Ahh to be young again! Full of dreams, uninhibited, not a care in the world...except for how many DV tapes it will take to record you friend Joey's birthday party...

My Life As A Child is a 6-part documentary series where children record their lives on video from a first person perspective. The Learning Channel selected 20 youngsters ages 7 to 12 for the project, checked out some video gear to them, and let them tape for 4 months. The footage they captured makes up the 6 one-hour episodes, and marks a first for TLC in melding user generated content and television. The show claims to be "frank, intimate, and eye-opening" as children share their perspectives on growing up in the 21st century.

I couldn't find any hard DVGuru info about the production (camera info, production notes, behind the scenes info.) Still, I can't help but be a bit fascinated by the fact that this sort of thing wouldn't have been possible 7 or 8 years ago. The relative price of camcorders, this generation's experience with video, and the popularity of "viral" video content all seem to culminate in a project like this one.

My Life As A Child airs on Monday, February 26 at 7PM (ET/PT.)

Hmmm should you go to film school or not go to film school? How about going for 18 minutes. 18MinuteFilmSchool.com is a brief, 21 point guide to making a movie from idea to profit. These tips will help get you going in your quest of producing an independent film. If you have more questions, then maybe film school is for you. If those 18 minutes were all you needed, then best of luck to you. Even if you aren't thinking about higher education at all, these tips are a good read. Now don't come late to this class or you'll miss everything.

Last week I listed 10 reasons you shouldn't go to film school, figuring the anti-establishment argument would be the more controversial of the two (thus posting it first). Many who took exception to my points didn't seem to understand that I was also planning on posting a follow-up article exploring the flip side of the argument (although, in my mind, the reasons to go seem a lot more obvious). Hopefully these points will give a prospective film schooler some food for thought.

Every aspiring filmmaker asks the age-old question at some point: should I go to film school? Will I be a better filmmaker for it, or will I spend a lot of money on education only to end up taking a job as a waiter to pay off my debt, wishing I'd spent the money on a guerrilla DV short instead? It's a tough question, but unfortunately no one can make the decision for you; the only universal piece of advice anyone can give you is, "it depends." And while I've made my own choice--indeed, my personal site is located at nofilmschool.com--I can see it both ways. Thus this week I'll look at 10 reasons why you should skip the .edu; next week I'll throw out 10 justifications for sending in your application.

Adobe thinks it is important for kids to develop multimedia skills in the classroom, along with selling units of Photoshop to eager kids. That is why they've announced the Digital School Collection. The bundle, aimed at K-12, featuresPhotoshop Elements, Premiere Elements, Acrobat, and Contribute. Included for teachers are lesson plans and tutorials to better integrate digital learning with their curriculum. When I was in school, we never had audio/video courses but if we did, I believe I would have found my calling earlier. Digital content creation is an important skill to have because this technology is becoming more prominent in our lives everyday. And it is about time we see a big push in digital media; the teachers have a lot of catching up to do since the kids seem to pick up digital video/imaging like the ABCs. Just check out YouTube, MySpace, and these kids for example.

Did/do you have video courses at your school? What are they like?

You know what my favorite days were in elementary school? Filmstrip days! That's right, I am old enough to have watched filmstrips... although I think that's more a commentary on lack of funding for education, than my age (only 28.) But, lest we wax political here at DVGuru, lets move on.

My teacher would wheel in the AV cart from down the hall, pull down the projector screen, and fire up the old flicker show. It was a mixed bag at best. If we were lucky, maybe a Disney character doing math problems. I'm not sure why, but my favorite part was the Tick-Tick-Tick of of a reel that had reached it's end. I doubt many schools use filmstrips these days, but in my experience, most are still in the digital dark age. The Library Video Company hopes to change that.

A new product called Safari Montage offers a broadcast quality, plug & play, video-on-demand server for schools and public libraries. It comes pre-loaded with 1000 shows targeted at a specific age group, and offers subscriptions to additional content. Because the video is stored locally on the server, It supports up to 55 instances of simultaneous playback for the same clip, and offloads much of the stress placed on a library's current broadband connection. It also helps avoid many of the problems associated with streaming.

We use a service very similar to this at the local television station I work for. It's nice to see it being adopted in a place where more people can have the on-demand experience. Now if they could just tack that Tick-Tick-Tick noise on at the end.

Click "Read" for a link to the press release, or click here for a video demonstration.

Avid Technology, Inc., today announced the launch of its Back-to-School promotion – a campaign designed to give students access to the professional video, audio, and 3D character animation tools used by industry pros, at student-friendly prices. It's rough being a student, but student pricing is a nice perk. Speaking of perks...

Students who purchase Academic software and receive Avid's "Industry All-Access Pass" will have exclusive opportunities that include:

• Receiving discounted and free third-party products from companies such as G-Tech, Serious Magic, SmartSound, FinalDraft, Sorenson Media, PowerProduction Software, and PerspectX;
• Communicating with select film, television, music, and animation professionals, via e-mail;
• Having a chance for an industry professional to visit their school; and,
• Receiving a free copy of "The Movies," an interactive video game that simulates building your very own movie studio.

And here are a list of the packages this applies to

• Avid Xpress Pro Academic software, which offers professional video, audio, film, effects, and DVD authoring tools in one box for $295 USMSRP per license;
• SOFTIMAGE/XSI Academic character production software, priced at $295 USMSRP; or,
• Pro Tools Academic software, starting at $149 USMSRP.

You can find more information at www.avid.com/backtoschool Now Hit the books!

Adobe has announced the winners of the 2006 Adobe Design Achievement Awards. Nearly 1,500 entries were submitted to this year's competition by students from schools in 24 countries. I am blown away by some of these entries. There are some seriously talented students out there and I encourage you to spend some time viewing the winners in each category. You can also view a video of the judges in action.

This weekend (March 11th & 12th), AudioLuxe will conduct Podcast workshops which will be held at the studios of KQED in San Francisco.  "You'll train at the professional studios of KQED Public Radio in San Francisco. Courses are limited to six participants per group; each group is balanced to achieve a similar range of skill levels across participants. Intermediate and Advanced courses are also available." Registration is $350. Sounds very good, though not for me - promised myself never to deliberately record my voice a long time ago.

(via BoingBoing)

We have mentioned Self-Reliant Filmmaking blog before. It is one of those blogs where the writer, Paul Harrill, speaks modestly but all the while being insightful. He had a couple of points to say about FreshHDV's Interview of Josh Oakhurst that had me nodding in agreement. Paul, like me but unlike Josh, believe that P2 is here to stay for sometime. But it is a minor point because frankly none of us can tell where this bloody thing is headed. And I wouldn't gamble a dime on it much less the time writing why.

But this quote from Josh simply irks me: "I believe film school used to mean something when it was only about access to equipment. Since the advent of cheap, quality digital cinema (lets say 2000 as a WIDE release), potential film schoolers have had numerous options to get ahold of equipment which are far cheaper than paying for a film degree. Claiming a film degree now is just the same as claiming a BA in anything else - you’re a dime a dozen. Credentials, name dropping, and a diploma do not make great art - or even begin to suggest you possess the possibility to make great art."

The art of color correction is certainly one of the more complicated processes that take place during the production of any film, because of this Ripple Training has released an entire training DVD to help you out during your next production. The 4-hour DVD is aimed directly at Final Cut Pro users and is packed with a number of video tutorials. I took a look at some of the sample tutorials from the disk and they looked extremely informative and were easy to follow. The DVD will run you $99 and should help you brush up on or learn a bunch of new techniques for getting the look you want out of your next project.

[Via HDforIndies]

While we know the clout of Microsoft in your corner does something for your reputation, it's nothing like when Microsoft starts to economically make it a benefit to support your up and coming technology.  According to the EETimes, Microsoft is offering vendors various benefits to support HD-DVD instead of Blu-Ray.  One such instance, Vista, the next version of Windows, will have native support for free, while supporting Blu-Ray costs vendors an extra $30 in royalties per drive.  Also, Microsoft is said to be offering cash incentives to support HD-DVD (I imagine in the space of free copies of Vista for manufacturers.)

[Via Engadget]

Here is a novel idea, how about a film festival where all the entries are shot via cell phone, well that is just what the CellFlix Festival is aiming to do. The festival is being put on by Ithaca College (a place I am quite familiar with) and is backed by a $5,000 prize for the best entry. The rules are simple, put together the best 30 second film with nothing more than a video enabled cell phone and enter it via the festivals website. The deadline for entries is January 10th so get out there and start shooting, well until you get interrupted by an incoming call.

Know a friend who's cuts aren't so final?  Maybe their razor tool isn't that sharp, or they don't know how to roll deep with the roll tool.  In any case, they've got some recourse if they're in or around NYC in March, at the Jewish Community Center in Manhattan.  For $300, you get two sessions of Final Cut Pro bootcamp, focused towards documentary filmmaking.

Also at the center, if you're interested in learning how to improve your filmmaking skills, they've got classes on punctuation and grammar, as well as a screenplay writing workshop.  Anyone heading to any of these classes, make sure you come back and let us know how they went!