Tonight the face-to-face ds106 class, as well as anyone on ds106radio, had the pleasure of hearing Tom Woodward take us on a tour of some fascinating videos that really set the stage for what’s emergent right now in this most popular of media, but also asking us to stretch our understanding of what video is, and what it can be in our present moment. He broke the videos into a series of differnet sections (you can see the entire playlist here) from “What is video?” to the art of “Dead Simple” video to remix to takes, etc. I love his approach of lining up a series of compelling videos and framing each of them for discussion. And what’s more, there was both discussion in class and on the back channel, and all this over Skype being broadcast out to the radio. Blows my mind.

I can’t thank Tom enough for agreeing to join, and apologize publicly for giving him no setup up time before the class—I failed him in that regard, but it was a major success nonetheless. And here ‘s the audio, which would be best accompanied by the list of video resources which we discuss that he provided here: http://bionicteaching.com/umw_video.html

Tom Woodward in ds106 talking video 3/29/11

There were so many compelling video from the list I recommend them all, but here were my top five in no particular order:

“50 People, 1 Question”: It’s amazing to watch people open up through storytelling!

Fifty People, One Question: Brooklyn from Fifty People, One Question on Vimeo.

Tarp Surfing: Simple and very rad.

tarp surfing from justin Bundschuh on Vimeo.

Sour: Why haven;t I seen this before? So creative, and all with simple web cams. Amazing!

SOUR / ????? (Hibi no Neiro) MV from Magico Nakamura on Vimeo.

Down on Me (with me and 50 cent): Why is 50 Cent in this kid’s room?

Speed painting Kurt Cobain: There is something crazy happening here in terms of iconic representation and process

And that gives you a small but telling taste of how awesome it was. Thanks Tom!