Foo Video - Worst Commute Video Ever

Watch this video directly on YouTube

For no good reason on Wednesday, I shot video of my commute to and from work. It was me, the truck, passing cars, and the road. Nothing special, and maybe to some very pointless. Well...okay, pointless to me as well. When I mentioned that I documented the commute to my friends on Facebook, the response was "we want to see it." So I edited down the two video files I had, doubled the speed, added some music, and came up with "Worst Commute Video Ever." The 'worst' in the title comes from the fact that I shot it with my camera phone (Lo-Resolution Deluxe), and really didn't put a lot of imagination into what I was shooting. It was just a matter of holding the phone up against the dash and driving with my other hand. If there is anything in the video that required imagination, it was choosing the music; it took longer to find the "right track" than it did to edit the video segment (there is actually a longer alternate version here created during the project). Sure, I could have uploaded the raw footage, but I do some taste, which provides limits to what I call "worst." Sharing raw footage would have been the Worstiest or Extra Worsty Pointless. Or both.

About the soundtrack: This song was an interesting catch. Extracted from a Grateful Dead live studio session from 1966, "New Minglewood Blues" had a catchy 60s surf/country twang vibe that I simply couldn't resist. Frankly, it's been stuck in my head for two days now. And this is coming from someone who really doesn't consider himself a Dead fan. BUT...If you're a Deadhead and want to know where I found it let me know.

All this work has to bring some to think, "Kurt, why on Earth would you do this?" Or worse, "WTH?" Truthfully? I'm not sure exactly. Maybe it's just fun to do, for one, or perhaps experimenting with video editing techniques on something as inconsequential as a lo-res video of me driving to work keeps me out of trouble. As I watch it (and because I've been editing I'm probably at over 100 times now) I marvel how the whole thing captures the feeling a driving really fast with the radio turned up loud - uhh...or so I'm told - only with more cinematic drama and without that pesky waste of fuel. Taking classes in multimedia is really starting to interest me now, thanks to my trusty Cingular 2125 camera phone and the RCA Small Wonder digital video camera Sherry got me for Christmas.

But will you ever find me at Sundance with my pointless lo-res offerings? Probably not!