via  
the web. Imagine yourself as a person with a video documentary that  
you want to get out to the world and having to convey a message via  
ebaumsworld or youtube or googlevideo...

I will be compiling your responses to the 'best of' and I will post  
the results on the weekend. I think it will be interesting. All of  
the videos are on the web site now, including the one that had  
compression troubles. Please check the web site and let me know of  
any broken links or problems:

	http://arago.cprost.sfu.ca/cmns253/course/wiki/A4Videos/

I learned a lot in the last couple of days about managing this part  
of the class - you won't *believe* how much better this version of  
the class went than previous versions... at least in the actual  
logistics of the showing of videos. We did 2hrs and 14 minutes of  
videos in 2 hrs and 30 minutes - including a break!

Next I have to work out a better way for voting on videos. I wonder  
if I can use text messaging like American Idol? With the 3 or 4 or 5  
letter acronyms for each team, it might be feasible, actually.

Last night I purchased an upgrade to the (free) tool that lets .wmv  
files play inside Quicktime Player - the player I was using  
yesterday. With "Flip4Mac Pro" I now have the ability to create a  
seamless movie of all of the videos that plays as a continuous show.  
It is just over 300mb of video, so if anyone would like a copy on a  
CD, let me know and I will create a disk image that you can download.

I hope you enjoy your summer and the rest of your communication  
courses. I will post a followup message with details about the exam.

...r

--
Richard Smith, Associate Professor School of Communication
Simon Fraser University, 515 West Hastings Street, Vancouver, CANADA  
V6B 5K3
Phone: 604 291 5116 Web: http://www.sfu.ca/~smith/ Mobitus: 2001 1070  
0578 skype - callto://richard_k_smith
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