JPF Home Page Forums General Messages Brian Austin Whitney Blog Monday, June 12th, 2006

Hi Folks,

So last night I was finishing up the Middle Eastern Category round 3 work and was surfing around the web. I usually do that because when you're working with music tracks as many hours a day as I am you have to give your mind little breaks to focus on other things every hour or so or you burn totally out. I first turned on the TV (this was probably 2 or 3am.. not really sure) and there was this horrible Sci Fi channel movie on with William Shatner. It made me wonder what year it was from and so I went on to my favorite time waster site (I can spend hours clicking around there before I realize it) www.imdb.com. It's the Internet Movie Data Base. It's own by Amazon, and it's the best info resource on any movie or TV show that is available. So I looked up to see what Bill was up to (not much really) and then decided to check out what others were doing. I saw that the guy who played Chekov was actually in a new series called Star Trek: The New Voyages. I was thinking what in the heck was this? So I checked it out. I am really glad I did.

Now this is about being a sci fi nerd (I wouldn't qualify) or even a rabid Star Trek fan (I'm not). BUT.. what I found out is that a group of fans have banded together to produce BRAND NEW Star Trek Episodes with the same original cast of characters. Now keep in mind it's totally non commercial. In fact, they have the blessing of Paramount Studios (the actual studio, not the scam artist recording service) to use all the licensed stuff as long as they make ZERO money doing it. So what is left when you subtract all financial incentive from a creative project? Well.. in most cases, and certainly in THIS case, you get something excellent.

Now, the thing is shot in indie film low budget quality (though the graphics, computer generated are far better than you'd ever imagine). The acting is also low budget indie level, but you start getting used to these interlopers playing James T. Kirk and the gang fairly quickly because the plot/script writing is so true to the spirit of the orginal and aside from a few wooden acting lines, actually very good. Shockingly good actually when you consider these are all "amateur" actors, production people and so on. It's just a bunch of extremely passionate Star Trek geeks who are doing something that so many of us have forgotten all about.. they are creating for the sake of creating.. not to make a buck. God.. it's such a breath of fresh air that it's contagious. I finished watching this full length, 1 hour episode so pumped up that perhaps.. just perhaps.. there IS hope outside of major multinational corporations dominating all creative efforts. If these folks can find a way to work for free, and produce something that is so enjoyable and amusing and with so much potential as they get more comfortable as actors, directors, writers and producers then anything is possible. They are also being broadcast on the Internet, which is something I have been predicting and talking about for a decade. I've not understood why the big money people didn't already have an entire network on the web for developing ideas, actors, writers etc. The cost of broadcast, even on a large scale, is reasonable and there's no limit to who you can reach. And since so much can easily be time shifted via links to files, it's a better way to do it than on line anyway. I watched this via a streaming Windows Media file (sorry.. the Mac options are far more limited) and at full screen it was not much different than watching TV.

For about 2 years I've been thinking of setting up a studio in the basement of our house and doing a JPF talk show featuring touring artists and industry interviews. Of course we haven't had the time to even do it.. but after the awards this fall, I think we're going to make time and do it. And perhaps as JPF expands into Film/Theater, we can broadcast JPF member videos (like MTV used to be) and also archives of our showcases and events and some original programs like a talk show etc.

If you have an hour and a high speed connection, here's where you can find the Star Trek New Voyages Stuff:

www.newvoyages.com

Also, once there, the episode I recommend is NOT the pilot, but their first real episode "In Harms Way"

Here's a link to a site that will stream it via windows media: http://scifi.chanz.tv/

Click the #300 just under the "In Harms Way Special Edition" photo in the middle. (I had a bit of trouble figuring it out at first).

Now, the acting is a bit amateur, and some scenes are awkward. You can tell they are just learning as they go. But if you enjoy Star Trek or creative efforts, you'll like this if you spend the hour to check it out. And more exciting is just the potential all of this ground breaking work is doing. I remember how terrible ALL the "pro" videos were early on with MTV. This is certainly better than that stuff was.

So how could we all work together to create our own broadcast channel for videos and concerts and music related shows outside of all the networks?

Any ideas?

Brian

Hi Brian!

I love your idea! Their's too.

I would to see and hear JPF available to the world. If the showcases, would it be selections of what a staff thinks are he best fom each showcase? Or all of them, with our blunders in full view? (My terrible "Like a Laser" performance comes to mind). Yikes! Missed chords and all not good!

I don't have any ideas right now for specifics, but I do love your basic idea.

Now lets hear from the brains in this group!

Sounds exciting and also groundbreaking! The membership would grow and grow from it too! Just what you need,,,,,more CD's coming in! I have been taking part in having you have less to listen to. Hope it made a difference!

John

Hey, Brian, I have known about the New Voyages for a while now and have enjoyed 'em too.

Here in L.A. we've got hours of footage on DV of JPF performances (at least I think John M. still has the tapes, heh heh). John would probably let you use it. Maybe we can help you out with this project.

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Later,

Pat

hey.... I've been waiting for a really really good reason to spend the extra bucks to get broadband.... now you are tempting me.

I think that's a great idea Brian. I too think the internet has given artistry & creativity new life. I know not everything out there is perfect - but, in a way, that's kinda the point to me. I like to see the creative spirit in everyone.

I can't think of any bright ideas for JPF broadcasting at the moment (too early in the morning & I need my coffee)... but I will mull it over!

I like your blogs... glad you started doing this
cheers
Vikki

Heh, all you need to do is just create JPFTV.

Then you can become THE new music station.

As for the Star Trek episodes... We Mac users have our ways to view that format without Microsofts help. It's called 'Flip4Mac'. It's free and it gives us the power to view any windows media stream. It's great for sites like CNN because it bypasses the commercials and goes straight to the content.

Jody

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Music That Makes Your Soul Happy!
www.jodywhitesides.com

How about broadcasting the music awards show? I'm not sure what goes into production of web video streams but if it is cost effective it has potential. A few years ago Brian suggested having a chapter coordinator chat session. I thought the idea of having many of us from everywhere concentrating on the same thing at the same time could have been a catylist to getting people to want to be part of a certain something at a certain time. I have long wondered if streaming video is easy enough to up-load, and if it is could we have something like a streaming video showcase where chapters could have a local showcase with a video screen set up in the venue allowing us to watch performers in other locations and perform for the camera when our turn came up. Maybe complicated maybe not. Does anyone know what it would take?

Michael,

All those things are possible, but cost money. The same with broadcasting the awards show. I actually have made a few inquiries about paying a film crew to get this years show recorded, but it always comes down to trying to break even and a film crew, even one of mostly volunteers, costs a lot of money. (We tried volunteers in the past, including Jody helping out) but sadly the footage (and much worse the sound quality) is never broadcast quality on any level. We even tried swamping the venue with camera's last time (5 different video cameras going for most of the show) but sadly all of them ran out of film at the same time several times because our volunteers forgot or didn't get to them in time and it still didn't work. Plus, the one "camera lady" we did have actually was worse than no one because she decided she needed to constantly zoom in and out all night long even though she didn't know what she was doing. The results was a few seconds of great footage and then her fumbling for 10 seconds because she zoomed in too close and couldn't find the performers in the viewer and her jerking it all around til she found them again and then zooming again.. this happened the entire 6 hours... we were a bit heartbroken that we had so much footage but got so few moments on video. And the audio was from the cameras and being amateurs ourselves, not only is it not good enough for broadcast, it's not even good enough for casual viewing.

I don't think many people have been able to do as much with no money in a creative field as we have. I made more money in 8th grade doing summer jobs than our largest income year with JPF. Even with the critical and greatly appreciated support of TAXI and Disc Makers, we are far from breaking even this year, so being able to do things film the awards always gets lost, even though we know in advance what a wasted opportunity each awards show we miss turns out to be.

That said, once we HAVE stuff on video, then we can broadcast it later. If we start shooting some talk shows in our basement with a studio and we learn how to get great sound and good production quality, we could build a cool library. If those volunteers could pull off a full length (several now) episode of Star Trek, we should be able to do a full production talk show/performance show. On top of it, we need to get members to send their videos in because those are easy to stream. (We're still puzzled by how few quality videos we've gotten.. perhaps 40 total so far this year that could actually be broadcast somewhere). But if we had several hundred cool videos we could put up a streaming JPF music video channel to get things started and then add in other content as we go. Who knows.. in the future perhaps we could replace all the videos with trendy fashion focused reality shows and stop playing music videos completely.. wait.. uh.. sorry.. MTV already did that.

Brian

Shooting video, especially with consumer equipment, is always a dicey proposition:

"The PA mixer won't give us a feed from the console"

"I forgot to charge the batteries"

"Where are the spare tapes"

"I don't have an adapter for that"

"We forgot the tripod"

"I don't know how to adjust that; it's in a setup menu somewhere"

"I don't know where he went. Can you shoot until he gets back?"

ACK! No wonder we gave up on it...

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Later,

Pat

That said, I think that within the next year the internet will be mature enough to handle something like this.
If we wait too long, the media giants will have found a way to make it impossible for the little guy.

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Later,

Pat

Pat,

I didn't know you got roped into the video stuff last year too. I thought your slave service was over once we got the banners hung?

Brian

I seriously think you could start JPF-TV. As soon as you get as you say some quality videos. To actually have a network that did broadcast more than just Hard Rock Videos (ala the Fuse) or mostly Rap (ala MTv when it does play videos), there has to be room for an actual music tv station.

I bet you'd start getting stuff from the Labels if you really wanted it. But that probably goes against the nature of what you're trying to do.

As for getting a good broadcast quality of a live event, its possible with consumer equipment, but its not easy. I did it for a show once. I had 4 cameras. One stationed at the sound booth - that was my wide angle and capture the sound camera. I figured if it was going to sound ok from anywhere in the room it would be next to the sound guy. Then I had 3 people with handheld cameras. All were DV. The only instruction I gave them was to keep the camera rolling the entire time no matter what they did.

Then I took all four tapes and put them in the computer and edited them all together using only the one camera from the sound booth for the sound. I just matched the sound up from all four tapes and turned all their sound off. Then cut to my hearts content. I ended up with a really cool 4 camera video that looks great. I did what I could with the sound and its not bad. Not as great as say a professional broadcast, but it is listenable without wincing. Due to all the hand held angles I got some really great shots of the band and the performance.

I use it for part of my booking promo video. Eventually I'll likely put it on some compiliation DVD in the future. It's really fun to see where you've been as compared to where you're going.

Jody

p.s. - yes, it's tough to do a much longer event when you have to switch tapes. I know I dropped the ball on one tape change for you a couple of years ago when I got caught up talking to a fellow artist.

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Music That Makes Your Soul Happy!
www.jodywhitesides.com