Posts from — February 2008

I stumbled across a great article written by a Swedish archaeologist that was used on a post on Current TV. The article gave a European point of view of the primaries, which I think most of the US news outlets overlook.

The Current user grabbed an excerpt from the article and posted it in conjunction with a John Edwards campaign montage. By using the two sources, the user found a neat way to express his ideas. Both the user and the Swedish archaeologist claim that America’s mainstream media wasn’t ready for a true liberal candidate like Edwards. What they do like is a moderate right wing politico that is labeled a democrat (i.e. Obama or Clinton).

The internet makes it easy for people access information of all forms, whether it be images, video or text. John Edwards team used these sources to create the campaign montage that was later used by someone else to prove a point.

They probably didn’t even use a dv camcorder, but grabbed news clips and combined them with graphics to support Edwards campaign. I’ve seen tons of you tube videos made by ordinary people who took it upon themselves to make montages to support their candidate of choice.

HBO’s new show, “In Treatment“, premiered last week. It airs Monday through Fridays at 9:30pm. Thus, you basically have to watch it everyday or on demand. I finally forced myself to get caught up with the first week on Sunday. My first impression is that it’s okay, but I’m not sure I’m up for the commitment. Plus, it has a few pacing issues, seeing how I fell asleep after only one hour (only 2 out of 5 sessions).

Laura (Melissa George) was up first on Monday’s episode, so I’ve seen two of her sessions as of today. The pacing of her sessions are the slowest and seem to drag on with her rambling about her fiance or her infatuation with the therapist. Alex’s session, played by Blair Underwood, ended up annoying me because his character is very arrogant and abrasive. Still, some of the patients have actually caught my interest. The married couple’s session, Jake & Amy was the most entertaining simply because they were arguing the whole time. It had the most going on in terms of plot.

Paul, the therapist, has his own session as well. It chock full of subtle drama since what he discusses is based on the culmination of the week’s sessions. The viewer can see how he decides to describe the past week’s events to Gina (his therapist), proving that what people tell their therapist is totally subjective.

The show is all about learning about people based on what they’re saying and their body language. Thus, it’s all about dialogue and focused very little on plot. When I first heard about the show, I thought it would be more improvised and more akin to a therapy session in real time, sorta giving off the sense that it was filmed by a hidden digital camcorder. Now, after watching the first week, the aesthetic is more polished with it appearing to be pretty scripted with only a moderate use of real-time techniques.

I was reading up on the latest Non-linear editing systems to check if they were compatible with most HDV camcorders. HDVideoGuys gave a great overview of the latest HDV video cameras, despite some of it’s info not being quite up to date. It turns out that Canon, Sony, and JVC have been manufacturing camcorders since 2005 or earlier that produce the HDV format. Meanwhile Panasonic doesn’t output in HDV, but uses their unique DVCProHD format.

The HDR-HC5 seems to be a popular choice if you are looking to make the jump from miniDV to HD. It’s pretty affordable, ranging from $700-800 bucks.

At that price, why not join the HDV craze? Next, all I need is a Blu-Ray player and plasma tv to display my HDV footage.