Cyprus-Forum.com

[Mills Chapman]

Hello everybody. There is the famous line that a picture is worth a thousand words. Well, a video is a thousand pictures.

From browsing on www.metacrawler.com and www.youtube.com , I see that there are no videos on the Internet describing solution proposals to the Cyprus problem. There is practically nothing - at least nothing balanced, that describes even the Cyprus problem itself. This is an untapped resource that we need to be made aware of.

To emphasize this point, watch this five-minute interview with the founders of Youtube as they explain its purpose. If you watch nothing else, watch the last 40 seconds, beginning at the 4:18 mark: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7E6E9q8Jebw

[am.i.will]

The 99% of Youtube is recorded TV programs and stupid webcam videos.

[Mills Chapman]

Exactly, my friend, but what about the 1% ?

[Sotos]

Mills I think the problem is not to put the videos online but to create the videos Maybe some could pay for a video production to support their point of view. But who would pay for something balanced? Thats the big question

[Sotos]

And the other even bigger question is what is balanced and who will decide what it is?

[Mills Chapman]

Sotos,

I agree with you about the problem of creating the videos. First of all, videocameras are very expensive. I don't have one, but I hope to in a couple of years. Secondly, it takes some "know-how" in order to put together a good video - regardless of its opinion. If one is inexperienced with video editing, it helps to have a friend who is a media specialist and who can assist. Otherwise, the quality will undoubtedly look poor, even if the opinion is balanced.

Now regarding the production of balanced videos, that too is an important question. There are unbalanced videos out there for sure, but I hope that most of us are critical thinkers who can smell a flaw when it exists. If not, there are others who can, and they can post their comments on a video blog such as Youtube and demand that the producer create a more balanced piece. Otherwise, those negative comments will serve as red flags for the rest of us.

There may not be a lot of people who are willing to pay for the production of balanced videos - and am.i.will did indeed make a good point. A lot of the stuff out there is junk. The worthwhile videos may make up more than 1% of the total number available, but it is quite low. A video producer, hoping to be taken seriously with a proposal, would be wise to finish up the presentation with an exhaustive review of possible flaws. Some comments can be made as to how solutions to those potential flaws are being thought out, but anyone who comes in with a proposal while saying that it is "Guaranteed to work! 100% !!" is a "quack" who is full of hot air, also known as b.s.

In thinking about the school I have proposed, it literally tires me to sit and think about all of its potential flaws. I feel really vulnerable when I think about some parts that have less than a 50% chance of working, but I take to heart that it will make me look a lot more credible in the public's eye if I can stand up and point these out and then point out what I am doing to work around them.

A good book that describes how to look at one's ideas for the future and then systematically critique it is Douglas Raybeck's Looking Down the Road : A Systems Approach to Futures Studies. I have to give the disclaimer here that this man taught at my college and that I probably would not have discovered it otherwise. But it is interesting; it is also depressing to think of all the ways to find weaknesses in one's creative proposals. However, the two sides of our brains need to work together - the right side creates and the left side critiques.

This is the description of the book from www.amazon.com . "The ability to look ahead and to treat abstractions as serious business is a skill we all need to cultivate. So states the author of Looking Down the Road, a compelling short work involving the grand, if frustrating, human preoccupation with prediction. Raybeck supplies readers with some of the tools and ideas they will need as they attempt to forecast developments that are apt to characterize future society. Looking Down the Road reflects the author's anthropological training as it seeks to elucidate some of the processes and pressures that create social and cultural change."

I suggest that anyone trying to create a balanced video first read this book and be prepared to use it in order to effectively point out both sides of the issue.

Love your avatar by the way, Sotos.

[Sotos]

Videocameras are cheap these days. Even I have one But just owning a camcorder is not enough. You need several people with skills like a script writer, a director and somebody that can do the editing and production on a program like Premier. Without people with good skills and lots of time to invest in this nothing good can come out!

[Mills Chapman]

I agree. It takes a lot of technical know-how. I don't have that, and one doesn't get it simply from buying a camera.

[T_C]

well I have a a few moviemaker programs on my laptop. If you could contribute with ideas/pictures/music/clips and all other things I could try and make something. Ive done a few little things in the past and its not as hard as it looks actually. I also have limewire so I can download every program I need for free.

I need ideas though coz I wouldnt know how to go about it. Let me know...

*EDIT*

Ok reading the posts back I dont think I could make what you want. But I could definately make a video to try bring people together. Its been done on youtube already, its a shit video but theres people leaving nice comments, specially a lot of Turkish people. Unfortunately there arent many Greek people joining in and apart from one or two. Maybe you guys could comment too. The guy whos making the videos is Turkish too but chose the name "hellasman" to encourage Greek people to comment although they've caught him out.
And by the way this videos been up for little over a month and already had 3,923 views this isnt bad considering its youtube. I had a video on there dancing and I had 15.000 views in 2 months before. You can always get people to watch what you want them to watch thanks to the tags you place on the videos.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iGTfzDCdXGk

[Mills Chapman]

turkish_cypriot,

Thank you for the encouraging post. I greatly appreciate your willingness to assist whoever may need your help. I know for me personally, I am over a year away (at least) before making videos, but I think I have a lot of worthwhile content (ideas/pictures/music) but sadly not much technical know-how. I would like to contact you when the time is right if that is okay. Thanks again. - mills