Comedy: Haroun Ibn-Mock - Daze Off

Haroun Ibn-Mock is a good friend of mine who has been a film gaffer and electrician in New York City for many years working on commercials, MTV spots, broadcast television and lots and lots of music videos. Shortly before I left New York I lent my graphics and crewing skills to his first major independent production which he describes like this:

"The dude negotiates his version of his perfect day off and tries to accommodate the wishes of his live-in girlfriend amidst a cloud of fun and smoke."

This ain't DV either. This is old school 100% film production with a real film crew cut on a real Avid. And it's funny too!

News: Michael Moore Calls out CNN

It is a snowballs day in hell that you will see a clip from CNN on this blog but that day just arrived and doubled up because this is extraordinary.

CNN aired this hit piece on Michael Moore's latest movie Sicko:





They then, unwisely, had Michael Moore on live after playing it to get his response. Boy did he respond. He went ballistic on them and said pretty much everything I ever wanted to say to the mainstream media. God bless Michael Moore.




As promised, Michael also provided his own fact checkers for CNN's report and he put the results on his website.

Comedy: The Baranovsky brothers - Break a Leg

Brothers Vlad and Yuri Baranovsky have created an internet based sitcom on a desktop video sized budget but with a great cast of real actors and some enterprising crew people. The popularity of this web show has led to a development deal with a professional agency who is trying to get them on a major network.

If you like what you see, you can let the advertisements at the end of each episode play for a few seconds and the next episode should start automatically. Otherwise you can go to the link above.

Saturday Feature: Brave New Films - Outfoxed

Speaking of Brave News Films: This is a great expose of theirs into the inner workings of the Fox News network. I highly recommend it.

Video Activism: Brave New Films - Impeach Cheney

Brave New Films is at it again. I have to admit these guys make a pretty good case. Just the video alone is pretty damning as to how certain Cheney is about all the stuff he was wrong about. It makes you want to know exactly how he was coming to all those conclusions. It's easy to say "we go the intel wrong" as if it was a simple mistake rather than a deception. I personally want to know exactly what Cheney was doing at the CIA and the Pentagon while he made these statements on TV. We already know that he leaked info to Judith Miller who wrote articles in the New York Times. Cheney would then go on TV and say "Well the New York Times just printed an article that says. . . " Does this sound honest to anyone?

Politics: Plisko - Outlaw In Chief

This Scooter Libby clemency thing has basically made my head explode and, as I sometimes do, I caught it on tape. . . .

I just posted it on Current TV last night.

Video Activism: I did not speak up and now I wish I had.

In honor of our law and order president, I think I will post this.

I'm still trying to figure out who created it. I'm not even sure what language the subtitles are in. The message, however, is unquestionable.

There is a link on the Google host to www.freespeechwar.com but that leads to an empty GoDaddy Link. There are also multiple other links attached to it including: snowshoefilms.com theshowpodcast.com jonesreport.com rense.com madcowprod.com newswithviews.com freespeech.org democracynow.org robbyweber.com

There are multiple YouTube entries, myspace entries, and lord knows what else of this video but nobody I have found yet claims to have made it.

Maybe they really did come for him. . . . .

$7.00 Video Camera mount for a motorcycle.

I love cheap and easy - a metaphor for a lot of my life. I took a motorcycle trip to Tennessee last week and was looking for a better way to shoot video from my motorcycle, but I didn't want to spend a lot of cash for a camera mount, some mounts cost $50+, not for me. With some ingenuity and about $7.00 at the local Home Depot, I MacGyvered up this mount for my crash bars on the bike and was able to shoot some decent looking video while in the Smoky Mountains - some of the best motorcycle riding in the U.S.A.

Home Depot Parts List:

039923147660: PVC TEE (1) $0.73 (size you need for the crash bar mount)
012871624414: 1/2" 90 degree elbow (1) $0.81
012871625596: Riser Extender (2) $0.42
012871628900: 1/2" PVC Plug (1) $0.52
AED 1/4x11/2HBLT: $0.13 (the bolt for mounting the camera)
030699084265: 1/4" HEX NUT (2) $0.04
078575172057: SS Clamp (2) $1.15
& A few 1/4" fender washers.

The most important part is the first one, which is a 1.5" PVC "T" which I sawed in half:

You then drill a hole in the PVC Plug and attach the washers and bolts for the camera attachment, I used locktite blue on the threads to keep it from vibrating loose from the bike motor. How many washers you use will depend on the camera/video camera. I adjusted the amount of washers until it was a flush fit. I have added a fender washer (loose) between the camera mount and the camera body for more stability:

I then needed something to put between the split PVC "T" and the crash bar to prevent damage. I cut up an old inner tube from my recently replaced motorcycle tire, cut it to fit, and used it on the bar where I mounted:

Here is the Split PVC "T" on the crash bar:

Here is the Elbow fitting attached, the extender and the camera mount on the PVC plug:

And here is the whole thing with the camera mounted:

Like I said, the only thing I've added is a large fender washer between the camera and the mount for stability. All it all it worked pretty well, but the bike vibrated the camera in 2nd gear on high revs, the washer should help prevent this on future shoots. I also used larger hose clamps on the bar when I got to TN. to compensate for the thick rubber between the bar and the PVC 'T'.

Trick to good audio on the bike is running a mic cable from the camera (wrapped around the crash bar) up behind my windshield, where I stuck a EV640 mic in my windshield pouch with the end sticking out. You can hear the bike, and my wife & I talking on the bike, but no wind noise.

The proof is always in the pudding, here is a brief video I shot with the new mount:

Video Game Filmmaking: Rooster Teeth - Red Vs. Blue episode 1

Red Vs Blue is a collaboration between Burnie Burns, Matt Hullum, and Joel Heyman who later formed Rooster Teeth Productions. It is made enirely in the game Halo 2. I think it is fair to say that this effort has officially become a part of video game Americana. Ask an avid gamer what it is and they will, almost to a person, be able to tell you. The witty writers at Rooster Teeth productions almost didn't get the idea off the ground if not for the success of an anti Mac parody video that they did earlier. This video had caught the eye of Computer Gaming World magazine who wanted to include the video as part of their CD release in an upcoming issue. These guys were young but they weren't dumb, they quickly re-coded the video to advertise Red Vs Blue at the end. That exposure gave them the takeoff that the concept needed to become a major viral hit and the rest is history.

The above video is episode 1 in what has now become a long running series of 100 episodes and counting.

Public Speech: RFK - The Fairness Doctrine

This is a great public speech by RFK Jr. about the fairness doctrine, how we lost it, and what that means. More people need to think about this stuff.