Podcast Music

This morning, the wife and I were discussing an article in the paper about the latest lawsuit involving the music industry: the RIAA is suing XM Satellite Radio. This news got us thinking that the music industry has missed the boat with respect to Web 2.0 opportunities.

First off, I am not a lawyer, but I am a podcaster and I have looked into music licensing issues with regards to podcasting. What I have found is a morass of licenses, fees and unintelligible definitions such that I have given up any hope of using mainstream music in any podcast. Instead, I am actively looking for unsigned musicians and composers to produce music for my needs. This is where the mainstream media has missed the boat: podcasts are the wave of the future and, in my humble opinion, a marketing goldmine for any media company, band or musician. The current licensing morass just makes legit podcasters look to independent music sources, bypassing the media companies completely. I have no idea what effect the RIAA lawsuits are having on illegal music sharing, but I do know that it is pushing people like me away from using media companies altogether.

This is a real good time to be an independent, unsigned musician. Instead of having to cut demo CDs and sending them off to agents and producers, you can e-mail them podcasters who can use them in their podcasts. Yes, a few songs may become so popular that you could never sell them, but you can look at them as loss-leaders that act to draw in customers and create a following for your work. It is truly a win-win proposition for both the podcaster and the musician—the podcaster has material to work with that didn’t require an arm and a leg to obtain and the musician has the opportunity to have their music reach possibly millions of ears. In their book, “Podcast Solutions,” Michael W. Geoghegan and Dan Klass sum it up perfectly: “The right artists will be anxious to get exposure on podcasts” and I, for one, will be happy to give that exposure to them.

Tags: podcasting, music

How Nerdy Am I?

My wife wife was surprised that my score is this low. Go figure.

A textbook case of failure - Can America Compete?

My wife forwarded me an interesting article she found on MSNBC.com--A textbook case of failure - Can America Compete?--which discusses the deficiencies of today's public school textbooks. Normally, I would fly off on some long-winded diatribe, but not today. Today, I have but two questions for those millions of people who are a whole lot smarter than I am:

1. What basic skills do our children need to learn so that they can thrive in today's world?
   (This is an easy one, just look back at your own life.)
2. How can we most effectively teach our children these skills in the eighteen or so years it takes for them to grow into adulthood?

Let's flex those creative muscles!

Tags: education

Report from the Front - Redux

Ok, downloading the film "Report from the Front" is a little time consuming. To help those who just want to see the film, I have uploaded it to Ifilm.com. Here it is in embedded form:



Enjoy and let me know what you think.

Report from the Front – the Director’s Cut
Spring 2006
Length: 5m:47s
Starring: Bryan Welsby and Rebekah Dryden
Written by: Frank Carey
Directed by: Frank Carey
Director of Photography: Will Hayes
Assistant Director: Jake Rogers
Consultant: Jason Bailey
Made for: Nuts & Bolts of Amateur Filmmaking, Wichita Center for the Arts.
Copyright 2006 All rights reserved.

Tags: filmmaking

Report from the Front

Earlier this year I had the opportunity to write and direct a short film—Report from the Front—as part of class in guerilla filmmaking, taught by Wichita filmmaker Jason Bailey.   The movie is about five minutes long. Will Hayes and Jake Rogers were the other members of the team that worked on this production.

To see what kind of things you can do with no budget and a very tight time schedule, check out Report from the Front.  You can download the Windows Media version (26 MB) here or the QuickTime version (75 MB) here (these files are big, so I suggest that you use right-click and “Save Target as…” to download them to your hard drive before playing them.) The version contained in these files is slightly different from the final version we cut--I played with the closing credits and some of the lighting effects for the cutaways.

Report from the Front – the Director’s Cut (
Spring 2006
Length: 5m:47s
Starring: Bryan Welsby and Rebekah Dryden
Written by: Frank Carey
Directed by: Frank Carey
Director of Photography: Will Hayes
Assistant Director: Jake Rogers
Consultant: Jason Bailey
Made for: Nuts & Bolts of Amateur Filmmaking, Wichita Center for the Arts.
Copyright 2006 All rights reserved.

Tags: filmmaking

Clouds

Since moving to Pratt I have noticed some really beautiful cloud formations that form when a storm passes by. I took this picture a couple of nights ago as a storm passed to the south of us.

Tags: weather, pratt, kansas

Multi-Touch Interaction Research

While browsing through the geek section (Science & Technology) of YouTube, I came across this gem of a video: Multi-Touch Interaction Research:



which details research into multiple-input touch screen techology being done at the Media Research Lab at NYU. The possible applications of this techology are staggering.

Tags: technology, touch screen, creativity, computers