Bill Cammack

blip.tv NYC Holiday Party 2010 (December 10, 2010):

Bill & Dina

Mike & Bill

Grace, Charles & Bill

Do we look different? o_O (April 07, 2007):

Bill, Mike, Dina, & Grace

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um… WOW! hahaha :D

This is all @Brett‘s fault. Brett put up a reward for a picture of me when I wasn’t posing, and @Skyle figured she’d cash in!!! :O

Unfortunately, Selina didn’t know how hard it was going to be to get paid, so she had all these extra attempts and decided to make a montage out of them with Animoto! hahaha.. well…

I might have to use this as my show open from now on, hahaha

um.. Thanks, Selina… *waves* :D

The lineup left to right. Hermann Mazard, Bill Cammack, Sarah Cooley, Host of the Blip,tv Party Charles Hope and me Grace Piper, originally uploaded by gpiper.

Hermann Mazard, Bill Cammack, Sarah Cooley, Charles Hope and Grace Piper
blip.tv Summer Party, 2009

Continued from “Time, Business & Handouts [Time, Part 1]“

In the very beginning of 2009, after I had aired my grievances with 2008 and was feeling, mentally, so fresh and so clean [clean], I ended up in a f2f conversation with a client one evening.

Jill, Bill & Flo

The reason I mention that it was evening is that I do my best work in the morning. By the time it gets to 7pm on any given day, I don’t give a flying &$#% about YOU or your project (even if I’m still working on it, hehe). The only think I’m thinking about by then are BREWS and CHICKS.

It’s nothing personal. I’m the same way about my own projects. The same thing that sounds like a FANTASTIC idea in the morning, that I can dedicate all sorts of TIME and ENERGY to, by the time it hits evening, I don’t care about my own ideas. I’ve learned this about myself and when I’m “eeh” about something that I think up in the evening, I shelf it until the morning to see what I REALLY think about it.

So that’s the state I was in when I happened to be f2f (face-to-face, IRL, in real life) with this client and I was nowhere NEAR in the mood to discuss ANY business other than what we were there to discuss at that moment. Here’s how the conversation went:

Him: So, what’s your schedule for [such-and-such-a-day]?

Actually, I have to stop there. :) When he asked me that, first of all, I tried to mentally access the day he was talking about to see if I was booked for any work on that day. He was talking about the week ahead of the day we were talking, and I realized after a few seconds that I didn’t have anything booked for that entire week. Once I figured that out, I shut my brain back down and went back to thinking about brews & chicks.

So, this is how it went:

Him: “So, what’s your schedule for [such-and-such-a-day]?”
Me: [mentally accessing] “…………………………..” *shrug*
Him: [looks at me funny]
Him: “ok, So what’s your schedule for [such-and-such-a-day+1]?”
Me: [now knowing I had nothing booked that day either] *shrug*
Him: [looks at me funny]
Him: “So, what do you do?”
Me: [stopping thinking about chicks... AGAIN, and accessing]
Me: “…………………. Well… The other day, a friend of mine couldn’t get her powerpoint presentation to go to video properly, so I had her send me her files and I made the video for her and output it to several formats she wanted and gave her the links to download them………………….. I also spend a lot of time maintaining my internet presence……………”
Him: [looking at me like I'm stupid] “Nah. I mean, What do you do FOR MONEY?”
Me: [looking at him like he wasn't listening] “That’s what I’m talking about.”

Read the rest of this entry »

Flo, Bill & Grace, originally uploaded by Bill Cammack.

Florence Holdeman, Bill Cammack & Grace Piper

I mentioned back on September 5th that my friend, Bre Pettis was going to have the premiere of the pilot television series episode he did, called “History Hacker” on The History Channel.

Photo by Francisco Daum
Bill Cammack, Charles Hope, Grace Piper @ Bre Pettis
Videoblogger meetup, Art Bar, May 2007

Rudy Jahchan, Bill Cammack & Bre Pettis,
starring in “Epic Pose-Coordination FAIL!”

The premiere was on the 26th, and Bre had a “viewing party” in Brooklyn.
(Check out Bre’s posts about the show & party on brepettis.com/blog)

I can’t think of a better way to kick off my new Television category than with a friend’s show! :D

Basically, Bre likes to hack things. This means he takes things apart, sees how they work and makes OTHER things out of them or makes them have different functions than they originally had. Think of the television show MacGyver, except with time, resources, research and no villains chasing you while you’re trying to create stuff.

He’s been doing podcasts (shows on the internet) on this topic for a long time. They’re normally short, because people that watch video on the net have a short attention span. This means he’s had to condense the loooooong amount of time it takes him to do what he does into a few minutes. This kind of show translates well into a 30-minute or hour-long program (actually 44 minutes plus commercials), because there’s so much that ends up on the cutting-room floor that you actually COULD make long programs from what Bre does.

I know this because I’ve spent an hour MYSELF, just trying to get my lines down for a 7-minute video collaboration. :/

The Lab – Episode 06: “Hostin’ Ain’t Easy!”

Now, the thing about internet video shows is you have NO BUDGET. This means you have to get your point across with the least amount of production, because you can’t afford to hire people that will make your show look right. Well, in this case, they pulled out ALL the stops. “History Hacker” is really VISUALLY entertaining. They used either a greenscreen or more likely a white cyc to create Bre’s virtual environment:

The Shirtless Apprentice #21: Cyclorama 101

I was honestly SURPRISED at what I was watching, hahaha. I really wasn’t prepared for the polish that they put on Bre’s pilot. The show is easily watchable by people that aren’t even INTERESTED in what Bre’s talking about or doing. At the same time that it’s about hacking things, it’s a history lesson, there are animations, there’s compositing, great writing, multiple locations in multiple cities… I CERTAINLY wasn’t ready to see MIT’s “Infinite Corridor”, which I had to pass through a zillion times, going to class. I had assumed it was shot in Brooklyn, in one location, in the same style that Bre’s web shows are normally done. I was amazed and entertained.

‘Matter of fact, Bre’s show reminded me of a show I used to edit for AETN / History Channel called “Guts & Bolts”. It had the same mix of talking about mechanical technology and simultaneously giving history lessons. You don’t think about how IMPERATIVE it is for aircraft carrier catapults to work nearly 100% of the time until someone explains that if it’s only 99% reliable, one out of every 100 times you launch a multi-million dollar plane, it falls in the water. :D

Anyway, the show was great! :D I have it on DVR and am in the process of watching it again. I actually had to stop watching it, because there are just too many GREAT shots and lines and setups. For me, it’s overload, because I’m used to experiencing my friends’ shows 3 minutes at a time… NOT 44+commercials! :D

The layperson’s going to enjoy it. The techie’s going to enjoy it. The hacker’s going to enjoy it. Anyone interested in inventions or history’s going to enjoy it. I definitely recommend setting your DVR up to record it (assuming they’re showing reruns) or making time to sit down and check it out! :D

And if you DON’T watch “History Hacker”, this is what happens to you! :D

Photo by Rob Boudon

Karin: I KNOW you watched “History Hacker”, RIGHT?
Noneck: Yeah, Yeah… I got the torrent. I’ll watch it when I get home!
Bre: hehehe
Bill: Yeah. That’s what I’M talkin’ ’bout! :D

Bill Cammack | Television