Call to Video Heads

Ready For Austin's Camcorder Truth Jihad?

Jello Biafra used the term "Camcorder Truth Jihad" to describe the phenomena of videomakers taking to the streets in Los Angeles and Philadelphia at this past summer's political conventions. Much of their tape made it to the Independent Media Center Web sites and to the satellite broadcast TV shows that came out of the conventions twice a day.

The upcoming protests against the Fortune 500 Forum (http://www.o13.org), along with a number of other demonstrations happening that same weekend (Oct. 12 to 15) - Immigrants Rights March, AIDS Walk, and Anti-Death Penalty March - and the discussions and events of the Encuentro For Popular Education (http://ccwf.cc.utexas.edu/~hairymuf/index.html) all together mean that we have a golden opportunity for our own video gang here.

Our work is cut out for us. There will be no shortage of scenes to shoot. The challenge is coordinating our efforts to make sure we cover all bases. And more importantly to facilitate our tape getting viewed by others as quickly as possible.

There are basically three venues for immediate exposure: the Web, local cable access, and public viewing. A crew is working on getting a Web site together for just this purpose. Let's keep our fingers crossed on that one. And it looks like we'll have producers at ACAC (formerly ACTV) opening up space for local cable. But nothing is absolutely definite. And everything is negotiable.

This is the time for pre-production and planning. If you want to join Austin's Camcorder Truth Jihad, email swray@io.com