Red Camera – Red-Dot: Backing Into the Future

Hi, we're the people who run the media labs in the basement of the Hampshire College library. You seldom see us, in fact you may never have been in the labs at all, so you'll really never have seen us. That's too bad. We're here to help Hampshire students using media find their way. We don't care what your concentration is. We don't care what you're making. We don't even charge you a lab fee. We only want you to be able to do your work (it's all about the work) – and maybe push you a little in a couple of directions you might not have though of, but in the end we'll back off and let you do your thing.

I'm back to trying out working in this form of communication, not just as a blog, but specifically using Google's Blogger software. Our "official" Hampshire web pages have languished a little due to the fact the the web application, Red-Dot, hasn't been the easiest software to run. In fact we gave up on it over the summer and haven't been back since. I've found that it's not unusual for "enterprise" software to be intrinsically hard to use and I have the option that it all basically sucks. While that may seem a little harsh my normal day is spent using some of the best software in the world so it's hard to come down to the level of corporate enterprise software that has a bad time built into it. Life's too short to use lame software.

So what's the point of all of this? I'm trying to show you what we have to offer, what my thinking is, where we're going and also let you talk back and tell me if I'm wrong about stuff and find out what you're thinking about too.

So what's hot currently? Well, the running joke has been our raffle on when the first Hampshire student will shoot a Division III project using a Red Camera – a year from now, two years? It turns out it's this semester – it's now. Some joke huh? That's what we're experiencing. The realities are appearing faster than our theorizing, faster than what we would expect in this ongoing transition from older forms into the no-tape, ultra-high-definition, progressive, 24 fps, electron cinematography world. Yes, the world of media is stranger than we know, but maybe you are too.

gunther