It’s done. Been up since last Thursday. It’s gotten a good repsonse so far. Here it is:

I’m having a blast editing my latest video for LO-FI. I shot a Munny Art show (pronounced “Money”– if you don’t know what a Munny is read this, and here is a link to some photos from another Munny show) last weekend at this great comic book store in the Loop (the Loop is St. Louis speak for the hipster neighborhood on the western edge of the city–called the Loop because thats where the trolly cars used to loop around for their trip back into the city). Anyway the store is called Star Clipper and it’s one of a few comic book stores that I really love (another is Quimbys in Chicago). It was a great event and I got some awesome footage. I can’t wait to post it. Actually I’m sitting here at work right now thinking about how I can’t wait to get home and finish editing it. It’s been a while since I got this excited about a video. It happens occasionally. So since I’m stuck at work I figured I would do the next best thing and write a pointless blog post about it.

I had the privilege of working on this project for the Mountain Dew aluminum bottle can roll out (the first soft drink to be packaged like this) with Peat Wollaeger my friend and a stencil artist. The over all experience was a good one except that at the end of the video a frame comes up that says that it was shot on an RCA Small Wonder, whatever that is. This is completely false, I shot this video with a Panasonic DVC 30 and a Panasonic DV-GS 700 (for the time lapse) each with an after market wide angle lens attachments. Post production and color finishing was done with Apple’s Final Cut Pro.

Overall though I think this was a worthwhile project. The artists got creative freedom to do what they wanted with the designs, as well as got a little chunk o’ corporate cash and some good exposure. All good things. The bottle designs are cool, and I hope to collect a few myself.

The site design really sucks though. It’s one of those wacky late 90’s style all Flash site where “coolness” trumps function. The design isn’t all that cool though. It’s all science fictiony and “electronic” looking that is soooo dated looking it’s really sad. Looking at it you can almost hear the meetings that must have took place while the thing was being designed.

“OK it’s gotta be green” Check.
“Lets make it space agey but still rough looking” Check.
“lets make the pages load as if they are drawn by lasers” Check.
“We gotta have a cool hip-hop beat behind everything–the kids still like that music right? Yeah a hip-hop beat” Check.

If these were their best ideas I would hate to know what their bad ones were.

Obvilously the main problem with an all flash site–besides the poor functionality, and it’s ugly dated looks–is the fact that there are no permalinks. So there is no way for me to say, link from here to the page on the site that this post is about. I have to give you the main site address and hope you find it. I tested out the “tell a friend” button (another throwback to 90’s web marketing–harvesting email addresses) on Peats page to see if I could get a permalink emailed to me that I could use, and yes I did … but … it didn’t … work. DOH!!

I have a full plate right now. That’s good because that means I have opportunities. It also has drawbacks because my time is really limited. And because of this, this blog has suffered. I’m sorry about that. There are a few things coming up that are worth mentioning.

The first is Pixelodeon. It’s an Internet movie fest that will be happening in Hollywood at AFI. I was asked to currate a program for it, and I will be attending. I’m really looking forward to this. My program is called “Revlog, Reuse, and Recycle” which will be a collection of creative uses of existing media, including mashups and new work created from old and borrowed media.

Second I was invided to submit something to the Portable Film Festival in Melbourne, Australia. This should be interesting as well. They want me to submit a custom introduction video for this. So I guess I have some work cut out for me.

Third, I was also invited to submit to the St. Louis Filmmakers Showcase. So I asked my friend Erik Nelson of Bottom Union and also of Wreck and Salvage to curate a program of my work. Because honestly I don’t think I’m the best judge of my own stuff.

So I’ll post updates on the developments of these as they happen. Sorry if I post somewhat infrequently over the next few weeks.

Kentucky Derby at the Royale, originally uploaded by bill.streeter.

Had a great time at the Royale on Saturday. I’ll post some video from the event soon.

I’m still trying to make up my mind if I should to go to Pixelodeon in June. It’s a tough one. There is so much going on in June I really am having a hard time with it. Even if I don’t go I’ll be there in spirit as I am curating one of the programs. The theme I’ve chosen is reused and repurposed content–thinking about the title “Redux, Reuse and Recycle.” I should have most of it done by tonight. I feel so far behind everything right now. But I’m making progress on catching up!

What is this number? Read this.

And then read this.

A lot of people in America don’t have a clue about what May Day is really about. It’s a shame because it’s really part of American history. Most Americans think that May Day is a “Commie” holiday that is/was only celebrated in Communist block countries. Of course, most people in the rest of the world know better.

So what is May Day really about? Well in short it’s the international labor day. The day the world remembers all the contributions and progress working people have made by fighting for their rights. Specifically it remembers the great Haymarket protest that happened in Chicago in the 1886 when workers struck to get an 8 hour work day. Yes those kinds things weren’t always standard operating procedure in America, or the rest of the world for that matter. In fact early industrialization meant that workers were often required to work long hours (12 hour shifts were common) and 6 or 7 day work weeks. It really was pretty close to slavery on a lot of levels. The bosses, didn’t think too much of it because the long working days meant higher productivity. And they pushed back hard against the workers who demanded better treatment. The 8 hour day, 5 day work week standard eventually came, but it didn’t come from the kindness of the bosses heart. The standard was forced by long years of labor organization, fighting, and eventually political pressure. Now those things are more or less codified in law. Overtime rules, vacation benefits, reasonable pay for a days work, time off for illness or family emergencies, lunch breaks—all these and many more rights and benefits are the result of battles fought long ago by workers who organized to protect their rights and be treated as human beings.

So that’s what May Day is really about. Take a minute today and thing about how much better off our society is because we have these rights today.

Read more about May Day at Wikipedia