Back around the turn of the century I found myself in the midst of the dot-com boom… soon to be bust.  But, during our short run we did see the future.  Too bad nobody had broadband back then.  Too much too young I guess.

The company I worked for aspired to be “The Remote Control of the Web.”  What that actually meant was an enormous database of links to streaming 30 second clips of music, video of guys getting hit in the crotch, weird flash animations and a few actual short films made by actual filmmakers who had nothing better to do with their films once their festival run was over.  It actually was a decent idea, but in those days of dial-up and a still fledgling Napster, it just couldn’t work.

Towards the end we finally caught a glimpse of what would come to be known as a viral video in the guise of the homemade special fx dynamo 405 (watch it above).  It’s a simple enough picture from a narrative standpoint; a big ass plane lands on top of an SUV on the 405 freeway.  And there’s a funny old lady who can’t drive very well. 

What made it interesting to me though, was the fact that these guys made a pretty impressive (production-wise) little picture with next to nothing.  I learned filmmaking a couple years prior on an Arri S and Steenbeck flatbed, but now you could do something large-ish in scale with a video camera and a home computer.  I was confused, and even felt a little cheated about being just behind the technology curve during my undergrad days.

A couple years later I went to graduate film school and never shot a foot of actual film (aside from a little Super 8 for kicks).  In the span of about four years, from undergrad shooting all 16mm to grad shooting all mini-dv, the entire low budget filmmaking world had changed, and continues to do so at a rapid pace. 

I’m still trying to figure out if it’s better or worse, as we’re now inundated with media, mostly of questionable value.  As a learning tool video is great in that it’s not quite as painful when I make something awful (which happens more than I’d like [all part of the process, right?!?!]).  But, I kinda wonder if that extra pressure to preserve every last frame of expensive film pushed fledgling filmmakers toward better overall work…

Hi Below listed are some free tools to download the Videos from Youtube.

1 Xilisoft Download YouTube Video

Xilisoft Download YouTube Video is easy-to-handle and stable free YouTube video downloader software which can download videos from YouTube in high speed and you can directly play downloaded files with the stand-alone FLV player.

This download YouTube video software makes it easy to download YouTube video: just drag the video file to Drop Zone, drag YouTube video URL to main window, or copy URL to “New Task” dialog box. Moreover, multithreaded and batch processing assure you of the fastest speed to download video from YouTube.com.

• Free software to download YouTube videos and save them on disk
• View downloaded video and FLV files with an stand-alone player

Click Here to download.

2 GetGo Download Manager

Free Full Featured Online Video, Music and File Download Manager, Downloader and Accelerator. This Free Downloader is an Essential Internet Tool for Increasing Download Speed, Resuming, Scheduling, and Organizing downloads. Easy to use, customizable modern interface allows you to download all of your favorite videos, program, games, and music up to 500% faster than regular web browsers. With auto-resuming feature, you never have to waste your frustrations on unfinished downloads due to network problems, or unexpected power outages. Seamless integration with Internet Explorer, Firefox, and Mozilla web browsers allows easy “One-Click” downloading of YouTube, MySpace, Google, Metacafe, DailyMotion, iFilm/Spike and sites with FLV video as well as other file types according to the extension. Recently, GetGo Download Manager was added Internet Explorer 8 support as well as ability to capture YouTube HQ (High Quality) and HD (High Definition) video in either FLV or MP4 format. Powerful batch and leech download features give you ability to download large amount of pictures, videos or other files from Web sites fast and easy. GetGo Download Manager fully supports Windows Vista User Access Control (UAC) and Internet Explorer Protected Mode. GetGo has no banners, no spyware, no pop-up ads, and completely FREE.

Click Here to download

3 Youtube Downloader

t’s software that allows you to download videos from YouTube and many others and convert them to other video formats. The program is easy to use, just specify the URL for the video you want to download and click the Ok! It also allows you to convert downloaded videos for iPod, iPhone, PSP, Cell Phone, Windows Media, XVid and MP3. Allows you to access YouTube videos for which you need to be 18+ years of age. Now, plays videos downloaded.

Click Here to download.

4 Oneclick Youtube downloader

1-Click YouTube Downloader is an easy YouTube videos downloader. You simply paste YouTube URL, then click mouse. The software will download the video as FLV file instantly. You don’t have to use any other download manager, 1-Click YouTube Downloader uses its own fast download function. You can download videos as fast as you can imagine.

Click Here to download

5 Youtube Catcher

• Download Videos from Thousands of Sites
• Record Audio from ANY Web site
• Convert Video and Audio Files
• Works right inside Internet Explorer and Firefox
• 100% FREE!

Click Here to download.

For some reason the application I was currently using to download YouTube videos, TubiTunes, so I searched for a way to download YouTube videos on Google, after I passed by some Firefox addons (for I have too many anyways) and some not-so-good-looking sites, I happened upon KeepVid, which is just what I wanted. KeepVid is a clean site that you can easily download videos from YouTube, Dailymotion, Metacafe, iFilm, Vimeo, Break, Yahoo! Video, Google Video and more, in either FLV or MP4 format. Another good thing about it, is that it has a bookmarklet so you just click it and it brings you to the download page. Clean, easy and fast, KeepVid is something I’ll use for a while.

Will be off to Kuching tomorrow afternoon, but not before battling biometric scanners that refuse to scan my thumb (so far it’s been a 100% fail rate due to my paper-thin skin pfft).

I went to Ruby to stock up on the cheapo b&w film that I’ve come to love and feel comfortable with last Saturday. What do you know, the boss just happened to forget to stock up the shop with it. At least I got a roll of high ISO to play with…

BUT THIS MEANS I ONLY HAVE 5 ROLLS IF I WANT TO BRING THE SLR (which I do!!!):

1) Delta 3200 (the one I bought, $7)
2) Pan 400 (my regular love)
3) Provia 100F (slide to try, $10.20 the horrors)
4) Kodak 200 (my uncle’s friend’s shop closed and he gave some film away )
5) Centuria 200 (same uncle’s friend, though I read bad reviews from this film)

I don’t want to shoot so many color film… I want to shoot b&w so that I can develop them by myself Maybe tomorrow I’ll get my lazy ass down to town to get some.

Will be back on Monday night. In the meantime, do contend with woe-faced Shortie from the color neg film that finally made it to the labs.

I miss her muchly!

Also, I found out that I have one roll of exposed b&w. Have seriously no idea what it contains.

As I wrote previously in “Creating Ideas Into Business” I talked about how TOKiBiz helps entrepreneurs execute their idea into an online application. I receive a lot of idea development requests via this site. Most of them aren’t significantly unique but how the entrepreneur plans to execute the idea is where the creativity comes into play. It’s the combination of this unique perspective coupled with the entrepreneur’s experience that makes the idea a good one! Ideas create new ideas.

Everyone has ideas but how to create those ideas into an internet application is the difficult part. Creating that idea into a solid brand and profitable business is the very difficult part.  

I respect people’s desire to be very protective of their thoughts but the truth is no one can execute it like you can. They way someone else views your idea is totally different than how you see it – plus the idea alone is not new or very complicated. As I wrote in “The Value of a Business Idea“:

For most ideas the initial value doesn’t necessarily come from the idea itself but the team behind that idea.  Many of us have similar ideas but the real value comes in how that idea is executed.  The more experience the team has the more likely they’ll have a successful execution – even if the idea isn’t earth shattering.  For many ideas aren’t earth shattering, however the most successful ones provide a simple solution to a common problem.

As Techcrunch reported there is a “Fourth YouTuber” who is looking to sue the company for stealing his idea. The reasons are given in the article but none of them are all that unique or even ones that didn’t exist before YouTube went live. The idea of posting videos on the web wasn’t a new one when YouTube went live in 2005. Revver, Brightcove, iFilm and others were around before 2005 but YouTube clicked with the masses. This doesn’t however mean YouTube is monetizing better than other sites – especially Hulu who is eating their lunch.

The “Fourth YouTuber” claims that he came up with the ideas for “video uploading, video commenting, agnostic video format, layout of the main video screen, awards and top listings “most watched”, star ratings, viewers, DMCA automation, video and audio fingerprinting.” Maybe he did but none of these ideas (or features) are all that unique. It’s stuff that developers casually talk about every day – if developers weren’t able to create ideas that originated from conversations then nothing would be built. We build upon what we read and hear about – again it’s the way individuals execute these ideas that make them unique. Take a dozen internet startups in twelve different industries and it’s likely that half of them integrate similar “Web 2.0″ features.

DJ Burdick, founder of One Season, says “business is 5% idea, 95% execution” in “Ideas are Cheap.” One excellent point that DJ makes is “a lot of entrepreneurs are afraid to share their ideas”: 

“We’re in stealth mode” you’ll hear people say. I think that this approach in general is more harmful than good. Let’s throw all morals out the window for a second and assume that people are bad and won’t have any aversion to stealing your idea. Talented and smart people have better things going on than waiting around to steal your idea. Untalented and unoriginal people who may try to steal your idea won’t be able to execute it.

The less experienced someone is at turning a concept into a business, the more they seem to feel like the idea is everything.

If you stay in “stealth mode” as an entrepreneur you’re really only hurting yourself.

NDAs are thrown around so often. It seems like every conversation is prefaced with a mutual NDA. VCs won’t sign them for good reason. And I think in general they are really pointless. Source:  Ideas are Cheap

We’re all influenced by the same technology, which in return stimulates ideas that are similar to others. Someone with a financial background is going to execute the idea differently than someone with a retail background. It’s the experience that one has within the industry that he/she is executing in that increases the likelihood of success for that idea. As I wrote in “Getting An Idea Off the Ground“: 

I use to think that at some point ideas would eventually run dry.  Now I know this is definitely not the case for there are millions of ways to make our lives better.  Ways that we never thought of before and ways that couldn’t exist without the idea launched previous to ours.  For ideas keep building on the ideas of those who came before us.

VidToMP3 is a brand new site that allows you to download the audio from
none-copyrighted video clips on video sites! We support all of your
favorites, Myspace, Youtube, Google video and more. Remember to
bookmark our Video to Sound converter for all your vid to mp3 needs!
Feelfree to contact us, we operate a anti spam exchange server so please only send us legitimate emails as we read every one of them we receive.
or use this for flv files
FLV to MP3 Online Converter

How to use:

1. Copy the FULL address of the page with the video.
   (ex: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K7y8GC3DW4Y)
2. Paste the address you copied into the text box below.
3. Click “Download”, and wait. Please be patient.
4. When conversion is complete, click on “Download MP3″.
5. Done!

In today’s age of fast progress and in a generation with smart and savvy individuals who want to make sure they accomplish as much in their time by multitasking, newspapers are competing against time and machine communications such as with computers and the internet. Much of the extra time in the general demographics of newspaper article readers is now spent online. What the major threat here is that newspapers have to compete against time spent online versus time spent with a traditional newspaper and what value the consumer places against both. In other words, people need to be attracted more to one or the other to choose which one they will use for their source of information and news events. At first my thoughts were on the fact that computers are the new wave of the future and it might be a trend for people to just go online but then I thought about the workforce and companies that hire employees, then thought about schools and their teachers and students, most of them use computers as part of their daily routine and not because they like to but because they have to, so when certain information is needed in regards to current events they can easily click on a browser and log on to a newspaper website instead of trying to drive around and find a stand or wait for the next volume of the paper to arrive at their doorstep.

Although perception of the internet gives the user a certain degree of openness and the right to free information, the internet evolution and its progress has been built upon by corporations that rely on advertising dollars to keep them “afloat”. From the very start of newspapers along with others have had part of their company structure and growth to thank from advertising revenues. Advertisers can now see that newspapers can have big visitor numbers towards their websites just as in the decades before the internet they had true subscribers. This helps the newspapers survive by transitioning their advertising revenues that were typically made from the newspaper classifieds, marketing and the such to transition into the new media format and keep people reading. People still feel conformable on relying these newspapers for bringing them news because they are established entities that have been around from generation to generation so there is a certain degree in which newspapers can count on in regards to customer loyalty and readership for generations to come. I, personally would rather read the news about an event from The Los Angeles Times then some Joe blows blog in the middle of the internet ocean (like me) . Although perception has it that newspapers are bias, intelligent people can count on the fact that reliable newspapers either on the internet or in print will more than likely not have any propaganda attached to their editorials. So part of it is the easy transition from print to digital as far as sales and bringing in revenues and from trust that people still have in newspapers.

I believe that the users-gratification approach should be taken into consideration when trying to identify your market reach and penetration with a film product in order to make it successful. What does this mean? It means that you must take into account all the things that make human curiosity and apply it to your movie when producing/developing it.

The uses-gratification approach is most of the time based upon a four-category human need system that is part into a cognition, diversion, social utility and withdrawal account when the evaluation of an individual approach is carried out.  The first category is the act of the person to simply start knowing something and clearly identify parallels to that knowing or for their own using such as updating on political events that will influence their lives or understanding what is going on and or simple just want to learn and satisfy their human curiosity. Second, diversion which can take on a diversity of forms for an individual such as stimulation activities to that contrast of everyday life or just for relaxation. It could also be an emotional release function which is more complex such as watching a dramatic movie that the person can relate to his or her own life experiences.  Social utility is basically tools or currency communication to initiation an addressing of a certain subject or even. Such as when a person asks you “Did you see that blockbuster movie last opening weekend?” In most cases the initial message is secondary to that of the importance of actual social gathering. The last of the categories is withdrawal which can be a mass media to create a barrier or excuse between other people or activities. Television, radio a book can be used to draw a line between wanted and unwanted communication such as not disturbing someone while watching a favorites show versus someone commenting on a show and the other person agreeing but not continuing the conversation.

Take for example “chick flixs” or love stories, even though they are the same kind of story over and over again most of the time, the demographics are known to attend because of what’s playing in front of your screen and who is next to you eating popcorn…

This basically gives a category to try to simplify some of the drive in which someone might go and see your movie or rent it. That is of course once you have it distributed!

Minorities in television, film and commercials… Well this fall more onto film and television series. As you know the media portrays many minorities in a bad light, you never see them as heros or mixed into scripted shows as the lead as much. This is due to something beyond what we understand as far as research and data analysis approaches that are applied to media communcations because everything in entertainment is a communication, they are trying to tell us something or at least that is what the purpose of watching a film or producing a film product is to make it attract as many people to make as much money. Let us look at the main approaches that most market researchers for the entertainment use…

The “functional” approach bases its data on audience observation and experiences of these individuals such as a questionnaire while critical/cultural research uses a more of broad mass communicative study of culture within the audience. Both approaches may or may not come to the same conclusion based on the communication that is trying to be delivered because the major critical/cultural differences may have an impact on the outcome. The diversity in society and the account of examination of different concepts, ideology, politics and social structure vary greatly when taken on macrolytically and much of the research is aimed at describing these depictions within the society. Many views can be drawn when using a critical/cultural approach such as a something produced with certain characteristics such as a Mexican or a Black man playing a criminal in the entertainment industry, the entertainment industry from data gathered sees this in a functional approach by data gathered from society versus how the audience might see it as insulting and degrading society. Both approaches from either side have viable application in understanding how mass communication effects audience and the society.

You see, it’s not really the filmmakers fault that they CHOOSE to make a mexican, latino actor into a criminal, the research department are the ones that TELL us who the majority and minorities are in a perfect and unperfect world.

Websites:

FieroEntertainment.com

CastingJoseph.com

FieroCasting.com

LifeAsAStrugglingActor.com

FieroPhotography.info

FieroDesigns

Joey Fiero is a Independent Producer and Filmmaker and a producer for Creative Entertainment Media Inc. (www.CreativeEntertainmentMedia.com) partially responsible for television/film development, acquisitions and business introductions. He Co-Founded GBTVOnline.com a online music network that showcases nothing but the hottest A-List celebrity artists along with fellow actor and producer Stacy Hall.

Mr. Fiero brings more then a decade of experience from within the entertainment industry that expands from the arts trenches to business product development. A graduate of Broadcasting in television combined with his years of experience as early as in his teens, Mr. Fiero prides himself on building long-term, personal relationships in business which he credits as the secret to his success. Joey Fiero formed Fiero Entertainment Inc. In 2006 and is expanding in all areas of the Entertainment Industry from Production and Development to Casting.

In addition to continuing on his career way, Mr. Fiero devotes part of his time to a non-profit foundation; Global Alliance for the Arts & Humanities Inc. This non-profit is designed to give others the training, experience and access of opportunity to pursue “key decision making” careers in the television and film industry.
Business Inquires: JosephFiero@gmail.com

Yesterday someone asked me the process of downloading Videos from Youtube and i was kind of surprised to hear that question. Its surprising to know that many people still are unaware that they can download their favorite videos from video sharing websites like Youtube, Google Videos, MetaCafe, Blip.tv, Dailymotion, Spike etc.

This post describes the process of downloading the videos from your Favorite video sharing websites. It also describes the process of converting the downloaded .flv files to your favorite format.

Lets start with the download process first. In order to download a particular video from your favorite video sharing website, you should have the URL of the video. For eg, if you wish to download the video from the URL http://www.metacafe.com/watch/663030/insane_747_400_landing/

Follow the steps below:

1.) Point your browser to the URL http://www.keepvid.com

2.) On the homepage of Keepvid website, enter the URL of the video ( in our case, http://www.metacafe.com/watch/663030/insane_747_400_landing/ ) in the input box provided. If you are not sure of the videoservice, select Any Site from the combo.

3.) Press the button names “Download”.

4.) A download link is presented. The file downloaded is in the .flv format. However, if you happen to be downloading video from Youtube, you could even get .mp4 version of your video file.

5.) Rename the downloaded file to something-meaningful.flv

6.) Download a FLV player to view the recently downloaded file. You can get one from here.

However, the video file you just downloaded is in .flv format , in order to convert it to some other format, like .avi, .wmv, .3gp, .mp4 etc, download AVS Video Converter, a free tool which allows you to convert all types of video files from one format to another, rip and burn video DVDs and make basic edits to video.

Once you have downloaded AVS Video Converter, follow the steps below

1.) Select your input file path.

2.) Select the conversion parameters for the desired format of video.

3.) Set a video output file path.

4.) Press Convert Now.

Go on and download your favorite videos.

Also read:

How To: Burn YouTube videos to a DVD.

Youtube video dowloads: Can it get better?

vConvert.net: Download online videos in multiple formats

3 Websites that outsmart Youtube.

You can also follow me on Twitter at http://twitter.com/vaibhav1981

Do stay tuned to Technofriends for more, one of the best ways of doing so is by subscribing to our feeds. You can subscribe to Technofriends feed by clicking here.

Cheers

Vaibhav

B&W Ilford HP5 on CFN120 Holga.
Digital negative.
Van Dyke print.

For the uninitiated, what I wrote basically means:

But hey, poison’s not new to photography. Silver nitrate anyone? Cyanide gas hmm?

Nodame Cantabile makes me want to learn the piano, Japanese, French and Korean. (Not too sure where the Korean factored in though.)

I did something very stupid last night…

Will be wearing glasses for a while because I prematurely threw away my last pair of contacts after finding out (and despairing) that I didn’t have anymore solution to store them in. Right after tossing them did I realise I still had an unopened bottle on the shelf – I was just too lazy to place it in my usual cupboard when I’d bought it and promptly forgot its existence.

Have a craving for sushi and IKEA meatballs