Using video for harvest

Hi, Monica.  I'll get to the e-nexus shortly - I'm just getting back into the office now after some time away and I wanted to reply to Rick's thoughts and to your last e-mail. 

 

Video harvests allow you to capture the energy of the event as well as the content, and I do (of course) think that there is great potential for them with the Art of Hosting - we're using them quite extensively now with our clients.  I've been producing various educational videos over the last 15 years or so, so it's nice to have this interest of mine dovetail with my work.  With the excitement and possibilities that are there, I'd like to introduce some considerations into the discussion you've begun about making this work.  These are just my thoughts/opinions at the time, based on my experiences so far.  I look forward to a dialog on this in the nexus or on skype.

 

First of all, I do have some concerns about groups producing a video, however.  As much as there are technical issues involved, video production is still an art form.  With professional production there is often a team, each with specialized roles (camera, lighting, sound, etc.), but there is one director with the vision of the whole who sits down with one editor to produce the final product (sometimes it is just one person).  In some cases there may be three or four people in the edit suite, but that's rare.  Just as there is usually one artist, perhaps two, producing a visual mural at an assembly, I think the creative process becomes much more challenging if you are trying to do something by committee.  I have not seen it work effectively.

 

What could happen is that different people each produce a different vignette on a different topic (as I am on the knowledge cafes from the June AoH).  One person could focus on each to realize their personal vision of that video.  I could see that working well, with the group sharing the B-roll footage from the whole event to back up each of their videos.

 

In November, for example, Ria and I will both be at the gathering in Greece.  Because of geography, we certainly can't work together on a whole, but we could perhaps each take segments to work on, produce a rough draft, get feedback from others and then refine it.  We'll have to work out what we do.

 

Another challenge is purely technical.  Perhaps you could upload the raw footage to be shared to a site like Brightcove or Veoh.  You're talking about literally hundreds of files.  At some point, these have to be downloaded to your PC, and that's the challenge I'm now running into - hard drive space and RAM.  I've had to buy an external 300Gb drive, and I'm plugging up my RAM severely.  I'm looking at doing a significant upgrade to having literally terabytes of hard drive space, 4+ gigs of RAM, and the new intel quattro chip, and that's going to be expensive.  Video is a resource hog.  Add in high-definition video, which will be the standard very soon, and all this multiplies.

 

The AoH we did here in June is part of a 2-year project that my wife and a are working with, and my objective at the end is to produce a 48-minute documentary of that journey.  I haven't a prayer of doing that with my current computer.  It would just choke, and it's reasonably powerful.

 

This comes to the economic concerns.  It takes a huge amount of time to produce and edit a final product - literally days on end.  The little knowledge cafe vignettes I'm putting on YouTube and Veoh are not that high quality - I can put one of those together in a day or so.  They're pretty rough.  The main purpose of that footage is to produce the larger documentary, and these vignettes are a secondary benefit.

 

Skill is also required to shoot the videos.  In Greece, I'll be shooting footage, but I'm not primarily a cameraman.  I'm not as good as a professional.  Because I do the editing, I know the shots and the angles to look for, but my hand's not as steady, and my use of zoom, etc. is not as smooth as the professionals I use for assemblies here.

 

The cost of producing that documentary and the cost of the cameraman are being covered by the client.  Video production has become a new 'product' that we sell, in addition to hosting, and it has tremendous value for our clients.  When they have an assembly, it's a powerful way to convey the passion and energy of the event to those who weren't there - and to refresh it for those who were.   It's a great way for people who come on board the initiative later on to really capture the essence of the journey so far, and it's proven to be a powerful tool for obtaining commitment from funders for future initiatives.

 

There are outside benefits with the meta-harvests that I'm starting to produce and that Helen and Ria are working with in Europe.  I simply have to be aware of how much it takes.  I'm happy to give to the hosting community with these vignettes and with my time in Greece - I have to balance that with earning a living - and paying for the technology that enables it to happen.  Outisde of contributions to the hosting community, we pay artists and other harvesters for their contribution to hosting, and video production is simply another form of harvest - in this case, there is significant time and financial investments required that need to be considered, and this impacts the economics of the situation.

 

I don't mean to be a downer with all this - I just wanted to present you with some of the issues that need to be considered.  I've worked with video production since the dark ages of tape-to-tape editing, when it costs millions to do what I can do on my laptop now, and I'm really excited about the opportunities that are emerging for harvesting with video.  I'm also well aware of the economics involved.

 

I'll post this on the nexus as well.  I welcome your feedback and look forward to continuing the dialog on this.

 

Ravi

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From: Monica Nissén [mailto:monica@interchange.dk]
Sent: Thursday, August 16, 2007 6:11 AM

Subject: Re: Follow up on harvest

Hello Rick & friends!

thank you for your thoughts Rick!

A few reflections: reading your mail I realize how important it is that we are clear on the purpose / intent of the harvest - who is it for - and what are we looking for - and for what purpose. - Otherwise the options seem endless. 

- Having said that I have also experienced situations where a lot of "raw material" (records etc.) have been useful - when the need to "back track" has arisen later on in the process.

I personally think there might be a great value to get everyone involved (the whole group) in the harvest - maybe in time this will be a natural part of the AoH - like a hosted "second level" conversation.

Lastly I´d like to again extend the invitation to have some of these conversations on the ENexus - when and if we notice that the e-mail activity is picking up - so as not to have anyone feel that they are being spammed  (please contact Ria for a password - ria.baeck@vitis-tct.be ) 

warmly

-monica

Den 15/08/2007 kl. 20.20 skrev

Hey everybody,

Thanks for sending those links, Monica.  It was nice to see some of the videos. 
I had some thoughts to share...

If I there's anyone on the list I haven't met, I’m interested in communication in general, and I’ve been working with video as a writer, director, editor, and producer.  I was at the art of hosting conference in Novia Scotia, where we were speaking about using video as a harvesting tool.

I’ve been thinking about how this can be done.  How can we make a video harvest, including pictures and visuals in to an informative and entertaining piece that builds on what was learned, feeds it back to those involved, and also “works” as a piece to share with other learning communities, and possibly with people who may not be familiar to the practice?

Of course, clarifying the intent at the outset would be helpful.  From there it seems easy enough to get some people and cameras involved, especially if the harvest discussion is integrated with the hosting group.  It might be beneficial then, to set some parameters for what would be covered.  For example, should only the formal aspects of the event be filmed, or should the cameras have access to the informal portions such as eating, casual conversation, and playing music. 

Once those things are considered, the major question in my mind is how to best organize the editing process.  That is, is there a way to do it that would allow the whole group to participate, or is it best to form a small group that would be responsible for this task of finding patterns, making meaning, and bringing  it all together in a cohesive way.

The challenges I see are the large amounts of footage that can be amassed and the time it takes to go through it all.  Another obstacle might be the need for a group to physically come together to work on this sometime after the event.

To put the time aspect into perspective, I recently spent most of my week editing an hour of footage into a 30 minute show, and it still needs to go through another phase of review and post production.    So from my perspective, it is something that takes time to do well.

At the art of hosting event in Novia Scotia, we convened for 3 days.  If we say there was 6 hours of stuff each day, that would be 18 hours of footage for one camera.  And since you may possibly have 2, 3 or more cameras in order to cover the activities of the smaller groups or to get additional angles, you can easily rack up many hours of footage!  So dealing with all of that could potentially be a large task.

One idea would be to form a team that would be responsible to get together, view it, find the patterns, and edit, “making meaning” along the way.  However the question that emerges from this – for me – is:   would it be more valuable for the group if everyone could be involved in this process?  And if so, how could that possibly be arranged, given the fact that we would be dealing with a lot of footage, and people have varying levels of time and interest.

One possibility I see is to put all of the footage online, perhaps using brightcove.com  or some similar service.  (This in itself would take time to do, because each hour of footage needs to be logged, converted, and then uploaded.  I think you would need to have access to the more powerful uploading capabilities in order to make this efficient enough to be do-able)  However, the payoff would be that everyone would have the opportunity to go online, view the raw video files in their own time and make comments on what is most meaningful for them. 

When that phase is done, a small group could then come together to edit the footage based on the collective comments of the group.  Perhaps then the task would be easier, with more of the collective wisdom of the group being involved…

If it is not possible to upload all that material, another option might be to create an event out of watching the footage together, though it might be necessary then for a smaller group to filter down the footage before hand.

So…there is my brainstorm for now.  Please let me know your thoughts. 

-Rick

-----Original Message-----

Sent: Tue, 14 Aug 2007 10:13 am
Subject: Follow up on harvest

Dear all!

in June and July i was attending and co-hosting two Art of hostings - In both the "Art of harvesting" surfaced as a "hot" thing.

In the Shire AoH we had a non convergence session where some of us got into a conversation on harvesting with video / film etc. - The need to get core groups of harvesters into conversation with one another. - "Harvesters" as host & stewards & guardians - including subjects like ethics etc.

In that conversation I felt a need to connect some of my "old" fellow harvesters - with me "new" friends. 

Our conversations mostly happen spontaneously - either face to face - or by e-mail - and the closest we have to a "commons" is the ENexus that Ria and George are hosting.

Ria and George are working on a new version - Anyone can access the Nexus - but if you want to post - you need a password - and Ria   ria.baeck@vitis-tct.be  can provide you with a password.

So I guess this is an invitation to anyone who wants to continue our harvest reflections on the ENexus - in addition to what we exchange by e-mail.

These are where some of the discussions about "harvesting" is taking place on the Nexus.

http://www.evolutionarynexus.org/node/674

http://www.evolutionarynexus.org/node/712

http://www.evolutionarynexus.org/node/710

Ravi has done some wonderful harvest on video:

"Ravi: The first one is Monica speaking on the Art of Harvesting, and you can find

it in 3 parts at these links:

Part 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xyb32K5aG9U

Part 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IorS5Y0TMCc

Part 3: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nwR1eGNTcRY

I've also searched across YouTube for all the videos I could find related to

the Art of Hosting, open space, café, and circle practice, and I've put them

into a group that you can access here:

http://youtube.com/group/Hosts 

Hope to continue the exploration into harvest with all of you!!

best - monica