Listen to the sounds of someone just standing silently via Boing Boing

 

Field Recordings is a podcast produced by BBC radio producer Eleanor McDowall who solicits short recordings of sounds in fields — or pretty much anywhere someone would like to stand silently for sometime. They are meditative and immersive and strangely comforting. 

You can find Field Recordings on whatever platform you use to stream podcasts, as well as Instagram. 

Read Listen to the sounds of someone just standing silently via Boing Boing


An interesting link found among my daily reading

Recently Liked YouTube Videos – October 4, 2017

A playlist of videos I recently watched and liked on YouTube. From here you can get an idea of my wide viewing preferences on YouTube and how I use it to replace much of my traditional television viewing — Douglas

Recently Liked YouTube Videos – October 4, 2017

Click the Playlist button in the upper-left corner to see a scrollable list of all videos.

Recently Liked YouTube Videos - October 4, 2017

Three History Podcasts That Aren’t “Hardcore History” via Lifehacker

Three great podcasts to add to my already crowded playlist. I am a history geek and have several shows that give interesting, insightful looks into history we might not know well. These will be a great addition — Douglas

Three History Podcasts That Aren’t “Hardcore History” via Lifehacker

Three History Podcasts That Aren’t “Hardcore History” via Lifehacker

Nothing against Dan Carlin’s “Hardcore History,” but it seems to eat up all the publicity for history podcasts. That’s a shame, because the podcast format is a fantastic way to dive into a thirty-hour history of the French Revolution, or snack on a 12-minute account of how Warren G. Harding, betrayed by his corrupt Cabinet, publicly projected all his feelings onto his dog Laddie Boy.

Read Three History Podcasts That Aren’t “Hardcore History” via Lifehacker

RevolutionsCrimetownSomething true



* A portion of each sale from Amazon.com directly supports our blogs
** Many of these books may be available from your local library. Check it out!

New-generation animators via Monocle Magazine

 
 
With the success of Pixar came an avalanche of computer-generated animation but not all animators are following the hi-tech pack. Monocle Films travels to the Czech Republic, the Netherlands and southern England in search of storytellers who think outside the computer box. 


An interesting link found among my daily reading

Record Your Project With a “Catapult Tripod” via Hackster’s Blog

With more and more of us doing live streaming and YouTube videos — along with tech projects and other closeup video work — this little DIY “tripod” could be a great item for your toolkit. I know it would come in really handy for me when I am doing an Arduino or Raspberry Pi video and trying to show people how to cook up jumpers to the — for me — tiny IO pins on these boards. Heck, I practically need a magnifying glass when I do it, so anything I can do to help them see it more clearly would be a great benefit Of course, it doesn’t just have to be tech videos. This would be great for painting demos, craft projects and any other small thing that you are trying to demo. — Douglas

Read Record Your Project With a “Catapult Tripod” via Hackster’s Blog


An interesting link found among my daily reading

Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear by Elizabeth Gilbert [Book]

I first saw mention of Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear in some magazine I was reading. There were several writing and creativity books mentioned and I quickly requested those I hadn’t previously read from my local library. What I hadn’t noticed, until I started reading the book was that it was written by Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Eat Pray Love. This often happens to me. I don’t recognize famous people out in public or important people in a company or government. It is just not something I am attuned to. In this case, I might not even have started to the read the book had I known more about the author. Sometimes coming to a new resource “cold” allow you to take in important lessons without any preconceptions.

One big thing I agree with Gilbert on is that writing — like many creative pursuits — is indeed magic. Whether I have been writing, performing music, singing with a choir, performing solo or walking onstage in the play or musical, there is something amazingly magical in what results. Thinking that creativity is magic doesn’t mean that it is unattainable for everyone, though, only that we have to treat creativity as something that is special and — most importantly — something that everyone should experience, as often as possible, in their lives. 

Big Magic isn’t a book about writing, with special exercises, meditations, or prescriptions. Rather it is a book about having and coping with a creative life. Creativity is always seen as something special — found only in select others — and this can lead to our own denial of its power and rewards and our own abilities. In a section entitled Permission, Gilbert says that we should all be “entitled”. This is a loaded word these days, but the fact is, we should all feel entitled to engage in creativity throughout our lives, regardless of what others might say or do or how much they try to dissuade us. Creativity is a certain, inalienable right, like those others laid out in the Declaration of Independence. In fact, I consider it one large part of “the pursuit of happiness” that Jefferson gave such importance.

One of the most important lessons Gilbert imparts is one that many creatives might not want to hear. She says that, in most cases, you shouldn’t depend on or expect your creativity to support you financially. In fact, she thinks this is one of the best ways to kill of your creativity entirely. If you expect your music or poetry or photography to support you, you quickly turn the magical into drudgery. What you once loved to do becomes a hateful burden and if allowed to continue, will kill your desire to create. 

Sure, some lucky few might be able to support themselves from their creativity, but most will not. In fact, she says, “with rare exceptions, creative fields make for crap careers. (They make for crap careers, that is, if you define a “career” as something that provides for your financially in a fair and foreseeable manner, which is a pretty reasonable definition of a career.)”

No matter how successful you may become, there will still be aspects of any job that you hate — the bureaucracy, the finances, the constant travel and more. On the other hand, Gilbert says, “Creative living can be an amazing vocation, if you have the love and courage and persistence to see it that way.” For myself, I often say, “Love your creativity, but don’t necessarily expect for it to love you back.” There is much to be gained from creativity, but money not be the most abundant nor important.

Big Magic is divided into short, easily consumable, sections — more like a collection of essays, although unlike some similar books, it holds together well as a complete book, too. You can read it from cover to cover, as I did, or jump from essay to another as your mood — and your creative need — strikes you.

Come to Big Magic to help you understand and better manage your own creative life. Creativity is never an easy path, as either vocation or avocation, but it is amazing and something that everyone should experience in some way. Like most things in life, though, having a guide along a strange and confusing path is always more helpful than we might like to admit. Consider Big Magic one such guide in your creative life. Now, head out on your own creative journey.

Other books by Elizabeth Gilbert

See more of her books on Amazon

* A portion of each sale from Amazon.com directly supports our blogs
** Many of these books may be available from your local library. Check it out! 
** 74 copies of Big Magic are available to check out from the Los Angeles Public Library 


On YouTube: PromptSmart – Intelligent Teleprompter for your iPhone and iPad

An interesting bit of software for those of us who produce our own videos without the benefits of a a large crew and a lot of money. Adding the voice recognition piece to the standard teleprompter could be a winning combination for this software. — Douglas

On YouTube: PromptSmart - Intelligent Teleprompter for your iPhone and iPad

Watch YouTube: PromptSmart – Intelligent Teleprompter for your iPhone and iPad

Teleprompters help you stay on script and produce great, value-packed content. Try PrompSmart, the smart prompt app you can use from your phone or tablet. It works on any mobile device and integrates with Google Drive, OneDrive, Dropbox and Box. Make better, value-packed video with a little help from PromptSmart.

I liked this video and think you might find it interesting, too!

On YouTube: Make a PVC Light Stand for Under $5

Yet another easy-to-make and flexible to use homebuilt light stand. It might prove a bit lightweight for larger lights and tall lengths, but could prove useful to some. — Douglas

On YouTube: Make a PVC Light Stand for Under $5

Watch YouTube: Make a PVC Light Stand for Under $5

I liked this video and think you might find it interesting, too!

Noted: WordPress 4.7.1 Security Release Available, Immediate Update Recommended via Search Engine Journal

WordPress 4.7.1 Security Release Available, Immediate Update Recommended

Read WordPress 4.7.1 Security Release Available, Immediate Update Recommended

A security release for all previous versions WordPress is now available, which the company strongly recommends all users upgrade to immediately.

The previous version of WordPress, version 4.7, has been downloaded over 10 million times since being released last month. However, it didn’t come without its flaws.

Specifically, the release addresses eight security issues affecting WordPress versions 4.7 and earlier:

[…]

Noted: Best Indie Film Audio Setup with Rode NTG 4+ Shotgun Mic via Tom Antos [Video]

This great video showed up in my YouTube subscriptions and I wanted to pass it along for any New Media producers who might be looking for ways to improve their on-location audio. Tom Antos gives a great demo and run down the Rode NTG 4+ Shotgun Mic and accessories.

Check out his channel for more, great, production advice.

Noted: Best Indie Film Audio Setup with Rode NTG 4+ Shotgun Mic

Subscribe to Tom Antos on YouTube

Noted: You can now record 60-second videos in Instagram

Read You can now record 60-second videos in Instagram via The Verge


An interesting link found among my daily reading

Noted: Review: Neat’s $99 Widget is a crazy-looking no-frills microphone, but it sounds awesome

Review: Neat’s $99 Widget is a crazy-looking no-frills microphone, but it sounds awesome

Neat-Widget-Microphone-Colors

With every passing generation, computers get better displays, processors, speakers, and more.

Microphones though? Not so much.

That means that if you have any interest in documenting anything involving sound – podcasting, vlogging, singing – you’ll need a serious upgrade. And while podcast mics exist aplenty, few are as immediately eye-catching as Neat Microphone’s Widget series, a set of vibrant condenser microphones.

Read the entire article

Noted: YouTube launches tool that allows creators to blur any moving object in their videos (Amanda Conway/YouTube Creator Blog)

Noted: 5 Simple Cinematography Hacks for Under $50