video

I've seen a lot of interesting stuff on the web, but really, for a regular show with snap, among the best is Epic-Fu. Check this one out from a few weeks ago:

Zadi Diaz has been a star for a while, but I'm just catching on, thanks to TiVo. Fun fun, and often really pretty weird. Good fun stuff.

Kudos to the eggman. This is just beautiful. Worth watching more than once. For one pass, just look at the eyes.

[via Elisa]

Update: Laurie and Debbie have some thoughts on this video.

This is really a must-watch video, courtesy of the Media Education Foundation and the Stanford Center for Internet and Society's Fair Use Project. It's hysterically funny and spot-on. Pay close attention. Even the "FBI Warning" is not quite what it seems.

Click the play button to get things rolling. If the video doesn't load for you, here is a direct link to the file. And if that doesn't work for you, here is a link to a downloadable version. (Give it some time. Sorry about the hassle. I'd encode it into Flash, but it's not my movie. I just wish it were. This is brilliant!)

Update May 19: Cory Doctorow contacted me about getting a better, downloadable version of the film available online. Director Eric Faden gave him the same download URL as I have above, but Cory has set it up using Coral to help relieve the Stanford server of some of the resulting effect of his Boing Boing post today.

One of my favorite "old media" tech sites, Creative Cow, has launched a community blog site. With anticipation, I clicked on the link in the email announcement and as soon as the page loaded I had to laugh.

The Cow uses Drupal!

The Creative Cow has been a fabulous resource for tech talk on video, HD, DVD. It's a truly grassroots effort, forged in the 1990s, when many in video, television and film were spinning from (or left hanging by) the enormous upheavals that took place as "desktop" postproduction and digital video cameras started to disrupt the long-standing hegemony of the multi-million-dollar production houses. What system do I buy? What video card is best? How do I change my BIOS to get the most video performance? My system has been EOL'd by the manufacturer -- what now? Oh no, the blue screen of death -- what now? How can I make this effect? Anyone know a sound recorder in Santa Fe?....

My blog account has not yet been approved, but I see that they've adopted a wysiwyg editor. (TinyMCE? Oh dear!) Still, it's nice to welcome a "web 1.0" powerhouse in old media into the "web 2.0" world.

YouTube is 30,000 files smaller:

The Japan Society for Rights of Authors, Composers and Publishers, found 29,549 video clips such as television shows, music videos and movies posted on YouTube's site without permission, an official from the group, Fumiyuki Asakura, said Friday.

The San Mateo, Calif.-based company quickly complied with the request to remove the copyright materials, made on behalf of 23 Japanese TV stations and entertainment companies, Asakura said.

Most videos posted on YouTube are homemade, but the site also features scores of copyright material posted by individual users. YouTube's policy is to remove such clips after it receives complaints, though some have suggested the startup eventually could be sued, especially with deep-pocketed Google Inc. about to buy it for $1.65 billion in stock.

This is almost inevitable. The media industry is built upon control over distribution, and 'net outlets like YouTube blast their oligopoly back into the 20th century. They are trying to hang on by using DRM and sniffer technology:

The company agreed to deploy an audio-signature technology that can spot a low-quality copy of a licensed clip. YouTube would have to substitute an approved version or remove the material automatically.

But the writing is on the wall: There is no room for the controlling middle man in the new economy. Content creators, producers, writers, photographers, videographers, filmmakers will be taking their work more directly to their audiences. In the end, while things will inevitably shift around, my guess is that the new economy will be better for the creators.

It's the "owners" who don't create, just speculate, that will lose out. They require big jackpot payoffs, and the market is shifting to the long tail.

I look at this, and marvel at how he has not changed, yet has.

Watch the eyes.

I'm left wondering which frame captured 9/11/01.

[Flash video would not cache. Follow link below.]

More info here [Warning: This is one of those all-Flash "web 1.0-style" websites that starts talking at you by default as soon as the page loads, so you might want to turn down your speakers. Enjoy the cheese.]

Via Jeffrey Zeldman.