Does the mainstream media bore you? Do you have talent that is going to waste because publishers don't recognize your brilliance? Dissenting voices are being more marginalized by the media everyday. There is a solution: do it yourself. DIY media has always been on the cutting edge.

"Many traditional media can look stale in comparison, and one of the first changes I think is noticeable in society is how swiftly online trends are transformed and remanufactured for the mainstream," says Barbelith publisher Tom Coates.

Matt Drudge turned the journalism industry upside down with The Drudge Report and Harry Knowles has turned his self-published e-zine Ain't It Cool News into one of the most vital entertainment sites on the Web. You can do it too.

A Quick and Dirty Guide to DIY Media: Video

Filmmakers have long been at odds with other artists because the cost of producing films is so high that the average person cannot afford to make a film. Digital Video (DV) is quickly changing this situation: DV also enables the creation of television shows and documentary films. And for those who can't afford digital equipment the cost of analogue equipment is quickly dropping. The "barriers of cost" have been eroded to the point that creativity and talent are the only requirements for breaking into the realm of film and video.

Finding a Camera

Digital cameras are the highest quality and most versatile solution for DIY filmmakers. What made filmmaking prohibitively expensive in the past was the cost of film (not the cameras). 16mm film costs hundreds of dollars per hour while a thirty minute MiniDV tapes costs about $11. DV cameras cost anywhere from $400 to thousands of dollars new but there's really no need to own the camera you use. I made my first short film entirely with a borrowed camera. Some colleges loan media equipment (for free or very cheaply) and many companies rent out their DV cameras to the public.

If you can't afford a DV camera, there's no shame in using an analogue video camcorder. If your ideas and raw footage are good you can probably stand to lose a little image quality. A brand-new camcorder should cost no more than $300 and plenty of cameras are available used.

A cheap way to make your own videos is to use a "Web cam" which sell for about $50 new. They're low quality and usually used for porn but in combination with a microphone they could work for someone doing a simple online talk show.

Editing

Doing your editing on a computer can save you time and money. DV cameras can be connected a Firewire card, which will cost you about $50 if you don't already have one, and recording from an analogue video camera requires a video-card with a "video in" port. You'll also need plenty of hard drive space (video takes up about 13 gigabytes per hour) and a program to transfer the video to your computer and do the actual editing.

Most new Macintosh computers come with a video editing program called iMovie. Windows ME and XP come with Windows Movie Maker, and there is a free Linux DV editing program available called Kino available. If you're on a budget or if you have limited computer experience these programs are a good place to start but they are very limited.

Macintosh's Final Cut Pro is the professional standard for DV editing, but it costs somewhere in the neighborhood of $1000 and is only available for Macs. Adobe Premiere can be purchased new for about $550 dollars and older versions are available used for much cheaper. It is a decent professional video editing program and should be sufficient for most needs even though it doesn't have as many features as Final Cut Pro. And you can always pirate software.

Publishing

You can distribute your digital videos and films online using the P2P file trading programs discussed in our Quick and Dirty Guide to DIY Media: Online Publishing. There are also a few Web sites online designed specifically to showcase amateur videos: Web Monkey has a review of a few of these sites. For more hands-on control of your creation, Free Speech Internet Television specializes is providing streaming media for DIY media makers. They currently charge $15/month for 100 megabytes of storage space and 4 simultaneous streams (January 2002).

Daniel Robin's Neighborhood Films, a collection of short videos about Robin's neighborhood in San Francisco, is an excellent example of what can be done. There are many people who are already taking advantage of what video has to offer. Get out there and start innovating.

The views expressed above represent the writer and not necessarily those of The Disinformation Company Ltd.