Travels with Rhody » Video

A Discovery Channel Moment Outside My Window

admin — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 03:01:25 +0000

I was banging away on the computer this afternoon when I heard a noisy, angry bird and looked outside. Atop the telephone pole across the street was a hawk dismembering a feathery corpse. Pestering the hawk was the local mockingbird, who was dive-bombing from various angles. It occurred to me that the hawk was chowing down on the dead chick of the angry mockingbird. But from its gray feathers, the dead bird looked more like a pigeon. So possibly, the mockingbird was just being territorial or boldly acquisitive—he/she lives half a block away and makes quite a racket in this neighborhood.

Anyway, it was interesting to see a little bit of natural drama unfold right on my street. My camcorder was right at hand so I grabbed it and filmed a few minutes of the action. Shortly after I stopped filming the hawk finished its meal, picked a few bits of blood and meat off its talons, cleaned its beak against the wooden pole, and flew away.

Hiking the Marin Headlands with Rhody

admin — Sun, 18 Jul 2010 18:42:01 +0000

The truth is that I haven’t used my new Canon Vixia camcorder since I got it in June. Graham was the guy behind the camera all the way across the country for the World Wide Wade Goes West series. But I watched him work the camcorder and edit the videos in Final Cut Pro long enough to pick up a few basics, and yesterday I headed over to Marin County with Rhody to revisit the Coastal Trail and test out Vixia (as we affectionately came to call her) for myself.

Here’s the result. Lots of unsteady shots—I definitely need some practice with the stability. Not to mention just grabbing eye-catching shots. But hey, it’s a first solo outing.

Epic Road Trip Across America, Video Camera in Hand

admin — Sun, 04 Jul 2010 13:18:37 +0000

I’m writing this in Salt Lake City, about three-quarters of the way from Boston to San Francisco. Just two more days of driving to go. If you do all your transcontinental travel by plane, you forget how big the country really is—especially the western half of it.

Usually I’d be paying more attention to the scenery and taking more pictures, but on this trip, there’s a very clear goal, aside from getting to San Francisco: publishing one new video on Xconomy every weekday, based on our conversations about technology and entrepreneurship with people along our route. We’re calling the video series World Wide Wade Goes West, and you can check out the whole sequence at YouTube.com/xconomywest.

My friend and co-pilot Graham Gordon Ramsay and I made a couple of test videos before we left Boston, and they came out well. But I wasn’t quite sure if it would be possible, logistically or physiologically, to do the same thing every day on the road. After all, we’re compressing the whole shooting, editing, and uploading process into a single day for each video while simultaneously covering 700 to 800 miles of highway. But we’ve managed it so far, at the cost of a certain amount of sleep.

And we’ve had a ton of fun in the process. Our interviewees have all been fantastic, offering great insights and being incredibly generous hosts and good sports on top of it all. It’s been a pleasure and an education to work with Graham, who is always full of creative ideas about how to get the shots we need under the conditions given to us at each site. And I’ve had fun learning how to be an on-camera personality. (I’m keeping the blooper reel under lock and key.)

Check out this Flickr photoset to see pictures from our trip (mostly taken by Graham.) And here are links to the whole video series:

Pilot/Preview Episode (Recorded May 8, posted June 14)
Episode I: Gloucester, MA (Recorded May 29, posted June 28; interviewee: Mark Nelson)
Episode II: Rochester, NY (Recorded June 27, posted June 29; interviewee: David Cook)
Episode III: Who’s Wade? (Recorded June 29, posted June 30; interviewee: Wade Roush)
Episode IV: Torch Lake, MI (Recorded June 29, posted July 1; interviewees: Sharon and Dean Branson)
Episode V: Minneapolis, MN (Recorded June 30, posted July 2; interviewee: Oliver Zhou)

At least two more episodes are coming next week — Wall, SD, and Denver, CO. So keep an eye on Xconomy and the YouTube channel!

A lot of people have contributed their time, effort, generosity, and counsel to this project, and I want to thank them personally:

Fan Bi
Bruce Bigelow
Dean Branson
Sharon Branson
Biyeun Buczyk
Bob Buderi
Greg Calkins
Heinrich Christensen
David Cook
Winnie Dahlgren
Bill Darmon
Richard Freierman
Maria Gentile
Bill Ghormley
Dave Hahn
Bettina Hein
Greg Huang
Erin Kutz
JL
Howard Lovy
Mark Nelson
Jon Pierce
Jules Pieri
Graham Gordon Ramsay
Lauren Ramsay
Patricia Roush
Paul Roush
Alexa Scordato
Gregg Sorensen
Luke Timmerman
Steve Woit
Rebecca Zacks
Oliver Zhou

Coming to a Screen Near You: World Wide Wade Goes West

admin — Sat, 26 Jun 2010 00:55:35 +0000

No self-respecting digital media writer can go on a road trip without documenting the whole thing digitally. Soon after I’d decided to drive from Boston to San Francisco to take up my new post as Editor of Xconomy San Francisco—and recruited my good friend Graham Gordon Ramsay to share the driving—we hatched a devious plan to create a video travelogue. (Okay, partly we were just looking for a way to create fresh content for the site while I’m on the road.)

We put the pilot for the whole series online back on June 14, the day we launched the San Francisco site, and the series will get underway in earnest starting Monday, June 28. You can watch the daily posts at www.xconomy.com/san-francisco or subscribe to our YouTube channel at youtube.com/xconomywest. I hope you’ll follow along as we wind our way through Massachusetts, New York, Ontario, Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, South Dakota, Colorado, Utah, Nevada, and of course California, stopping along the way to talk with real people about how technology figures in their lives, what the climate for entrepreneurship is like in their communities, and whether the innovators Xconomy chronicles daily are serving their real needs.

Arboretum Aussie: My First iMovie

admin — Sun, 25 Apr 2010 00:23:09 +0000

Here I am with a camera that shoots video and a Mac with a perfectly good copy of iMovie on it, and I’ve never learned how to mix a video. Until today. Rhody and I went out on a video safari to Harvard’s Arnold Arboretum this morning, and played “puppy-razzi,” getting a good 15 minutes of video recorded. This afternoon I studied up on iMovie and mixed the clips down to the two-and-a-half minute video here.

Mass Mobile Month Is In Full Swing; And Yes, There’s an App For That

admin — Sun, 07 Mar 2010 15:15:12 +0000

I couldn’t be more gratified about the response that the Mass Mobile Month campaign has been generating in the local technology community. With 15 events on the docket between late February and early April, and with something like 25 supporting organizations signed up to help promote them, it’s looking like March 2010 will be the month when everybody finally realizes what a key role New England’s mobile technology cluster is playing in the national and global mobile scene.

Two developments last week (the first official week of Mass Mobile Month) were especially exciting. First there was the release of the official Mass Mobile Month iPhone app, a handy portable guide to all of the mobile-related events this month and their venues. Cambridge, MA-based Swift Mobile created the app; it’s a variation on the apps they’re developing for the travel and meeting industry (see our coverage of Swift Mobile on Xconomy).

Second, I had the opportunity last week to meet Kathy Kiely, president of the Ad Club, the trade association for marketing and advertising companies in New England, and record an interview about Mass Mobile Month for The Big Orange Couch, the club’s online video series. I hate watching myself on video, but I think this one actually came out pretty well! It’s embedded below.

One of the highlights of Mass Mobile Month is Xconomy’s own Mobile Madness event on March 9. If you haven’t signed up yet, do it now—last I checked, the event was nearly sold out. Unfortunately, after spending the last few months organizing Mobile Madness, I may wind up missing some or all of it, as I’ve been seated as a juror for a trial in Boston that’s expected to last several weeks.

I want to thank all of the organizations who have joined Xconomy in promoting the Mass Mobile Month events. All of these organizations recognize that by working together, we can take Boston’s amazing cluster of talent and ideas for mobile innovation and make it into something even more remarkable and world-changing.

Become an Amateur Podcaster, Make a Digital Movie: Seven Projects to Stretch Your Digital Wings, Part Two

admin — Sat, 12 Sep 2009 01:54:04 +0000

Whether the fall is back-to-school season for you or not, there’s always more to learn. In last week’s column I outlined three fun weekend projects involving new technologies for digital self-expression. My suggestions covered art (digital “finger painting” with an iPhone app called Brushes), writing (”lifestreaming” with Posterous and Friendfeed), and photography (building three-dimensional photographic spaces with Photosynth). This week I’ve got two more digital projects in mind for you, this time in the areas of podcasting and computer animation. Next week, I’ll finish up with maps and virtual worlds.

I’m writing this three-part column because I think it’s an exciting time for anyone who’s interested in consumer-level digital media tools. Not only are we seeing a profusion of inexpensive new gadgets for capturing media—witness Apple’s announcement Wednesday that the new iPod Nano will have a built-in digital video camera—but there are also many new Web-based services where creators can edit, enhance, share, and promote their media creations. The only way to keep up with all these new technologies is just to jump in and try them. So let’s get back to it:

4. Become an Amateur Podcaster with AudioBoo

When podcasting first took off four or five years ago, most podcasters tried to emulate radio hosts, kitting out their podcasts with fancy musical intros and outros and other audio goodies. Just to experiment with podcasting, you needed a pricey microphone and recording rig, audio editing software, and a working knowledge of RSS, iTunes, and other distribution methods. But thanks to a bit of good old technological progress, the barriers are now much lower. In fact, producing a podcast these days can be just about as easy as making a phone call. Which means that dictating a few off-the-cuff thoughts on your mobile device and uploading them to the Web is becoming a realistic alternative to blogging and other more familar forms of Web-based communication.

This is an excerpt from the September 11, 2009 installment of World Wade Wade. Click here to continue reading the column at Xconomy.