Alex Lindsay is a wonderful teacher and displays an intense passion for what he does. If you’re interested in production or podcasting – I highly recommend that you keep an eye on the Pixel Corps Website and find a way to get to San Francisco to take one of his workshops when he hosts them. I’ve also been given an honorary membership to the PixelCorps and plan on being a member for a long while.

Day 3 centered around video production and how MacBreak is produced. This included a fairly intensive green screen tutorial with both physical setup as well as using software (Conduit) to achieve excellent results. I definitely plan on introducing this into our production at the Museum just as soon as we can get the space set up. Space is a premium at my workplace and I hope this doesn’t take forever to implement. We shall see… Day 3 also included some filming of MacBreak with Justine talking about Spore. Spore I couldn’t care less about – but a great session to sit in on either way.

Day 4 pretty much was free form filling in questions that we as students had about various topics in podcasting. We also discussed setting up templates, Motion effects and a more in depth view of audio production. The week concluded with discussions of sustainability… how to get listeners and how to deal with server issues, syndication and feed projects from one another.

So the day began going over recording clean audio, what kinds of set ups and interfaces work well and the best way of recording and compressing sound for podcast. After we broke for lunch, the class got to sit in on recording TWiM (This Week in Media) with John Foster, John Flowers, and Alex Lindsay. It was a basic round table discussion, but we did get to hear all the behind the scenes stuff – see how the intro was recorded, see how the show is templated and other basic production.

This was followed by a ton of additional information in the afternoon on equipment and promotion of your show.

Off today to cover video. We’re going to film Justine Ezarik doing a MacBreak segment on Spore Creator. After that we will get some hands on in post.

Good times in San Francisco!

Alex’s brother Joe stepped in at the end of the day to discuss how he deals with the recording and post production of the PixelCorps podcasts. Awesome guy and he stayed late to answer just about every question we had. What a great bunch of guys…

So what do I take away from all this so far? Well for starters – I need to start using my digital camera again. I put it on the shelf in lieu of film a few years ago and one thing that became obvious in the discussions today is that its too valuable of a tool to not use for production purposes. This includes pre-shoot material, place holder, setup for later reference, and behind the scenes material.

Secondly, keeping a notebook of ideas is going to be another important step. I used to keep sketchbooks years ago when I decided to study graphic design. Over the years, I’ve become lazy and not kept up with these like I used to.

Video production is an interesting task. There is so much to it and it can be extremely time intensive. Alex made such an interesting metaphor today – you can’t change the tires while you’re driving down the road. Things must be decided on and committed to in advance. I think this is most important in staying “creatively organized”. When one is in the mode of being “creative” we allow ourselves to experiment. But this has to come to an end at some point in order to deliver the final product. Organization is key to achieving balance.

So back up in a few hours for day 2. We’ll be producing an episode of TWiM… and I’ll have my camera with me.

So what the heck is this thing? Well – while in Montreal last April, Nicole and I went to visit one of her contacts who is interested in getting this thing displayed in the new Center for Creative Connections at the Museum. Its called the Interactive Media Playground.

The user begins with 3 sets of tags that look like the keychains you used to have at motels for most of the 70′s. Each tag has a hook and a bar code. You scan the bar code to activate the media. So the green tags control the audio, brown video, etc. Once the user finds a combination he/she is happy with, the tags are organized on the hanging chains on the other side of the room.

These chains represent a continuum that can be set in a variety of ways. In the video – the floor was a continuum of playful to sad and the height represented the energy level.

The IMP is highly experimental, it was developed by two music professors (who took us out to dinner for the most incredible Portuguese food I’ve ever had). Its use has been experimented with in the music department as well as the psychology department.

Shot on a Panasonic SD-5 and edited in iMovie 08