Author Archives: Kasia

YouTube introspective

Written by Kasia. Posted on May 29, 2010. No comments.
Remember LonelyGirl15? YouTube’s 5th birthday was last week and I’ve finally gotten around to watching the “YouTube Stories” series they produced– 2 minute interviews with select creators about their successes with the medium. The stories, and this interview with the director, contain interesting little insights about creating for YouTube that are worth checking out– What kinds [...]

VOD: create your own Google Search Story

Written by Kasia. Posted on April 15, 2010. 4 Comments.
Google’s Search Stories campaign turned mundane search into a charming story telling device. You probably saw “Parisian Love” during the Super Bowl, and now you can create your own Search Story with a simple tool on Youtube. It’s a pretty cool interactive twist– see what you can do with it… Search Story Tutorial Parisian Love

surveillance, GPS and free stuff

Written by Kasia. Posted on April 5, 2010. No comments.
There are so many cool elements to this campaign for Blu Dot’s high end “Real Good” chairs, it’s hard to know where to start. The basic premise is simple, Blu Dot and ad agency Mono planted 25 “Real Good” chairs ($129 each) around NY, covered by video surveillance and GPS/Twitter tracking. The chairs [...]

ReelRoulette – why didn’t we think of this?

Written by Kasia. Posted on March 30, 2010. No comments.
ReelRoulette is ChatRoulette, but with film/animation/motion graphics reels instead of pantsless dudes. Duh, genius. Click “next” to surf Vimeo reels by talented people (a voyeuristic pleasure if you’re a creative yourself) and, if you’re looking for a new gig, this might just be the funniest way to go about it. What do you have to [...]

the new music videos: interview with isaac ravishankara

Written by Kasia. Posted on March 12, 2010. 2 Comments.
Isaac Ravishankara and I go way back to “film school,”* so it’s been exciting to watch his visually dynamic, often hilarious music videos popping up all over—most recently at the MTV VMAs. I caught up with him to chat about indie vs. big budget production, the DSLR “revolution,” and music video distribution models. You know, [...]

VOTD: nailing every tech entrepreneur cliché

Written by Kasia. Posted on March 9, 2010. No comments.
“You should follow me cuz I’m friends with Ashton” raps the New Dork, waving a copy of Fast Company with Ashton Kutcher on the cover (the same issue that floated around our old office for months). This viral Empire State of Mind parody nails pretty much every San Francisco tech entrepreneur cliché– it’s like bingo [...]

Dear Sesame Street

Written by Kasia. Posted on February 23, 2010. No comments.
“We, the undersigned, would like to register our concern over the contest you are now conducting…” begins the petition already signed by dozens of animators, arguing against contests, calls for content, crowd sourcing, or whatever you want to call it– essentially, spec work. Professional creatives are taking to the digital streets, with a thoughtful [...]

kicking down the fourth wall: interview with cullen hoback

Written by Kasia. Posted on February 23, 2010. No comments.
We met Cullen Hoback in 2007 at the Cucalorus Festival, a quirky little indie film fest in North Carolina. We drank more than a few toasts to independent filmmaking, and saw his documentary feature, Monster Camp, the next morning. A window into the humble souls of a handful of devoted LARPers (Google it, or better [...]

what’s on your business card?

Written by Kasia. Posted on February 16, 2010. 1 Comment.
As any freelance/self-employed creative multi-hyphenate director-producer-designer-writer-new media artist-photographer-blogger knows, making business cards is a hassle. What title to use? Keep it simple, and it won’t cover everything you do. Get descriptive, and you’ll sound pretentious and probably run out of space. Are business cards just for people over 40 anyway? At least designing a card is [...]

win a trip to SXSW from Open Video Alliance

Written by Kasia. Posted on February 5, 2010. No comments.
If you aren’t down with the Open Video Alliance and do anything related to video, you’re missing out on the major struggle of content to creators to use video as a free and open platform for creation, distribution, and fair use/remixing of existing video. Learn more about it here, but long story short, the issue [...]

DSLR footage – don’t kill yourself in post

Written by Kasia. Posted on February 2, 2010. No comments.
I was online window shopping for my dream DSLR only to end up reading about the unexpected nightmare that DSLR footage can become in post. The .MOV or .AVI files that most cameras shoot can be super glitchy in a Final Cut time line, and can’t really handle effects or text at all. Luckily a nice [...]

Jonze / Absolut “branded” short premieres at Sundance

Written by Kasia. Posted on January 22, 2010. No comments.
Spike Jonze’ new short I’m Here premiered yesterday at Sundance, which is interesting not because it is a quirky love story starring two robots, but because it was produced for Absolut Vodka. “This isn’t the first time people have created branded content, but it’s never really been accepted on its own merits. That’s the grey area [...]

YouTube stars <3 Crowdsourcing

Written by Kasia. Posted on January 14, 2010. No comments.
YouTube star Philip DeFranco loves crowd-sourcing. After developing his own hit video franchise on YouTube, he launched Like Totally Awesome, a review show that features contributions by less well known vloggers that he curates with producer Sarah Evershed. If viewers like what they see, the guest contributors get invited back– building an ecosystem of engaging, [...]

Future-Forward Paramount Strategy: Fund Micro-Budget Films

Written by Kasia. Posted on December 11, 2009. 1 Comment.
An exciting new strategy from Paramount pictures has independent filmmakers taking notice: “Paramount Pictures is set to launch a new production business for movies budgeted at less than $100,000. The as-yet-unnamed division plans to finance as many as 20 “micro-budget” movies annually starting in 2010… Not all of the micro-budgeted movies Paramount intends to make will [...]