Archive for the 'family' Category

For everybody back home – VloMo Day 5

I was putting together a big elaborate post-election video… but in the comments to the Placenta video, Frank Carver reminded me to take my own advice: the key to success in posting every day for Videoblogging Month is to avoid ambition – don’t up the ante each day. Just carry your camera with you, capture a simple moment and share it.

And I’ve been really enjoying Elsie Escobar’s VloMo videos – she’s recording her baby girl’s first few weeks. She made me realise: I have a videoblog, we’re thousands of miles from home, and I’ve hardly posted any video or pictures of Lila for all our family and friends. She’s seven weeks old and almost 14lbs already! So to start with, here’s 90 seconds from breakfast.

I love how all these VloMo videos and comments are creating responses and conversations.

Watch videoblogging month videos at:
http://mefeedia.com/channels/vlomo08
and join the group at Vimeo:
http://vimeo.com/groups/vlomo

Shot on my Nokia N93 phone.

Formats Available: iPod/iPhone compatible MPEG4 (.m4v)

The placenta video

I guess we’re officially west coast hippies now.

Formats available: MPEG-4 Video (.mp4)

Halloween in Cumberland – VloMo08, Day 1

Is this what Halloween is like everywhere in North America?

Madness.

Speaking of madness, it’s suddenly Videoblogging Month again. Already? How did that happen?

Last year it was called NaVloPoMo, but it’s (sadly?) just been renamed Videoblogging Month 2008 – VloMo08 for short.

Post one video every day in November. That’s all you have to do…

2007 was the first year, and it turned out to be an incredible collaborative experiment. Exhausting but rewarding. I hope this year is as much fun.

Actually, I think for me it’ll be *more* fun. Last year I just didn’t have time to watch enough. But then, between us all, we made over 1000 videos in 30 days.

You can watch (and JOIN IN) at our new Mefeedia channel:
http://www.mefeedia.com/channels/vlomo08

I can’t wait to see the videos start coming in.

Meanwhile, it’s now 2 a.m. – so you’ll have to excuse me. I have a *lot* of candy to get through before Amy wakes up.

Formats available: MPEG-4 Video (.m4v), Flash Video (.flv)

How To Prepare For A Home Birth…

As most of you know, Lila was born AGES ago. I’ve resisted publishing any videos until now. She’s four weeks old today, and with a prompt from Kate, I figure that’s enough of a respectful pause. It was about as good a birth as you could hope for – 3 hour labour from 6am to 9am, born in water, 8lbs 5oz. I won’t get into why we chose a home birth – that’s for another post, maybe. But this is quite a nice memento of the days leading up to it (she was born 7 days after this) and once it’s up on the web, I’m sure some of you watching it will be new parents who are frantically Googling for information about what your home birth will be like. Good luck! Our two have been the most amazing experiences of my life.

Music: Early Days, by The Helium Tapes

Formats available: MPEG4 Video (.mp4)

Country Colours & Remix

Shot, edited and sent with Nokia N93.

This was our last weekend in the English countryside before we emigrate. I wanted to capture and cut together some quiet little moments to take with me on my phone as a reminder.

But after it was done, I thought it could do with a bit of tightening to improve it. Maybe cut a few seconds here and there. So I opened up my phone and started fiddling. You know when you’re doodling or sketching, and you make something you’re vaguely pleased with, but then you just have to add one more line… and then another… and then another…?

Oh – and my last week in England is also the fourth annual Videoblogging Week. So I’ll be churning out my egocentric mobile rubbish every day this week! Hurray! To join in, just make a video every day this week and tag each video ‘videobloggingweek2008′ and post a link at: http://videobloggingweek2008.blogspot.com/

Original MP4 file