Shared Creation Projects

On Tuesday the 23rd it was time to shoot the next Consumed short. Our last film had ended in a zombie attack, and this next instalment wanted to hint at a unseen zombie behaviour and show personality of zombie victim dissolve away. We also wanted to recount the story so far in order to glue things together.

We met at 7pm and were finished before 9pm. This was good high speed off the cuff filming. Our location was a nearby hillside (no shortage of these in Wales) , picked for convenience of location and parking. It also could create a backdrop that park of our last location.

So far so good.

So one member of cast, one person with a couple of cameras and idea of what we are going to film.

So makeup went on and we chatted about what to do.

Then we filmed.

You know what – it worked. The footage looked good on the day and some really nice moments were adlibbed into place.

There is a reason for this – what we were doing was straight forward and both of us were ready to trust each other.  The end result was small collection of photographs and workable footage for around two hours work.

This was a result.

It also reaffirmed the keeping things simple principle. Two successful trips out in a row and a perhaps the development of a bit of pace.

The video isn’t ready for release yet but in the meantime you can see some photographs – take a look here

I recently created a Facebook page for Shared Creation. Lets get the obligatory link out of the way – you can find it at -

http://www.facebook.com/pages/sharedcreation#/pages/Shared-Creation/89228236461?ref=ts

Not exactly an easy URL to remember – though I am sure that will change.

Which leads me neatly into what I have to say about the experience.

I created the page to improve the presence of Shared Creation over the ever expanding vistas of the emerging global social network – thinking ahead to the time when a Facebook page might be really useful. Right now Facebook pages have a decent enough feature set for creating a useful pool of thoughts and information but are not really all that discoverable. Like a lot of recent Facebook additions they feel like a shoring up exercise. Adding things to the Facebook compliment of tools to help keep its massive userbase in house. Facebook wants to be a one shop stop for social networking.

At least that it is how feels after making a page. The process is very simple so that isn’t the problem. The problem is how to get to the page. You see page creation seems hover alongside your regular Facebook presence. It does not fit well into the regular Facebook experience. This is a pity as given the number of users in Facebook and its now sturdy array of servers it is an ideal place to put a page about something you do or like.

So my thoughts on completing this exercise; the page could be useful and could grow to be a useful meeting place, yet it feels so disjointed right now I’m just not sure whether or not this will be big success for or not. On one side there is the massive Facebook userbase, on the other a disjointed experience is not as good as a smooth experience that could be gained from joining together pages from other suppliers and other social networks.

So if you’re making a film, a podcast, some music or any on going venture that needs a social networking page – get a Facebook page. It’ll probably be a good investment, but don’t make it your only presence. At this stage its an accessory, potentially powerful but still only an accessory.

A little while ago over on the Shared Creation Magazine I mentioned a service that makes selling Art and T Shirt designs easy. It is called redbubble.

Yesterday I built a profile on RebBubble and it seemed sensible to share this step in selling images to you. This is how it went.

Firstly two things become instantly apparent, the sign up process is streamlined, and the design is very much in the style of a modern information sharing site. I found myself comparing it to the feel of using Friendfeed. This is a good thing. Friendfeed is a fine example of power through simplicity . I was pleased, Rebubble had past the first test. It has a clear and easy to follow design and the minimal information is taken. I really like this minimalist view to collecting data. It is suggestive of a company that wants to professionally provide a service without collecting excess information that can be used for goodness know what. Of course I do now know exactly what Redbubble does with your personal data, but the attitude of their sign up feels good.

Ok with signup a breeze the next step was to load up some artwork. This had to be done one image at a time, using an interface that is not similar to using Flickr.  Ok so one image at a go is not a lot, but the idea seems to be based on you uploading quality and quantity. Redbubble is designed to sell your best, not horde the rest. So the one at a time equates to a reinforcement of that principle.

Now its time to set your price. Always an awkward moment this. It takes time to learn a new market so initial price setting on sign up is hard. There is a reasonable answer to this little problem on Redbubble. A base price is set for all goods and you decide on a percentage profit for yourself. Everyone starts at the same price and then decides how much to take. There is a standard percentage mark up, and selecting this gives a good starting level.

If all of this sounds clean and easy – that’s because it is. RedBubble has impressed because it has learned all the good lessons from modern social websites and avoided many of the traps that older longer established and harder to use sales sites hit. In other words it is standing on the shoulders of giants to create a good user experience. This is the key to the modern web, above all else a web site has to be easy to use , its operation has to be transparent and it has to look good. Redbubble hits all of these marks, making it a good example of new breed.

So setup is easy – how about sales handling. Well no sales yet but I’ll let you know how well the money handling goes when it is time.

In the meantime I intend to upload images, join in with a new community and see how things go.

Mostly Shared Creation encourages you to create and to publish, to put your work, writing, films and images out where people can see them. In the main this is appropriate behaviour, after all it is only by making your work available that other people can see it.

However I was recently sent via Twitter a post that showed off one of the things that can happen when you post freely. It was a BBC article that showed how a Christmas card image for an American family ended up being used to advertise a supermarket in Prague.

You can read the article here:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/8094420.stm

I would take this as a timely reminder that anything you post in a public place (such as a blog) , unless protected can be used by anyone, anywhere for any purpose. In effect you are broadcasting those words and images to the world, and not everyone in the world will take from them what you intended. So just bear that in mind with family pictures and other media.

We are all now broadcasters.

Its going to be an interesting world

Thoughts on running out of steam.

When I started this post, the task of  editing the next piece of on Consumed had slowed to a crawl. So I started I thought about what happens when . Since then I have placed my weak spot (music) in the hands of team and put together another “Things That Happen When Filming”. We are currently planning a very important June shoot.  So things for me are looking up.

That left the unfinished post.

Well stepping out the problem to think about dealing with deadly slow down helped me out. So perhaps this will help someone else.

Here it is:

At some point anyone working on anything will reach a point when they look at what has to be done next and they will freeze. Like a rabbit caught in headlights. It happened to me recently. It was the on the edit of the first Consumed story release, the main body of video editing was done and I needed music. Knowing that I needed something cheap and licensed I went for the creative commons route, and had some great sites recommended to me via Twitter. The problem was that looking through a mountain of original music just hit me with a bad case of indecisiveness. So there the project stood, waiting for music. I’ll correct this soon – probably by forcing myself to just pick something with a good beat.

The indecision was a simple – it was how do I pick something perfect with so much to choose from. It was a wall.

The wall is a big creative problem. When the scale of task just overwhelms you.

It creates inertia and everything just stops. That feels like a failure and before long the whole project is grinding to a halt, and once something stops – getting it restarted can be hell.

Regular advice is to deconstruct and to break things down in to small bite sized chunks. Little chunks are easy to digest and to manage. A lot of little things can add into one big thing. Its proven advice. It works.

I have another suggestion.

Let things slow down. Take a little break and step back a little. Don’t actually let the work stop but a rest can be a valuable asset. Something that lets you come back with a head less bent out of shape and a fresh perspective. A break can enhance your creativity and give you one of those sudden epiphanies that makes everything better than before.

Of course the real trick is how to take a break without everything permanently seizing up. That makes timing important. A long break will probably lead to project seizure. Taking a few months off is a bad thing. Taking a few days or weeks off is not so bad. My advice – keep the break short if it creeps into months then you may have just learned a little about your feelings to the project. If you are committed then a few months off will become intolerable. If your time off gets longer and longer then it is time to stop worrying about your wall. Its time to think about what you like and do not like about your project.

Things That Happen When Filming 2 from Robert Davies on Vimeo.

This is part two of my occasional look at the ridiculous side of making films with no budget. Once again the footage is taken from our last ‘Consumed’ shoot. A sneaky preview of that shoot is out (I’m just waiting on some music to finish it). We also have another shoot planned for June – so hopefully more ‘Things That Happen’ then

Now back to the Things That Happen series. It started as an accident – something to do with unused footage , of which there is often plenty. There’s something else about this that is important. I wanted to capture something that is so often left out of making of documentaries, and that is the atmosphere and sense of fun that comes out  making a film.

Whether or not the film is good you can bet that the people making it will have a experience, and all being well a good one. I think it is important to focus on that and share the fun.

It follows one of my rules for creative endeavour – do it for the right reasons and good things will follow. Sometimes that will lead to success and sometimes a good time. Either way it is good.

So I will keep on capturing the silly moments of film making. All being well people laugh and someone will give it a go themselves.

Shared Creation has always championed the cause of the no budget and amateur film maker. Well now some one has made a film that is wowing established media and drawing attention at Cannes. It is an incredible achievement and I’d like to just spend a moment congratulating Marc Price (the films maker). I’d also like to say that as big an achievement as it is I am hoping for more new film makers to use this an inspiration to release their own work.

For the meantime Colin is proof positive that an original idea and a lot of work can make an truly exceptional film.

The home page for Colin is at : http://www.nowherefast.tv/