Traveling at the Speed of Thought

Red Hot! Love Lab

2008-03-05T10:13:00.001-08:00

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Last year on Valentines Day I introduced the very first Love Project webisode. The past year I have been working on expanding the project, adding additional interviews, poetry, prose and essays on love to the online journal at loveproject.tv. This Valentines Day we held a party to celebrate the birthday of the first year of the Love Project.

The event was held in Santa Barbara at a local cafe called Muddy Waters. Zen Pluto and the tribe performed a combination of live and electronic music. Kristen Walker contributed love art, Pali X-Mano became the art in an interactive, mostly nude, performance. The Sac People also gave an absolutely gorgeous performance unike anything I've ever seen.

The fabulous photographer James DiModica ran a photo booth, and Kathy Barbini and Toni Tivy helped set up a Flirt Camp and a chocolate tattoo station.

Ambient Lighting donated beautiful red satin curtains that completely transformed the place, Bella Vista Designs donated some lighting supplies, and Robert Salzer did an amazing job designing the lighting and engineering the sound.

Sonja Lindstrom showed her black and white film "Gimme Kiss", and of course we showed some clips from the Love Project.

I was so honored by the people who showed up and contributed their artwork and time and energy. It was a really beautiful event.

~tmpixley

Formats available: Quicktime (.mov)

Seasons for Love

2007-06-01T16:44:00.001-07:00

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This is the sweetest love project ever! Hold on to your heart, because it's going to melt. I went to my son's preschool, Season's and talked to them about love. It is such an awesome school. Every day when I drop Caspian off at school I wish I could stay. I finally got to see what they do when I'm not there, and just as I suspected, they are having so much fun!

Another out-of-office update (By Stephanie)

2007-05-26T10:20:00.001-07:00

We shuffled around a bunch of the furniture yesterday. Organized our computer cords too as they are like a potential health hazard that could possibly strangle an unsuspecting passerbyer if they were to trip over it. I'm sportin' a terrific bruise too as a result of a desk pinching my hand against the wall. But the office is coming together (slowly but surely). Pictures will come soon too! A special thank you shout out to Rick Casillas of Santa Barbara for giving us some of his office furniture! (You know, 'cause furniture is really expensive...)

Moving on to....

Critters (1986)
Directed by Stephen Herek

I so wish that I could blow this up into an enormous poster. At first glace, their smiles creeps the bejeezus out of me. But it turned out to be a fairly comical 80's horror flick.

So these furry little Gremlin Furby-like things from outer space (I kept calling them Gremlins by mistake while I was watching--Sorry! Whole different movie!) have escaped to Earth. They've got a voracious appetite. Apparently, they can eat anything, and the more they eat, the more they grow in size. The Critters land in some rural small town and start terrorizing and eating the townspeople. Of course, in every small town, there lives that one person--that one person who everyone thinks is bat-shit CRAZY... that one person who knew all along that the aliens were indeed coming. And as expected, NOBODY listens to him.

Fortunately for Earth, bounty hunters are sent to capture the Critters. These bounty hunters are like shapeshifters or something. They know nothing about Earthlings or Earth culture. So what do they do? Read up on American culture. American 80's culture. So it comes to no surprise that one of the bounty hunters disguises itself as Johnny Steele. "Power of the night! Power of the night!" Oh the 80's. What did you expect? And of course, we hear that song over and over throughout the whole movie.

Oh yes, and I have to note my favorite part in the whole movie. The Critters talk in their own alien lanugage, so when they're talking subtitles appear on the bottom. So Critter #1 says to Critter #2, "They have weapons." Critter #2 says "So what?" and right after, it gets blown off the porch by a shotgun, and Critter #1 turns and yells "RAAAAR!" And the bottom on the screen is "F%^&#!!!" in all caps. What foul mouths these Critters have!

Got a cool movie? I'm still open for requests --> stephanie[AT]pixleyflix.com

Adios muchachos!

Elisabet Sahtouris on Love

2007-05-24T17:52:00.001-07:00

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Elisabet Sahtouris is amazing. She is an evolutionary biologist, and calls herself a pastist and futurist, meaning she examines the past in order to predict the future. She is excited by things like Global Warming because she sees it as the catalyst for cooperation between humankind. She hangs out with people like the Dalai Lama and major world leaders. This is what she thinks about love.

The Fallacy of the DVD

2007-05-24T09:59:00.000-07:00

I've had several clients ask me to edit something off of a DVD of theirs. It is difficult to explain, after all the hype about how great dvds are and what an awesome format it is, why it is a terribly bad idea to try to edit footage from a dvd. I will attempt to explain now, so that you might be saved some trouble later.

Before I get into the technical side of things, I will start by saying, and please pay attention: If you have something you think you might want to edit later, ask for your raw footage. By this I mean the original tapes or uncompressed digital files. The uncompressed digital files can be saved onto a DVD, but it's different and you will probably end up with three or four times as many discs to fit all of that information onto.

You can just take my word for it, or if you are curious, here's why:

Raw video takes up a lot of room in digital format. It varies depending on the format, but it is roughly 1 Gigabyte of storage space required for every 5 minutes of raw video. Now consider the fact that the average dvd has about 4.5 Gigs of storage space. In it's raw form, you could only fit about 20 minutes of video onto a DVD.

So how do we manage to squeeze an hour and a half of video onto a DVD?

The answer is compression. Compression is the process of throwing out information in order to create a smaller file size. This works beautifully once, but the more times you have to go through the process of compression, the less information you have and the worse things look.

To get so much video information onto a DVD, the video information is compressed and encoded. To get the information off of the DVD, the video must be converted into a different format and then eventually compressed again. Compression+ Conversion + More Compression = Ugly Video.

So take my word for it, if there is even a glimmer of a possibility that you might want to edit your video later, ask for your raw footage.

~ Taymar

Belated review

2007-05-20T23:34:00.000-07:00

Apologies for the belated Friday Review! I am actually updating from home. We recently moved into a new office and didn't have internet set up yet while I was in last Friday. We're still trying to get things moved in and organized. Thankfully, the new office is not a dark claustrophobic hole in the wall. I think can do cartwheels in it if I wanted to--but perhaps only one cartwheel. It is still pretty small. Hopefully Taymar will find a better office for us in the near future...and one with a window too. It would be nice to see sunlight once in awhile...

This week's review:

The Illusionist (2006)
Directed by Neil Burger

"Nothing is what it seems" is the tagline of this movie. And it sure is! My brain feels like it’s been fondled by The Illusionist!! How does he do it?!!!! It's all so David Blaine.

But it’s not all about illusions and tricks. It’s about love too. I know that sounds kind of corny in a chick flick-romantic comedy way, but it isn’t! I think the writers did a good job with the storyline. The setting is in 20th century Vienna. Eisenheim is a young boy who becomes facinated with magic after meeting a traveling magician. He shows him a few magic tricks, and finally, the magician himself disappears all together. And here comes the typical "Boy meets Girl, Boy falls in love with Girl" scene. Eisenheim falls in love with the Duchess Sophie von Teschen. Yea and it always has to be a peasant and an aristocrat falling in love together. I guess it's just more tragic that way. What a cruel fate: lovers barred from being together, forever separated in different worlds. Yep, it sure does sound a lot more dramatic.

But don't worry, they're not separated forever. Years later, Eisenheim has traveled the world and returned an accomplished magician. He and Sophie meet again at a performance, although here's the catch now: Sophie is in an arranged marriage to the Crowned Prince Leopold, who is not a particularly nice fellow. So now they have to figure out how to runway and be together forever without the Crowned Prince embarking on a jealous rampage after Sophie.

Anyway, I have to skip the whole rest of that because I don't want to ruin the the ending...which might I add is so M. Night Shyamalan! Surprising yet predictable. I feel like I contradicted myself in the previous sentence, but I don’t want to give it away! What I am saying is: don't believe everything you see.

Any requests for next week? Huh huh? My email is stephanie[AT]pixleyflix.com (and do remember to replace [AT] with the actual @ symbol!!) If I don't get any requests, I am projecting next week's review to be Critters. And if you happen to really hate that movie, then you should send another movie my way to review!

Later alligators!

The Santa Barbara Indie Coop

2007-05-20T13:25:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago I met with another documentary producer for coffee, and we decided to start a cooperative for independent producers in Santa Barbara. We wanted to set something up for networking, collaborating and supporting one another in continuing to create independent work.

I remembered having a similar conversation awhile back with an indie producer I met at the newspaper 2.0 workshop, so I contacted him and a few other indie friends and we met for lunch. We established fairly similar needs for all of us. We would like to be able to barter for equipment use and crew time, to have other talented, creative people to collaborate with, and to set up a good referal and reference point for financial endevours.

I set up a social networking site, and we arranged for another lunch meeting. If you are interested in joining, please sign up at http://indiecoop.ning.com or come to the next lunch meeting at 12:30, Tuesday June 5th at the China Pavillion on Chapala and Anapamu.

Life is so Time Consuming

2007-05-14T14:52:00.001-07:00

Yep.

Stephanie's first Friday Review: SO NO ONE HAS SENT ME ANYTHING YET! :(

2007-05-11T17:33:00.000-07:00

But no worries, I'll just review a movie I watched recently...which was........drum roll please......

Waterworld (1995)
Directed by Kevin Reynolds

We’ve all seen Waterworld at Universal Studios Hollywood. It pretty much has the same gist, but only about a two hours too long, and you don’t get soaking wet sitting in the front 5 rows. It's a post-apocalypic world. Earth is underwater, and people are now wandering drifters out on an endless sea. They survive on floating islands constructed out of wreakage or whatever they can find.

The Mariner is the quiet, brooding half-man, half-merman hero of Waterworld. He's been out at sea for a long time...maybe that's how he evolved fish-like traits. And I just have to note the opening scene: peeing in a cup???!! YUCK!!!! I am disgusted and confused at the same time. That is really, really gross. I mean, it must still be WARM after he’s filtered it and drinking it! The Mariner is just that hardcore, and pretty awesome....swinging across his boat like a jungle man and swimming & jumping vertically out of the water like some kind of acrobatic show dolphin at Sea World?! I totally want to do that!

The bad dudes are the Smokers, headed by the greatest villain EVARR: Deacon of the 'Deez. He is definitely my favorite character in this movie (though his one eye is kind of grody--it got blasted to smithereens in an explosion). Some of the smokers are a bunch of crazy cats...especially that one old guy who apparently LIVES in the bottom of the tanker. Sure sucks to be him.

So the Smokers want to find DryLand...and the only way to find it is with a map, tattooed conveniently on the back of a little girl named Enola. And Enola and Helen (her caretaker) also conveniently end up hitching a ride in the Mariner's boat.

While Helen and Enola stay with the Mariner on his boat, we find out that he's actually a private, anal-retentive and chauvinistic sort of man. It seems like he's a closet misogynist or something. He literally had a batch of kittens when Enola used his crayons and threw her overboard into the ocean!! And then later, he proceeds to brutally chopping off all of Helen's hair, resulting it to look like a large bovine had gnawed it all off. Well, that sure was unnecessary and meaningless violence. But perhaps his angst is due to the rejection and scorn of others, as his half-human, half-fish-ness doesn’t pull over too well with the other characters we see in the movie.

But at the end, the Mariner lets his human side shine. And it shines ever-so-brightly as he rescues Enola from the Smokers, boldly stating that she is his friend. The ending is quite sad as he does not stay with Helen and Enola when they find DryLand. He is still, afterall, merman.

That's all for this week! If you want me to review something, send it here: stephanie[AT]pixleyflix.com

See you next week!

Stephanie Joins Pixley Flix

2007-05-04T17:33:00.000-07:00

Hello! I'm Stephanie! I recently joined the Pixley Flix team! I am mainly in charge of chaos containment in the office and keeping Taymar sane. I will be blogging every Friday when I am in the office. If you want me to review your movie or product, you can send it to stephanie at pixleyflix.com or snail mail to P.O. 90552 Santa Barbara, CA 93190. Taymar is still looking for good freelance people to work with. So if you are one of those people, feel free to send your demo to the same address listed above (but not to my email). And that's it for now! Yay! First blog!

Check Out the Production Room Site!

2007-05-03T17:29:00.000-07:00

In the race to redesign, the Production Room beat us by a few weeks...and I must say, I am very impressed: www.prodroom.com

Who's afraid of the NAB?

2007-04-24T15:03:00.000-07:00

I am still trying to recover from the NAB. (The National Association of Broadcasters Convention held yearly in Las Vegas. They claim to be "the world's largest electronic media show", and I don't think they're making it up.) So many new toys, neat software updates and good people I don't even know where to start. So I'll start by complaining about the lines. I really dislike waiting in lines, and from the moment we arrived in Las Vegas, it seemed to be the thing to do. There was a line to get a cab from the airport, a line to check into our hotel, a line to get into the convention, there was even a two hour line just to see a camera that is yet to be released...needless to say we didn't wait in it. But I did grab a brochure, so if you want information about the newest, baddest camera about to come out on the market, the Red One, let me know.

Despite the lines, the convention was definitely worth attending. We spent a lot of time at the Sonicfire booth watching our friend Stephanie presenting the newest updates for SmartSound's awesome music scoring software. We've been using it for a few weeks now, and it makes a huge difference in our ability to find and use royalty music that fits the exact time and mood we are looking for. I have been lucky enough to have very talented musical friends like Jeff Hobbs and Scott Robinson who have allowed me to use their music for many purposes, but it is freeing to have access to such a wide variety of music, and the software allows for such editability that it is simple to repurpose the same song to fit multiple needs.

I also had the opportunity to ask the CEO of Google, Eric Schmidt, a question about YouTube. We were told at NALIP that we shouldn't upload our videos to YouTube because their user agreement states that YouTube owns all of the footage that is uploaded to the site. When I asked Eric about it he told me that this wasn't true, and that we should use every site to promote our work. Since this is coming from the top, I will assume that it is in fact safe to upload content to YouTube, not that I recommend it. It's a good place to attract attention, but their compression makes everything look terrible. I guess there are secrets to get around this, but I personally prefer blip.tv

The most exciting software release we saw was the new Production Premium Suite by Adobe. It's bundle includes a new version of Photoshop that allows video clips to be directly imported and edited using all of the Photoshop functions. This was bundled with some nifty software just for chromakey work, but is unfortunately not available for the Macintosh until sometime this summer.

Celinda also enjoyed spending time at the Avid booth. "I wouldn't mind coming back to Avid, it's like going back to an old boyfriend" she said, as we deliberated over our alliance to Final Cut Pro, which is fast losing favor as other editing software becomes more affordable and easy to use. Celinda reported that the new Avid Express had great features, and is on par with Final Cut in terms of price.

Most of us have been loyal Final Cut Pro users for so long that it's intimidating to think about switching, sort of like breaking up with a boyfriend after many years, but it may just be that time. Final Cut Pro has a frustrating file managemenrt system, terrible customer support, and their user group party left something to be desired, especially after the really great G-Tech party we went to the night before. G-Tech makes external hard-drives, and their party was in the Fantasy Tower at the Palms Casino. There was a round rotating bed that looked out over the city lights, a heated pool with a glass wall looking over the city, and a bridge over an indoor stream. There were drinks and food, and good people to talk to, it was a really great party. The Final Cut Pro User Group party cost $15 to get into, and then you still had to pay for the drinks. The party started at 6pm, so the food was gone by the time we got there a little after 7. It took place in the brightly lit ballroom at the Venetian, and felt somewhat like an extention of the convention with it's booths and presentations.

Despite our exhaustion from walking the convention floor all day, we stayed for the raffle because there were really great prizes. Of course we didn't win any, so we felt like real losers as we drug ourselves out at almost midnight. We had won something at the Final Cut Pro User Group party at MacWorld, so I guess I can't complain too much, but I wish Apple would put a little more effort into retaining customer loyalty, because I like to be pampered.

Our last stop at the convention was at the Lynda.com booth. Lynda.com is a local company based out of Ojai, and it's run by really nice people. If you haven't heard of it, you should definitely check it out because they have thousands of awesome tutorials and hundreds of classes online for only a few hundred dollars a year. It's definitely a worthwhile investment if you are involved in any kind of media making, because even if you know a program really well, there are constantly updates and new software coming out that you will need training on.

I'm still recovering from the trip. It's good to be back in mellow Santa Barbara, with mountains, beaches and foliage. When we got off the plane and there wasn't a single line to be found, I almost kissed the ground.

Dinner with Saints

2007-04-14T11:11:00.000-07:00

You know that question about who you would choose to have dinner with if you could have dinner with anybody in the whole world? Well, I got to have that dinner Thursday night.

My friend Jack Reed, who is amazing in and of himself, invited me to have dinner at his house with Marshall Rosenberg and his wife Valentina. Jack and I had met them last year when we attended one of Marshall's presentations on Non-Violent Communication. Jack had given his book to them to read, and they had enjoyed it so much that Marshall wrote Jack asking why his book was not the most well-read book in the world, and asked him to have dinner with them.

Jack then invited them to come over to his house, and I think he invited me partly because he knows I am a fan of Marshall's work and partly because he likes this portobello mushroom dish that I make.

Either way, it was an honor to be there, and it was one of the most memorable dinners I've ever had. Marshall and Valentina have been traveling all over the world teaching non-violent communication methods and performing healings. They spoke of the work that they've done in India, where 4,000 untouchables came to one of their healings. Valentina is a powerful healer who works with the body. She and Marshall have combined their techniques, and everyone who they have worked with has not only experienced incredible healing, but everyone who witnesses it reports experiencing healing as well. They described looking out at the crowd after a healing, and seeing tears streaming down everyone's faces.

Marshall and Valentina are going to be in Santa Barbara for the next week doing presentations and healings. I am currently in Las Vegas at the NAB convention so I am unable to attend any of these events, but I highly encourage you to go if you have an opportunity to attend a presentation or a healing event.

New Office Space

2007-04-11T19:36:00.000-07:00

We are in the process of moving into a new office space. It is downtown, very conveniently located between Barnes and Noble and Rite Aide. Next week Celinda, Hannah and I are leaving for the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) convention in Las Vegas, and I misplaced my cell phone while in Arizona, so if you are trying to get ahold of me right now, I apologize in advance. I will do my best to check messages and keep in touch.

Glimpse from the Past

2007-04-06T18:04:00.001-07:00

A few days ago I recieved the following message on MySpace:

I think you are the Taymar I've been trying to find. My name is Tom Casey.

We took a Media Arts course together at the U of A. It was MAR315 - Intermediate Film. I was an editor of a project you directed. Aaron Wickenden was the DP.

I have the film footage. I don't like destroying images so I'd be happy to send it to you if you would like.

I hope it's you 'cause the footage has just been taking up space in my closet.

(Sorry, I don't have a picture up yet. I know it would be convenient if you could recognize me.)

- Tom

This little message brought up a lot of memories for me. I remember that year in Tucson I had just moved into a fixer-upper my grandparents bought for me near the university. The bathroom was being remodeled and it was completely gutted, so I had to take showers around the corner at my friend's house. I decided to take a refresher course in film at the University of Arizona because I only lived two blocks away and I had loved shooting film in college.

I didn't realize that the film class was competitive to get into, and that the other students were taking this really seriously. I didn't do any of the reading and I failed every exam I took. There was no such thing as an exam at Hampshire College, so I was seriously out of practice, and it all seemed so ridiculous anyway. Who cared how many feet away a spot should be for a certain aperture? As long as the film looked good, and the content was there, then you knew you had learned something.

Our first class exercise was a lighting experiment, and ours turned out hot. We recreated some scene from some movie, and Aaron did an excellent job as the dp, so I was really stoked when he signed up to be my dp in addition to another project he was working on.

I had written this short script called "Glimpse". It was about those little moments when you are fully present in life. It was written as an experimental piece with three scenes; the first that of a young girl around eight or nine, the second a young woman in a discussion with a man, and the last scene an elderly couple.

After we had shot the first scene with the little girl, who was this gorgeous ethereal looking redhead, I changed the second scene to one with slightly more adult content. I completely shocked my crew when the actress for the second scene didn't show up, so I performed the scene myself. (Later that same year I was the female model for two 10 foot tall paintings of an Adam and Eve scene taking place on a checkered tablecloth. There was a piece of fried chicken in my hand and buckets of kfc all around, and the piece was titled "Finger Licking Good". This was also shown at a very large UofA art opening event at which many people I knew were in attendence, and I had the same experience of walking around naked at school that I have so often had anxiety dreams of. I guess it was my year of nudes.)

I had contacted the father of the young girl I had used in the first scene to inform him that the content of the script had changed since he had first agreed to let us film her. He didn't return any of my messages until after the film was already completed and had been screened in class. He was also a filmmaker, so he happened to have a projector. He asked me to come over and show the film to them so that they could decide whether or not it was appropriate for his daughter to be shown. I tried to explain to him that he should really watch it first, but he insisted he was comfortable having his daughter screen it with us. I imagine that she is still traumatized by this incident, as she was so uncomfortable that she held her hands over her eyes during the second scene, and sort of shrieked. Needless to say, he did not grant me permission to show the film publicly, and so it has sat in the closet of Tom Casey for about seven years now.

I happen to be in Tucson this weekend, so I will be picking up the film from Tom, and retiring it to my own closet, where it will probably remain for another seven years or so, until I decide what to do with it. I too dislike destroying images, particularly beautiful ones.

Pixley Flix to Edit Mini-Wrestler doc

2007-04-01T08:31:00.000-07:00

My friend Amber told me a story once about being approached by someone wanting her to edit "a wrestling midgets video." she said, "I saw the picture for the cover and there was blood on their faces and I was like, I just can't do this..."

So when I was trying to come up with a good idea for an April Fools Day joke, I thought this would be something so far off base from a Pixley Flix Project, that it might be good for a laugh.

I told my friend Joey, and he was like "That's so cool! Now that's the kind of project I like." I think he was disappointed when I told him that it was actually an April Fool's Day prank.

Luckily Mikhaila's reaction was better. She seemed pretty appalled. I guess maybe it's not a girl thing.

I am a huge April Fools Day trickster. This morning a friend I had met at NALIP happened to give me a call, and mention that it was the first of April. I gave him my sister Leise's phone number and told him to tell her that he was at the train station and couldn't get ahold of me, and could she give him a ride. A few minutes later she called and asked "So who am I picking up from the train station, and why?" I told her that he was a nice man I had met at NALIP and she said "I asked what he looks like and he said he has an eyepatch." Which is totally true, but it only made it that much better. When I finally reminded her of the day, she groaned and said "I can't believe you got me again. I even reminded myself last night not to listen to anything you said, how was I supposed to expect someone else to call me."

Since that had gone so well, I called Frederico back and asked him to call my sister Josie in Tucson. We are arriving on Wednesday, so this time I told him to say that he had taken the train in to Tucson to visit me, and needed a place to stay until Wednesday. It didn't take long to get the call from Josie. "Taymar, who is this guy who needs me to pick him up at the train station, and why is he going to be staying with me for a few days?"

"Because" I said with just a little giggle, "I knew if I called you wouldn't be fooled today."

She screamed with frustration and then laughed for about 20 minutes, because every single year I get somebody in my family good.

One year I told my mom that I was in jail. She said that I could just stay there because she wasn't going to come get me. She was so mad. Another year I told my grandparents that I had totaled their mini-van. That one didn't turn out so well because they started arguing before I could tell them that it was an April's Fool, and I had to drive over to tell them that it wasn't true. The year I had Caspian he was due on April 15th, so I called my brother-in-law Jason and asked him if he could please come home from work because my water broke and I couldn't get ahold of anybody else.

One year I convinced my sister Josie that my sister Leise's African tortoise had laid a gigantic egg. Another year I convinced Leise that my grandfather had won the lottery. The list goes on and on, and every year I delight in the moment of realization that I duped them again.

I'm not sure what the point of April Fool's Day is really, but I like almost all holidays, and I sure get a kick out of this one.

Reinventing the Wheel...Again

2007-03-28T15:07:00.000-07:00

When I was in middle school the worst thing anybody could call you was a "poser". A poser was somebody who pretended to be into something just because other people were doing it. A poser might wear skateboarding clothes and carry a skateboard around, but not actually know how to skate, for instance. Of course, in middle school virtually everybody is a poser, because you are still forming your identity, but that was no consolation prize if you got labeled as a poser.

The sentiment carried on through my high school years, and reached a pinnacle when I attended a very alternative liberal arts college in Massachusetts. Individuality was very important back then, at least if you were going to be in the cool crowd. (The irony captured perfectly in the lyrcis of a Dead Milkmen song "I want to be different, like all the other people who are different.")

As a grown adult and a business owner, I am now faced with a disability from all of these years of brainwashing. I am imitation-challenged. While intellectually I know that the easiest way to be successful is to imitate success, I stubbornly forge my own way ahead, reinventing the wheel many times as I go along, refusing to follow in anyone's path for fear that at some point they might turn around and accuse me of being a poser.

I imagine a lot of business owners have this disability, that is probably a big part of why we are not employees. So we invent our own filing systems, our own marketing schemes, our own model for how things should run. The payoff is not necessarily always obvious to others in our lives, but I know that for me, I love it. I love doing it my way, right or wrong.

A different kind of Sundance

2007-03-22T17:11:00.000-07:00

This whole week has flown by in a hectic flurry. Sunday night Celinda and I went to the Sundance Beach amateur surf video contest to check out the scene. My whole exposure to the surf world has been through the soft, accepting, supportive society of the surf girls, so I was really surprised at the competitive, fashion conscious, male dominated world that I had only suspected existed before.

Shortly after the initial announcement that the video screening of the winners of the competition was going to begin, a woman took over the mic. “I want you all to know that I will not stand up for this kind of behavior. I’ve been mocked, I’ve been insulted…” she pointed to a group of boys sitting a few rows back, “this group of boys sitting right there were calling me a heifer, they were calling me Borat, and their parents were doing it to. I left here crying. This is not right.” An older man appeared from somewhere and attempted to wrest the microphone from her. “You are taking over a show here,” he was telling her, “take this up with the management.”

There was an uncomfortable tension in the room until she left, another woman speaking gently to her, and then the screening began as if nothing had happened.

The announcer had proudly proclaimed how proud they were at the diverse group of people who had submitted to the contest. Apparently this was either untrue, or the only videos that were selected were those showcasing hotshot white male surfers.

The whole experience really clarified to me the importance of what we’re doing with the surf girls documentary. Surfing is an incredibly empowering, challenging sport, and the group of women who have come together in this group are strong, professional, smart, amazing people. It isn’t about being cool, or picking up hot surf guys, it’s about being brave enough to try something new and difficult, and falling down a lot of times and getting back up and trying it again.

So that was how my week started out. It seems the rest of the week has been taken up with conference calls and business negotiations, redesigning my site, developing storylines, and shooting new stuff for the love project. It’s gone by so fast, I can’t believe it’s Thursday night already.

I have three love projects to edit and post, so I shouldn’t let the cat out of the bag yet, but I can’t help it. Travis Holliday has done such a fabulous job on the loveproject.tv site. It’s everything I wanted and more. If you are reading this, check it out and let me know what you think.

NALIP rocks!

2007-03-12T18:32:00.000-07:00

I am still in recovery from an awesome weekend in Newport Beach at the NALIP (National Association of Independent Producers) Conference. Celinda Valeur had asked me several months ago to come along to the conference, and I couldn't thank her more for convincing me to go.

Besides meeting a lot of wonderful people, the panels at the conference were chock full of good information about the industry. Celinda and I had the opportunity to give our pitch for the Santa Barbara Surf Girls Documentary we are working on at the Doc Pitch event, which included panelists from HBO and the History Channel. We also sat in on a panels on new media, documentary funding and budgeting and I sat in on a very informative story development workshop with Harrison Reiner. Nickelodeon was there, as well as the producers for Ugly Betty, and at every turn there was good food, good speakers, interesting topics and good people.

The two most important topics are the obvious: Latino media is hot, and it's only going to get hotter. If your marketing strategy doesn't include the Latino audience, you are missing out on a huge demographic. (If you are looking for a good Latina producer here in town, look up Celinda Valeur at Rincon Productions). And of course the other hot topic is internet content production, but of course I've been talking about that for years now. But other people are saying it too, so prick your ears up, and give me a call.

This is a Public Service Announcement

2007-03-06T09:28:00.000-08:00

If you are using Internet Explorer on a Macintosh, please do yourself a huge favor and use a different browser. Internet Explorer has not updated their software for the Macintosh since January 31, 2006. What this means is that when you are looking at the internet on a Mac on Internet Explorer, anything new that has happened in the past year will be unavailable to you. This is only going to get worse.

There are a variety of different browsers that are easy to use and that are updating for the mac. You may already have another browser intalled on your computer. Search for Safari or Netscape and replace the icon that you are using to launch the internet with one of those, or keep reading and download an even better browser.

I personally enjoy the browser Firefox. I recommend using this browser even if you are on a pc, because it is a lot better than Internet Explorer in terms of stability, usability and security. Safari is also a good browser, and very similar to Firefox, but I prefer Firefox because it gives me the option of remembering all of my username and passwords for every site that I use, and that is an awesome thing.

If you have a really old Mac and are working on an old operating system you may have trouble downloading Firefox or Safari. You can try downloading a newer operating system, but your computer may not have the right system requirements. In this case, you will need to use Netscape. If it not already on your computer, you can download it off their site.

While you are downloading software, make sure that you have the latest version of Flash, as this will allow you to view the best of what's on the web.

I have a new computer, a new operating system and I use Firefox, so I am sometimes unaware of the problems that other people face when trying to surf the internet. If you encounter a problem with this site, please contact me and let me know.

Here are the sites to go to for downloads:

For Mozilla Firefox: http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/all.html

For Safari: http://www.apple.com/support/downloads/safari.html

For Netscape: http://browser.netscape.com/ns8/download/

(Be sure to check the archives for an older version if you can't update your operating system.)

For Flash: http://www.adobe.com/support/flashplayer/downloads.html

You will thank yourself for taking the time to do this, I promise!

Happy surfing ~ Taymar

Traveling With Lance Through France Premiere

2007-02-22T21:44:00.000-08:00

Steve Manis is just so adorable. The way that he talks about his film, his mother's poetry or his wife, there is just this magic in his eyes. So when I heard he was having a screening of his documentary "Traveling With Lance Through France" I knew I had to go.

Like so many first documentaries, this was too long. I understood completely, the way you fall in love with the subject, and you leave a scene running too long, or include something that doesn't make sense to the story, this is what we do when we are in love with our stories. This is why it is a good idea to have somebody else edit the more personal stuff, it's sort of like cleaning out an old closet - it's a lot easier for somebody who isn't emotionally attached.

The film was still very beautiful. Experiencing France through Steve's eyes gave me a great appreciation for humanity. Whether he was talking to a truck driver, an olympic medalist or a singer, Steve was able to capture an authentic side of people that most reality shows never even come close to.

I was amazed at how many languages Steve knew, and how well he could adapt from one situation to the next, so gracefully, as if he had always belonged. I am looking forward to seeing more work from Steve Manis. http://travelingwithlancethroughfrance.com

- And Kudos to Steve Gordon from the Production Room for rescuing the audio. I know what an in camera mic sounds like in a moving car, and it's not pretty. I can't even imagine what it would have been like before.

Anapamu Song - Raw

2007-02-21T21:19:00.001-08:00

Click to Play

Troy Attaway playing solo in my living room a song written by his band, Anapamu. This was originally supposed to be the next episode of the Love Project, but my tape was eaten by the camera moments after I captured this song onto my hard-drive. It was a good interview, so I am hoping to recover the tape, in the meantime please enjoy Troy's completely uncut, raw talent.

Santa Barbara Surf Grls

2007-02-20T18:19:00.001-08:00

Click to Play

This is part of a documentary on a beginner surfing group called the SB Surf Grls. This is a small part of an interview with Kristen Walker, the founder of the group. For more information about the group you can check out the website at sbsurfgrls.com. For more information about the documentary you can check out pixleyflix.com.

Happy Valentine's Day from The Love Project

2007-02-14T08:35:00.001-08:00

Click To Play

This the first podcast of The Love Project - a series of interviews and experiments on the nature of love. Enjoy and share with everyone you know who could use a little extra love in their life. More to come from Pixley Flix Productions at www.loveproject.tv

Thanks to Jeff Hobbs (masslive.com) for helping me to fix the blip.tv html.

Hot off the Press: Newspaper 2.0

2007-02-12T10:56:00.000-08:00

There are very few things that I am willing to give up my Saturday for. And truthfully, when John Quimby first sent me an invitation to attend Doc Searls Newspaper 2.0 Workshop, I didn't exactly jump at the chance. It took about five more subtle suggestions that this would be a very interesting event before I even took the time to really read the invitation. But once I did I realized that this was definitely something worth giving up a Saturday for.

The purpose of the event was to "explore challenges and opportunities in the new Internet-enabled newspaper marketplace. The workshop brought together journalists, scholars and leading thinkers who shared a common interest in the future of daily and weekly journals — with a particular interest in Santa Barbara as a region where new approaches might be explored." (http://newspaper2dot0.pbwiki.com/About%20the%20event)

I missed the first hour of "coffee, light breakfast, and schmoozing", but arrived in time for Doc Searls introduction and converstaion with Dan Gillmor of "Center for Citizen Media" and JD Lasica of "OurMedia.org". This was all very fascinating stuff, they talked about what's happening in the newspaper industry, only briefly mentioning the Santa Barbara NewsPress debacle despite the tremendous presence of several key players in the firings, protests, walk-outs and blogging backlash. They focused instead on the tremendous success of blogging, the open source revolution, and the core question of where we're going in web 2.0.

For those of you who feel that this is some strange alien language, not to worry. You have probably already been engaged in some level of this without even realizing it. You don't have to be in the automotive industry to know how to drive a car, and you don't have to be an IT expert to use the internet.

But if you are in business it's good to know where all of this is going, because we are in the midst of a huge transition from traditional print based media being the primary source of advertising budgets to online content either augmenting or entirely replacing it.

Currently advertisers are still paying more and spending more of their marketing budgets on print than online, but it is only a matter of time before that is completely turned around. This is where I come in, and why the Newspaper 2.0 topic was so fascinating for me.

The worshop was set up as an Open Space model, which I have to say is brilliant. After the initial introduction and discussion, everyone in the room introduced themselves, and then we broke up into groups according to our topics of interest.

My topic was of course web video, and I was lucky enough to have the company of both of our guest speakers - Dan Gillmor and JD Lasica. They have both written books, have a high-profile online presence and are a great wealth of knowledge. I felt quite inexperienced in comparison. (Hardly the Goddess of Internet Knowledge as someone has so kindly commented here.) Warren Schultheis was also in our group, and I was lucky enough to get a glance at the briliant site he is currently in development on called City2.0, a citizen run alternative to the local newspaper. Jon Williams of TableRock Productions, and of course, myself, Taymar Pixley of Pixley Flix Productions, were the video production components of the table.

I was the note-taker of the group, and the self-imposed leader of the discussion, although I tried to be democratic about it.

I will briefly share my notes, and the links to some cool sites.

Our first topic was a little off topic, and that was how annoying it is to try to keep track of so many different sites and online profiles. Somebody suggested trying the site bugmenot.com which gives a way to sign in universally.

We quickly moved onto talking about video, and JD suggested a site called blip.tv, which Dan then showed us on his laptop. It is a cool alternative to youtube, with better resolution, a cool community of people, a friendlier search engine, and fewer limitations on length. Best of all, it's free.

Precise tagging is very important for creating easily searchable media. This could be called a keyword, tag, channel or category, but basically it's a way to categorize your video so that it can be more accurately and easily found in a search.

We then talked about storage, and whether it is better to store video on your own server, or use a remote server. The sites motionbox.com and JD's site ourmedia.org were given as good places to store video remotely.

Next we adressed some of the complications of video, and how lengthy it can be to consume. JD explained that there is a method called deep tagging in which the video can be broken down into sections that are searchable by tags. This way if your show is half an hour long, somebody could easily find the five minutes that is most relevant to them. He also talked about using tags, channels or categories to be more easily found on the internet.

We briefly discussed the various formats for video, and I think unanimously agreed that Flash is the best.

Then we quickly moved on to the more complex topic of social media. We talked about citizen media, random acts of journalism when average citizens with video cameras replace the local news, and how to keep the internet an open democracy.

Several sites were thrown out for citizen media - www.citmedia.org, laobserved.com, baristanet.com, and backfence.com.

We asked the questions "How mutually inclusive is this?" and "Is this competition healthy?" I'm not sure that we answered them, but we did talk about distribution methods of video or rich media, and the democracy player, a site were people share and subscribe to high quality work.

Other sites brought up were odeo.com and libsyn.com.

I haven't had time to check out all these sites, but I'll get back to you with a list of my favorites.