Grant Robertson · new media superhero

Home PC security threats - Ben Feinstein of SecureWorks from Download Squad on Vimeo.

If the threats mentioned in this interview don’t scare you, you’re not paying attention. Drive-by downloads? Scanning internal networks via Flash embeds? Jesus, I’m glad I’m not a network admin anymore.

Just released episode 5 of The Squadcast. We’ve come a really long way in 5 weeks, it’s so amazing to watch e5 next to e1. I’ve learned so much about video production producing and directing the Squadcast, and I’ve still got so much to learn.

Huge thanks to everyone who helped out on this show. Ben Feinstein, Elizabeth Clarke, Christina Warren, Victor Agreda, Brad Linder and the whole Download Squad team.

We’re rockin it on planning future video goodness, so stay tuned.

Given this weeks theme, social networking, I went a little wacko with clips from the Prelinger collection of epehemeral films. Check out a pre-Bewitched Darren as “The Shy Guy”.

Christina and I talk to Jason Evangelho, and take a look at the Download Squad team’s top five and bottom five Facebook applications.

We just released Squadcast #3. This one took forever to edit, and I really hope it shows. Enjoy.

The more I get into digital filmmaking (if you can call The Squadcast filmmaking) the more I realize I have a ton to learn. Trolling Youtube for DIY videos on steadycams, dollies and the like, I ran across this gem: The $25 steady cam.

Great stuff, but what really freaked me out was the soundtrack. It’s the CCMixter megacollab, done by CDK and about 18 other mixters, which heavily features some sample packs from RCA stereo commercials of the fifties that I created in 2005. Of all the little guerrilla fair use projects I’ve ever done, that little sample pack has the most amazing staying power.

The first of many Squadcasts to come from the fine folks at Download Squad. Big thanks to Christina Warren for co-hosting with me, and to Brad Linder for agreeing to do the speakerphone interview at the last minute. Super big thanks go to Victor Agreda for sticking by this project in the darkest days, when it seemed like we’d never, ever get an episode out the door.

I produced another video for The Digital Music Weblog. I’ve still got a long way to go but, I’m getting better at the whole write/perform/edit/compress process. It still took way-too-long to make but, it took less way-too-long than the last video. I guess that’s progress.

So, enjoy the sneak peek… tomorrow it’ll be on The Digital Music Weblog.

Boing Boing posted a link to an ephemeral film on despotism. Those who listen to my podcast, The Revolution, know that I’m a huge fan of the ephemeral films at archive.org under the Prelinger collection, so this makes me smile a bit.

As a big huge ephemeral film fan, you should also check out these gems from the Prelinger Archive.

Panorama Ephemera

Edited by Prelinger himself, this is a survey course in epehemera. If you watch one thing, this is it

Coffee House Rendevous

Shows coffeehouses sponsored by churches and community organizations and how they function as gathering places for countercultural youth.

Duck and Cover

A staple of atomic age ephemera, recently used on The Daily Show with John Stewart. Described by Archive.org as “Selected for the 2004 National Film Registry of “culturally, historically and aesthetically significant” motion pictures. Famous Civil Defense film for children in which Bert the Turtle shows what to do in case of atomic attack.”

Your Name Here

Parody of early 1960 promotional films. Very funny. Described as “The ultimate generic industrial film, built around every script and visual cliche”

Perversion for Profit

Anti-pornography film produced by financier Charles Keating, linking pornography to the Communist conspiracy and the decline of Western civilization.

Victory Is Our Business

Patriotic motivational film for World War II industrial workers.

This is Coffee

Loving tribute to America’s favorite stimulant.