A short skateboard video from Salazar Productions featuring, Bradley Sheppard, Alien, Nate Lacoste, Chris Connolly, Nate Roline, Stacy Gabriel, Desmond Hoostie, Mike Klinkhamer, and Rob Rickaby

Directed By Liam Mitchell
Shot By Nathan Drillot and Liam Mitchell

Reminds me that ski season is coming up – something I never forget even though I’m stuck in the city these days! Boy, I hope to get out and do some deep powder this winter. But, don’t worry, Ma, I won’t get into this sort of mess. I hope.

(via NewTeeVee)

(via sarahspy)

I already posted this on my music blog yvynyl but I gotta share with all y’all who don’t read that (yet!). This is the new music video from my pals Free Energy. The vid was directed by m ss ng p eces and shot on location at the dudes’ house party earlier this summer. I’m really in love with this song and the video – and well, as I said on yvynyl:

Philly + bikes + summertime + my neighborhood + cute kittens + my buddies’ band + a great house party + cameos of dozens of my friends (damn, i didn’t make the cut!) + one kick-ass party song makes this my favorite music video of the week. Then again, I’m biased.

I just got an email letting me know that my music video for The War on Drugs was accepted into the 17th Curtas Vila do Conde International Film Festival in Portugal! I’m excited to actually have a film IN a film festival instead of just projecting film all the time. Wish I could attend…

Be sure to check out our friends Ravens and Vultures who were kind enough to lend us their excellent music for our soundtrack.

No comment needed for this one. Just, wow.

(Hat tip, NewTeeVee Station!)

Audrey and I have been meaning to watch Buena Vista Social Club… and voila! Here it is:

This is pretty amazing work from Flickr user Ettubrute.

On my night time flight back to SF from Amsterdam, I noticed that the lights from cities were making the clouds glow. Really spectacular and ethereal – it was really seeing the impact of urban environments from a different perspective. Each glow or squiggle represents one town or city!

Luckily the flight was half empty, so I was able to set up a impromptu mound made up of my bags, pillows, and blankets for my camera to sit on.

We were around the midwest at the beginning of the clip, and there were fewer cities once we hit the rockies. the bridge at the end is the san mateo bridge.

Technique: 1600iso; beginning – 1 (30sec) exposure / 45secs, end – 1 (4sec) exposure / 10 secs; total elapsed time: around 3 hours?

Music: Bloc Party – Signs

Part One

Part Two

the first thing i’ve been wondering about is viewers. or how do we get them? and how do we get more of them? it seems to me that most people who take the time (yes, i know, they are LONG) to watch our videos generally seem to like them. so a big question mark for mike and i has always been… why don’t we have more viewers? why are our numbers so low? how come we still only have 122 subscribers???

I’ve been thinking about this a lot myself, not least of the reason being that I’m in the middle of reading Clay Shirkey’s incredible “Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations“. In this age of mass amateurization and instant world wide publication, it’s hard to remember what’s important in the quest to building an audience as an independent artist.

So to Amanda: I think you might want to consider re-adjusting your questions. Why? Because at the moment, you’re not selling advertising against your media. Since you’re not looking to make money off them in that way, it doesn’t matter how many people watch your videos, but rather, the quality of the folks who watch. I think a lot about that when I see ‘famous’ YouTubers and the kind of garbage stuff that they generate purely for the sake of an audience. You guys are aiming higher.

I think it’s important to establish and recognize your true goals in that light. Are you trying to become ‘internet famous’? Probably not. Project Pedal is probably too sincere and heartfelt to go ‘viral’. But is your goal to become a financially viable filmmaking team who gets hired to develop and direct projects for people or organizations with money? Well, dang, you guys are getting close! I think you should set your eyes on a higher prize – like maybe getting this puppy into an awesome film festival or two, and figuring out a way to distribute (independently or via a film distro company), and then getting someone to put up the money for you to make the next film or web series.

Also, do keep in mind that the way you guys are running your project is super cutting edge. In fact, I often point to your project as one of the thought leaders in this space, and even hope to emulate you with our own project. That in and of itself is valuable – again, to the right audience. I firmly believe that in the future, everyone is going to want to know how to do this stuff. How to leverage these web tools. You’ll be able to teach this stuff at a university, if you can’t find a program already. We’re not moving backwards. The world isn’t going to ever become less digitized or less interconnected or less mobile. Those of us who know how to make stuff happen now – we’re ahead of the game.

Don’t be discouraged. You’re on the right track.

To anyone else who’s interested in this kind of nerdy stuff… and you’d like to read more on the subject (I sure seem to meet a lot of you lately), I also highly recommend reading Ask a Ninja creator Kent Nicols’ blog where he’s always posting sage insights into the changing world of media and The Workbook Project, which is a great resource for content creators of all kinds.

[via Joshua's blog]

Scenes from Shadow World from David S Kessler on Vimeo.

My friend Tim and I were talking the other day about artists we knew of who struggled and overcame major mental challenges to create fresh and amazing creations. I brought up Daniel Johnston. He brought up Wesley Willis. I had never heard of him, but I’m so glad I know his work now. Wow!

I’ve been reading a lot about the upcoming release of the new camera set-ups from RED on Stu Maschwitz’ always excellent ProLost blog. I must say, this thing is one heck of a drool-inducing machine. What I’ve been waiting for is a camera that shoots still frames in the same way a Bolex 16mm camera might – at 24 frames a second, continuously. The Nikon D90 is pretty awesome as one of the first DSLRs to shoot in HD, but what I really want is a digital film-like solution. It looks like this is the might be one.