I surprised a Japanese camera man a few weeks ago with my Flip camera. Watch the video and you will see what I mean.
The camera man from Hiroshima TV had a Sony HD that he carried on his shoulder. I had a Flip camera, which I carried in my pocket.
I’m not sure what he thought I was holding in my hand as we chatted and talked with the founders of LUNARR at their office here in Portland. But then it clicked. “Video?,” he said. He laughed and came to take a quick look at this amazing little video camera not much bigger than a cigarette pack.
I came by LUNARR to do an episode for “My Office Has A Kitchen,” at the invitation of Hideshi Hamaguchi, co-founder of this wiki-group email collaboration company. You can read more about LUNARR, Hideshi and his partner, Toru Takasuka, in this post by Tom Foremski of Silicon Valley Watcher. Tom is actually now in Japan with Hideshi and a few other bloggers, including Portland’s own Marshall Kirkpatrick, lead writer for Read Write Web and a consultant to iterasi.
Hideshi wanted to build on an experience he had in the Silicon Valley with Robert Scoble and Foremski. Shoot video of a Japanese broadcast network to highlight the differences between broadcast and user generated media. Here’s an interview Robert did with Hideshi.
The Flip highlights the huge difference between big budget media and people like myself who make their shows on a budget of a few hundred bucks. I use the Flip to do interviews. It fits in my jacket pocket. My Flip cost $177. It runs on batteries. I get 60 minutes of shooting. The quality rivals HD cameras.
I can shoot anywhere, flip open the collapsible USB and pop the camera into my Macbook. I can edit using the Flip software or save the files to my computer and edit in iMovie. I can then post it to any number of video hosting services.
The Flip helps me produce media. That’s a large part of my job. Use media technologies that are disruptive by their very nature to get out and engage in a world where conversation rules. The Flip fits perfectly into that equation.
