trotskythecat
9th December 2006, 06:40 AM
http://vjkungfu.tv/wp-content/themes/sandbox/images/300x300.jpg
---- ABOUT ME -----
I'm Surya Buchwald aka Momo the Monster. If you don't know me, you can take a look at http://www.momothemonster.com to get a feel for my credentials and whatnot.
There was a lot of talk for a while in the VJ Community about starting a VJ Magazine. A group even started recruiting - vjmag.co.uk, you might remember, but nothing ever came of it. Well I still think it's a damn cool idea, and I'd like you to be involved.
To show that I'm serious, I've designed a site and written a couple of articles. You can see them at vjkungfu.tv. Go ahead and check it out for a minute and come back.
----THE IDEA EXPLAINED ----
It's a Motion Magazine, digestible in text form on the website or an RSS reader, or in video form through iTunes Video Podcasts or Internet Video Platforms like Democracy (http://www.getdemocracy.com/).
Every article has a video. We are performers in a visual medium, and we should all be able to craft excellent videos. Every video has a text article accompanying it, for making lists and spelling things out - things done best in text form.
So far I have focused mostly on instructional videos. There's so much specialized knowledge involved in the field and so much mad-scientist hackery that I think this can make up a large portion of the articles. They can focus on pieces of hardware or software, content gathering and preparation techniques, performance styles, etc.
Further ideas for articles:
1. Previews of VJ or AV releases.
Short (30-60 second) pieces of longer releases. They can point to something available for free or something available for purchase. The accompanying article can include a rundown of performance and production techniques used.
2. Previews of VJ Content
A montage showcasing performance-ready content. Again, we can feature both free and purchasable items.
3. Online Battles and Games of all sorts: After-Effects Tennis, where two or more artists bounce footage and/or music back and forth. Pass-it-along games where each person adds on video where the last person left off. Pools of performance-ready footage with seasonal themes.
4. Reviews.
What better way to show the ups and downs of a particular program than with a demonstration of what it can do and what its output looks like?
5. In-Depth information on VJ Products
What do all the settings on the Korg Entrancer look like? What can I do with the undocumented MIDI port on my Numark CDX?
6. a VJ Glossary - perhaps make this a Wiki. All about colorspace, cables, codecs, formats, framerates, adaptors, etc.
----WHAT YOU CAN DO ----
We'll need lots of Writers, and a few Editors. We need people who will put the word out to all the VJs they know and help them make videos.
---- MONEY ----
I've paid the startup costs for this Magazine out of my own pocket, because I believe in the idea, and I'll eat these costs if necessary. I'm all about the free spread of knowledge, and I'm open to business ideas from anyone who knows about such things.
With that in mind, we could use someone with good business know-how who could figure out how to monetize the site, at least to make it self-sufficient for bandwidth costs. Right now I have a plan where I paid $382.80 for two years of service, giving us 400GB of storage (increases weekly by 2GB) and 4TB of bandwidth/month (increases weekly by 32GB). So it costs $16 a month to run at the moment. Most of the infrastructure work is done - videos are converted to Flash on the server, and the entire thing is powered by the Open Source Wordpress system.
---- THE END ----
So let me know what you think. Check out the site, subscribe to the RSS Feed or Video Podcast (http://vjkungfu.tv/feed).
(UPDATE: FIXED VIDEO PODCAST URL)
---- ABOUT ME -----
I'm Surya Buchwald aka Momo the Monster. If you don't know me, you can take a look at http://www.momothemonster.com to get a feel for my credentials and whatnot.
There was a lot of talk for a while in the VJ Community about starting a VJ Magazine. A group even started recruiting - vjmag.co.uk, you might remember, but nothing ever came of it. Well I still think it's a damn cool idea, and I'd like you to be involved.
To show that I'm serious, I've designed a site and written a couple of articles. You can see them at vjkungfu.tv. Go ahead and check it out for a minute and come back.
----THE IDEA EXPLAINED ----
It's a Motion Magazine, digestible in text form on the website or an RSS reader, or in video form through iTunes Video Podcasts or Internet Video Platforms like Democracy (http://www.getdemocracy.com/).
Every article has a video. We are performers in a visual medium, and we should all be able to craft excellent videos. Every video has a text article accompanying it, for making lists and spelling things out - things done best in text form.
So far I have focused mostly on instructional videos. There's so much specialized knowledge involved in the field and so much mad-scientist hackery that I think this can make up a large portion of the articles. They can focus on pieces of hardware or software, content gathering and preparation techniques, performance styles, etc.
Further ideas for articles:
1. Previews of VJ or AV releases.
Short (30-60 second) pieces of longer releases. They can point to something available for free or something available for purchase. The accompanying article can include a rundown of performance and production techniques used.
2. Previews of VJ Content
A montage showcasing performance-ready content. Again, we can feature both free and purchasable items.
3. Online Battles and Games of all sorts: After-Effects Tennis, where two or more artists bounce footage and/or music back and forth. Pass-it-along games where each person adds on video where the last person left off. Pools of performance-ready footage with seasonal themes.
4. Reviews.
What better way to show the ups and downs of a particular program than with a demonstration of what it can do and what its output looks like?
5. In-Depth information on VJ Products
What do all the settings on the Korg Entrancer look like? What can I do with the undocumented MIDI port on my Numark CDX?
6. a VJ Glossary - perhaps make this a Wiki. All about colorspace, cables, codecs, formats, framerates, adaptors, etc.
----WHAT YOU CAN DO ----
We'll need lots of Writers, and a few Editors. We need people who will put the word out to all the VJs they know and help them make videos.
---- MONEY ----
I've paid the startup costs for this Magazine out of my own pocket, because I believe in the idea, and I'll eat these costs if necessary. I'm all about the free spread of knowledge, and I'm open to business ideas from anyone who knows about such things.
With that in mind, we could use someone with good business know-how who could figure out how to monetize the site, at least to make it self-sufficient for bandwidth costs. Right now I have a plan where I paid $382.80 for two years of service, giving us 400GB of storage (increases weekly by 2GB) and 4TB of bandwidth/month (increases weekly by 32GB). So it costs $16 a month to run at the moment. Most of the infrastructure work is done - videos are converted to Flash on the server, and the entire thing is powered by the Open Source Wordpress system.
---- THE END ----
So let me know what you think. Check out the site, subscribe to the RSS Feed or Video Podcast (http://vjkungfu.tv/feed).
(UPDATE: FIXED VIDEO PODCAST URL)