The MsBehaviour Files: DIY TV
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We are entering an exciting phase in the world of DIY TV and it is about time In My Humble Opinion. When I occasionally get a glimpse at 'free TV', I wondering who is paying me for the ad time we are expected to endure daily? It's great to see the Big Idea's You Tube channel launching this week, taking our creative community into the multi-media millennium. I am also excited about the imminent launch of the g33k show which I am producing and hosting with Chelfyn. We are entering an exciting phase in the world of DIY TV and it is about time In My Humble Opinion. When I occasionally get a glimpse at 'free TV', I wondering who is paying me for the ad time we are expected to endure daily? It's great to see the Big Idea's You Tube channel launching this week, taking our creative community into the multi-media millennium. I am also excited about the imminent launch of the g33k show which I am producing and hosting with Chelfyn.We are using brave new tools to replace the need for huge crews, on less than the budget blown on TV network
lunches each year. You can watch the first episode of the g33k show on Alt TV at 8 p.m. from Friday, August 1st.
A whole generation are switching off their TV sets and doing something less boring instead. Which is making their own digital media, and online content that is starting to steal eyeballs away from the networks. The new Head of Microsoft states in a recent interview published under the bald headline, Ballmer to Old Media: You're Dead!:"there will be no media consumption left in 10 years that is not delivered over an IP network. There will be no newspapers, no magazines that are delivered in paper form. Everything gets delivered in an electronic form."
Online and mobile is winning over Generations X, Y & C. The new Alt TV website has had over 500,000 page views from 150 countries in their first eight weeks. They are also the first station in New Zealand to stream their entire channel 24/7. The Alt TV website was built at Mohawk by 1.5 geeks in a week, and I created most of what you see at alttv.co.nz in a mammoth five day session. Meanwhile Chelfyn was coughing up a lung and had to be strapped to his chair, to do the bits of server side stuff. Thanks to the power of open source software, and l33t geek experience, we could build what a few years ago would have taken a huge team of developers, designers and producers, and cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. All for a mere $100 to cover a year's web hosting in the US, and free lunches for life.
In the same way that some Indie Film makers are using Machinima to make film, you can shoot interviews and events using virtual spaces. The Second Life Cable Network (SLCN.TV) has a series of content streams including live shows & repeats, and music performances shot in Second Life. The production power of even a modest home PC now will give you production capabilities that would have cost millions a decade ago. A quick browse over the open-source software list on the Ubuntu studio release will net you a host of great tools that allow you to record from DV direct to your PC, Edit, or Add sound & music. You can even do Hollywood standard 3D animation courtesy of the incredible Blender. For proof of just how good the open source toolkit gets, check out the fantastic Big Buck Bunny, which was created entirely on open source software, distributed primarily on p2p torrents, and available free on every format from full 1080p HD down to Ipod and PSP screens.
My advice for those wanting to get into the DIY TV arena is stop thinking of it as making Television and more as making Digital Media that you are creating for monitors, mobiles and lastly TV screens. Also ask yourself is this to be a 'lean back' or a 'lean forward' experience? Do you want to entertain, inform or engage? Will it work on a mobile screen as well? Don't waste your time learning Old Media.
If so let us know by adding a comment with a link to your work here.
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As well as being TBI's strategist, Helen Baxter a.k.a. MsBehaviour runs dance-music label TMet Recordings, 3D animation company Mohawk Media and has a fortnightly slot on National Radio called 'Virtual World'.
26/05/08