Following the conference on Sunday: an informal and relaxed hack day. Time to decompress, collaborate, and play on your laptop. Everyone is welcome: video makers, coders, community organizers, and so on.

Open Video is a broad-based movement of video creators, technologists, academics, filmmakers, entrepreneurs, activists, remixers, and many others. When most folks think of “open,” they think of open source and open codecs. They’re right—but there’s much more to Open Video. Open Video is the growing movement for transparency, interoperability, and further decentralization in online video. These qualities provide more fertile ground for independent producers, bottom-up innovation, and greater protection for free speech online.

YouTube and other online video applications are rightly celebrated for empowering end-users; however, online video lacks some of the essential qualities that make text and images on the web such powerful tools for free speech and technical innovation. Email, blogs, and other staples of the open web rely on ubiquitous and interoperable technologies that have low barriers to entry; they are massively decentralized and resistant to censorship or regulation. Video, meanwhile, relies on centralized distribution and proprietary technologies which can threaten cultural discourse and innovation.

Open Video is about the legal and social norms surrounding online video. It’s the ability to attach the license of your choice to videos you publish. It’s about media consolidation, aggregation, and decentralization. It’s about fair use. In short, it’s about a lot of things, and that’s why this conference is going to be so exciting!

So this is very exciting. I recently posted a blog article about shooting video on a canon 5D markII vs a sony EX1, and was comparing the two in what I do which is mainly documentary and corporate videos. The two cameras are two completely different machins and sometimes i wished i had another body like a markII or even a 7D next to my EX1… But my use would not justify such an expense. And that’s when the T2i comes in (called 550D outside the US).

If you were putting money aside to buy a 7D for its video capilities you may want to wait a little more.

The new canon T2i will get all the 7D video capabilities for half the price, around $799 (body only).

Externally, the Canon T2i looks very much like its predecessor, being almost identical in overall size but with softer, more gently rounded shoulders. Under the skin, the Canon T2i brings a few features from Canon’s prosumer EOS 7D model into a Rebel-class body, creating a baby brother to the 7D. Sporting an 18-megapixel sensor similar to the 7D, the Canon Rebel T2i doesn’t shoot quite as fast as its big brother, but its frame rate is slightly increased over the T1i, from 3.4 to 3.7 frames per second despite the resolution increase. A new 3:2 ratio LCD also changes the dimensions of the new camera, which now has 1.04 million dots of resolution. Card compatibility on the Canon T2i includes SD, SDHD, and SDXC, and a new Eye-fi status screen improves user awareness of these special wireless SD cards. The Canon T2i’s ISO ranges from 100 to 6,400, with a special high ISO option of 12,800. Movie mode also has expanded ability, covering 1080p recording at 24, 25, and 30 fps, rather than the T1i’s more limited 20 fps. Manual video exposure is also available, as is an external mic input jack.

 

Headline features

• 18 Megapixel APS-C CMOS sensor
• DIGIC 4 processor with ISO 100-6400 (Expansion to 12800)
• Continuous shooting at 3.7fps
• Full HD movie recording with manual control and selectable frame rates
• 7.7cm (3.0”) 3:2 Clear View LCD with 1,040k dots
• iFCL metering System with 63-zone Dual-layer Metering Sensor
• Quick Control screen to change shooting settings
• Exposure compensation +/-5 stops (although viewfinder scale is still +/-2 stops)
• Select maximum value for Auto ISO
• External Microphone socket
• Movie crop function
• Eye-Fi connected functions compatibility

If you are shooting with a DSLR you already know about the sound issue. The DSLRs’ built-in microphones are not very good, you could use an external microphone on the T2i but the AGC ( “Automatic gain control”) remain a problem…

So one of the solution is to use an external sound device like the zoom h4n and synchronize sound/video in post-production. I just got a Zoom H4n for $240 on ebay ( refurbished, new it goes for $299) and I was blown away by the audio quality out of the box ! The built-in microphones are actually very very good. The H4n also allows you to plug 2 external microphones via XLR or Jack inputs (phantom-powered), and record up to 4 channels, resolution ranges from a maximum of 24-bit/96kHz.  All that for less than $300 !

Today was another gorgeous day in the bay area so I went to Baker Beach this morning to try my H4n outside with my windscreen from redhead ( for $34) And It worked great:

A sculpture by Daniel Goldstein

UNAIDS published a video I did about artist Daniel Golstein’s sculpture: INVISIBLE MAN

From their website:

“In 1984 I became HIV positive.” says artist Daniel Goldstein. “Because AIDS was literally a death sentence in the 1980′s I realized that what I wanted to do with the rest of my life was to make sculpture, my first love as an artist.” After the death of his life-partner in 1986, Goldstein committed himself completely to this task and since then he has created some of the most powerful pieces of art related to AIDS.

From mysterious human figures imprinted in leather to a sculpture of an invisible man, a recurrent theme in the works of the artist has been what he calls “the presence of the absence”. “So many parts of my life had been lost along with those who had died. With the advent of antiretroviral treatment I had been brought back to life- but in a transformed state, a different body as it were in a very different world. I was partly present and hopeful and yet still living with so much absence.”

In 2006 Goldstein started his collaboration with “Make Art/Stop AIDS”, an initiative of the UCLA Art | Global Health Center consisting of an international network of scholars, artists and activists committed to ending the global AIDS epidemic. For this first collaboration, he created “Medicine Man” a human-shaped sculpture made out hundreds of his HIV medicine bottles.

His most recent sculpture is called “Invisible Man” and is made entirely of syringes. In this piece the figure’s presence is made visible by its total absence. 864 syringes surround a human shaped void. The piece was also commissioned by “Make Art/Stop AIDS” to be exhibited at the International AIDS Conference in Vienna.

“Art is a powerful way to make AIDS emotionally, physically and spiritually real to people who have only known it before as an abstraction.” says Goldstein. “For those living with HIV, art can also be a confirmation and acknowledgement of what we live with. It can offer both a catharsis and a celebration of the human experience in the face of incredible adversity.”