VIDEO: "I know what I want"

(CLICK THE PHOTO TO WATCH)
Not too long ago, I promised myself I'd post a video each day for 3 consecutive months.
Who can post 90 videos in 90 days?
I can't.
Not with the tools we have. Not the way I want the videos to look.
I was able to post for about 2 weeks straight.
It was a good experiment.
I'm getting better and more comfortable creating and posting video.
This is what Ive learned.

I KNOW KNOW WHAT I WANT

Right now, the moment I take out a camera, everything changes.
People get on guard. I want to record life more naturally.
I want a camera that doesnt look like a camera.
Make it look like a tomato. anything.

I wish I could record 1-minute, self-contained moments that required no editing,
but life is rarely this seamless.
Usually I record a Moment...then ill get a concept...then I record another 4-10 minutes of raw video.
I then go home and edit it down to a 1-3 minute videoblog.

Right now, editing must be done on my home computer because its got all my stuff.
As much as I have fallen in love with iMovie, it takes me 30-60 minutes(a long subwayride) to edit a video.
This is my editing dream.
I want an iPod Editor or PalmEditor that would let me edit video anywhere.
Work, subway, friend's house, the park, a dungeon.
Basically it's like a small sketch pad.
I will transfer the video from my tomato camera(remember, it doesnt look like a camera)...and use a pentool to edit.
I can...drag and arange moments in the order i want....crop each moment to the right length...add simple titles and sound.
Then, I want to post using wi-fi or cellular.

Is this possible?
Only by making the recording, editing, and posting of video this simple could I post each day.
Life is busy.
Im staying up till 4am each night doing my videoblog because I cant do it anywhere except my home at night.
The recording, editing, and posting must be a part of my daily life.

Comments

[Steve Garfield]

Jay,
That was my favorite video!

I really enjoyed the stop motion effect.

After a while I started playing a game with that video to see if I could determine when the next freeze frame was going to occur.

Very cool!

I was kind of like an experiment to see if people figured out that your tomato was really a video camera. :-)

-- bling --

--Steve

[Peter]

It's brilliant - don't stop Jay. If you can't do it, who can? We would be lost! Keep going, you're just hitting a hard time. Make 'em short for a few days. Don't give up, this is the time to push through to the next level! Just make one for today and post it, you'll be back on track. A shortie. Come on!

[Jason Daniels]

I have thought alot about how the camera as an object changes social situations, putting people on guard and defensive. Not so much on the street of city but at a pseudo intimate level. I have always thought about painting a video camera - so it is something other than black or silver. Not camouflage but something more mythological - green and yellow and red with dots, something else...

Jason

[shannon]

Tomato Cam! Hmmm. Like you think maybe you'd get a more precise response if you pointed a tomato at someone? Try pointing a tomato at a cop, or a homeless person. I imagine you'd shoot some pretty different results. My video camera looks like a gun (Fisher, little thing). I have to be careful who I point it at but general the response I get from that camera is best I've gotten from any camera. For some reason people don't take it to be so intimidating. But really, if you point something at somebody and they don't know it a camera and they keep acting natural....well at that point you've got a spy cam. Voyeur? All I can say is "zzzzzziiiiiinnnnnggggg".

[Chuck]

Teriffic! Reminds me of the end of Six Feet Under's first episode....

I've scratched my head over this camera business, too. I'm with you on the tomato. I want to do the opposite of what Errol Morris did (building a big teleprompter machine in order to achieve eye contact) with the same goal of unguarded intimacy.

I've been wanting a little lipstick camera inside my baseball cap, going into some sort of Creative Labs hard drive in my pocket or backpack. That doesn't address the instant editing, but it moves toward the mobile "always on" capturing idea.

[charlene]

It's not the tool. I think it's how you behave with the engagement. If you change to the voyeuristic element, then you will have other issues, no?

Look at your support! Holy cow.
Lotsa boxes of kleenex offered with this comment chain-gang. Yer a lucky bastard.

[Eric Botticelli]

> don't stop Jay.

I have to agree.
Apart from the fact that I don't want you to stop what you're doing, you've made a commitment and developed an audience, a following, based on that commitment.
We are, I'm sure, forgiving, however. All you have to do is post 5 second movies on days you don't have time to do what you would like to do if you had more time. Just take out the camera and point it out the window for a few seconds. Doesn't require editing.

On another note, where'd you get that high pitch resonating sound you used for the freze frame? did it originally from the buses' brakes? did you tweak it in an audio editor?

[Eric Botticelli]

>All I can say is "zzzzzziiiiiinnnnnggggg".

lol

[Eric Botticelli]

>I've been wanting a little lipstick camera inside my baseball cap, going into some sort of Creative Labs hard drive in my pocket or backpack. That doesn't address the instant editing, but it moves toward the mobile "always on" capturing idea.

I think Poindexter (Total Information / Terrorsim Future Market guy) would support this type of technology. One of the many aspects of the DARPA funded TIA program is a machine that a person would wear, voluntarily in most cases, but also a possible requirement for suspected terrorists or criminals, which would log everything that person would see and hear.

"According to the IAO's blueprint, TIA's five-year goal is the 'total reinvention of technologies for storing and accessing information ... although database size will no longer be measured in the traditional sense, the amounts of data that will need to be stored and accessed will be unprecedented, measured in petabytes.'"

http://www.wired.com/news/conflict/0,2100,54342,00.html

[Eric Botticelli]

More TIA goodness:

"Centibots" (I've also heard they're working on little machines that would act in groups and fly around, resembling pigeons or some other such bird)
http://infowars.com/print/ps/centibots.htm

True x-ray vision, the kind all the kids in the 50's thought they could get with those red spiral cardboard glasses for 5 bucks in the mail:
http://infowars.com/print/ps/xray_screeners.htm

The $24 million enterprise called Brain Machine Interfaces is developing technology that promises to directly read thoughts from a living brain -- and even instill thoughts as well.
http://infowars.com/print/ps/darpa_bm.htm
(This Brain Machine relates to that personal "diary" machine -- they want that machine to log every thought you have as well.. which obviously requires a quantum leap in computer technology)

[Mica]

fuk, am i jealous of all your comments and support here. its my fantasy that so many people would give a shit that i might stop doing whatevr it is i think is important. lucky bastard. like the image you used as the thumbnail, jerk.

[Peter]

I'm gonna let the secret out: Jay has a camera that's disguised as funky glasses. I don't agree with the general feeling that we need to diguise our cameras. I've found that people get used to cameras surprisingly quickly. The documentary people have learnt a lot about building an 'invisible wall', google it to find out more. In India, I always asked people if it was ok to film, but didn't make a big deal out of it and then started waving the camera around continuesly in a certain situation. After half a minute people ignore it.

[Chuck]

Yes, the girl in the picture is kinda hot. :-)

Eric: Thanks for the scary-ass info. As usual, technology can be used for good or eeevil. Or perversion.

In my mind, there are a couple good reasons for wanting a tiny reliable hands-free camera. They're really two reflections of the same thing - to approach natural conversation and behavior.

Yes, cams are getting smaller and people get used to them. But to film, we have this little hunk of equipment to deal with. People *are* conscious of it and it creates a but of formality - at least initially. And, the filmmaker has to worry about it and occupy some part of his body and mind with it.

On the other hand - at least with visible cameras you KNOW when filming is happening. If creeps and G-men are filming us without our knowledge (already happening) that's the downside. But it doesn't stop me from wanting to use that technology as a non-evil documenter of people.

Screw high-def, give me a crappy little hat-cam!

[yatta]

agreed.

best. episode. evar.

keep it going.

and i have an idea for the camera. i'll post it soon.

-kc.

[Eric Botticelli]

Jay, I just came across this poem and I think it relates to what you are doing, on your TV show and here:

If you don't know the kind of person I am
and I don't know the kind of person you are
a pattern that others made may prevail in the world
and following the wrong god home we may miss our star.

For there is many a small betrayal in the mind,
a shrug that lets the fragile sequence break
sending with shouts the horrible errors of childhood
storming out to play through the broken dike.

And as elephants parade holding each elephant's tail,
but if one wanders the circus won't find the park,
I call it cruel and maybe the root of all cruelty
to know what occurs but not recognize the fact.

And so I appeal to a voice, to something shadowy,
a remote important region in all who talk:
though we could fool each other, we should consider --
lest the parade of our mutual life get lost in the dark.

For it is important that awake people be awake,
or a breaking line may discourage them back to sleep;
the signals we give -- yes or no, or maybe --
should be clear: the darkness around us is deep.

-- William Stafford

[Eric Botticelli]

oh, and whenever I make eye contact with a stranger I hear that ziiinnggg sound and burst into laughter

[Duncan]

I've always been fascinated by the idea of recording everything...

Have you guys seen this: ?

http://research.microsoft.com/barc/mediapresence/MyLifeBits.aspx

[sull]

i enjoyed this video. nicely done.

[Tom Warner]

That was a moving video. It took me a bit of time to realize that my buffer was not overflowing and that the 'stop motion' effect was intentional. Then, I REALLY got into the video. Very deja vu 'ish overall. Hauntingly nice. Cool concept.