Bill Cammack

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I wanted, and received, the understanding of what it takes to put together a weekly internet show absolutely from scratch. Before the ides of March, hehe, I had absolutely nothing….. I mean, besides outstanding equipment and infinite skillz. :D I had nothing. All I had was an idea to do a show based on films that adhered to certain parameters that friends of mine (who know who they are) told me were attractive features to have in an internet show. I chose films because I’ll never run out of them, and I chose the format because I could do everything myself and wouldn’t get hung up for shows if other people dropped the ball, like they always love to do. It’s Monday right now, and I haven’t even CONSIDERED doing a show for this Friday, except doing out-takes from “American Pimp”, and I could do that show in one afternoon. The point is that as I sit here now, I know what it takes to deliver a show four days from now that’s virtually indistinguishable from my other three episodes (Not counting the two BlogHerBiz episodes, 1, 2). That’s what I wanted, and that’s what I have.

I may or may not do a new episode of “The Lab” for this Friday. I haven’t had the chance to devote brain cell #1 to ANY of the fantastic ideas I got from BlogHer Business ’07, and I still have clips to upload from the conference. I have two very interesting ideas on the table to discuss with a couple of the BlogHer ladies, regarding text blogging, audio blogging or video blogging. I also have to start thinking about practical implementation of Justin’s ideas.

It’s also currently videoblogging week, 2007. There’s a wiki about VBW’07 @ http://videobloggingweek.pbwiki.com/, and you can search for videos tagged “videobloggingweek2007″. I might use this week to test out a daily version of “The Lab”, and STILL do my film show for Friday…

’cause I’ve Got It Like That! ;)

Yesterday, Jeff Pulver & Chris Brogan hosted a Network2 get-together @ Proof in NYC.

I saw David Kowarsky for the first time since the last Network2 event at Proof I attended. He was telling me about VON:San Jose and his future videoblogging plans. I also saw Bre, Kendall, Mike & Dina, Grace, Eric, Eric, and met Matt & Dave from G14productions.

Here are some flickr pix from the evening:

In response to The Lab Episode 01: Swingers, Randolfe wrote:

It was well edited and entertaining.

Thank you. :)

Ultimately, I think you fell into the trap of allowing the film to pull you down to it’s (their) level.

This statement assumes a couple of things. A) It assumes that I’m not “down to their level” already. B) It assumes that whatever I say in a video has anything to do with my actual personality. C) It assumes that “their level” is below someone else’s level. I see why you feel that way based on your statements below.

“IF” I were fifty years younger and female in gender (‘if’ is a famously BIG word), I don’t think I’d be interested in getting to know you better and/or dating you.

This is an interesting statement because I realized after I read this line that in all of my calculations about set design and show concept and DVD selection and graphics and music and decisions on commentary and editing….. that I gave *ZERO* thought to A) whether females would watch my show or not, B) whether they’d want to date me, or C) whether anything I said might increase or decrease my chances of getting a rap.

The reason I can’t be concerned with that is that it’s tough enough to get topics that I want to talk about and make it all happen without adding in the filter of “I can’t use this clip or say this or that because some chick might not want to hook up with me”. :D

I agree with you that if my goal were to present myself as a candidate for marriage, talking about not only manipulating women, but in fact manipulating guys into having abilities beyond their natural capacity to “pull chicks” would be just about THE LAST thing I’d want to do. :D

As a matter of fact, if you watch the video again, you’ll notice that I call guys out for their bullshitting, lying behavior. They don’t ACTUALLY own yachts and expensive apartments. They just SAY they do because that’s what they think women want to hear in order to give them some. They’re hoping they can hit it before she figures out that they don’t have any of that stuff. That’s why Mikey got caught in a lie. Instead of just coming at her straight up, that he liked how she looked and wanted whatever he wanted from her, he went the typical route and tried to talk himself up and got busted. The problem with that technique is that so many guys use it that it’s effectiveness is diluted. You may as well walk up to her and say “I’m about to lie to you so I can try to get laid”. :)

Anyway… Having thought about what you said, and appreciating your comments, for sure… I STILL can’t be concerned with whether some chick wants to hook up with me or not because she doesn’t like something I said in a video. hehehe Something about that just makes me laugh. :D

Actually… Your suggestion that I tailor what I say on the show to present myself in the best light as a suitor is merely a different technique of manipulation. That would be as bad, ethically, as the behavior I just finished discussing. :)

This “game” single males (of all orientations) play demeans the really important dynamic in sexual-social relationships by reducing them to the level of a sport like fox-hunting and/or archery practice.

Yes. You are right about that. However, that doesn’t make “the game” any less of a reality for very many guys. Some guys chase chicks just for sport… just because they can. Other guys try to develop skills because they CAN’T pick up girls to save their lives. It’s because of Mikey’s lack of confidence in himself that he decides to lie about his job and what he owns and what he plans to buy. It’s because he doesn’t believe this girl will like him for who he actually is. For some guys, having some sort of tactics are just plain necessary, or they’ll never get on in their entire lives.

I had a parting of ways with a friend of mine over just this very issue. For some odd reason, he wasn’t getting any interest from girls that he liked. I mean, he was really in a bad way about it. Once he started learning how “the game” works, his first reaction was JOY that now, he could pull girls that used to NOT give him the time of day. Eventually, he rejected “the game” for the very reasons you mention. What he wanted was a girl that he liked that also liked him. You can’t get that by lying to her, because she likes who it is that you told her you are, and she doesn’t know a damned thing about YOU at all. She likes what you told her… It’s not that she likes YOU. What he learned for himself was that he was better off going the honest route and throwing his hat in the ring, win or lose, without manipulating the ladies into giving him what he wants. Unfortunately, once he “converted”, I represented the dark side of the force to him, so we didn’t hang out after that. I respect his decision and wish him all the best.. but that path doesn’t work for everyone.

I agree with you though that “the game” has a desensitizing effect on guys. Women become expendable when you can get another one five minutes from now or by turning the next corner. The more effective you get in “the game”, the less each individual “success” matters at all. It’s merely repetition and reinforcement that the same stimulus creates the same response in many different women. *YAWN* For guys that can get on without gaming chicks, I recommend that you don’t get involved in the sport of it all.

You’re a bright perceptive guy. Focus on more serious and deeper stuff. Leave films like this one to the loners and losers who inevitably end up living them :-).

Thanks. :) However, you’re projecting _your_ value system onto *me*. I’m sure there are serious as well as deep topics that I’ll get into eventually… however… hahahaha it’s NOT going to be in Episode 02! :D If you disliked Episode 01, you’re going to HATE Episode 02! hahahaha

Please take all this as a compliment not as criticism.

I appreciate your comments as well as your being up front about how you felt about the episode instead of just saying something generically nice. I really hadn’t noticed that I honestly didn’t consider AT ALL what chicks might think about my “Swingers” commentary. I’m glad about not caring about that, but I can’t take all the credit for it. Not that I would ever compare a single-episode-show to Rocketboom, but look at the statistics. They had something like 8% of their viewers as females. There’s a low percentage of females in the Yahoo Videoblogging Group. Even out of the females that are apparent, the vast majority of them are in some form of relationship or are for whatever reasons completely undateable. From Friday to right now, approximately 48 hours, I have a reported total from blip.tv of 116 views. Even if all of those were unique visitors (which they aren’t), there are two chances that one of them would be a “dateable” female… SLIM… and NONE…..

….. and Slim left town! hahahahaha :D

I thought the ending credits were the best part :-).

Again, thanks. After all I went through to get Episode 01 “in the can” and then back out of the can, I had to give myself proper credit for doing EVERYTHING. It’s out of my system now, and I’ll be using “regular” credits from now on. :D

Thanks for the note, Randolfe. :)

PBS’ “Frontline” is doing a series called “News War: What’s Happening to the News”. Part 3 aired last night @ 9pm, but you can watch it online.

Segment 19 in part 3 is of particular interest to those of us involved in videoblogging, which is, on the simplest level, putting videos on a blog. These videos could be personal. They could be something created or acted out. They could be just about anything…. Except they could also be a documentation of something that happened. For some reason, there’s a debate surrounding the importance of this. It seems completely obvious to me that if you document something and post it for people to see….. right now…… ALL around the world…….. that makes your work just as valid, if not MORE SO than someone who has a job called “journalist” and took some courses explaining HOW they’re supposed to report things and WHAT they’re supposed to report. :/

The first part of Segment 19 features an interview with Andrew Baron, creator of Rocketboom, as well as clips featuring Joanne Colan, current Rocketboom anchor and Amanda Congdon, former Rocketboom anchor, subsequently of Amanda Across America, and now ABC News. There’s also a clip of Amanda interviewing Josh Wolf, who’s currently in jail because of “citizen journalism”.

In another segment of the show, they mention that Amanda ‘made the jump’ to ABC News. I think that’s an interesting piece to the puzzle of “us vs them”, with independents on one side and MSM on the other. I suppose that those who are interested in attempting to invalidate “citizen journalism” could argue that ABC simply hired “on-air talent”. They chose HER and not necessarily “her journalism”. Read the rest of this entry »

The Joost for Mac build was pulled today [link: 19/02/07: Mac build pulled]. Fortunately, I already have mine. :D

Basically, the idea behind Joost is video on demand with extras like widgets for a clock, jabber chat, chat with others on the same channel you’re watching, the ability to rate the video you’re watching, a notice board and a news ticker.

With Joost, you can select and de-select channels. I currently have 31 channels. You can add or remove them via the “Channel Catalog”. Each channel is responsible for its own programming. There are some that specialize in short videos and others that have full documentaries or films reaching 90 minutes in length or more.

You choose “My Channels”, choose a channel from the list that appears as an overlay while your current video is still running, scroll that list to a show you’d like to check out and click on it. ~5 seconds later, you’re watching something completely different.

I wasn’t too familiar with Joost (formerly named “The Venice Project”) before I received my beta-tester invite from Jay Dedman [http://jaydedman.pbwiki.com/], so I can’t review at this point whether Joost IS what it’s creators wanted it to be. I’ll have to do more research on it.

What I can say is that the response is very quick for those of you that have ADD when it comes to television. :D You know those people that can’t watch a television channel for more than one second before hitting the “next station” button! :D The current video keeps playing while you channel-surf to your heart’s content with the mostly-transparent overlay. You can change the channels you have available and browse those channels as well without leaving the current video.

You can also search for videos with key words… like “chicks” (1 entry) or “cars” (9 entries). You can then save your search as a channel. That way, you don’t have to search a bunch of channels to find car videos or you can find videos not specifically on car channels.

It remains to be seen how many channels will be available to choose from. I’ll also be interested to see how often they change the material on each channel. If you’re a television enthusiast, you’ll enjoy the flexibility and video on demand of Joost.

…

Meanwhile…

…

There’s an issue amongst the videoblogging community as far as what groups are going to be allowed to present programming carried by Joost. The way Joost is set up, it’s the perfect opportunity to present independently produced content that’s already up and running on the web to a new audience. The question is what the criteria is going to be for consideration for acceptance as a channel. From what I’ve seen so far in the beta test, shows like Zadi Diaz & Steve Woolf’s JetSet Show [http://jetsetshow.com/] or Justin Kownacki’s Something to be desired [http://somethingtobedesired.com/] would blend in seamlessly to Joost’s current offerings, either as their own channels or individual shows on a designated “independent channel”.

We’ll see how it all shakes out. :) Anyway… If you’re a MSM (Main Stream Media) television enthusiast, you’ll enjoy the Joost beta test, so see if you can get your hands on an invite when they open it back up! ;)

Bill Cammack • New York City • Freelance Video Editor • alum.mit.edu/www/billcammack