I attended my first Net Tuesday meet-up event a few nights ago. Toronto’s Net Tuesday is a once a month meeting sponsored NetSquared. Here is NetSquared’s elevator pitch.

“Social changemakers and technological forerunners come together at Net Tuesday events to mix, swap stories and ideas, build new relationships, and reinforce the online NetSquared community.

The session last night was called Online Story Telling – How to Plan & Produce a Compelling Video . I had a lot of take aways from this Meet Up.

At break I introduced myself to Billie Mintz, President of Artists Raising Consciousness. His talk resonated with me more than the other presenters. Being relatively new to creating online videos, his references to learning from the many mistakes he has made and his fly by the seat of your pants style (but organized and professional) appealed to me.

Billie said “I know you from your videos’. I couldn’t figure this out as my work has being pretty minimum to date and I hardly have a following. Anyway Billie explained that he stumbled across my video interviews taken of my elderly mother (96 and going strong). She talks about her political beliefs, making biscuits, speaking Gaelic and life on the Cape Breton farm. He thought they were great videos and was the first person to comment on my very first video. What a magical serendipitous moment. It really inspired me to continue with my video story telling projects. Here is my YouTube channel if you would like some advice from a senior elder of the community.

First off, the workshop was pretty informal, bordering on chaotic at times but I like informal and chaotic so I didn’t mind that too much. The registration table was not set up properly, chairs were late in getting arranged, it was stuffy in the room but I managed a front row seat (my favourite) with lots of leg and breathing room.

Here are some of the takeaways:

• Creating a story from your clips is high art… I have just being shooting and producing what I have…time to be creative!
• Story telling is an art form that is fundamental to our existence as humans…we need to learn to be story tellers because telling stories is a powerful mediums for change
• Audio is the single most important component after your video…use a LAV mic setup…about $500
• Use earphones to ensure you are not picking up ambient noise that messes up your video
• Find and understand the role of negative space and white balance… got to unpack this more..
• Work with cause/charity groups with their budget – give what you can with what they have to pay…. I liked this as budget negotiations have always being  a difficult dance..
• Royalty free music is available but make sure you own the rights rather than who you hire…the rights will travel with your vendor
• Garage band is a great resource…not a Mac guy so don’t know much about this
• Use a clear, logical “code system” to organize your files
• NFC has a call for proposal out that fits with new media productions telling great stories… must follow up with this opportunity as I’m involved in a great story with mental health survivors.
• Find equipment to rent from the Toronto Video Coop and their network of supporters – couldn’t find the link but the suggestion is still good.
• Rent stuff at Trew Audio for reasonable cost

Link resources where you can download release forms, find film producers to hire and more…

http://dependentfilms.net/

http://worldwideshortfilmfest.com/

http://www.braddworkin.com/

http://www.craigslist.org/about/sites

http://arcinstitute.net/index.html

http://www.mixandmash.tv/site/index.php

That about sums it up for me. I will definitely attend other NetSquared Meet Ups. I did have time to meet a few people and exchanged cards. Some of the work I’m doing in York Region is about poverty, homelessness, mental health, consumer survivor, street youth etc.

There are great stories to share from these sectors and causes. Billie Mintz gave some new ideas to think about as I plan these videos. I appreciated his offers of assistance. With a few suggestions from him, I am sure to make fewer mistakes..yet learn as much.

Related posts from workshop attendees:

techsoup Canada

The Invisible Mentor

Brent Uncategorized