StrangerFestival 2009 is looking for video artists and professionals to conduct video workshops!

StrangerFestival is an international festival for young videomakers & fans and is an initiative of the European Cultural Foundation. In collaboration with our partners we will organize video workshops in more than 15 countries for young people in summer 2009. Do you wanna come and help us out?





For the StrangerAcademy we are looking for video artists and professionals who can come up with a concept and conduct one of the 3-day video workshops or want to be a professional in the LAB assisting the advanced participants in realising their assignment.

An important part of StrangerFestival is the website, www.strangerfestival.com, which is a living archive of videos sent in to our competition.

From 14-17 October 2009 StrangerFestival will take place in Amsterdam in Studio K, consisting of the 3-day StrangerAcademy for creative young video makers (14-16 October), the StrangerExpert meeting for professionals in the field of media and youth (16 October) and the StrangerAward Ceremony and closing party (17 October). Young video makers and professionals from all over Europe and beyond will get together during these days and participate in the workshops and expert meetings offered during the event.

StrangerAcademy will be a place where more than a hundred and fifty young video makers between 15-25 years old from all over Europe can develop their video making skills.

The StrangerAcademy will be divided into two levels: beginners and advanced. For beginners we will offer several 3-day workshops where the planning is set from beginning to end so the participants have a fixed schedule where they are guided step by step making sure they create new work, learn the basics of video making and get the opportunity to work closely with each other.

For the advanced participants the approach will be different. We will create a LAB, a creative space, where technical equipment, professionals in editing, filming, sound, concept building etc. are present to assist the participants in making their video. Certain renowned organisations will give these participants the assignment to make a video for the company which the participants need to finish within the three days.

If you are interested in conducting a workshop keep this in mind when writing your application:
• The budget for this year’s StrangerFestival is very limited.
• ECF will take care of all technical equipment and workshop space
• 3 facilitators per workshop, ECF is in a favour of workshops with a peer to peer education element
• The workshop should be easy to follow for people who do not speak English very well
• The workshop can be on any video genre (documentary, animation etc) • Workshop focus should be on skills development and collaboration between participants
• Topics should relate to StrangerFestival competition categories: about me, creative/arts, change the world.
• Results should be: new content (videos between 1-5 minutes) per participant or per team

If you are interested in being one of the professionals in the LAB this is the sort of profile we are looking for:
• (Artistic) video education background
• Good working knowledge of cameras and editing programmes
• Good knowledge of English
• Good communication skills
• Ability to work under pressure
• Flexible and willing to improvise
• Capacity and commitment to work with youngsters on an equal basis
• Sensibility to respect various cultures and group processes

If you are a workshop organiser yourself or if you know people who might be interested in this call, please forward the message. If you wish to join in, you can ask for the application form from Giusy Chierchia at gchierchia (at) eurocult.org.

10 Second Johnny

This guy on the video, Johnnydurham19, is coming in a couple of weeks to a video culture symposium at the University of Arts and Design. I will be moderating a session there - with Johnny and others - on why non-professionals make and watch videos. Should be fun. Thursday 28 May at the University of Arts and Design Helsinki.

The Other Iran

Iran: A nation of bloggers from Mr.Aaron on Vimeo.

This video is a skillful and important reminder on how we need to make the difference between a country and its leaders and remember diversity when we talk about a country. Something to keep in mind whether we talk about Russia, the US, Iran or Finland.

It also makes me think of a book I got from Reza Abedini on Iranian contemporary graphic design. Reza´s book shows how there is another layer of graphic reality next to the government-controlled images we see in the news every day. Videos like these are truly empowering. Thanks, Charlie.

What Did You Do Daddy? from John Belflower on Vimeo.

I have been looking for a brilliant video blog and now I found it. Charlie and others have put together a great blog gathering Nubs. For those who don´t know what nubs are (me an hour ago), here´s the Make Nubs description: Nubs are short videos that explain or bring an idea to life. Check the blog for more, great stuff. For instance the Obama music video from MC Yogi is brilliant.

Power of Both

This is where broadcasting meets the wonders of the Internet. Without this strong programme concept and reality television, Susan Boyle would never have emerged into the public sphere. The drama building before her singing is something that TV professionals can do so superbly. That´s talent.

But without the Internet and YouTube, Ashton Kutcher and Demi Moore would never have become fans of this English lady or she wouldn´t have become a world-wide phenomenon. Currently at 12 million hits. I love TV, I love YouTube and there´s no contradiction there. I think writing of television as a medium is just bull crap.

StrangerFestival Is About This

So, my former colleagues had put a clip from the StrangerFestival DVD online. I actually like how in this interview the background thinking of the project comes across.

And yes, someone should have told me to control those hands while I speak....I know, I know.

You can order your own copy of the DVD with this interview and much more from stranger (a) eurocult.org.

Great DVD

Risks of Freelancing

This Is The World That We Live In

(Thanks for the link for this video, M)

Spreading Meanings, Not Viruses

Don't Flu Yourself
Originally uploaded by daviddaneman

Last weeks have been quite exciting in terms of finding a new way of working. Going from an office job to freelancing has meant learning a new sense of pace. All the things I do currently are assignments where my work is measured on the originality of the ideas I produce, not based on the hours I spend at the office. It has also meant that I need to learn a new way of implementing reading and browsing as an essential part of my weekly routine. They count in the end much more than coordination meetings. It is fun - I give you that -, but it is also work.

I have developed a completely new way of using the Web. At the hectic office I used the Internet mostly like fast food, like media snacks (munched easily with increasing frequency and maximum speed – like chips – a description from Miller in Wired) between emails and phone calls. Now I take daily an hour or two to go through a dozen or so blogs, mark interesting stuff on Delicious and develop a more systematic way of finding content. Finding content that matters takes time and diligence.

The best thing I have discovered is Henry Jenkins´ blog. MIT´s Media Professor Jenkins focuses on what people are doing with media rather than on what the media is doing to people. His approach is critical but enthusiastic and he does not shy away from using very current examples for making his case.

His 8-part essay If It Doesn't Spread, It's Dead is something I would recommend for everyone working with brands and media culture. Jenkins sees consumers as empowered and intelligent species using media for their own purposes and goes beyond the discussion on virals. He talks about the spreadability of media – that citizens spread and reform content rather than passively carry a virus. That spreading media is an essential part of reputation management online. Just think of your own Facebook usage – what you link and post tells your “friends” a lot about who you are.

A statement by Jenkins that is highly useful for instance for my work with StrangerFestival: loss of producers´ control over meaning is a precondition for circulation. Spreadable media memes have to available for remixing before transferring so that people can use them for their own purposes to recreate meaning. As John Fiske puts it: this is where mass culture turns into popular culture. From a producer´s point of view creating media content that “sticks” on people would be wonderful but today´s successful content is one that spreads, shapes and puzzles. Which is actually quite liberating and empowering if you really think about it.

Climate Change in a Nutshell

Wake Up, Freak Out - then Get a Grip from Leo Murray on Vimeo.

Quite fresh and factual explanation on what climate change is about and why we need to act now. The cockroaches and rats coming out of the burning globe is a gloomy sight.

Oh and by the way, I have forgotten to link this: an article of mine was published in a book of the Finnish National Gallery around intercultural dialogue. Download the book here, my article is on pages 12-18. (download the book from the right hand side, Perspectives etc..)

March 28 2009, 20:30

I organised yesterday a seminar for Laundry Helsinki and WWF Finland on Green Office, a great concept for public and private institutions to reduce their carbon footprint at the office. Over 100 big Finnish organisations have already joined ranging from McDonald´s to Finnish Tax Authority and more keep coming.

One of the issues promoted yesterday was the importance of action following the declaration. Jos-Willem van Oorschot from the architectural office Venhoeven CS gave an inspiring talk on the possibilities for self-supporting cities and energy-producing buildings. One of the actions we all could do is the Earth Hour in the end of March. Watch the video and see what you can do.

I am convinced, also by yesterday´s talks that sustainability is not something some of us do as a hobby or a cool gadget - it is the only sensible way of living. Combating climate change is not an opinion, it is the only rescue plan left. We need to find ways to imagine our lives improving also through other things than material goods and consumption and find a low-carbon and no-oil solution for living together. As Jos´ speech and many others showed yesterday: we can if we want to. This is where creativity needs to be directed now.

I Want My TV

Today Frost/Nixon premieres in Finnish cinemas. Just yesterday the film was nominated for an Academy Award for best direction, best actor in a leading role and best picture. I have been waiting for this film with an eagerness I have seldom experienced. There are a number of reasons why.

Some years back I was visiting London for work and met up with a friend of mine, a British playwright of Indian descent. The British media had only one issue on that day and neither us or anyone else could avoid the topic: Celebrity Big Brother on Channel 4 showing how nonsense celebrity Jade Goody and a number of other contenders were bullying Indian actress Shilpa Shetty in a racist manner seldom seen on primetime television. The white English women were according to my interpretation intimidated by the successful and beautiful Indian superstar and decided to gang up on her revealing all their prejudices on the Indians.

A large portion of the British quality media took a unified stand: the fuss around the programme was exaggerated. However, during our drink on that London afternoon I got another look into the issue. I still remember her telling me:"I am born in this country and so are my children. My children have been glued to the television during Celebrity Big Brother as they see on screen remarks they hear daily in school. As Shetty, they are told to go back to their own country. What country is that for a 10-year-old child with both parents born in the UK and one of them having Indian parents?"

That personal take showed me a part of the media often forgotten in academic media analysis and journalistic critique. The way the media validates and presents everyday situations and in that way acknowledges that these things do happen. By the media covering them, they are also submitted to a list of subjects suitable for private discussions. This has been the power of telenovelas in South America covering HIV-AIDS or As The World Turns showing a gay kiss.

After our drink she rushed to the theatre to see the "IT" play of the moment: Frost/Nixon. I tried to get tickets to it without success on the last moment.

I ran into Frost again two years ago when visiting the Museum of Television and Radio in Los Angeles and watching clips of his most famous interviews - including the Nixon one. Using the same strategy as he got Nixon to talk, his soft, direct but polite style brought into the surface some of the deepest thoughts of Muhammad Ali on black supremacy or Robert Kennedy opening up in his ideals. As one can see also in this clip from an interview with Thatcher, his background research forces people to answer directly without having to take refuge in hostility towards the guest.

I love television. I really do. In the work of David Frost as well as in the fuss around Big Brother, television has the power to reveal truths of ourselves and our societies - in more and less idealistic manners. It can facilitate people opening up sensitive discussions using commenting of a television programme as the cover up.

I never understood the people who take pride from not watching TV. How would it sound like if I would state at a fancy dinner party that I categorically don´t read printed material as I just don´t have the time?

Change Dot Gov

MixedInk Demo from MixedInk on Vimeo. Thanks, MediaShift, for the link. This is just way too cool. This links well to a project plan we are putting together on citizenship. So the tools are all there, now we just need the content and the motivation and the commitment of government to take this seriously. Something else cool on coverage of the inauguration here, this time by Washington Post. I just love these gadgets.

Right Move

In two days the van will head back to Finland. The boxes and bags are packed and tomorrow is my farewell party from work. Today I carried two bags of stuff home from the office. This evening when packing the last boxes, I was once again quite surprised by amount and sort of stuff I have collected in the last four years - seriously, 20 sorts of tea...

This video link from the one I am heading to is once again a proof that this is the right move now. Not that I would have doubted it for a second. Even the tough Nordic winter is bearable when you are surrounded by the ones you love and who love you right back. Christmas is a good time to return.

Coolest Damn Video Festival on the Planet

Strangers testing
Originally uploaded by amsterboy

I love my job. I just really really love my job. It is maybe weird to make that statement 5 days before leaving it but this weekend it once again became very apparent: this work is amazing as you get to work with top notch people. This weekend also made concrete all those books about collaborative creativity I have read lately: together we make better ideas.

We started StrangerFestival around two years ago on a couple of PowerPoint slides. Along the way came the visuals, the partner organisations, first videos uploaded on the site, first marketing material, more partners, more videos, an international festival and loads more. It is already a great project which has given loads of people their first time on a plane, their first video-making experience and their first international friendship.

This weekend we had a meeting first with our European partners and continued right away with the first meeting of TheStrangers, a group of young video makers acting as our expert group. Both of these meetings made it clear: this project belongs now to more people. It is not just our project. It is a bloody fab feeling when you start hearing more and more people using the word ´we´.

I am happy I get to continue in the project also next year, although in another role. Having these meetings in the beginning of the year would have made sense but then again TheStrangers group was really possible only after the first entries. It is fantastic that we can now learn from 2008 and make things better in 2009.

The people and issues we work with are amazing. Just a testing session on the website generated already a list of small things that would help make joining easier. You get to see some of them in the coming months. We came up with ideas for great workshops, created new categories, wrote down lists of possible jury members, brainstormed on prizes and even made some videos. TheStrangers showed us in the team and to each other already several videos which we had not seen before but which were winning material. It has now been proved that having young video makers owning the project with the team brings in great content. It is therefore clear now that in 2009 StrangerFestival will be even more special, even more fun and even more meaningful. I cannot wait.

Here are some of their findings:
Beautiful childhood memory from Slovakia
Role of video making in one´s life
How making a video important to you always does not need to be about you

Sunday

This is very close to being the perfect Sunday song. The amazing Duffy with Jools Holland. There is just nothing that beats a BIG orchestration. The encouragement to love again, to be bold and hopeful even if it seems very difficult is one amazing message. The stubbornness and daring for the pursuit of happiness. That sometimes it means that you make some drastic moves in your life, which may hurt in the beginning in order to gain the well-being that in the end counts. These moves may be about relationships like in the case of the song or about the other main components in our lives such as housing, work and so forth.

I hope this is not only Sunday talking inside me.

This Gives Me The Creeps

We The Republic

Industrial Documentary: Video Killed The Radio Star
Originally uploaded by Vincént

Demos report called Video Republic was just launched at the British Film Institute. The report is fab and written by superb people. Highly recommend refreshing your insight on young people and video. The report makes fascinating recommendations on the way we need to engage with the video republic of the young, what kind of media literacy skills young people need and how we need a serious readjustment of the copyrights system. The project used the StrangerFestival and especially workshops in Romania, Turkey, Finland and the UK as their case studies. I am very proud that it was linked to our initiative.

And all this with just a click - for free. And we even got into The Guardian.

The Video Republic

On Monday we launch together with Demos a report on youth and video which has been carried out associated to StrangerFestival. From Monday 6 October the report is available for downloading at www.demos.co.uk. I highly recommend reading it. But here as a taster, a video building up the excitement. The report is funded by Helsingin Sanomat Foundation.