“I’m making stuff up and I’m putting it on the Internet and you can’t do shit about that.”
- Me, 2/2005
I’m an artist working in all things social-web-video-virtualworlds-machinima but I got my start in performance art nearly 20 years ago with Jump-Start where I’ve been a member of the company since ‘91. I’ve done a lot different things over the last 20 years – danced on the stage, ran a nationally recognized youth media program, created video installations (and one ice installation), taught high school and even worked on a nuclear submarine. Then, five years ago things really changed when I created some machinima for one of my performances and I began experimenting with posting video on my blog . My obsession with this technology and how it’s changing us finally started to make sense to me and I’ve never been more inspired and excited about the possibilities.
Over these last five years, I’ve become completely immersed in this new world. Early on I started a popular videoblogging tutorial site which Ryanne Hodson and I later turned into a book, Secrets of Videoblogging , that was published by Peachpit Press. I was also one of the organizers of Vloggercon , the first web video conference and many other early web video projects.
This whole time I’ve also been actively creating machinima and doing it professionally for the last two and a half years. Most recently I worked as a Creative Director for the San Francisco based, Millions of Us. There I handled video and machinima for clients like Sony, Toyota and Coca-Cola. I also created a lot of videos for internal projects – like this.
Never one to stand still, I’ve been working on some new things. Back in January, Steve Baily and I put together 24 Hours 24 Artists - a 24 hour live webcast of artists from all over the world. For me it was an amazing glimpse into the possibility of live video. And all of these cool new technologies remind me that it’s important that we come up with open source solutions so that communication and artistic expression can remain free. That’s why I’m excited about the Open Video Conference this summer and hope to present a new Freevlog and vision of the future that I’ve been developing with Ryanne, Jay, Markus and Jen.
I’m always up for new projects so if you’ve got something you think I’d be interested in, give me a call (cell: 210-387-4207) or send me an email.
Cheers,
Verdi
March 2009
