smays.com

And the interns shall inherit the earth

The sales staff of our company's news division held their annual retreat this week. Your basic training/planning/role-playing/drinking/cheer leading get-away. I've attended a lot of them but not this one.

With video getting easier to shoot and edit, they decided to record some of the role playing sessions for evaluation purposes. Super Intern Jon Allison was put in charge of AV chores and he was MORE than up to the task. Check out his 5 minute mash-up (produced in iMovie HD).

In a pre-YouTube world, we would have posted a few still images on the company intranet or sent around some lame-ass PowerPoint (a couple of weeks after the event). Jon had this ready to watch before they came home.

Here's my question for managers: Do you have someone on your staff that can produce something like this? [Photo: Jon with Learfield Kahuna Roger Gardner]

Close call on the way to work this morning

Crazy Driver Nearly Killed By Train - Watch more free videos

Learfield Sales Training Video

I've just received the green light to publish the new sales training video we use here at Learfield. Part I above and Part II here.

And for those of you pressed for time in your lives, just skip smays.com and go directly to The J-Walk Blog.

Not as funny if you speak Japanese

More at TVinJapan. [via Boing Boing]

"Downloads, podcasts and embed video"

That was part of a promo I heard on MSNBC tonight. First time I noticed the phrase, "embed video." Even the networks are figuring out it's a good thing to have your video embedded in millions of blogs and websites.

I'm sure there is still a lot of "...no, no! We want them to come to OUR website!" But the web IS the network now and your affiliates are are all those blogs.

Old radio dogs learn fun new video tricks

Reporters for our ag radio network (Brownfield Ag News) were recently issued Casio digital cameras. They've been using them for still images for the most part but Dave Russell got a minute-and-a-half of first-rate video showing flooding and erosion in an Indiana corn field.

Dave is new to the world of hand-held point-and-shoot video but notice how he gets in a few questions (recorded on the Casio) while panning across the field. I have no doubt we'll be seeing more good video from Dave and his fellow reporters.

"I need my skin!"

This might be the most painful five minutes of video ever recorded. It features an old friend, Leigh Mullen. I grew up with her husband Larry and shared some of my best times with one or both of them. As so often happens, we lost touch over the years. This photo is from their wedding.

Leigh has resurfaced in this YouTube video (shot by her son Will) of her trying to free her (middle) finger, which somehow got super glued to a vent behind her bathroom toilet.

This is a powerful testament to patience, good humor and long-suffering mothers everywhere.

Crimes of Carelessness (safety video)

You always find the most useful and entertaining stuff at the J-Walk Blog. Always.

If bloggers aren't journalists...where's YOUR video?

Lightning started a fire at the Magellan Petroleum factory in Kansas City, MO and uber-blogger Chuck Zimmerman share this video shot form the downtown Marriott hotel.

Is that a camera crew in your pocket?

Mark Halperin and the folks at Time have their digital shit in one neat pile. Check out this exclusive video with David Axelrod, just after learning that the Associated Press has declared that Obama has secured the majority of delegates to the Democratic convention and will win the nomination.

Looks like Halperin is shooting with a small, hand-held camera. No mic (except for the camera), a little jerky but talk about immediacy.

Missouri Department of Transportation is YouTube'ing.

MoDOT (Missouri Department of Transportation) has new videos about highway and bridge projects, highway safety and other projects on YouTube.

• A flyover animation of the future landmark Mississippi River Bridge – St. Louis
• Footage of the rapid construction of the Jefferson Street Overpass – Jefferson City
• MoDOT Saving Lives and Reducing Injuries – A synopsis of MoDOT and the Missouri Coalition for Roadway Safety’s initiatives to reduce fatalities and injuries on Missouri roads.

There are also several other MoDOT videos available, showing how dedicated truck lanes would work, dramatic footage of the Route 19 Missouri River Bridge demolition, guard cable crash tests and an aerial view of the ongoing construction on the new Interstate 64 in St. Louis.

During the early days of YouTube, I hear the clueless ask, "Who wants to watch some guy doing the chicken dance? What a waste of time!" They couldn't (can't) see that, in time, even big old state agencies like DOT would figure out creative uses for the technology.

One more good thing about being 60

Stick around for the finish.

Radio with pictures

I gotta face it. I'm a radio guy. I have neither the face nor the concentration for TV. That's my take-away from this morning's live webcast from the Coffee Zone. Just too many things to keep track of. Watch the chat stream, monitor the audio (which is several seconds behind what is being said), look at the camera... whew!

As I replayed our half-hour chat I found myself thinking, this would have been much easier (and less painful for all concerned) if we'd just streamed the audio. Pictures added nothing to our little experiment.

We had 9 or 10 people watching, giving us encouragement in the chat room like parents at a grade-school production of 12 Angry Men, whispering our lines from the wings ("Turn up the mic!").

I think I'm going to look for some sort of live event for the next webcast. Perhaps the 4th of July parade or something. Stay tuned.

Hillary's Downfall

Not for Hillary supporters or the easily offended.

This would be more fun if we could drink

This video brought back memories of clinging to the luggage rack of speeding station wagons... and towing Charlie Peck through "downtown" Kennett on a skateboard behind my car.

By way of J-Walk Blog, by way of Cynical-C Blog, by way of who knows where.

Podcasting in Plain English

Those clever kids at Common Craft have created another useful explanation. This time, a simple intro to podcasting.

Blogger sweatshop

Follow-up to the NYT story on bloggers.

Line drive to the frontal lobe

Found this scary video (and amusing description) at With Leather: "Notre Dame's Wade Korpi took a line drive off his dome during his start last weekend against Rutgers, leaving him on the ground for about five minutes before he walked off the field under his own power.  When asked to comment on the play, he said, "Butterfly jelly banana good hammer.""

I don't follow baseball so, if the ball ricocheted into the first baseman's glove, would the batter have been out?

Bonus Still Shot: Man gets one in the kisser by flying bat.

"If the news is that important it will find me."

This just in... the young process information differently. According to this story at NYT.com, "...younger voters tend to be not just consumers of news and current events but conduits as well — sending out e-mailed links and videos to friends and their social networks. And in turn, they rely on friends and online connections for news to come to them. In essence, they are replacing the professional filter — reading The Washington Post, clicking on CNN.com — with a social one."

"A December survey by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press looked at how media were being consumed this campaign. In the most striking finding, half of respondents over the age of 50 and 39 percent of 30- to 49-year-olds reported watching local television news regularly for campaign news, while only 25 percent of people under 30 said they did."

"Rather than treating video-sharing Web sites as traditional news sources, young people use them as tools and act as editors themselves."

One quote in the story really jumped out at me:

“If the news is that important, it will find me.”

What does this mean for those of us in the news business?

Hours of fun. I'll take two.

Twitter in Plain English

A lot of people have trouble explaining Twitter. The people at Common Craft, a series of short explanatory videos, do the job with Twitter in Plain English. I do NOT need one more (micro) blog to care for but I'm test driving Twitter.

The Poor Man's Steadicam

My pal Jamie suggested I try the Poor Man's Steadicam to bring a little stability to my video.

"The camera operator may walk (or even jog), move through tight hallways and doorways, and even climb up and down stairs without shaking the camera. Unfortunately, professional steadycams cost around $1500. Even the cheap 3rd party ones cost $600+. Not exactly a bargain considering many of us use cameras in that price range. So, I decided to make my own version. It turns out, it only costs $14. Not too bad."

I figured a walk in the woods would be a good way to put the steadicam to the test. Sort of a Blair Witch Project for wusses. Keep your knees and elbows bent... and walk on the balls of your feet. Runs about three-and-a-half minutes.

"Serving Our Communities"

A bunch of Learfield sales reps descended on San Diego last week for what we call AE Academy (orientation and training for new sellers). They also found time to help out at the local food bank. Part of company wide effort to give back to the communities where we have offices.

The real point of this post, however, is the video. Shot on a little Casio point-and-shoot camera, edited on a MacBook Pro with iMovie HD. And the best part? Learfield's COO, Roger Gardner, did it all, including posting to YouTube. The tools have gotten so good, so easy... even the boss can do it! Great job, RG.

Give 'em back their guns, but take away those damned computers!

Ah, for the good old days when all you had to do was send a few soldiers to the TV and radio stations and padlock all the newspaper offices.

"Pakistan's government has banned access to the video-sharing Web site YouTube because of anti-Islamic movies that users have posted on the site.

In January, a court in Turkey blocked the site because some video clips allegedly insulted the country's founding father, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk. It is illegal to insult Ataturk in Turkey.

Last spring the Thai government banned the site for about four months because of clips seen as offensive to Thailand's revered monarch, King Bhumibol Adulyadej.

Moroccans last year were unable to access YouTube after users posted videos critical of Morocco's treatment of the people of Western Sahara, a territory Morocco took control of in 1975." [Associated Press]

Sunday Morning

YouTube's DNS is hijacked

Yikes! A few minutes ago I was uploading a video to YouTube when the site... just went away. I found this explanation at yelvington.com:

"YouTube has disappeared from the Internet, apparently the victim of hackers who managed to gain control of its root DNS record. My wife and I were just moments ago watching some videos and suddenly YouTube became unreachable. A whois request for Youtube.com returns this:

Whois Server Version 2.0

Domain names in the .com and .net domains can now be registered with many different competing registrars. Go to http://www.internic.net for detailed information.

YOUTUBE.COM.ZZZZZ.GET.LAID.AT.WWW.SWINGINGCOMMUNITY.COM
YOUTUBE.COM.MORE.INFO.AT.WWW.BEYONDWHOIS.COM
YOUTUBE.COM.IS.N0T.AS.1337.AS.WWW.GULLI.COM
YOUTUBE.COM

... and all packets destined for YouTube are disappearing into the network of PCCW Telecom of Hong Kong."

As much as I might enjoy getting laid at SwingingCommunity.com, I'd rather have my YouTube back.

UPDATE: 2:13 p.m. Looks like YouTube is back up.

UPDATE: 4:00 p.m. Pakistan declares war on YouTube.

FedEx Cup TV Ad

Given that the FedEx Cup commercial has been viewed more than 80,000 times in the last few weeks, you could make the case that it's not just a TV spot. It got emailed around our office yesterday morning.

The latest version of Photo Booth was supposed to make it easy to put a still image or video behind you when doing an iChat video conference. I've had mixed results, even using the green screen backdrop I set up in the basement. But Apple will get this right eventually and it will be very useful, as seen in the FedEx spot.

McCain Music Video

Seems only fair to give Senator McCain equal time.

Is the bike still in the basement?

"Gasoline," from Sheryl Crow's just-released Album "Detours," is set in 2017, and foresees a nightmarish future when the world runs out of gas.

Gabe and Max's Internet Thing

Gabe and Max explain "How to get the Dream Life of Your Dreams Using the Internet." This is the kind of amateur video that Hollywood should be very concerned about. This is bone dry humor of the first order. Fax us your email address now! [Thanks, David]

Sarah Silverman video raises the funny bar

Sarah Silverman got Matt Damon to sing and dance in a music video for her boyfriend Jimmy Kimmel. She "gave" him the video on last night's Kimmel show. This is one of the three of four funniest things I've seen in the last six months. It proves SS is funnier than I thought and Matt Damon is as cool as I figured he was.

Techno-Gods

I stumbled across an early video effort I'm not sure I've shared. We'll call this a re-run, just in case.

I'd been drankin' a little and set up my camera in the engineering workshop area at work. I ad libbed the full ten minutes and did it in just two takes. You'll see that my character swung from Sling Blade to Ratzo Rizzo and back. The sound sucked because of some equipment sitting next to the work bench.

Obama campaign promises

Jim Lipsey

Jim Lipsey was one of Learfield's first employees. He was part of the KLIK gang (Derry Brownfield and Bob Priddy) that helped Clyde Lear get the company up and running. No way Clyde could leave Jim out of his History of Learfield posts on the company blog. There's also a summary on the corporate site.

On Friday we got Clyde, Jim and Bob in a studio to talk about those early days and Jim's contributions (there were many). Jim will be 87 his next birthday. I want to be him when I grow up. When I joined the company in 1984, Jim showed me the ropes of affiliate relations. It was a privilege to work with him. Here's 10 minutes from a half-hour chat.

Do YouTube?

My friend Chuck understands the power of new media as well as anyone I know. Not in the abstract. He lives it and breathes it. He's posted 100+ video clips  on YouTube that have --collectively-- been viewed 170,000 times. One of those --a John Deere product introduction-- has been viewed 15,000 times.

Question for anyone who thinks they're in the "media business" in 2008: Do you know how to post a video clip on YouTube? If you don't, you aren't.

Imagine (waiting in line for 5 hours)

I mentioned a couple of posts back that, even at 4:30 in the morning, there was a long line of Mac faithful already in line for Steve Jobs' keynote.

People kept coming and getting in line behind us for hours, so I have no idea how long the line finally got.

Randy Newman - A Few Words in Defense of Our Country

Following the (MacWorld) keynote, Steve Jobs brought out Randy Newman for a couple of songs. A Few Words in Defense of Our Country is classic Newman satire. I liked it a lot more than the Wonkette did. There's a better version on YouTube.

Ditch Surfing

This will be huge with my friends in Dunklin County.

One of the few (only?) times I ever water skied was in the Mississippi River. I got up for a few seconds and fell. The flotation belt slipped down to my hips and help me upside down for an eternity. When I got right-side-up again, a river barge was headed my way. Ditch surfing looks like a lot more fun. [via Spluch]

Amazing nail juggle with hammer

If this is faked, please let me know how it was done. [Bouncing the nail on the hammer is real. Whacking it in the the wall is sfx. See comment below by Scot Nery, the guy in the video] At the end of the short clip [VIDEO], it appears the guy (a street performer from Seattle?) Scot swings and hits the nail --in mid-air-- driving in to something across the room. Did it take 30 takes to get this... or did he --wait for it, wait for it-- nail it the first time? I spotted this on an HGTV promo and he did a couple of other tricks. It would appear they hired him. Smart.  [Scot's YouTube page]

"My phone gets a thousand radio stations"

Mark Ramsey (Hear 2.0) asks how long before mobile phones in the U.S. look like this Nokia phone available in Europe.

As I watched the video demo, I imagined listening to a Missouri Tiger "broadcast." Or an all-news channel from one of our state networks. Ramsey's headline says it all.

YouTube Voter Video

I should have guessed the Google/YouTube guys would be all over the Iowa Caucuses. They've hooked up with The Des Moines Register, arguably the most powerful media outlet in Iowa, to create a YouTube channel:

"Document your caucus experience from start to finish. We want to show the nation what the caucuses are like, so bring your video camera along with you and give an on-the-ground view of your local caucuses. You can also add your own commentary or interviews with people just after the caucuses, offering their reflections on what took place."

I had to believe bloggers and podcasters and YouTube'ers would be all over this event but wasn't sure if cameras would be allowed. They are.

"Of course - these are our caucuses, and this a great opportunity to show the nation what they're like. Just be sure to be respectful of other caucus-goers and to make sure that your video footage is not a distraction to what's taking place."

And Google Maps is doing something special. but I'm not sure exactly what or where to find it. I'll update this post. If I had to guess it would be a map with all the caucus precincts, updated throughout the evening.

As I watched a couple of the videos, I was reminded of something I used to hear/say back during the early days of the net. Nobody will watch all of these. Somebody will watch each of these.

Blogs in Plain English

I don't think I ever succeeded in explaining RSS but just about everyone gets it after watching this brief video by Common Craft. And now they've worked their magic again with this short video explaining blogs. [via Podcasting New]

Photo Booth not quite ready for prime time

One of the new features (toys) in Leopard I've been most excited about is the addition of green screening in iChat and Photo Booth. This is the effect they use on The Daily Show (and the evening news) to make it look like the reporter is standing in front of the White House or the Supreme Court.

Mr. Jobs left me with the impression that I could put a still image or video behind me and have hours of fun. You can see the result above. I think I could get the lighting and the green screen working but the sound is off for some reason. One hopes this is fixed in a future update.

The Office writers mock studios from picket line

As the writers' strike enters day three, some writers and producers are taking to the video sharing site YouTube to express their frustrations. A YouTube channel created by the Writers Guild of America, West posted a video titled "The Office is Closed" yesterday, featuring the off-camera writers and on-camera stars of the NBC comedy "The Office.

I don't pretend to understand the subtleties and issues surrounding the writers strike, but I do know that I'd be happy to pay $2 an episode (or $5) to get The Office online. This is just one more whitecap in the sea change going on in media. The web has shifted (IMHO) the power to the creators, away from the suits.

Shoestring video production

My colleague David produced a 2 minute video for one of our clients recently. His post provides the background. I like the piece because a) it illustrates how easy and inexpensive it is to produce video and b) it effectively tells the story (public health program, in this instance).

David shot the video with a small, consumer-grade still camera (with video setting) and edited with iMovie 08. I should note this was David's first try and he did it while watching a World Series game.

Any company that has "communication" in their name, better have some people capable of producing a video like this. I have a hunch we'll wind up doing a lot of these for current and future clients.

Shaving off my muff for you

iMove '08 (One more time)

Roger brought back some video he shot at a North Carolina Tar Heels game last month (he has the same little pocket Casio I do). I decided to take one more run at the new iMovie, and finally "got" the new version. At least I think so.

Quickly trimmed the clips... threw in some transitions... tacked on a title and done. I can see where this would be a quick/easy solution for the typical user. While the resulting Quicktime file (20 meg .mov) looked great, everything I encoded for YouTube (I tried several times) looked shitty. Not sure why because I had the option of exporting with Quicktime, just like I do in the last version of iMovie. Bottom line: I will probably try this version of iMovie again.

Rediscovering high school football

Cover story on Broadcasting & Cable looks at how some local TV stations are "rediscovering" high school football:

"Vital to high school football's rise in popularity is the fact that technology has finally reached a point where the typical teen, raised on YouTube, can easily upload video and share highlights from that night's game. Station managers say the interactive nature of new media -- whether it's user-generated video, scores or trash-talking -- is a critical component of their school content.

Hearst-Argyle Television has taken the interactive concept a step further, training students in seven markets to be “sideline reporters” for its social-networking platform High School Playbook. A total of 60 students shoot high-def cameras, edit and post their work on the Web site."

The good news --and the bad news-- is this is no longer the turf of any medium. I know TV, cable and newspapers are jumping in. I hope there are radio stations doing them same. How hard would it be?

Let's say there are 10 HS football teams within the range of my station's signal. I recruit and train 10 reporters (and 10 back-up's) on how to shoot/edit game highlights. They upload same to the station YouTube channel (sponsored, of course) and we promote like mad. Incentive? Maybe some pocket money. Best video of the season wins a video iPod (others get iPod Shuffles and iTunes gift cards).

Barney and Thelma Lou visit Las Vegas

One wonders if every trip to Las Vegas could be boiled down to three minutes and fifteen seconds.

History of Learfield: J-School Genesis

Clyde Lear's latest blog installment of the history of our company is the best yet.

"For two years I worked on my Masters in Journalism. I wrote my thesis on starting a state-wide radio network. Missouri --like a lot of states-- had dismal radio coverage from the state capital. Every radio newsroom, big city and small town, depended instead on the two major wire services, the AP and UPI.  There wasn’t access to the voices of the news makers. There was a need for a state-wide news service for radio stations."

The post includes some video of reports he did as part of final exam. These are priceless and make the post. You can't miss the embedded clip but be sure to hit the text link to a series of his stand-ups. I've included my favorite here to give you a taste.

These started out on 16 mm film and Clyde eventually sent them off to be converted to VHS. And now they're digital and on YouTube for the all the world to see.

Learfield is a pretty big company today and it's fun to see the germ of the idea that started it all.