2006-11-16

Significant developments:

• Video the Vote turned me into producer of a documentary,
• a mysterious slow down in web delivery of large files caused me to turn to Google Video, YouTube, MySpace and even the Weather Underground,
• with nothing to publish one week, out came a lone photo of a dead duck.
• In honor of the publication of the Feminists Who Changed America 1963-1975, which I'm in, I updated the Wholeo Dome and Phyllis Birkby page.

I was late for Video the Vote. I did the work on election day, November 7, but didn't submit the video to videothevote.org until today. First I worried about a hum that I could not affect with any filter. That took a couple of days until I realized the hum was not significant on most computer speakers. Coincidently I converted to widescreen format (16:9 proportion) which required some study for processing and presentation.

Coming from a fine art perspective, I have forgotten earlier journalistic discipline and wanted to make the movie as tight and telling as possible. My newbie editing skills in Final Cut Pro did not make this quick. Finally a test file would not download from my server at any reasonable speed. That caused days' of delay. Today the speeds seem back to normal. I can't get a clear answer or picture of what went wrong. So there's no guarantee of speedy downloads. I did a page of text and graphics with the main points made in the movie.

However, the experience of being involved in a developing story on election day and communicating that story in video is great. I tend to dwell in such generalized, abstract, and unseen worlds that are so far from this down-to-earth reality. It was good for me, a refreshing breather.

The intro page is here.