Starting back in September, I'm publishing a new short video online each week. You can find them on my web site links.net, thank you very much, or you can find them on all matter of other social outlets.
This weeks video says hello to weekly videos, and goodbye to Bernie Sahlins. Instead of my home green screen, I filmed this video off a computer camera in Chicago, where I was visiting my Mom, my 20th High School reunion, and attending Bernie's memorial service.
Bernie
Bernie Sahlins was friends with my stepfather George from a young age, growing up on the West Side of Chicago. The two of them knew each other for decades. I saw Bernie a few times a year due to that relationship. Bernie told me a few of my favorite jokes and he asked me difficult questions, either about how good my art practice was, or how I was going to make money from what I was doing.
Bernie was passionate about the arts; he co-founded Second City, a legendary improvisational theater company that gave many talented comedians their first gig. Bernie's got a writeup on Wikipedia.
Here's a 6 minute video of Bernie giving a commencement address at Columbia College in 2006, including his fun diction and art ethics, plus coverage of an unintelligible William Faulkner:
The memorial service featured speeches by a number of people who teach, or are professionally funny, or both. I laughed and I cried. Amongst Bernie's saluted traits was his consistent messy eating: someone said "Bernie was the only guy I knew who could eat a hot dog and get mustard on his back."
I'll miss Bernie, it's sad to see another one of George's generation of lively friends pass away. I'm grateful Bernie lived so long and that I was able to know him.
Weekly Videos??
I'm making one video a week for 2013 - as Bernie suggested in his speech, if you're an artist, make art. I'm not sure what I am, so I'm making something!
My latest video is posted on YouTube: Hello Weekly Videos; Goodbye Bernie
And I posted this video on Flickr too. I'm experimenting with the many online networks that offer to host video - last week I uploaded my "a Painfull Storie" video to Facebook. Many people reported seeing it, but Facebook doesn't give you any stats on the number of viewers. YouTube has made me accustomed to stats!
As I put out a video each week, I want to experiment with both distribution and production. Each week I experiment with a new aspect of Final Cut Pro X. This is the first video where I did color matching, based on what I learned from Ken Stone's free eBook series about Final Cut Pro X. Instead of my paper notebook, I used Markers to create to-do moments throughout the piece as I edited - that I also learned from Ken Stone's eBook series. Finally, I corrected my sound a bit, guided by Larry Jordan's article FCP X: Enhancing Audio.
Thanks to Jalen Warshawsky for his song "Dollar Theatre" and Rod Hamilton for his song "Gato" off his album Teal - both of which are hosted on FreeMusicArchive.org.
The record scratch sound effect came from Luffy, on Freesound.org.
As I have time to myself, and some money saved up to last me a few months, I look forward to the discipline of weekly videos to anchor whatever else I work on. I got a few months until 2014 when I need to start figuring out "what next" like for real.
