Dave Gorman is a gifted writer and documentary comedian from Britain. I first discovered him while living in Ireland. We watched his awesomely funny six-part BBC series “Are You Dave Gorman?”. Based on a Fringe show, Gorman accepts a bet to find 52 other “Dave Gormans”. The premise is amusing, but his presentation is fantastic, full of dry wit and illustrative charts. Here’s the only video clip I could find:
And he’s got a blog (and a Flickr account). And he’s had it for, like, three years. I’m not sure how I stumbled upon it (er, not that way), but I’m subscribed.
I wanted to post a quick note to say congratulations to the Strutta team for their official public launch today. Congrats to Danny, Jordan and the rest of the Vancouver team for a job well done. Here’s the blurb on Strutta:
From grassroots scrappers to all star pros, Strutta brings players together from around the world in the spirit of true competition. Whether it’s beatboxing, shredding up the slopes, or giving the legends a run for their money with a smack on Guitar Hero III solo, there is a game for everyone on Strutta. Players upload their original performance videos to compete with their peers and prove they are the best in their game.
I don’t have a lot of feedback on the site yet–I only checked it out for the first time last week. The design is unassuming, and it does what it says on the box, which are good things. I’m not sure how I feel about getting randomly redirected when I visit www.strutta.com, but I’m guessing that’s a launch gimmick.
My opinion is a bit moot, though, because I’m really not Strutta’s target audience. I’d guess that they’re shooting for the 12 to 25 crowd. Plus, I’m barely a video watcher, much less a creator. Lastly, I’m not particularly competitive. Or playful. Fortunately, there’s zillions of youthful, chippy video-makers out there.
I just watched the eight extant episodes of The Guild (YouTube channel), a (what is the right term for this? Webisode?) comedy series about the lives and times of gamers. Here’s the first episode:
If you’re a World of Warcraft player, you’ll get all the jokes. If you’re any other kind of gamer, you’re probably get 80% of the jokes (”You like my helm? It’s +5 Sexterity”). Everybody else might get half the jokes.
The performances range from decent to marginal, but that’s pretty standard for any pro-am type project. The main creative force and best actor is Felicia Day, who’s done a lot of work (she was on Buffy in the final season, though I can’t specifically recall who she played–one of the new crop o’ slayers, I suspect).
The conceit of offline and online lives colliding feels fresh, though, and the writing is occasionally witty. In any case, there are worse ways to spend about 40 minutes (eight episodes times about five minutes).
I think this is probably the first piece of fictional video that I’ve watched consistently on YouTube. Do you have a favourite web-only show?
It’s very clever. While it obviously could become an ad for chocolates or something, I thought it might work as a seasonal ad for one of those awful men’s body sprays.
Savvy readers will recognize this style as quite similar to Common Craft’s highly successful and excellent explanation videos (here’s their latest). Citizens Bank actually credits Common Craft with a link to YouTube at the bottom of the aforementioned page:
Inspired by Common Craft and their RSS feed video.
There’s no credit given on Citizens Bank’s YouTube page, or in the video itself.
Lee and Sachi are so nice, I’m sure they’d be pleased to be imitated (and I’m guessing that Citizens Bank isn’t the first copycat). And I’ve got to say, the Citizens Bank video is quite good. It uses too much cheesy clip art and lacks the secret sauce of Common Craft, but does a really good job of explaining how RRSPs work.
So is this a rip-off or an homage? Should I rise in defense of my friends Lee and Sachi? Or have they just invented a new kind of video, and there’s no point in raging against a tide of imitation? A good analogy is the screencast. I’m sure the second guy who created a screencast was emulating the first, but did he have a right to? Or, on a more personal (and much smaller) scale, sooner or later somebody’s going to copy our comic or love note pitches to bloggers.
In truth, I going with “imitation is the sincerest form of flattery” on this one. It’s the price you pay for being original. Plus, I might want to copy their technique some day.
I haven’t spent much time taking the temperature of the tech blogosphere, but early returns seem pretty underwhelming. That Macbook Air looks sexy, but this piece describes its manifold shortcomings. I still miss my lovely 12″ PowerBook, and the MacBook Air ain’t the replacement.
Rather randomly, I was inspired to register MacBookArian.comMacBookAryan.com, but I couldn’t think of anything to do with it. I can do a pretty good bad German accent…
Norlinda links to this wonderfully cheesy yet kind of affecting video. It has particular relevance these days, as I’m living in a predominantly Muslim country:
There’s a terrific cognitive dissonance in seeing people happy women in head scarves while listening to the most American of country music. There shouldn’t be a dissonance, actually, and that’s the point of the video.
Until today, I hadn’t watched the terrific The Story of Stuff. I figured I knew their message already, but Sarah reminded me about watching it.
In any case, you should watch it, even if you already think you got the message. It’s a really elegant illustration and explanation of how we consume, and I heartily recommend it. It might insult your intelligence here and there, but I think some subtlety is rightfully sacrificed for the benefit of a simple message.
The other fantastic thing about this project is their 16-page referenced and annotated script (PDF). I’m naturally skeptical, and there were a number of claims in the video that I wanted to check. Now I can reference the sources of those facts easily and in context. So many other organizations wouldn’t go to this extra trouble, but it’s so worthwhile in terms of validating your premise.
It’s no accident that they released this video in the busiest consumption period of the year. I’ve just finished making donations in the names of various family members in lieu of physical gifts, so I’m feeling pretty smug.
I may seem a little Canada Line-obsessed at the moment, but I thought this video was too cool to pass up. My friend Eric works on the Canada Line project, and writes:
My co-worker Colin is a film maker, and a good one at that. He has two movies that have been accepted into the Sundance film festival coming up in January. As a Christmas gift, he put together a couple of shots of our work-site for the Costa Ricans to show their families the project and the city.
And here it is. I especially like the stop-motion bits:
