We are back with one of our best Spidcast episodes to date this month (listen in below and subscribe to “Spidcast” on iTunes) with a focus on filmmaking, web series, collaboration, acting, and other interesting sound bites! April’s Spidcast features the incredible individuals Victor Solis and Allie Olson. They are our amazingly sexy and talented guests for Spidcast 16, April 2012.

Our Guests

Victor Solis is a seemingly rare specimen, a Southern California filmmaker who was born and raised in Southern California. He first began collaborating with his long-time creative partner Steven Itano Wasserman in the late 1980s, a dark age of VHS cassettes and voodoo economics. The duo soon discovered they shared an appetite for the craft of storytelling, satire, photography, science fiction, and films of all genres.

Victor and Steven have formally studied film and literature at the university level. In the late 1990s, they began training themselves on various film industry projects for little to no wages. Victor eschewed selling his soul, adopted a journeyman approach instead, and has worked in virtually every film department including development, camera, and lighting.

Victor’s first foray into the webseries space is the superhero adventure “Generic Girl” starring Alexandra Olson in the title role. He co-created, co-wrote, and co-produced the 10-episode series with Steven in 2011-2012. The show premiered Feb. 14, 2012 exclusively on JTS.tv and will launch widely online beginning in May 2012.

Victor is currently producing “Trouble Is My Business,” an original feature film written by and starring Tom Konkle and Brittney Powell. He is also developing a slate of feature films with Steven Itano Wasserman.

Allie Olson is an actress from Pasadena, California. She has appeared in many films and shows.

We thank Victor and Allie for being such fun and inspirational guests!

If you’re interested in sponsoring next month’s Spidcast show, then please get in touch. If you have something to say with regards to what Victor or Allie talked about, then please post a comment below to continue the conversation. Thanks for listening, and be sure to share this show with anyone in your network who can get value from it!

Full Transcript Below

INTRO

Michael London: Hi, I’m Michael London and welcome to Spidcast, the Future of Collaborative Video Production brought to you by Indie Source Magazine where they believe free is better and I like the way they think. On this episode, we’re talking with Allie Olson, an up and coming actress that you’re going to see a lot of very soon, you mark my words on that. In fact, she stars in the web series and we’ll visit with her producer, Victor Solis of the web series as well. He’s not only a producer but he’s done just about every job on the set and got some great insight. So let’s just right in to today’s Spidcast.

First up is producer, Victor Solis. Victor, welcome to Spidcast.

Victor Solis: Thank you very much, Michael. It’s a pleasure to be speaking with you.

Michael London: So tell us a little bit about yourself; the Reader’s Digest version.

Victor Solis: Alright. The digest in a nutshell. I was born and raised in southern California so there are a few of us filmmakers out here in LA who are natively from LA and I started off really fascinated in all aspects of story-telling, and we’re talking old school as in when I was in elementary school, telling stories to my younger sister, reading mythology, Moby Dick, the classic literature that a lot of us have usually forgotten about. My first fascination was in photography.

I started working in the beach cities down here south of Los Angeles with primarily as a wedding and portrait photographer. You wouldn’t think that that would’ve been the utmost training for cinematography but the fact of shooting events and shooting weddings is that you’re always working for a client. Your primary service is not that of a photographer. It is not that of just you capturing images. Your first service to any client is really providing piece of mind.

I certainly learned how to walk the walk; how to treat people with respect; how to always serve the client’s needs; but technically speaking, you learn to work very fast and very efficiently and you’re literally very light on your feet. The sun could be going down in 15 minutes. The power could go out. You need to be able to go to your redundant batteries to your other backup lens. I learned on both medium formats which is a 2.25 inch negative. It’s much larger than even the size of a super 35mm. So learning on those cameras – it’s a much larger camera as opposed to a handheld SLR or now they say is DSLRs.

We came up also during the time that film was transitioning over the digital and I started learning about the DSLRs and how much you could do; without being limited by the cost of every time you press the trigger, every time you take a picture, that’s about a dollar worth of developing film cost, print cost. You learn to work fast but you also learn to be very economical and very judicious about how you shoot and what you shoot.

Michael London: Now you see, that’s a great story because it encourages us to find experience and develop it wherever we can. It developed your eye, your craft, so whatever, whenever and however, take that opportunity to get the experience where you can, right?

Victor Solis: Absolutely. It’s all about whatever and sometimes whenever. Anybody, if you’re in Anchorage, Alaska; if you’re in Peoria, you can find other people out there who do work in a creative field and ideally, something like photography is creative yet technical at the same time. You don’t have to be out here in Los Angeles. You don’t have to be in New York City but the first thing that I always was trained to do and they definitely owe it to my parents for that and to the photographer that I learned with was find other people, reach out to others who know more than you and definitely, it’s easy to find people who know more than you. I’ve found a lot of people who know more than me reach out, volunteer, maybe you’re sort of the intern but by demonstrating that you have the passion and that you have that work ethic, that to me is worth far more than anybody who has the natural talent. Natural talent is surely a great asset but if it’s with a wedding photographer, fantastic. Do whatever works for you but learn the basics. Learn the fundamentals of how to work with equipment, how to tell a story, train your eye as you said, and you can do that in any city.

Michael London: Exactly. Victor, you mentioned a moment ago about reading to your sister and enjoying the classics, I bet you enjoyed classic movies as well.

Victor Solis: Anybody who goes into film has to be literate is what I would recommend. If you’re going into an art form – you have to love story at its core. I’m not talking about specifically cinema or video or the technology itself, but as you said, it’s the basics of what makes a fantastic character when you open up the beginning of Moby Dick and the narrator says, “Call me Ishmael”. I’m in with him. I’m going to be rooting for him. He’s going to transport me into this world I’ve never been before. You could do that with shadow puppets. You could do that with sock puppets or you could do it with a red epic camera and put together a crew of people and shoot it on digital. Really, the format and your style, your medium of choice is less than becoming very literate in story at its core what his character, what our character beats, what our emotions, how can you harness all of those, and maybe it’s true that there was no there was reading a book to my sister or putting on a puppet show in my backyard for the neighborhood kids that I was slowly learning more and more about what are the things that actually make people laugh? What are the principles of comedy? What are the principles of drama? It certainly takes time but I’d rather be doing this than doing dentistry.

Michael London: You got that right. You also talked about puppet shows a little bit ago in the backyard and such. Tell us about making that jump from your backyard in the Hollywood?

Victor Solis: The first production – I remember pretty vividly, it was out above the hills right as you would look up from Pacific Coast highway in Malibu and you see these rolling hills that are perfect for fog banks that always come in. Anybody who thinks that LA is sunny year-round, just come on down in May or June. I was still doing undergrad, studying English and film studies at UCLA and got a position on an AFI – American Film Institute – thesis film. They were shooting up in Malibu and I came one as the lower lead but very important to any production PA or production assistant. There was about three of us and everyday was totally different. It wasn’t just get the director a cup of coffee. It could’ve been on one particular evening where we had this pond – man-made ponds on the premises of this mansion that was up in the Malibu Hills. We’re shooting at night which is always interesting because you must light everything and the sound department calls one of us over and I had no experience with sound. I don’t know why the sound recorder wants one of us. So he calls us over and he says, look, guys, we need you to go out to that pond in the backyard and get a stick or get something, figure it out and we need you to keep those frogs quiet. Apparently, there is this nice community of frogs that were all ribbiting in sync much to the chagrin of the sound recorder and the director who was pulling out his hair.

One of my main jobs on that set was to run around the man-made ponds with another PA, shaking our hands and banging sticks together as long as it wasn’t too loud in order to get the frogs to shut up so we could get our takes in the can.

Michael London: So now you’ve gone from frog wrangler to wrangling the “Generic Girl”. Tell us about “Generic Girl”.

Victor Solis: Yes, fast forward several years, in fact, probably at least a decade, it was in late 2010 that I have been collaborating with my creative partner Steven Wasserman and his production company for a long, long time. We met actually in elementary school. When I was working on shoots like that AFI shoot, he was also working on shoots in northern California. That’s where he went to school. We’ve been in touch forever and we were painting his house. The doldrums of rolling pain on the wall will definitely get two men in a room to either drive each other nuts or come up with a concept for a 10 episodes super hero series.

We came up with the latter. We said if our next project is going to be something fun, why don’t we do something that amuses us? Hopefully, it amuses a few other people as well. as we’re painting his house, we conceived the story of a girl caught up in a world governed by comic book physics and inhabited by super heroes and villains and henchmen, but in our world, they have to follow union guidelines. You can’t become a hero until you have your three vouchers. A lot of it was winks to the labor unions in LA and to super hero and comic culture. That’s how we conceived the project and we shot it in 2011. Finally, we are still working on post-production and getting about to audiences. We have about five episodes remaining before all 10 episodes are online.

Michael London: Excellent. Where can we get a peak? Where can we see “Generic Girl”?

Victor Solis: Right now, you can watch it exclusively without ads on http://JTS.tv – Just The Story. Later in May, we’ll be going more widely online – YouTube and other platforms. Our website is www.gogenericgirl.com.

Michael London: Very good. Where can we learn more about you, Victor?

Victor Solis: My page is certainly up on IMDB and my info and more tidbits and behind the scenes about the making of “Generic Girl”, my bio is up on www.gogenericgirl.com.

Michael London: Shameless plug time. Talk if you will for a moment, Victor, about the value of www.spidvid.com.

Victor Solis: As a producer, you are all about collaboration. As a producer, you have to be always reaching out to others and it’s so much easier now that we have widespread internet access and people are online looking for like-minded people, looking for other collaborators, filmmaking, unlike something like photography, it’s fundamentally collaborative. You are always dependent upon everybody around you. For us, using technology, using the internet and using websites to reach other filmmakers, we work with a VFX artist who’s in northern California. I have stories of friend who have produced web content or other content and their different team members are in different parts of the US. You can do it. You don’t need to only have your same crew of five people always meeting at your house. You can do it online. It really teaches you how to juggle tasks, how to manage people, but it’s absolutely critical and that would be my recommendation. Reach out to other people and see who agrees with your mindset and who agrees with your vision and hang out with those people. Nurture those relationships.

Michael London: Right. Relationships and networking and that’s what it’s all about. How about a parting shot, Victor? A nugget of advice?

Victor Solis: Whether you are wrangling frogs on a film set or whether you are wrangling actors in a super hero series, whatever you may be doing, be humble, learn, learn, and learn. There is no shortage of literature out there to learn whether its stories, whether its photography technique, lighting, sound, learn from others. Offer your services. Be on the shoot. Work with people and you may not necessarily be receiving the paycheck but you were going to receive the hands-on knowledge of filmmaking, creating video, this is all hands on. You will always learn from others. There are always going to teach you a little tidbit, a little tip that you may not have ever thought of. Be humble and get yourself out there that’s probably the best advice that I can provide.

Michael London: And wonderful advice it is. Victor Solis, thank you so much for joining us today on Spidcast.

Victor Solis: It’s been a real pleasure, Michael. Thank you.

Michael London: Spidcast is brought to you by Indie Source Magazine, the fastest growing independent filmmaker resource and the only free publication of its kind. Their mission is to bring you not only stories of the industry’s highly celebrated but also stories and insights from players in all areas of the media creation process. At Indie Source, they believe free is better. Visit them at www.indiesourcemag.com.

We’ll continue now with the Spidcast and joining us is the Generic Girl herself, Alexandra Olson. Allie, welcome to Spidcast.

Allie Olson: Thank you so much. Thank you so much for having me.

Michael London: Tell us a bit about your story. Well, I’m Alexandra Olson, I’m an actress. I’m from Pasadena, California and I actually wasn’t always into acting. I started off pursuing music. I was all set to go to Cal Poly Pomona for college when I was kind of scouted by a Disney Record Label and I did the whole manager-producer thing for a while and it just ended up setting me on a completely different course than I had planned and made me want to pursue a career in the arts. I didn’t end up signing with that label but I did do music for a while. I did pretty well. I got some independent film placements, some really small artist cuts, but I just didn’t have the love or the passion to really do what it takes to make it in music and since I was more of a songwriter rather than a performer, I spend most of my time kind of alone in a studio or a marketing my stuff on the phone talking to like 50-year-old publishers and meanwhile, all my friends who are out of college and partying and having fun and I felt like I was missing out kind of on my youth so I decided to go to Pasadena City College where the goal was to do get credits and most important to have fun.

I was like okay, I’m here to have fun. Let’s go out for a play. I auditioned for the play and I got in and I ended up absolutely loving it and the teachers and the people in the theater department were just so funny and cool and all of a sudden like I had this great bunch of friends. I remember my dad actually called me one as I was heading home from rehearsal and he asked like hey, are you coming home for dinner? And I was like no, I can’t because I’m going out with my friends. I have friends again, Dad. I ended up just becoming really involved in the theater department there and going kind of from show to show. I discovered that I just really loved acting and loved the community of it and just working with really talented people to create great art together and to tone off the story. That’s what I want to do with my career.

Michael London: A moment ago, you mentioned music being your first love. Tell us a little bit about that.

Allie Olson: I tend to go more of the songwriting route. That’s actually my true passion and I think that’s my strength. I sing and I play guitar and keyboards but those are kind of tools for me to use to write my songs. I love to write and I love to listen to music and I think my style is really kind of sweet, pop, acoustic, organic feeling. But I love a good song in any genre.

Michael London: What was your very first production?

Allie Olson: The first production I did? I think the first real production, real part that I got – I was so excited about getting it. I played Eve in “The Apple Tree” directed by Whitney Rydbeck at Pasadena City College and I was just elated. I had never really had a lead role and I was terrified out of my mind but I worked really hard and the experience of just going out with the people after rehearsals and then forming a community as a cast was so much fun. Definitely one of my favorite plays that I’ve done.

Michael London: So from being on stage and live productions, you get a call about doing a web series. First thoughts?

Allie Olson: To be honest, when I auditioned for “Generic Girl”, I didn’t really think much about the fact that it was in that digital video format. I was just kind of like reading the breakdowns and saw what looked like a really cool project that I want to be a part of so I went out for it, but I just gotten more into promoting it. I really learned a lot about the merits of the web series format and how digital video has really sort of democratized filmmaking. I just think it’s so cool that independent filmmakers and actors like myself can realize the vision without needing this huge budget for like distribution and you can make your seven-minute episodes or your short film and upload them to all these platforms like Blip.tv, Dailymotion, or JTS.tv, which is “Generic Girl’s” network, et cetera.

Basically this worldwide distribution without the monstrous budget and it gets lead to lots of consumers really being able to discover a whole bunch of great content that may never have even gotten made but for this new digital way. I’m really glad to be a part of something like a cool web series in a format that’s sort of the apex of the whole wave. It’s really cool. I love doing independent stuff. I think a lot of great talent really exists in that medium.

Michael London: Before you’re on Spidcast today was Victor, who you mentioned a moment ago. Tell us about him.

Allie Olson: Oh, Victor is so cool. He is a person that has so many ideas and he’s one of those people that actually really works to put them into action. The work that he’s done promoting “Generic Girl” has been outstanding. He’s constantly out there doing everything from networking, getting us on this new JTS network to even going to Comic Con and handing out business cards. He’s like a really even a foot soldier and a general. He’s great.

Michael London: Traditionally, through the years, Hollywood has been the stage and then to the small screen and hopefully to the big screen at a theatre near you, but you seem to have fallen into that new, hip, cool place called the web.

Allie Olson: Definitely true. I think the web series – I think it would be cool if web series became the new episodic television. I think there’s always a place for sitting down in front of your television and waiting for that 10 o’clock slot to come on and waiting for it all week and being really excited and watching it with a big group of people, but that can also be done online. I think it kind of actually mirrors what’s going on in the music industry too which is what musicians and actors were able to act like our own production companies almost and promote ourselves and reach our audience without needing to go through like a network per se. I mean, it is a network, but it’s like a different kind of network. It would be awesome if web series just became accepted as a regular episodic TV format.

Michael London: And of course, there’s no man in the ivory tower telling you what you can and can’t do and what will be produced and won’t be produced. You make your own content and find your own audience.

Allie Olson: Exactly. That’s a beautiful thing because if it were the case that we’d have those network producers sitting in the ivory tower shutting down some potentially great project. Thos projects can be made anyway. They can find their own audience without needing to go through all these screening processes.

Michael London: Allie, what would be your advice to someone just getting to Hollywood today?

Allie Olson: I myself I’m definitely just starting out and still really trying to make it in the industry and I mean, I would say two things probably come to mind that are really important. One is really find that teacher or that director that you feel you can really learn from and then absorb everything you can to really get the confidence in yourself as an actor. For newcomers like myself, it’s really important that we know our brand and know our strength and really play them. I think working with a great mentor can really help with that.

Michael London: I’m going to bet that you’ve come from a performing family.

Allie Olson: Oh yes, my family is – we get called the von Trapp’s sometimes. When we call people to say happy birthday, we actually sing “Happy Birthday” in three-part harmony. My mom and dad actually met in a band so we’ve always had jam sessions with our friends every month and it’s so cool. Just the other night, we’re actually sitting around our living room playing with a couple of family friends. We’re playing Iz’s version of “Somewhere over the Rainbow” and we had a fiddle, a saxophone, my mom was singing, my dad was playing guitar, and I was doing harmony. It was just ethereal, wonderful experience. I love it so much.

Michael London: That is so nice, so fun. Tell us a little bit about “Generic Girl”.

Allie Olson: Oh my gosh, working on “Generic Girl”, it was incredibly fun. Definitely the coolest thing I’ve yet gotten to be a part of. Everyone on set just has this awesome mixture of professionalism and pure silliness. There were a lot of times when we would actually have to improve and we have a lot of really experienced improv actors in our cast like Matthew Bohrer and Johnny Skourtis. I could barely keep a straight face. Oh, also Matthew Farhat. I could not keep a straight face of all the craziness that was going on and the great staff that the cast have come up with.

To be honest, I knew this was going to be a really cool project to do from the very first audition because of the way they auditioned us. Sometimes you go to auditions and they hand you like a sheet of paper that’s like okay, fill in your sizes, tell us about your relevant experience but this audition, Victor and Steven, the director and producer actually handed us a piece of paper that asks questions like what comic book do you like to read or if you could have any super power, what would it be and what would your super hero name be. Immediately, I was like, okay, this is going to be awesome.

Michael London: Allie, what super power would you have and who would you be?

Allie Olson: I think I put that my super power was to be able to shoot purple sparkles from my hands but they weren’t just any purple sparkles, they were purple sparkles of death. I had named myself – I think I named myself Sparkle Super Nova, which sounds like a different kind of name, but it was favorite hero name.

Michael London: Hey, where can folks see “Generic Girl”?

Allie Olson: You can see it on a networked called – it’s an online network called http://JTS.tv. It stand for Just The Story. It’s an ad-free subscription network. New episodes go up every Wednesday. There’s actually a lot of really cool shows on there like “Continuum”, and I think it’s called the “Jeff Lewis Comedy Hour”. Those are the cool ones. There’s a lot of good content.

Michael London: And where can we read all about Alexandra Olson?

Allie Olson: You can go to my website which is http://allieolson.com.

Michael London: Perfect and for those listening, Allie, how about a great nugget of advice, the great take home message from you.

Allie Olson: The great nugget of advice from Allie Olson – I would say just make sure to always care about telling the story. That’s what I’ve learned as my biggest piece of wisdom of training that I’ve gotten from my mentor, Duke Stroud. I will just say tell the story, always be honest when you’re acting and love what you do.

Michael London: Love what you do. Excellent advice. Allie, thank you so much for being with us today on Spidcast.

Allie Olson: Thank you so much for having me, Michael. I had to say, you have the coolest voice that I have ever heard. You sound like on those movie trailer guys that could voice overs.

Michael London: That’s very kind. Thank you very much. I will tell my agent to start booking some of those jobs.

Thanks for listening to our Spidcast show. We appreciate your time and attention. You can now join the conversation at Spidvid.com or on our Spidvid blog and you can join our collaborative filmmaking community at Spidvid.com. Tune in next month for another entertaining and informative episode of Spidcast.

We are back with another exciting Spidcast episode this month (listen in below and subscribe on iTunes) with a focus on collaborative filmmaking. For August’s show we feature a big Hollywood actor/filmmaker and a web series creator, director, and actor. These two individuals are doing interesting things within the new media space, and it was our pleasure to have James Morrison and Richard  Weigand on the show.

Our Guests

James Morrison is a filmmaker, playwright, poet, actor, singer/songwriter and yoga teacher, who was born in Utah and is a product of Alaska. James has been in some big Hollywood films and TV shows including, “24,” “Catch Me If You Can,” “Jar Head,” “The One,” and countless others.

Richard Weigand is a web series creator, writer, director, and actor. Richard’s show, Curve Your Vampirism, is about a day in the life of a vampire.

If you’re interested in sponsoring next month’s Spidcast show with a product or service you sell that’s filmmaking related, then please get in touch. If you have something to say with regards to what James or Richard talked about, then please post a comment below to continue the conversation. Thanks for listening, and be sure to share this show with anyone in your network who can get value from its content!

Full Show Transcript Below

INTRO

Michael: Hi. I’m Michael London and welcome to Spidcast, the future of collaborative video production brought to you by Spidvid.com. On this episode, we’re visiting with Richard Weigand, he’s an independent producer. He produces a very cool web show called “Curve your Vampirism”. We’ll hear more about that in a little bit. And he’s brought with him a very special guest. A very recognizable face if you watch episodic TV at all, especially the dramas all coming up just a moment on Spidcast.

So let’s jump right in. Richard, welcome to Spidcast.

Richard: Thank you very much. Thanks for having me, Michael.

Michael: So Richard, tell us a little bit about yourself, how you got into producing your own web series?

Richard: A couple of years ago, I started making small videos for the internet like my YouTube account and I’ve always wanted to do a kind of episodic, different kinds of things and wanted to branch my stories and create different kinds of characters and creating a web series allows me to put my ideas together and post it out there and get some feedback.

Michael: And how did you break in to the filmmaking world?

Richard: I’ve always kind of had this kind of creative mind of thinking—and I kind of perceive the whole world as one giant film; everything that I see and my mind creates the character and the dialogues and all that stuff comes by watching television and movies. I get an idea of how I piece (own songs) together and ever since I was real little, I’ve always wanted to do this and when I first got a camera, I was just able to film the different ideas that were in my head. That’s how it all came about.

Michael: After you get that idea and after you put it into motion, I’m going to guess the collaboration comes into play in a big way. Tell us about how collaboration has benefited your web series.

Richard: For this web series, in particular, I collaborated mostly with my sister, Rosella, just going back and forth (with any ideas we wake up with) for the show. We both are on the show. We’re both actors allowing her to take over some of the directing tasks of it. But outside of that, it was really an experience to get back in touch with friends through Facebook, to cast them in one of the parts in one of the episodes. The most interesting thing about this series is I got to collaborate with the UK composers. People all the way over there that are piecing our music together were really a true inspiration to beginning this series.

Michael: Collaboration is what’s it all about these days. What are some tips for some young filmmakers out there trying to get the most out of a limited or no budget situation?

Richard: Well, for one thing, having no budget has never stopped me from doing what I want to do and I’ve always felt the story as a character. And for something really important that I think that should be (dead) in what I film, you know, having no budget, having limited sets, using the same sets over and over again doesn’t take me out of my vision for what I’m doing. As long as I get it out there and I’m happy with the performances and the editing and everything, having no budgets or with limited budgets, doesn’t restrict me. I think I can actually hit that out with a little bit more creative ideas if I don’t have that much to play around with and that’s what really impresses me—not having big, a whole lot of financial support to pull off a big project or a small project. I think that people are really impressed with what I can do at the budget level that I’m at.

Michael: Excellent. Little or no budget, you get it done. But once you get it done, once you get that product finished and you get it on to the web, how do you get people there? How do you get noticed?

Richard: I used Facebook to get it out there with my friends and everything, but I can say that Twitter is the best way for this series to get out there because we started on Twitter, @curve_vampirism, to get our series out there. We started doing it before the show even started. We and my character Vladimir, he tweets to people and people tweet back to him and they’re kind of getting inside the world of “Curve your Vampirism”. And it’s getting people excited about it and it was really cool (when) somebody follows it and wants not only to follow the Twitter but follow the show and want more out of it and want to see more. That was really cool. But Twitter has been overall the best way for our show to be seen.

It’s also a really inspirational thing to get kind of a feedback instantly of they love Vlad or they love what he does and they want to see more. It inspires me to want to create more. It inspires me to want to take the whole world to a no (silly) level and then they’re part of it too…

Michael: Well, talking about characters. It’s a character that we know from a TV show we love. You brought a very special guest with you today. Why don’t you go ahead and introduce him?

Richard: Yes, I’d like to introduce you all to actor, filmmaker, musician, James Paige Morrison. Hi, James.

James: Hi, Richard. How are you, man?

Richard: Not too bad at all.

James: Good.

Richard: Not too bad. I’m excited that you decided to do this, which is really cool. Since this is an audio podcast and (put you) a face to the name, James Paige Morrison. Where we’re you seen lately?

James: Let’s see. I spent four years as Bill Buchanan on “24” on Fox. And on the big screen, let’s see, you would have seen me as the person who inspired Leonardo DiCaprio to become a pilot in “Catch Me If You Can”. I’m the captain who went to the hotel and he said I want to be that guy. Lots and lots of episodic television, well, for series, the “Space: Above and Beyond”. I was Col. McQueen on Fox for the sci-fi fan.

Richard: I’ll just leave you right into it because the reason why I chose to talk to you is because you’re not only an actor and a filmmaker and a musician, but you’ve also used parts of the social media like Facebook and Twitter to kind of get your ideas and your projects out there, so I’m wondering how has Twitter changed your life?

James: Well, I wouldn’t say that it has changed my life as much as it’s just given it another way to interact. I was listening to you talking about this. It reminds me of back when we used first started doing theater when I was a young actor in a smaller theater in LA and in the few places that I did in New York 30 years ago.

Any series really back before the internet, you would try to drum up word of mouth and that’s basically what we’re doing with Twitter. It’s just a word of mouth audience until it starts to catch on and if it doesn’t, it’s because we didn’t have the elements that were necessary for it to catch on. But you use any means possible to promote yourself as an artist and I think it’s just a great way to reach out and expand your audience.

Richard: There’s also a really cool thing to be able to talk to the fans and have them instantly give you feedback on if I saw you on a show the night before, they could tweet that to you and you say thank you or whatever. I think it’s a really big deal when they get response like that. It is inspirational to hear from them. You see the performance that you get to respond to your favorite actor or…

James: Yes, I think it means a lot to them. But it will also means a lot to the artist especially those of us who are sort of crossover artists who are multi-disciplinary, I guess. It also goes with who make music or who writes or direct as well as act. There’s constantly a way to keep people informed about if we can afford the 10 or $20,000 a month PR firm to do it for us. It’s also, like you say, a way to maintain contact with the very people we want to reach.

Richard: Do you ever get tired of hearing the same messages over and over again?

James: No, because it’s the feedback that you don’t get from working on television and film that you do get when you’re on stage. The applause never sounded the same and never feels the same when it’s that live feeling of the laugh that comes back to you from the dark. It’s never the same. It could be, I guess, you could say that it’s the same every night, but it’s not because it’s in the moment.

If you hear two people say the same thing, they’re really saying it from a very personal place, I think that’ the—I don’t know what’s the best example I can give about it—no, I don’t tire about it at all in answer to your question.

Richard: How long have you been tweeting?

James: Let’s see, I discovered Twitter when I was in Canada. It’ll be two years ago just last April, so just a little over two years. I was up there doing a benefit for the Canadian Cancer Society and I’d heard that Mary Lynn Rajskub, who played Chloe on “24”, was on it and Jon Cassar as well.

I just went on to check it out because I’ve heard of it because I guess it must’ve been five years now Twitter’s been around?

Richard: Okay.

James: I just checked it out and what do you, wow, this is interesting. How did I not know this is here? I like to converse especially about current events and social issues and as you know from following me and from the things that I talk about on Twitter—

Richard: The documentary that you tweet about—

James: The documentary but also just what’s going on in the world. It affects us as human beings and if you’re connected as a human being and an artist, I think it’s should have an impact on what you create as an artist. Now, of course, it’s where I get all my news. I trust these sources on Twitter more than I trust certainly the mainstream media.

Richard: That’s the way that everybody’s look at the world. You’ve collaborated with filmmakers in both the television and the film world. I’m very interested in knowing that what would you say to those out there who use the Internet as their television and film world?

James: Well, I’m still beginning to understand all that. I’m sort of old-school. I still watch TV. I still go out to movie theaters and not quite as much now that I have a child but I like to go to live theater. I think we have to find balance. I think that’s what I would say is just like I read today on Twitter, as a matter of fact—I think it was the President who said this, “Don’t get all your information from one source and question the sources that you have.” If you’re getting all your information, if you’re using only one medium as a sort of a pitching post, untie and get out there and ride around a little bit. That’s the advice I would give.

Richard: It was Twitter how I found out that not only do you act and you have the documentary you’ve been producing, but you also are a songwriter and musician. For those out there who don’t know that you are a musician, what kind of music do you like to perform?

James: I guess it’s a folk rock. I was influenced by the 60’s bands like The Birds and Dylan, of course, and all the different groups that came out of Buffalo Springfield and those guys, that sort of sound that’s sort of cosmic-country-Gram Parsons-things. I was influenced by the Grateful Dead and those guys. And groups like Canned Heat, who’d come out of the Woodstock era. In fact, Larry Taylor, the bassist for Canned Heat, played on my album, “Son to the Boy”, which has been out for a little while and we’re just starting to tour to play live, to promote it. That was kind of cool to play with Larry. It’s that sort of thing.

Richard: Why did you choose the internet (to put your music in)?

James: Well, mostly because it’s just so immediate and the people are so connected to the digital download and also because I was self-produced, I’m not affiliated with a label. It seems the most cost-effective way is to just make it available before I can mass produce CDs, the physical CD and also it’s a little greener, I just didn’t want to put all that plastic out there.

Richard: Your album that’s been in fact available in digital form as of this past December, how long were you working on it?

James: That story actually is kind of interesting. That week that we started and recorded the first two tracks, my son was diagnosed with a brain tumor, so that was put on hold for seven months and it took about a year-and-a-half actually all told to finish it up.

Richard: You’re talking before about who inspired you as a musician, who are some of your influences as an actor?

James: I was really influenced by films in the early 70’s like “Clockwork Orange” and the Scorsese movies of the mid 70’s when I was in New York and I saw “Taxi Driver”. At that point, I just said this is what I want to do.

Richard: You who played Bill Buchanan on “24”, working the set of a show like that or any big motion picture, how has that helped your own personal project?

James: By the time I got to “24” in the season 4 or halfway through season 4, they were just about where they had developed this finely tuned precision machine—and I say machine but a human machine—so that they knew exactly how to shoot it, how to do what they did so well and it was precision. It was a well-oiled and worked together really well and most of that, I think, as I looked at it now had to do with the way Jon Cassar worked and he brought a lot of his artistry to the creation of that.

I think now, in answer to your question, coming away from that, I just realized how efficiently and how it collaboratively it benefits everyone if you learn how to work together, if you involve everyone. If you don’t, decide who am I to this person now as Jack O’Brien, a stage director, says in our documentary “Showing Up.”

I think there’s too much about if we’re all just worker among workers and we’re equals in this collaborative process, without the power trips and without the secrets and whatever it is that flows downhill as they say. Then the collaborative effort becomes as you on “24”. It was tight. It was really tight and they told the story really efficiently. They shot it that way too.

Richard: I think “24” is one of the best shows on television and good to see over the years (they’re able to) come in all of the people that pieced that show together. It’s really remarkable how every year they have new people come in and I found it interesting with all the new people coming in. That was a really interesting experience to (put) all these kinds of people have come in all the time.

James: The other thing I noticed was when I left the show and I think probably everybody who was there for while have the same issue in their own way, I would go somewhere else and they’d be working in whatever way they work, which is going to be different, and my first inclination would be to say, you know, in “24”, we—I have to stop myself because of course you can’t. You’re a guest and you can’t really tell them how best to work. You want to because they’re working inefficiently and you sort of feel a little bit superior, but then you have to, like you say, make it how it works best for you and you have to take whatever you have personal control over and apply the things that you learned without imposing that on somebody else. I think that’s where we get into trouble. We all bring those things where you got to “do it my way, my way or the highway”.

It takes time to develop that kind of ensemble feeling, so when you experience it, you want it to be an A in everything, but it can’t be. It’s a very rare thing. It’s like finding that one true love in your life.

Richard: That’s the best thing about following you in Twitter and why everybody should follow at @JamesPMorrison on Twitter is I instantly get the impression of how well you work with the after and behind the scenes. You probably work just as much with the cast as well as the behind the scenes people and if I get to know them, I will too because I see it in your tweet. You always tweeted to some directors and good people who are out there that you no longer probably worked with but you still, thanks to Twitter, get to interact with them.

James: That goes back to when I was to when I was about 21 years old. I was in the circus. I was a circus clown and when I first got to the winter quarters in Hugo, Oklahoma, the performer sat on one side of the mess hall, the cafeteria and the workers, the hands, sat on the other side and they never interacted. So I got my plate, went over and sat with the hands just to say hello. I mean, these are the guys that in some cases your life depends on them for rigging. They’re the workers.

I was immediately reprimanded and ostracized and taken to task for mixing with the working staff. I just thought, man, first of all, what this built this country? This is the people that built this country. They build the shows that we watch and if you bring that work ethic to—it’s the work ethic I learned from my dad. He worked in a construction business. If you bring that work ethic to what you do, then we’re all in this together. You can’t fail.

Richard: And that’s the impression people get when they log in you have over 5,000 people that basically listen to what you’re saying and they have the option to get your idea down there further. That’s why I find it truly inspirational not only reading your tweets but getting to know you kind of in a different light aside from on watching you on television. Getting into how you think inspires and I think it inspires a lot of people. My last kind of question is what advice would you give to aspiring actors and aspiring filmmakers out there?

James: When I was a young actor, I wanted to join Actors’ Equity, the union for stage actors. I went to the artistic director of an Alaskan organization and he sounds like 23 years old or something and I said, “I’d like to do this. Can you help me do this?” He said, “You really can’t think of anything else you’d rather do?” It was that school of hard knocks sort of thing. I said, “No, I can’t. I’m pretty sure I want to do this for a living.” And he said, “Okay, welcome to the ranks of the unemployable.”

It didn’t register then but what he was doing was showing me that there are going to be lots of people in the path in my journey through my life as an artist or as a man that are going to try to minimize my goal. If not giving me a hand up and certainly not a hand down, but there’s a way to encourage people that if someone says if this is what you love and this is what makes you feel good, then you have to do it because you’ll be unhappy if you don’t. It’s that simple really.

If what you’re doing make you happy, whether it’s accepted, how it’s received, all that stuff doesn’t matter. If you place qualifiers, good or bad before or after what you do, you’re going to minimize your effort, your contribution, your journey toward what you want to achieve and your pleasure in the moment. Be very sure and first of all, that’s what you want to do like the guy said to me. Can you think of anything else? But also just then just go, I’m not going to let anybody deter me from this. I’m not going to let them devalue me for whatever their personal agenda is. They’re unhappy in their own lives. They’re critics and that’s their job—to devalue, to feel like they can give something of value based on their word or their appraisal of it. Like Steven Spailis says in showing up, you have to take that into the room with you, that sense of value of your own personal value. That’s, I think, the most important thing I can say is get ready to stand up for yourself and what you’re putting out there. Just teach people how to treat you.

Richard: That is very inspirational. I’m always surprised by what you’re saying. I can’t thank you enough for—

James: Thanks. I appreciate that. It was a pleasure talking to you. I’m glad this worked out.

Michael: If I can jump in, James and Richard. What is next for James Morrison?

James: I just put together the first performance with almost all of the band that I’m putting together at the Hotel Café in Hollywood. We’ll be the musical guest with (some spoken word) artists. For a monthly thing, they do this. That’s sort of the world tour kickoff in Hollywood. Then we’ll have a CD released probably sometime in August or September with the full band and this is to promote the album, “Son to the Boy”, which is available on iTunes and CD Baby and Amazon and all of the other places digitally.

Michael: Excellent. If we’d like more information on what you’re up to, where do we get in touch?

James: If you’d like to find out more about this, I’m pretty good about keeping the website up-to-date. It’s JPMorrison.com then you can find out more about where we’re playing and what will be happening with “Showing Up”, the documentary. My wife and I just co-directed and co-produced up to the actors audition. We had a conversation with about 60 of our best working actors about what it means to them and ultimately ends up being more about just showing up for what you want to be and do in your life and we’re very happy with it.

Michael: Richard, thank you so much for brining James as your guest today.

Richard: You’re very welcome.

Michael: And when folks want to see your stuff, where do we see that?

Richard: Well, the web series that I currently produced, “Curve Your Vampirism”, you can watch at www.curveyourvampirism.blip.tv.

Michael: Richard, thanks for being with us today.

Richard: Thank you.

Michael: That’s it. Thanks for listening to the Spidcast Show. We appreciate your time and attention. You can now join the conversation at Spidcast.com or on our Spidcast Blog. And you can join our collaborative filmmaking community at Spidvid.com. Tune in next month for another entertaining and informative episode of Spidcast.

This week features MediaSilo’s Evangelist Dan Green. Dan talks about saving money and time, the importance of metadata, and how to improve the video production work flow. He also discusses his podcast Work Flow Junkies.

Topics covered in the show:

- The story behind MediaSilo.

- The video production process through MediaSilo’s platform.

- Who can benefit and get value from MediaSilo’s solutions.

- Text transcriptions and extracting metadata from your video assets.

- Why metadata is the future for online video.

- How far collaborative editing has come over the years.

- How producing videos has changed and evolved.

- What comes after YouTube?

- How Spidvid community members can improve their production process and video content through MediaSilo.

- Why to get a free demo account at MediaSilo.

Full Text Transcript

Show Introduction: Hi. I’m Michael London and welcome to Spidcast, the future of collaborative video production brought to you by Spidvid.Com. On this episode we’re visiting with Dan Green, evangelist from MediaSilo.com. MediaSilo is a wonderful video content management and collaborative platform.

Dan, welcome to the Podcast. Tell us a little bit about the MediaSilo story.

Dan: Well, MediaSilo actually started out for the production environment several years ago. It started from a company called Producturials which did a lot of work in video for the web and most of the clients actually were banks. Getting them to agree on anything or even just all of the stakeholders involved to actually view some content and approve it was a nightmare. So what the guys did was they actually started to piece together that they knew a little bit about the Web and online video. So they pieced together a system that enable those stakeholders involved in the production of the online videos to go from their own computers and actually view that content and make comments on the time line, and then approve or disapprove the content.

It was such a big hit that some friends of theirs and other production companies were like, “Hey, man, can I use that?” One thing went to another and gosh, a lot of people might be able to use this. The platform has really grown from there. It started just as an online approval system and really grew beyond that to become a fully-functional full-collaborative online video platform.

Michael: Well, it certainly is that. Now is this a real-time experience?

Dan: No. MediaSilo is not live. MediaSilo gives you the ability to collaborate on your own schedule. So you’re able to control who has access to any given workspace and that’s what we call them. We break them down into workspaces which are like folders or if you’re an avid person, maybe like a bin, and you can break those workspaces down into projects, or into clients, or however you want to break them down and then you can assign people that have access to those workspaces and determine what they can do in those workspaces. So whether or not they have the ability to actually make comments on video in there, view it, share it with other people, or work with that video, or embed it onto their websites, you control all of the things that they’re able to do in a workspace with video. And you’re able to do it on your own time with notifications via email.

Michael: Got it, got it. Now take us step-by-step through the MediaSilo process.

Dan: What happens is you can just upload any video directly through your online login. Click one button and you choose the file that you want to upload or you can upload it via FTP direct out of your system if you like and it will go directly into that workspace where we take not only the source file. So we’ll take the source file. If you upload it in QuickTime, we’ll take the QuickTime. If you upload a Windows Media file, we’ll take the Windows Media file and we store them online so that you can access and download it at any time. So if you’re uploading from New York, you can download that exact same file in Los Angeles.

But at the same time what we do is we create a Flash proxy of that video which you can view online and work with online. So when that video goes up and it’s encoded into Flash, that’s actually what you see and that’s what you work with through the MediaSilo platform.

Michael: Oh, I love that. Now, your content stays untouched and then we work using a Flash version. Very, very nice. Now Dan, who exactly is using MediaSilo at this time?

Dan: We have a lot of clients in the reality TV space; some of the network talk shows are using us. For example, one of the big prime time talk show’s is using us to brief talent that they want to get involved in some of their bits. So they’ll have producers for example do a mark up of that bit or do a run for that bit and then they’ll send a sample straight to that client’s iPhone or their agent’s iPhone example. Directly right to their phone or make it available online, or they can actually give them access to the system within MediaSilo if they want. So you can collaborate within the platform if you like or outside the platform if that’s what you want to do as well.

Michael: Well, I’ll tell you what. The flexibility and customization possibilities are very, very exciting indeed. So Dan, share with us a little bit more about the actual working parts and pieces of MediaSilo.

Dan: Well, we call them “modules” in MediaSilo and those modules give you the ability to do different things. For example, we have the ability for you to create your own channels online that you can program on the fly. So for example if you want to have a broadcast channel that has a number of videos like let’s say for example, you want to do your reel and you have different versions of that reel. So you have commercials, you have documentaries and so on. You can actually break that up into different channels within your overall MediaSilo channel. So you would go in and build that within MediaSilo, take the embed code and put it on your website. You can actually program that on the fly simply by dragging and dropping content into that channel and it will change automatically. You’ll never have to go back in and re-embed it or change the code in the website ever again. All you’ll have to do is drag and drop and you can move all of those things from within MediaSilo and it will control it.

So the broadcast feature is one that’s particularly popular because of the ability to program it through Alliance. We also have a transcription mode which gives you anybody who has ever sat there and had to sit there and knock out bytes and transcribe bytes for log tapes know how tedious that can be. We’ve got a very affordable option where if you go out and you do your shoot, you can actually upload that content from MediaSilo, then drag it into the transcription feature, and request to transcription. You can add any notations that you want, names, or specific request, or i.e. time code and things like that, and send it off and within 24 to 48 hours for $5 a file and a $1 a minute, you’ll get a full transcription back on MediaSilo that you can then cut and paste and work with and create your piece together. Those are couple of the modules that we have and we’re working on several others.

In addition to those we also have an interface with Final Cut Server which gives you the ability to take that metadata. Metadata like transcriptions, metadata like adaptations on the timeline and comments on given files, and write them back into your Final Cut Server. So we’re able to make a full loop so that you can work with an asset within Final Cut Server and then upload that content and make it all available online and update metadata that’s relevant to you and move the production process along within your non-linear editor.

Michael: Now you just mentioned metadata. There are some old school editors out there who have painfully made that transition from recorder to Beta, to DV cam and then from linear to non-linear editing. Talk a bit about that process.

Dan: I think that metadata is clearly the future in the direction that we’re moving in. I don’t think there’s any doubt about that. But making the transition from linear into non-linear, I think most people have made that jump. What happens is where to go from there and the ability to really catalog your assets and make those assets available to other people to be able to work with those assets outside of your non-linear editing platform. That is a process that is sort of like crack, I think. You get a little bit and you just want more because it really streamlines your work flow and it makes your time far more productive, and you’re able to work on projects and know exactly where you are on those projects – on approval – with all the stakeholders that are involved. So you can bounce from project to project and still be up to date and keep you informed just to where you are and gets your approvals and move along.

Michael: Indeed. For my money, one of the coolest features is the ability to be editing in New York, get instant feedback from my client in L.A. and with the client’s partner at O’Hare Airport in Chicago as well.

Dan: Yes. And you can do it on your phone. In fact you can access your entire catalog on the phone if you want to – on the iPhone. But the mobility that we are demanding in this new environment, particularly with the Smart phones and the flexibility that we have in the software that’s coming through non-linear editing systems whether it be Avid or Apple. And then through Avid server system or Final Cut Server gives us tremendous flexibility in that regard and all of these things are merging together. MediaSilo really has positioned as an online component for those things.

Michael: Ah, great position to be in. Now how has producing videos changed and evolved over the last couple of years?

Dan: Well, I think that the biggest change that we’re seeing is a movement particularly in Hollywood towards work flow that it’s not just about editing anymore. It’s about total work flow from acquisition all the way through the post-production process because the biggest change that I think I’m seeing anyway is the need to take any content that you have and be able to use it on a number of platforms. So we’re seeing a lot of our clients particularly in the reality space take a piece of video that it’s going to be used for a show, but it also has to be re-purposed for the Web. It has to be re-purposed for promos so that they can be sent to newspapers or tabloids around the world; and they have to be able to take that content and put it on the Web, or edit it into their own systems. And the relevant metadata that’s going to be coming with that video is going to be very important because it’s going to add to your ability not only to maximize that content on a number of different platforms, but then as you move forward to also be able to track that content and see what it’s doing for you online.

Michael: Now, speaking of online and stepping away from that traditional Hollywood studio model, what does the future hold for online video content in terms of the production model?

Dan: I think it’s what comes after YouTube now. Because YouTube certainly has its place, there’s no doubt about it but YouTube was the great repository. And when you have a great repository like that, it doesn’t give you the ability to really set yourself apart. So I think people are demanding now the ability to have more control of their content, to be able to stand apart and have a unique delivery system beyond the standard things that are out there. Does that mean there’s not a place for YouTube? Absolutely not. There’s no doubt about it.

But the days of being a production company and putting your stuff on YouTube makes you kind of look cheesy. Let’s be honest. So people want to have the ability to have an incredibly professional look on their Web sites to be able to have an incredibly professional work flow and do that online at a very affordable price. I think that’s where MediaSilo really comes in.

Michael: Which then of course takes us to the bottom line – tell us exactly how do your clients save money and time using MediaSilo’s platform?

Dan: Well the first thing that’s going to save them a bunch of money is that they’re not dubbing DVDs all day long and shipping them out to clients for approval and then waiting days to get an answer back. The money that they saved on FedEx alone pays for the MediaSilo platform, or systems that are incredibly ineffective for video like YouSendIt and FTP delivery systems where they don’t even know what they’re looking at. They just got a file and they have to download it and maybe they don’t even want to look at it in the first place, or maybe it’s not even the right file.

So this is a visual platform that gives you a lot of flexibility and saves you money through delivery, it saves you money through time and the ability to collaborate and get an answer and use our time as an editor and a producer far more effectively. We have casting agents in Los Angeles that are using MediaSilo and we have one recent project where we had a casting director do a project in half the time it took him before and normally he would have three or four casting assistants on the project, and instead he had one. So it’s a money-saver in terms of efficiency and giving you the ability to focus on the project that you’re working on or multiple projects that you’re working on, and move them forward in a pace that’s going to be profitable to you and make a difference on your bottom line.

Michael: And in this age of the bottom line being just that the “bottom line”, I trust that Spidcast listeners and the Spidvid community will appreciate the value of a hand-in-hand partnership with MediaSilo. And that when they assembled their production teams from literally around the world via Spidvid, they would then turn to MediaSilo to complete their projects or even use MediaSilo throughout the complete production process.

Dan: What we’ve seen is a lot of people integrating it piece-by-piece. Some will use this for casting and then start using it for research and put all the research content on there. Others are using it in the production process and then branching out from there. So there’s multiple applications for MediaSilo and if it fits into certain parts of the work flow, then it really works.

One of the things that we really try to do with the platform and encourage people to do is incorporate it into the work flow the way that they want to on their level because we’re not trying to set a work flow and say, “Listen, this is the way that you do it.” We have the flexibility for you to customize the system, customize the approval process, who sees what, when, where, and what workspace it goes into and then where it progresses to based off at the platform, not off of what we say. So you’re able to customize that platform to fit your work flow. So we’re seeing MediaSilo brought in different levels, then expanded from there.

Michael: A bit ago, Dan, you hit on the jump from linear to non-linear editing. Well, this takes the jump from linear to non-linear thinking and this is just today in the present. Now, what do you see in the near future?

Dan: The future is clearly about metadata. There’s no doubt about it and that’s what we’re committed to and we want to make that interaction as seamless and as painless as possible for people. In fact we work with a company called, Focus Enhancements who has a product called the FS-5 which gives you the ability to put metadata onto a file and acquisition, and then you can upload that content and import that metadata up to MediaSilo and into your non-linear editing system and it stays with the file. So it can be good take, bad take; it can be day shoot, night shoot; it can be accurate information, it can be whatever; it can actually be a script. And that information then stays with the video all the way through. It’s searchable, it’s findable, it’s something that you can then put into your library and seek through and have your hands on that video whenever you need to. And that’s going to improve dramatically video production as we move forward.

So if you can get your hands and search in a matter of seconds whether it be on MediaSilo or within your own system using some simple metadata, you’ll be able to get your hands on the video content that you need immediately and it’s going to save you a fortune. It really will and I think we’re going to see metadata incorporated into work flows, in production so that actual approval and the sorting of content is in a reality space where you will have producers sorting through content and picking bodies, and picking the cut-away shots that they want to use, that those selections are with the video as it sits on a server. So whether you go and find it through MediaSilo or you go and find it in your editing system through your production work flow, you’re able to find every shot of John and have your hands on every cut-away of John that was ever shot during the entire production, and have it in seconds. That’s really going to change everything in the way that we do it.

Not to mention the facts and there are other things to come into it. That metadata could also be color, it could be settings, it could be other variables, GPS, it can be what temperature Kelvin were we shooting at. So if you have to go back and do a re-shoot, that metadata is always going to be there and you’re going to be able to change it. Think about the ability to actually do that instead of renting an EVD of a movie, to be able to rent all of the video that we shot for that film and the ability just with metadata to re-cut it the way that you want to, that those scenes are there. That’s the kind of things that we have in the future.

Michael: It sounds like the future is bright indeed. Dan, I sure appreciate you being on Spidcast today, but you also have a Podcast. Tell us a little bit about Work Flow Junkies.

Dan: Well, Work Flow Junkies is sponsored by MediaSilo. We touch on MediaSilo from time to time but really the podcast is about work flow in the production environment. We spend a lot of time talking about metadata there and the potential applications for metadata in the video production space and where we’re going. But at the end of the day what we like to do on Work Flow Junkies is just talk about ways to save yourselves some time and save yourself some money in video production and have fun doing it.

Michael: And to me that has to be the ultimate bottom line. Have fun doing it. Dan, where can the Spidcast listeners go to learn more about your solutions, get a demo and get connected with MediaSilo?

Dan: We’re online at MediaSilo.Com. Podcast is at work WorkFlowJunkies.Com. That’s work WorkFlowJunkies.Com but you can go online to MediaSilo and get a look at the system, sign up for a demo and it’s all free. There’s actually a free account. You can sign up and get your hands on MediaSilo right off the bat and not pay anything. There are limitations in terms of total volume of files that you can upload and so on. It’s a great chance to just sign up for free account at MediaSilo.Com and start up loading some video and see how the system works and see how practical it is for your work flow.

Michael: Wonderful invitation. We will do that, Dan. Thank you so much for joining us today on Spidcast.

Dan: All right. Thanks for having me, Michael.

Michael: Dan Green, evangelist from MediaSilo.com. I’m Michael London. Thank you for listening. You can join the conversation now by visiting Spidcast.Com. We welcome your thoughts, opinions and feedback, and you can also get access to the full-text transcript of this week’s show at Spidcast.Com.

This week features Hip-Hop music artist K-Fresh aka “The Nem-s-iss”, and insightful tech geek Jason Seifert. K-Fresh talks about new opportunities for music artists through online video content, and how the Web is an effective low-cost business medium to attract valuable attention. Jason talks about Windows 7, Snow Leopard, and how he can save you valuable time.

Topics covered in this episode:

- How online video is great for music artists to find new business.

- How the Internet has surpassed clubs and bars as a way to promote  music.

- The benefits of music artists collaborating with video creators.

- Tapping new revenue streams.

- What the new Windows 7 operating system is all about, and why to be cautious on upgrading from Vista.

- Why upgrading to Apple’s Snow Leopard is a good idea.

- Which newsletter to subscribe to so you can knock time off your day.

- How Spidvid is a solid niche social network offering benefits outside of the mainstream sites like Facebook.

Full Text Transcript

Show Introduction: Hi, I’m Michael London and welcome to Spidcast the future of collaborative video production brought to you by Spidvid.com. On this episode, we’re visiting with K-Fresh, an independent rap artist from Toronto, who has some insight into the changing face of the music business via the Internet. And we’ll also visit with Jason Siefert, owner of JMS Technical Solutions of Orange County, California. Now Jason will share with us some great technical information but not too techie for the casual computer user.

So let’s jump right in to this week’s Spidcast.

Michael: We begin with K-Fresh aka “The Nem-s-iss”. Welcome to Spidcast.

K-Fresh: No problem. Anytime.

Michael: K-Fresh, tell us a little bit about some of your current projects.

K-Fresh: I just released a project called “K-Fresh: The Nem-s-iss”, which was a street-orientated album and now I’m actually making an album called “Radiogenic”, which is going to be directed to the radio genre of music. It’s a full CD of radio music because I am an underground artist but I’m trying to break into the mainstream and this is my way of doing it by making a total CD of all radio-friendly music. It’ll be easier for me to submit because the more commercial my music is, I’ll be able to send it to places like Spidvid, and I can also get my stuff into movies or any other video productions that would be profitable.

Michael: Let’s hope so. Now, tell us a little bit more about K-Fresh.

K-Fresh: Well, I go by the name Nem-s-iss and K-Fresh is also easy to find us. We’re talking about the Internet right now because if was on the radio and I said Nem-i-iss, they wouldn’t be able to find the way I spelled it, so K-Fresh is my way of getting people to find me easier. So you can search K-Fresh on Google. You can search K-Fresh on Youtube. You can search K-Fresh on Myspace and my profile is actually MySpace.com/kfreshtherapper.

Michael: Well, hopefully, they’ll have the ability to find you easily. Now, K-Fresh, as an independent producer and artist, do you see online video as the new way to gain exposure to attract new audiences and to pursue new business opportunities?

K-Fresh: Oh, yes. I would say that for sure. I’m going to answer that because it’s like I’m finding that more people are on the Internet more than they’re actually watching TV. I find myself on the Internet more than watching TV. It’s the best way to actually gain exposure especially for independent artists to attract new audiences and get business opportunities from other Internet businesses and so on because the Internet is so used in all this.

Michael: Wow. It used to be that clubs were the big breakout spots for the new underground artists. Are you saying that the Internet has now surpassed that?

K-Fresh: Yes, for sure. The Internet is like the most inexpensive way to do it especially for independent artists that even the major artists are benefiting off the Internet. I find that it is more than the clubs now because the DJ’s can only play so many songs in the club. The Internet is the way to go for sure.

Michael: So, let’s follow that logic and talk a bit about collaborative relationships between music artists and video creators. Do you see this as a beneficial way to build each others brands and overall content and quality?

K-Fresh: Yes, for sure because I also believe it’s kind of like cross promotion in a way where the artist can be viewed from the video’s audience and it will be a vice versa for the video and the artist. Both audiences will basically combine together to have a solid fan base for the artist and also the video production.

Michael: Win-win. You got to love that, right? Now, let me ask you this, does the idea of providing songs to video creators who are using their projects in exchange for say a percentage of that video’s revenues excite music artists as a way to explore untapped revenue streams?

K-Fresh: Yes, for sure. It’s like an equal benefit for both artists and the video. That’s very good because the artist and the video production can also benefit especially if the artist is presented with a proposal for a percentage of what the video revenue makes, then I’m sure that almost every artist, if any artist who wouldn’t want to do that I don’t think they would be very serious about their career because it’s something that they can benefit from just by getting a buzz from the video and also getting a percentage.

Michael: Ah, which brings us to Spidvid.com. Tell us how you see Spidvid benefiting the music artists?

K-Fresh: Well, I see many benefits because a lot of artists – it brings every artist from different genres all into one fan base so audiences actually see them there. It’s always good to cross promote and network. So I think Spidvid is going to be something that every artist of every genre can benefit from and basically bring everybody a step forward in their career that they want to pursue and do it properly.

Michael: Great advice, K-Fresh. Thank you for joining us today on Spidcast.

K-Fresh: No problem.

Up next the owner of JMS Technical Solutions and one of the coolest tech geeks I know, Jason Siefert up next.

Intermission: You know how challenging it is to produce quality videos without the help from others who have the skills and talent you need. Well Spidvid let’s you find the individuals you need for your video production project so you can create the Internet’s next big viral hit. Visit Spidvid.com. Click the sign-up link and reserve your spot within our collaborative video community today.

Michael: Jason thanks for joining us on Spidcast.

Jason: Thank you very much, Michael.

Michael: Tell us a bit about how you became the go-to guy of Orange County for tech issues?

Jason: Well, I’ve got about 23 maybe 24 years in the technical industry under my belt. I’m kind of one of those people that was practically born with a keyboard in my hand. I ended up owning one of the very first Apple Home Computers that you could back when they were $4,000 in 1981 and kind of fell in love with it almost immediately, took it apart the second day it was there, which thrilled the heck out of my parents, and kind of just been a technological addict there ever since when I realized that most people didn’t kind of understand intuitively the language of computing. I realized there is a definite market and a definite need for people who could succinctly and accurately explain how a computer works to a person who’s not technically savvy. That’s kind of the focal point of my business nowadays is acting as sort of a liaison between the non-technical consumer who must use a computer to survive in the modern world, and the computer itself that is trying to tell people what it needs and to never really get it’s point across accurately for most people.

Michael: Well, I tell you certainly have filled that void with your knowledge and expertise and to that end, tell us a little bit about the new Windows 7.

Jason: My idea of Windows 7 is I think it is a viable operating system and by viable I think it an operating system that people should not be afraid to run, which was not true of Windows Vista. It was an operating system that I think was nothing more than a cautionary (tail) in Microsoft’s very long and illustrious history.

I think that Windows 7 definitely offers some very friendly, very exciting new interface options, but I think that the buyer must beware whenever they’re upgrading with an operating system because if they assume just because the system is “better” that it’s going to be easier without any form of training or introduction into the interface for that new system. Most people are going to be solely disappointed.

I think that what I am the most disappointed with Windows 7 is, again, Microsoft has chosen to release just this very strange, slew of versions of their program that I think really kind of plays against the market itself in a way that I think is kind of (piratical) there’s a version of Windows for the “home user”. There’s a version of Windows for the “professional user”. And then there’s a version of Windows for the “ultimate user”, I suppose. The range of cost is $100 from the cheapest one to the ultimate version and to me, not releasing a full featured operating system in just a single succinct package, I think a very unfortunate choice that Microsoft made.

Michael: Well, that being said, let’s jump over and talk about some real computers now. I’m reasonably certain that a good portion of our listeners at least the editors and graphics folks are on Macs. Talk a little bit about Snow Leopard?

Jason: Well, I think Snow Leopard is extremely exciting because what Snow Leopard has done as it has brought to the table what Leopard should have had in terms of its back-end features. Snow Leopard is not exciting news for an end interface and it’s not something that’s throwing at you a hundred new front-end features that you’re going to appreciate, but what it is it’s the build for the future. The infrastructural support that for those of us who want high end systems, if you’re on a Mac for instance and you’re running more than 4 GB’s of RAM, these changes that have come up with Snow Leopard are really what are going to allow you to take the most the advantage of those higher end resources.

In that regard, I think for a $30 price tag, Snow Leopard is a pretty trusted beat and I think it’s a very exciting beat. I think it’s a very exciting that they – as for an apology for 10.5 not having the features that Snow Leopard comes with. They said, “Okay, we’ll give it you for a nice, cheap price.” In that regard, I picked up the Snow Leopard the day it came out. I love it. I think that every Mac user who’s using a mid to high end work station should consider buying it. The price is just right. There’s no excuse not to get it.

Michael: Very good. You know, I trust not only your opinions but your real working knowledge as well. I guess there is a Snow Leopard in my future. Jason, let’s talk a little bit about your newsletter. Now, I fancy myself an expert computer user and I always find something not only interesting but useful in each issue. In fact, recently, you reminded me about all the cool things that the simple, right mouse click can do. Some of these things I’ve forgotten. Tell us a little bit about your newsletter.

Jason: Well, the newsletters are pretty much the way that I intend to keep my users’ learning at all times and subscribers’ learning at all times about the features of their computer. You know, computers are very, very powerful tools and if not a uni-tasker, it’s really built to do a tremendous number of things and sometimes those very sort of core functions, those very rudimentary functions become overlooked and they become real productivity losses because if you’re digging through as many as every which way and things like that, for instance with the right click, you really can just speed up your overall production and something that took you an hour and twenty minutes to do, maybe will take you an hour and five minutes and added up over the course of a work day those savings can be pretty significant.

What the newsletter is and is going to continue to be in the future is really sort of my encounters in the field with my various customers, the lessons I teach them – the little tidbits and tricks that I show the individual, the really great nuggets of wisdom that I share with the individual, I’m going to try and propagate out to my newsletters so that everyone can benefit from those.

Michael: Very cool and how does one subscribe to the newsletter?

Jason: All you have to do is go to my website and it is a double opt-in system which means you submit your email address and your name to the form on the front page of my website and then it will send you an email after you confirm that subscription, you merely respond to the email, click the link, confirm it and you will be on my mailing list until you choose to remove yourself from it. Hopefully never and I will be sending out the newsletter as close to on a weekly basis as possible.

Michael: And what is that website?

Jason: The website is www.jmstechnicalsolutions.com.

Michael: And as long we’ve gotten under the subject of websites, let’s talk about Spidvid.com. What value do you see at Spidvid.com for techies?

Jason: Well, I see Spidvid networking the same way that I see almost all other networking especially in the sense that though Spidvid really has a tight focal point where it is for video editors and high tech individuals. In that regard, I think that there’s a great deal more value than say a Facebook would have where every one of the members this is something where it’s creating a genuine community.

I think that having other people who are in the know, other people who are using the tools you’re using means that you can always look for assistance, you can look for technical tips and resources. You can also just kind of find people to help you with projects if you need to outsource work and other things like that.

I think there’s a tremendous number of values to the site, I think that it is something that there’s not a video professional that couldn’t find a way to benefit from it.

Michael: And Jason, how can folks get in touch with you directly?

Jason: The easiest way to get in touch with me is either to call me, my phone number is 714-585-9267 or contact me via my website – I have an email address that is hotlinkable from the website – it’s Jason@jmstechnicalsolutions.com or if you’re a member of my newsletter, all my contact info will be at the bottom of that.

Michael: Very good and now a trick question for you – a bonus question – just off the top of your head, give us the best, hottest, coolest, neatest tech tip of the week.

Jason: Best, hottest, coolest tech tip of the week is be very cautious if you decide to buy the upgrade from Windows Vista to Windows 7 because having just been in one of those installs last night, I can tell you that it is not a seamless process in my experience and the majority of the applications that you have installed in your system will probably still have to be reinstalled. So tip of the week is be very cautious when you believe Microsoft saying that everything is easy.

Michael: Alright, Jason. Thanks for joining us on Spidcast.

Jason: Thank you very much for having me.

Michael: My thanks to Jason Siefert and K-Fresh, the Nem-s-iss for joining us on this week’s Spidcast. I’m Michael London. Thank you for listening. You can join the conversation by visiting Spidcast.com. We welcome your thoughts, opinions and feedback and you can also get access to the full text transcript of this week’s Spidcast. Until next week.

This week features Seth Kenvin, who is the CEO of Market7. Seth talks about collaborative environments so individuals located all over the world can work on video production projects in real-time, improving the overall process.

Topics covered in this episode:

- Seth’s vision for the video collaboration space.

- How individuals can benefit using new social and collaborative platforms.

- How budgets for production projects can be managed in a more effective way.

- When it became evident to Seth that better technical tools were needed for producing quality video content.

- How collaborating and communicating in real-time with team members works.

- How video creatives are from Venus, and producers are from Mars.

- What the future challenges and opportunities are for video production.

- How Market7 impacts the business side of video production.

- How Market7’s collaborative tools improves video production for every team member involved.

Full Text Transcript

Show Introduction: Hi, I’m Michael London and welcome to Spidcast, the future of collaborative video production brought to you by Spidvid.com. On this episode, we’re visiting with Seth Kenvin, an Internet entrepreneur and CEO of Market7.com. Seth will discuss his vision of the future of collaborative productions and his part in that arena. Market7 is a superb tool for everybody – from producers to grips and it’s all about keeping it organized and keeping it profitable for everyone. So let’s jump right in to this week’s Spidcast.

Michael: Seth, thank you so much for joining us today.

Seth: Thank you for the opportunity.

Michael: Tell us if you would a little bit about Market7.

Seth: Market7 is a company that endeavors to provide environments for people to work together on making videos. So the different ways that we work together on content creation, coming with an idea, getting it scripted, storyboarded, moving on to post-production when there’s footage to look at, how do people review it and provide their feedback that got the editing process and ultimately approve of that content and throughout in addition to the content collaboration that has to happen, different aspects of project management for people to work better together whether that’s scheduling events, assigning tasks, sharing files and the like.

Michael: Man, there’s a lot going on with what you just said and you somewhere, somehow saw the need for Market7. What was that, let’s say, the a-ha moment for you when you realized that this was needed to be created?

Seth: I’ve been in high-tech marketing and a few years ago, the marketing activities in which I was participating expanded from what they had been. Things like developing websites and public relations and events, white papers to include video alongside those other activities. I was more frequently commissioned video production projects working with producers and finding that the utilization of software and technology to make communications clear and to make processes more efficient in video was lacking compared to a lot of those other sorts of projects.

If I could give one example, if we’re working together on a document, presentation, a paper, and we take the software into something like track changes mode, you or I can look at each other’s comments right within the context of the content on which we’re working so I can see that you have a comment or suggested that it is exactly where it would appear. In video and contrast, conventionally, what people do is they’ll look at the video in a player, that player doesn’t have a mechanism for feedback so they have to either scribble down their notes for later exchanges or maybe toggle between the player and email or compile their feedback. Once there’s feedback from multiple parties, there could be confusion as to who’s attending carries the day are people who are waiting to the right file or is everybody being good about indicating with the timelines.

So getting that capability to sort of very intuitively integrate ones feedback within the content itself was something that I’ve found lacking in video production projects. The more I explore it, the more I realized that there were a number of elements the whole way through from conceptualization to completion of video production that could stand to be done more clearly and more efficiently with the right software.

Michael: Let me clarify this in my mind. You’re saying that you have a video on your site and we’re working on it together. We’re discussing the added points and save the music cues and we can work on those elements and be communicating in real time as well?

Seth: That does happen. And actually, there’s an equal advantage if we work asynchronously. In terms of real time, if you and I are both looking at the video and you post a comment to a Web browser on your end, I will see and my client that comment dynamically appear while I’m making my edits. I can reply to it so we can essentially have a real time messaging session while we’re both watching the video together.

Similarly, if we are in completely different time zones or have completely different schedules, and need to coordinate our efforts without being able to be together, this can have correct for the kinds of issues that frequently arise through the ambiguity of how to think about video. If you want to make a comment about a particular portion of the screen and instead of having to describe “you know that part in the upper left where there’s some pixelation or something like that”, when you leave your comment, you can actually highlight that portion of the screen.

Your comment is going to specify where in the timeline to change to what’s in the video. So if your comment pertains from 0:01:14-0:01:19, you’d be able to demarcate that. So whether we’re working together simultaneously, under the gun and we’re trying to communicated as efficiently and expeditiously as possible, we can have a real time session with the same thing or for reasons we can’t coordinate being available at the same time, this actually makes up for some of the frequent ambiguity that exist when we’re working asynchronously.

Michael: Now, I got to tell you, Seth. I have worked video production for close to 20 years and I’m telling you that aside from sitting side by side in an editing suite with your client, this is just fantastic for the producer.

Now, you’ve often said that creatives are from Venus and folks who commission projects are from Mars. What exactly do you mean by that?

Seth: If I could actually go back to the episode in which the company started, one of the things I did that I sure think of there may be a company who are doing this better because I went to producers I’d hired and first thing I would do given the opportunity to talk about the potential for this new company is complain to them about “Why did you service me so poorly? Do you realize how we work in an enterprise the way we collaborate on projects, the way we deal with our bureaucracy and coordinate our communication and you’re just handing off a stack of DVDs or pointing us to an FTP site doesn’t suit our needs if you don’t provide the framework in which we can clearly communicate and reach consensus and provide you with organized feedback?”

And then as the conversation procedure, it got to be their turn to kind of complain to me about how I who was a poor correspondent to them in my role as a client. For example, one of the things I heard from producers we hired is the fact that we would show up for a shoot and essentially had done no preparation and made no allocation for effort or budget for pre-production.

So we would show up for a shoot and then at times would be half a dozen people there on crew, they didn’t know how they’re supposed to set up their gear to shoot because the thing hasn’t been storyboarded. There was somebody with a teleprompter while we were still hacking at the script. The person who was going to read the script that they were a company employee was hardly prepared with their lines and was inept to do multiple takes and this producer/director person was stressed out about the fact that they had a client who was not adequately prepared that right in the middle of the process, there was a shoot to do and I think that kind of illustration of where those of us kind (add) the organizational side, the corporation tend to fall down in our execution on video.

We’re used to sort of 80/20 rule in situations in which if a paper or a presentation is due tomorrow and it’s hardly started, not an ideal situation, but we can probably pull something out that’s at least going to be good if not very good by being kind of resolution enough about getting it done the right way. While if in video, there’s only so much you can do in the eleventh hour because whatever content you have is already there. There’s only so much you can salvage in editing.

And the client’s frequent lack of understanding of that imperative is one example. Like others include the fact that producers tend to be more creatively-oriented. Their clients are the people commissioned the video tend to be more sort of structured in their orientation maybe more bureaucratic versus more freelance in nature. Even down to the sort of “I’m a Mac” “I’m a PC” type of element where one party used to working with that they’ll be creating the suite software and that kind of interface within a Mac environment and the other is possible more like going to be spending most of their time computing in Microsoft Office on Windows.

So what we’re trying to do is allow those people to work together and whatever we develop from pre-production to post-production and project management throughout every single feature we push out, we’re constantly putting ourselves in the minds of the person who’s sporadically involved in video production, who’s more corporate in their orientation how are they going to experience it and how’s it going to feel most intuitive and powerful to them and likewise the person who’s constantly engaged in video production more creatively-oriented, how do we provide the right interface for them to feel equally at home and able to be productive.

Michael: Excellent points there because getting the suites and the creatives on the same page can be such a challenge. I’m glad you’re trying to bridge that. I really appreciate that piece of it. While we’re in the area of the suites or the (bean counters), how does Market7 impact the business end of video production?

Seth: Much of what we talked about has to do with the content collaboration of we’re involved in. Our modules included a creative brief of production brief in which people can layout what is the strategy and what might be some of the key tactical to getting this project done. We have a scripting module which can layout the actual content. That includes advantages like being able to assess how long that content is likely to run based on the length of the script. It also supports integration of visual elements like viral footage, storyboards, headshots of actors, etcetera.

We got our post-production player that supports integrated feedback and commenting in order to guide the editing process. Really throughout the process, those are more staged around content collaboration throughout the process, we enable functionality like task assignment, event scheduling, and one of the modules that we just released in the last couple of months actually pulls from those for resource management. A frequent issue – in video production, as we’ve talked to people is just given the creative nature of both the process and the people involved, there’s often an oversight over how much time went into this. Did it line up with projections? Did we make or lose money on this project?

So one of the things we do that endeavors to basically fold than in very conveniently is we take the information we have from tasks, we take the information we have from events and we compile a sheet of how much time each participant in the project spent.

For example, if a task is assigned to you within the project, when you check a box to indicate you’ve completed that task, there’s actually a processing how much time did you spend on that and two pushes of the keyboard, you can press 60 to indicate that you spent an hour on it and you’re done with that.

When someone schedules an event and scheduling events within our software flow right through the people’s personal calendaring, whether they used Gmail or Outlook or Entourage, whatever systems of email and counter-management that you use. There’s no double work here. When you want to schedule an event and invite people from your organization or involved in your effort, you can schedule it within Market7, push it through their personal calendars. We have some functionality already for checking people’s availability and we’re enhancing that as we speak.

Again, these resource measuring pieces will pull the information for which task you completed and how long it took you, what events you participated and how long they are scheduled for, allows you to add other items very easily like click a button and indicate, I spent 10 hours editing and 2 hours on the storeroom and then compile across all that how much total time did you spend in your project and with just two more fields, you can enter OK and the projected time for this person was so many hours and the hourly cost of this person is so much and then basically get a practically automated report of how much time and money did each participant in this project spend versus what was expected and for someone in the production, the responsibility get an understanding as the project is progressing. Is this again a profitable or unprofitable project for me? Is this a client that tends to work with me towards my time goals or not? Next time a project comes up with this client or maybe even time before it’s over, confront the fact of where we are in terms of real time, effort and implied finances by going to this project compared to what was anticipated.

Michael: Wow, the updates in continuing audits of production costs and expectations are very, very useful. And since we’re on that topic of finance, it’s no secret that the economy has been quite harsh for businesses over the past year. What has Market7’s experience been especially being such a relatively young company?

Seth: First of all, we’re a small company, so to a degree, we’re fortunate that our spending was already at a low level when the time got to a period where there was good reason to keep it at a lower level. Second of all, this is a really fascinating time to start a company. For myself, my prior startup experience was in a router company. A company that actually made gigantic telecommunications equipment so by necessity, a lot of funding was required to both engineer and to manufacturer of that equipment, in this case web-based software in 2009.

Due to those factors, a lot of things conventionally, one had to ascertain to put in to the software are not there anymore. We don’t need to run our own servers and systems and have an extensive systems administration staff. Also because it’s web-based software as a service, our requirements for supporting users are different that they might have been otherwise. All somebody needs is a browser. They don’t have to maintain the software on their premises. And for us, we can incrementally get a functionality which keeps us on target and also lessens the drama around any particular feature release.

In fact, we can get it even better by to a degree of relaxing. We talked to our users about how they’re using our software, currently comprehend where the wishes for enhances are and build towards that enhancement and iterate again. Get it in front of them and often within days or weeks, comprehend just how well does a suite what they’re looking to get out of it. So instead of overly accessing on our own side and frankly being inefficient by anticipating how people are going to use it, we can get it right into peoples hands, get that feedback in real time and go from a good to a great implementation within days or weeks instead of taking weeks and months to get a pretty good implementation out.

Michael: So the fact that changed rapidly for your clients certainly speaks well of Market7 and your commitment to customer satisfaction. That’s great.

Now, technology and behavior is constantly changing, so what are some of the challenges and opportunities did you see coming down the road for collaboration around video production?

Seth: Well, we at Market7 at the moment are very focused on the actual production stage from conceptualization to completion. There are important endeavors both before and after that that I believe can probably be that are addressed through some of the same approaches that we’re bringing to the production process. Once video is completed, how do people access it within an organization? How do they publish it out to the world and monitor its performance in the world? How do they utilize it internally if somebody has a meeting about a particular topic coming up with somebody? How do they find what content might we have within my organization about that topic? Who’s had experience with it and what did they thought?

Likewise, before the video is produced, generally, video is taken on by sort of like a transient team – a group of people that kind of form together and disband once the project’s done. Maybe people come back together in the future, but often in different combinations. I think likewise, a lot of these technologies that are very flexible and web-based and rapid can enable the identification of what’s the right team for this particular project. How do we convene those people – assure that they have the right availability and that with things are lined up for them to collaborate and build expediently that the best possible team of skills and abilities toward working together in advance of the project.

Michael: Seth, as a media producer, I love your philosophy. I love your product and I love your attitude as well. And you seem to have solved a lot of the problems that I’ve encountered as a producer. Thank you for joining us today.

Seth: Thank you.

Michael: And how do people get in touch with you?

Seth: Well, our website is a great place to connect with us. It’s www.Market7.com. We’re fairly active on Twitter which you can also get through to our website, but our Twitter handle is “marketseven”. We’re based in San Francisco. You can look up our address on our website and you’re free to visit us, and we’re reachable at anytime by phone as well 415-981-8000.

Michael: Again, Seth, thank you so much for joining us on Spidcast.

Seth: Thank you.

Michael: Seth Kenvin, CEO of Market7. I’m Michael London. Thank you so much for joining us today on Spidcast.