Announcing the 2nd annual Buttered Corn on the Cob Film Festival which we are proud to sponsor again this year!

What is this film festival all about? The Buttered Corn on the Cob Film Festival is a young film festival that will highlight independent films from around the corn fields of the Midwest. The film festival is to honor the independent drive Film Makers of the Midwest have to create films without the support of the Hollywood machine. All the films shown will have no funding from Hollywood and will have a completely independent voice. The Buttered Corn on the Cob Film Festival will also be a chance for film makers of the Midwest to come together and network together, thus improving their ability to make impressionable films.

The 2012 event is on April 15th in Urbana, IL, submissions are free and will be accepted until February 20th, 2012. If you have a web series, a short film, or a feature length film, you can submit your content here. There are some great prizes to be won including a feature across our entire network for all winners! Here are the winners from last year, and below is our personal favorite entitled “Bedtime For Timmy” which is a very cute short animated film by Thomas Nicol.

Bedtime For Timmy from Thomas Nicol on UnleashVideo

We are proud to be a sponsor of this fun, new, and exciting film festival, not just because of the event itself but because of the wonderful people behind it too. Cheers to the filmmakers, viewers, organizers, and everyone else involved with Buttered Corn on the Cob Film Festival, 2012.

I really enjoy learning about new collaborative video production platforms, so today I want to mention one you may or may not have heard of before called Stroome. I had a fun and lengthy conversation with Stroome’s founder Tom Grasty last week, and was intrigued with what he’s building.

So what is Stroome? Stroome is where individuals go to upload video clips, collaborate on projects together by remixing, join groups of like-minded people, and share their originally remixed content with the world.

Tom spoke about interesting use cases, and one was for concerts where many people film the event from their prospective, each upload their clips, create a group, and remix the content together to provide a more complete video overall than anyone could possibly do via an individual effort.

Stroome provides an innovative platform, and has just scratched the surface of where they would ultimately like to take the product long-term. Go grab a Stroome account, upload some clips, remix other clips that interest you using their flash editor, and get a hands on feel for what you can do by leveraging the content and talent of others in their community.

If you have any questions or feedback you can contact the Stroome team and they will do everything to help make your experience the best it can be.

If you have an interesting collaborative video platform or service, and would like to have a conversation with me about it, then please email me at jeremy@spidvid.com, or connect with me on Twitter.

You’ve likely never heard of Illinois-based Buttered Corn on the Cob Film Festival before until just now.

What is this film festival all about? The Buttered Corn on the Cob Film Festival is a young film festival that will highlight independent films from around the corn fields of the Midwest. The film festival is to honor the independent drive Film Makers of the Midwest have to create films without the support of the Hollywood machine. All the films shown will have no funding from Hollywood and will have a completely independent voice. The Buttered Corn on the Cob Film Festival will also be a chance for film makers of the Midwest to come together and network together, thus improving their ability to make impressionable films.

The 2011 event is on April 3rd in Urbana, IL, and below outlines how the day will unfold.

Buttered Corn on the Cob Film Festival

2011 Festival Listing

2:00pm International Showcase

Wolke Jacob Seifert Bastlerz

Lokschupen Jacob Seifert Bastlerz

Implants Pardis Parker Flying Dish Productions

Afghan Pardis Parker Flying Dish Productions

Two Men, Two Cows, Two Guns Pardis Parker Flying Dish Productions

Run Granny Run Nikolaus von Uthmann Envy You Productions

3:00pm Feature Film Showcase

Connor’s Woods Joe Taylor Sleep Creek Films

Dark Matter (Best Feature Film) Tye Wilson Broken Shadow Entertainment

6:00 Short Film Showcase I

Cannibal Caverns Ian Havermale

The Jersey Devil Jon Klemke & Nick Nylen OOO, Candy Productions

The Magician’s Box Ash Ahrens Ash Fire Films

Two Rows In Bob Zimmerman R.A.Z. Films

7:00 Short Film Showcase II

With Me Now Sasan Shabrou Gladius Arts

His First Day Brian Rose

Mogul Tye Wilson Broken Shadow Entertainment

Heart Candy Tye Wilson Broken Shadow Entertainment

Cemetery Blues Matt Packman Legacy Pictures

8:00pm Short Film Showcase III

Back Home Tye Wilson Broken Shadow Entertainment

The Last Ride Sasan Shabrou Gladius Arts

8:30pm Best of the Festival Showcase

Bedtime for Timmy (Juror Pick) Thomas Nicol Unfocused Films

Broken Dolls (Best Short Film Non International) Kevin Sedall B.S.E.

Afghan (Juror Pick)

Two Men, Two Cows, Two Guns (Juror Pick)

Run Granny Run (Juror Pick and Best Film in the Festival)

We are proud to be a sponsor of this fun, new, and exciting film festival, not just because of the event itself but because of the wonderful people behind it too. Cheers to the filmmakers, viewers, organizers, and everyone else involved with Buttered Corn on the Cob Film Festival, 2011.

Been on our tweeting game lately! Check out our last 7 days of useful tips, resources, entertainment, and interesting film bites below.

• Tips on Scoring for Film and TV: Here’s the video #filmscoring #filmscore #scoringtips
• One the best filmmakers EVER is now on Twitter, welcome James Cameron (@JimCameron)!
• How to Turn a Film into a Web Series: ‘No Clean Break’ Sees Second Life via TubeFilter #webseries
• Shannen Doherty talking about her web series via New York Post #ShannenDoherty #webseries #interview
• Sell Your Movie For Maximum Profit via Filmmaking Stuff. Bonus: can you spot the Spidvid logo?
• Video creators and producers: Need some encoding help for your online videos? Here’s some –> via OnlineVideo.net
• Watch and learn video creators: 10 Incredible Interactive YouTube Videos via Mashable
• Want To Create Better Web Videos? Keep it Short via CreativeCOW.net #webvideo #videoproduction
• Sundance Announces Award-Winners; More Films Acquired at This Year’s Festival Than Ever Before? via No Film School
• When Good People Write Bad Scripts via JustEffing.com
• Collaborative film “Life in a Day”, shot entirely by YouTube users, makes it’s debut at the #Sundance Film Festival via Inside Movies
• BBC News – Student experiment films Earth from stratosphere via BBC
• Camera Placement and Shot Framing Advice via YouTube
• The Top 5 Viral Videos of January 2011 – From Kobe Bryant to hyper-active penguins, this list doesn’t disappoint via Spidvid
• Elite web series producer @markgantt has a new web show called “Love Makers”! What do you think of the trailer? via LoveMakers.tv
• Animating Text Along A Path In After Effects – AE Basix via Aetuts
• Gotta Love Micro-Budget Indie Filmmaking via Deadline
• Our community’s videos are about to hit 300,000 views! Watch a couple videos of theirs on UnleashVideo.com. 81 more views to go! (a shout out to our awesome production community, and the view count is now at 308,144!)
• Production Tip of the Day: How to write fantasy stories via YouTube #scriptwriting #screenwriting #storytelling
• Some takeaway thoughts from this week’s #webserieschat via Barrett Garese
• A ‘Web Pilot Festival’ where a team has one week to write, shoot, edit and deliver a pilot episode for a web series, via Celebrate the Web
• Creative Capital to Award Twenty $10,000 Film/Video Grants, Now Open for Applications via No Film School
• For filmmakers: Turn Your Mommy Person Into a Demon Thingy via FilmRiot
• Multiple Video Projects At a Time via Spidvid #videoprojects #collaboration #newmedia
• Production Tip of the Day: How To Make a Music Video of Your Band via YouTube #productiontip #musicvideo
• Subscriptions: The Secret to A Sustainable Web Series? via NewTeeVee #webseries
• 4 Ways to Boost Viral Video Sharing During the Holidays via Mashable #viralvideo #videoviews #socialvideo
• The Fine Bros Interview @JimCameron via Web Series Today #filmmaking #JamesCameron #legend
• Production Tip of the Day: Berklee College of Music Film Scoring Professor Sheldon Mirowitz discusses the Composer/Director Collaboration via YouTube
• Looking for guest bloggers on Spidvid! If you would like to submit an article, contact us with your ideas http://www.spidvid.com/contact.php

The top Spidvid project completed/video uploaded this week goes to the team behind “Narrated Sex” as embedded below. If you had a bad week just watch this HILARIOUS video, because it will make you laugh and ready you for the weekend!

Narrated Sex from Deron on UnleashVideo

Are you a passionate man or woman on a mission when creating new videos? Perhaps you try to do everything by yourself, work on just one project at a time, and ultimately end up with sub-par results over a long period of time.

We all want to be multi-talented at what we do, but wearing many different hats on a project can be exhausting and you can spread your skills too thin. For every successful film project, there is a talented team behind it, period.

So you have a couple choices: a) work on one project at a time and try to do everything yourself, or b) reach out to outside talent, connect and collaborate with the individuals you need to add skill to your project, and free up more of your time to do multiple projects at a time.

For example: Jessie is an aspiring filmmaker who loves writing and shooting creative new videos, but hates editing them, dislikes using his voice for the voice over, and tries to score each of his videos but they always end up sounding rather boring to viewers. Jessie can keep pressing on with this process and settle for mediocre videos, or he can focus exclusively on writing and shooting videos and collaborate with other like-minded talent to fill in his skill gaps. This gives Jessie the time to do many projects simultaneously, allows him to complete more projects faster, and hedges his bet so he doesn’t invest a ton of time into projects that end up getting little or no success. He gives up some control and perhaps pieces of the content ownership, but gets many more opportunities at success with each new video him and his team release to the world.

Our Spidvid community is full of talented individuals eagerly waiting for new and exciting projects to be part of. If you have projects you want to launch but either don’t have the time or talent to accomplish that, then get a Spidvid account, and post a project. We will help you spread the word to the specific talent you need, and get your project heading in the right direction.

We are always looking for good communities, shows, videos, films, and events to get behind. Damian Pelliccione is heavily involved within the new media scene, and video production world. He successfully organizes a monthly mixer event in downtown Los Angeles called New Media Vault, which brings together hundreds of like-minded individuals working in and around new media.

Damian informed me that he was coming to Toronto in August and mentioned he wanted to do a New Media Vault Toronto event, and wanted me to help him co-organize it. I was on board from that moment on and since then all of the details have been worked out for a Monday, August 23rd event in downtown Toronto. If you reside in or will be in Toronto on that date, then you should definately come out because you will meet some extraordinary people who share the same new media passion you do. And if you’re lucky you may win a door prize, discover a new yummy drink, or meet what could turn out to be your future husband or wife. This isn’t a match maker event, but roof top patios in the summer can be pretty magical at times.

If you have a new media event that we should get behind then please let us know about it on Twitter, Facebook, or in the comments below.

I filmed the below video on Easter long weekend but didn’t get around to editing it until just recently. For some people the video is a bit distorted, while others see it fine. If the quality isn’t so good for you I apologize but please listen closely to the messages I have for all of the passionate entrepreneurs out there.

I use Mark Zuckerberg who is the founder of Facebook as an example of an unexpected entrepreneur, and an accidental billionaire. Follow your passion, be remarkable, and leave your imprint on the world.

I hope you enjoy the video, and have a fun and exciting weekend.

I’ve always been kind of obsessed with stickers. As a kid I would find and buy all kinds of stickers, and then look for interesting places to place them. Most of the time I would end up violating my parents fridge, freezer, furniture, floors, walls, lights, and even vehicles, as older stickers tend to not peel off so well years later.

In any case I thought that I would combine my obsession of stickers with my obsession of Spidvid together to create Spidvid stickers. These stickers will have a nice glossy finish, will be a size of 2″x4″, and will peel off easy and fairly clean if one needs to be removed for whatever reason.

There are three ways you can get yourself some Spidvid stickers.

#1. Tweet - send out an update on your Twitter account which includes @spidvid, and make it creative. An example could be “My life will be complete if I get some cool stickers from @spidvid.

#2. Request on Facebook – Simply go to our Facebook fan page and post a sticker request comment. An example could be “I’m a big Spidvid fan, and would love some stickers for my laptop and iPhone.

#3. Email us – Head over to our contact page and shoot us an email. Say hi and that you want some stickers, and provide your mailing address so we can ship some to you.

If you use option #1 or option #2 above we will follow up with you to get your mailing address. For now we are limiting Spidvid sticker shipments to North Americans only. If you live outside of North America and desperately want some stickers, we will make a special exception if you are willing to create a video of yourself using the stickers in creative, remarkable, or unusual ways.

Our hope is that a good percentage of people who receive Spidvid stickers will upload pictures and videos of themselves, showing off how they are putting the stickers to good use. We may even offer prizes to those who showcase their passion for Spidvid via uploaded content, and as voted on by the online community.

Don’t wait, make your Spidvid sticker request right now on Twitter, Facebook, or through email.

This post in inspired by The Think Big Manifesto by Michael Port.

I have listed some quotes and questions from the book below, which inspires both Spidvid and our community to provide ideal environments to produce quality video content. There are some (Spidvid’s take) comments as well on how these quotes and questions relate to collaborative video production.

- Love is at the foundation of the very best collaborations. Spidvid’s take: any video will be produced better if the team members feel the love for each another.

- True collaboration is a give and take. True partnerships are founded in equality. Equality does not equal sameness. We don’t all bring the same skills or resources to the table, but we all bring something and we all need something. Spidvid’s take: every video project needs a diverse set of individuals to make things happen.

- The paradox: Big thoughts create independence, not dependence. Big thinkers act instead of compete. They discover that in an open, fluid, back and forth collaboration, in the free flow of ideas, when you can intrust yourself to the notion of trust, big thoughts get even bigger. Spidvid’s take: open and authentic collaboration will always yield better results than a closed silo type of approach. Our social platform has been developed using these key concepts.

- Collaboration levels: (1) Competitive interactions, (2) Cooperative transactions, and (3) Collaborative interactions. Spidvid’s take: there is competition for joining limited sized production teams, but healthy competition ensures projects receive the highest quality of talent possible. 2 and 3 are large parts of what our platform stands for.

- How do we find partners and collaborators? The same way you get a date. By believing in yourself and what you’re doing. When you are excited about a project, you will draw others to you. You will receive offers of help. More than you can even accept. Spidvid’s take: if the enthusiasm and confidence in your projects is evident it will motivate others to join your production teams, and the passion will trickle down to each member involved.

- People who play small think they have to do it all themselves. What about you? Are you ready to play bigger by truly collaborating with others? Spidvid’s take: our skills, talents, and outputs are limited when we are the only person working on a project. Working on a well coordinated team ensures that our projects get value which we can’t provide on an individual basis. Long live collaboration.

- Are you the kind of person people want to help? Do you enjoy collaborating with others? What kind of collaborations do you engage in? Can you take your partnerships to the next level? Who do you love?  Spidvid’s take: if you are open to leveraging a collaborative model, can delegate tasks to team members, and trust and believe in what your team is capable of, there should be lots of love when your videos are fully produced.

Statement of Collaboration

- I will be a person others want to work with.

- I will work with others without hidden or selfish intent to accomplish our mutual goals in the service of what each of us stands for.