Brett Noe Productions

I’ve been tweaking my site a bit and have enabled a touch device enabled version. It supports the following user agents for those that are interested: android, aspen, blackberry9500, blackberry9530, cupcake, dream, incognito, iphone, ipod, opera mini, webmate, webos.

I also changed the logo graphic and some fonts. In line with some of the chatter I’ve been a part of on Twitter, I’ve removed the sIFR text I was using. This allows all browsers to see my site as intended.

What does this mean? For most people, nothing. The site will run and look pretty much as it always has. For those with the touch devices, there will be a, in my opinion, superior view of the content.

I have one last thing to do and that’s to get the touch enabled version to show my portfolio as the home page instead of the blog.

Take a look and let me know what you think.

Well, they didn’t say I was right but, then again, they didn’t say I was wrong either.

The video now plays fine but there is an ad to purchase the song as an overlay on the video. Seems this is the way they handle this now.

This is fine with me. It was just a fun little video and if the artist makes a couple of sales, I’m fine with that.

The only problem is only the record companies are likely to see any of the revenue generated by these sorts of ads.

To sum up: this sort of monetizing is good for the record companies, OK for consumers and likely bad for the artists.

Posted via web from brettnoe’s posterous

I recently found out that a video I assembled of Matt Forcum from his wedding reception had the audio disabled because of copyright violation. The song is the one played at the reception, and was at that time covered by a BMI/ASCAP performance license.

It was just a silly little video, just for fun. I found this notice on it:

Your video, More Matt Forcum Madness!!!, may have audio content from Cotton-Eye Joe by Rednex that is owned or licensed by WMG.

As a result, your video is blocked worldwide.

It is ridiculous that this would be blocked! The video can be seen in the US with the audio removed. Anywhere else, you can’t even see the video! For the most part, I don’t care. However, there are principles at stake.

YouTube gives you this option:

Use AudioSwap to replace the audio in your video with a track from our library of prelicensed songs. After you swap, your video will be available globally.

Since I feel, after a bit of reading, that my use falls within the Fair Use Doctrine, I filed a dispute. The text from the form is below:

User Name: banoe
Video ID:
(The video with the copyright claim) x_6PdMEowcw

Statement of Good Faith: I have a good faith belief that the material was disabled as a result of a mistake or misidentification, and that I am not intentionally abusing this dispute process.

I’m hoping this gets resolved in my favor.

Any legal minds are welcome to comment.

The newly re-named Interactive Media Program at Bradley University (of which I am a member) is updating the Slane College of Communications website. Jim Ferolo, head of the program, asked me, with the help of my class, to handle the production of introductory videos for the five departments that make up the college. Sounds like a simple task. Except…

The professors selected to be interviewed did not have time when my students were available to assist. So, I was doing the shooting alone for the most part. No problem! I’ve done it before. They were also all over campus. Well, I guess I get a workout!

We also had a variety of lighting conditions with which to contend. Still no problem! We shoot fluorescent and use color balanced bulbs for each environment.

Finally, for the visual effect, we were shooting with the Canon 5D MkII. This added some fun to the mix! The video from the camera is stunning. The lack of manual controls is a bit of a problem but a bit of internet searching allowed me to get results with which I could work. However, the audio on camera has auto gain and no level meters. Plus it only has a mono 1/8″ input for an external mic. Shooting alone, I couldn’t find a way to handle the camera, monitor a separate audio recorder. So, I had to use a Beachtek box for XLR conversion and hope for the best! This worked OK for the most part. Except that the Beachtek is stereo. It has a mono switch that sends either XLR input to both channels. Which works fine unless the switch gets flipped! I had to re-shoot 5 interviews because of this.

My class is now editing the videos. We need more B-roll to finish. Things are moving along and they’ll be done soon. I’ll post video when they’re ready.