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Orlando Fringe Begins! May 16, 2008

Posted by Ryan in : Orlando, Events, Reviews, Fringe, floridacreatives, bloggingfringe , add a comment

Last night was the first day of shows for the 2008 Orlando International Fringe Theatre Festival, and I must say the Fringe has got a lot of great stuff going on! So many wonderful shows, both from Orlando regulars and some new folks as well - there’s even a show that takes place in the women’s bathroom! No matter what happens at this year’s festival, you’ll be sure to find daily updates at http://www.bloggingfringe.com

First thing you’ll notice is that the size of “The Green” has about tripled in size, with the Beer Tent remaining the center of attention. Because of the Fringe Membership drive and the special treatment for VIP members, beer/wine tickets are now $4 each, but I’ve seen some folks getting $1 off with their badges.

I saw Voci Dance’s “Perfectly Broken” at the Red (outdoor) Venue at the Orlando Shakes (the old beer tent location, and I think this is such a great use of this space! Even if the conflicts with the Orlando REP are resolved next year, I still would love to see this extra venue stick around or replace the old Red Venue, which was so tiny and hard to find.

Voci didn’t disappoint either, with an all-new show - lots of solos, more dance pieces that tell short stories over the course of two or three pieces, a live two-piece band and some really amazing dancing. I also liked the “Vocitini” table they had set up outside.

Some cool things to check out are Tod Caviness’ Poetry Vending Machine - $5 gets you a custom-written poem by one of the poets in residence. Also check out the Saturday night Poetry Smackdown events.

Another interesting addition is the Digi-Dada Theatre - Mark Biddle from The Office Art Gallery has written a series of short skits for Fringe Patrons to perform on camera in his mini-TV studio at the Shakes Fest, and he will be compiling the clips into a longer surreal piece to show off sometime soon.

Check out both Tod and Mark talking up their respective projects over at bloggingfringe.com/category/video/

I also went to the opening night of Gemma Wilcox’s “Shadows in Bloom”, which feels like a prequel to last year’s “The Honeymoon Period is Officially Over”. I’d like to ask Gemma and see what she has to say about this. Lots more characters, and lots more Gemma!

We are just getting started, but there is one more thing I’d like to mention - anyone and everyone has the ability to get their 15 minutes in this year, thanks to Blogging Fringe. I will be syndicating blogs - it’s simple and you get to keep all the publicity! Just send me a link to your blog or your blog’s feed - I’ll filter out posts that mention the Fringe Festival and re-post them to Blogging Fringe. When people check out the most recent posts on the site or do a search, they’ll see your posts, but when they click the links, they are directed to your blog, so you get to keep all the comments and maybe make some new friends in the process. Contact me through www.BloggingFringe.com or MySpace/Facebook to get listed as a Contributor.

Last but not least, come join the Florida Creatives on Monday for a visit to the beer tent and some socializing - we’ll be there from 6PM until 7:30, then we’ll head to the Shakes for Barry Smith’s show, American Squatter.

Hope to see you all out at Loch Haven Park this week! Happy Fringe!

May is a Kickass Month for Arts Events in Orlando May 15, 2008

Posted by Ryan in : Orlando, Music, Drupal, Events, Film, Fringe, floridacreatives, Likemind.orl, OrlandoScene, Arts, bloggingfringe , add a comment

Why is May such a great month for holding events? Sure, for our Northern friends, it means the end of bad weather, the opening of roller coaster parks, and a change in the scenery as the trees and flowers start to show their summer colors, but here in Florida, it’s more like the start of the summer’s hot, humid, rainy monotony, the arrival of the tourists, time-share owners, kids on summer vacation, religious zealots protesting Gay Days, and of course, bad drivers in rental cars.

The main reason I look forward to May every year is the arrival of the Orlando International Fringe Theatre Festival (Thursday the 15th through Monday the 26th). Every year, theatre companies, dancers, comedians, clowns, musicians, improv actors, writer/directors, solo acts and large ensembles, exuberant teenagers and road-hardened veterans alike grace Loch Haven Park with their creativity and energy, and Orlando gives every ounce of it (and more) back to them as many of the national and international acts begin their Canadian Fringe circuit, which brings them to a new city every two weeks. Show prices range from free (as in free software) to $10, and all shows require the one-time purchase of a $6 festival button - 100% of your ticket money goes to the artist. This is one of the only unjuried, uncensored events I know of in Orlando outside of a few open-mic nights, and even some of those are passing judgment on the performers (the other best example here is BarCamp).

18 months ago, I started gathering a group of my friends together every third Monday of the month for an event called Florida Creatives Happy Hour (Monday the 19th, 6PM @ Loch Haven Park). Now, those original 8 friends are hardly in the same room, but the group has grown to something resembling a small political party representing the creative professionals and hobbyists here in Central Florida (with a group getting started in Jacksonville as I write this). This month’s Florida Creatives falls during the Fringe Festival, so at 6PM on the 19th we will be descending upon their “Green Lawn of Fabulousness” to have a beer and some soul food and socialize. At 7:45, we will be attending American Squatter, starring Barry Smith, the creator of last year’s sell-out hit Jesus in Montana. Tickets are $10 plus your $6 Fringe button.

Despite the fact that Fringe starts on the same day every year, another festival seems to think they are better than the Fringe, by starting on the exact same day. Yes, the Florida Music Festival runs Thursday the 15th through Sunday the 18th this year, at pretty much every available venue downtown. In past years, you’ve been able to buy a one-time pass that gets you in to all the shows for the whole weekend, as well as nightly passes - buying a ticket to just one show will hardly do such an event justice. The festival also has a short film as well as an art contest, check these out too if you can find the time in between all of the other events happening at the exact same time.

What other events? How about that bizarre craft bazaar held semi-bi-anually at Stardust Video & Coffee, Grandma Party? (Saturday the 17th, 10AM to Sunset) For some reason they opted out of celebrating Earth Day in favor of overlapping with FMF and Fringe this year - the reason why is left as homework for the reader. Actually, if you find out, please try to explain this one to me too. At G-ma Party, you’ll not only find loads of handmade goods, like the cereal-and-eggs inspired work of the Breakfast Bunch, but trendy t-shirts, buckets of buttons, live music by some of Orlando’s best local bands (at least those who are friends with the festival organizers), a bal-looney community pool, and of course rummage piles and raffles.

Not as culturally significant, but still worth a mention, the second ever Florida Drupal User Group meeting will be held at the offices of MindComet in Maitland this Saturday (May 17th, 1PM). Check out the event and any follow-up at groups.drupal.org/florida.

Still more to come in this round-up of events, because I couldn’t write such a blog post without mentioning the Corazon Art and Music Festival being held at the Orlando Brewing Company (Sunday the 18th, starts 1PM, All Day). As I’m writing this I don’t have access to any listings, but I know tickets are $5, and I can give a serious recommendation, as this event is being thrown by Robert and Jonathan from Gamble Records, the folks who brought us the ELLA Music Festival in October. I expect you will see lots of singer-songwriter type acts, and you can trust Robert Johnson’s rolodex to bring you some great music (and art?).

There must be more happening during the next two weeks, but isn’t that enough? Of course, we can’t forget about this Friday (May 16th, 8AM-11AM) and the Likemind Orlando coffee meetup at the Lake Eola Panera Bread. This month there will be free coffee and hopefully a few free copies of a book called Murketing - I don’t have a lot of details about it, but I know the publishers of the book are sponsoring the coffee and snacks all over the US, so they get serious props.

If I’m missing anything here, please leave a shout-out, and I’ll try to include it in the next bulletin. Until next time, have a great May!

New Ryan Price Media Blog Syndication Feed May 12, 2008

Posted by Ryan in : Site News, Blogging, Podcasts , add a comment

I recently tried to sign up for a service to get my feed syndicated, and they complained about my Flickr photos and daily links entries that only appear in the RSS feed - they said entries with repetitive titles feel like spam for their users - I can sympathize. When you’re looking at the blog, my links and photos appear in the sidebar, but on RSS, I am aggregating a bit.

Therefore, I have created a syndication-friendly feed for Ryan Price Media:

RSS Ryan Price Media Blog Entries Only Feed

I also added a link to the Liberatr.net feed in the left-hand sidebar on the blog just to make it more visible. If you’re not currently subscribed to that feed, check it out.

3 UI Design Books for Your College Class May 7, 2008

Posted by Ryan in : Tech, Reviews, Books, Design, Web Sites, Graphics, interface, Teaching , 1 comment so far

My friend Jake called me a few days ago to tell me he will be teaching a User Interface Design class at Ferris State University in Grand Rapids, MI next Fall. After my congratulations, he asked me to help him pick out a textbook for his students. Here were my suggestions:

Universal Principles of Design - William Lidwell, Kritina Holden, Jill Butler

I loved this book from the moment I picked it up and learned why the iPod makes us happy - it’s the Golden Proportion, or the Golden Rectangle, as some might say. Then, at the bottom of that page, you get “links” to some other design topics you may find helpful when discussing the Golden Proportion, like The Rule of Thirds. Anyone who designs anything, from software to hardware and anything between, needs a copy of this book.

I told Jake to have a copy of this book around for the class to reference, but I wasn’t sure if they all needed one.

Beautiful Evidence - Edward R. Tufte

This is the one book out of these three that I don’t own… yet. I saw this in the book store while searching for a book about Processing, so you can also find it near the graphics books. Information Design is the name of the game, and Mr. Tufte has some of the most beautiful and useful designs you will ever see. He even goes in to how they displayed and photographed some of his sculpture outdoors. Absolutely breathtaking.

This book would be a great resource for a Level II UI Design class, but I think it is perhaps too detailed for beginners.

Design Whys: Designing Web Site Interface Elements - Eric Eaton

I’ve heard a lot of folks tout Don’t Make Me Think as the bible to user-interface design for the web. Honestly, the title and presentation of this book drew me in a little deeper when I was buying it a few years ago.

Since my friend was looking for a book about UI Design, I found this on my shelf and made my final recommendation to use Eric Eaton’s book for his class.

Design Whys starts out by telling you what this Interface Design stuff is all about, and walks you through specifying and planning a project. Then you get an introduction to the common UI elements: links, buttons, form elements; what makes a link clickable, colors, designing for different browsers and devices, why use a link vs. a button, basic typography. The section on Advanced Interface Elements breaks us out of what’s normally possible on the web to cover things that would now be considered AJAX-y forms, applications, metaphorical interfaces, and custom or experimental UI elements, like those created with DHTML, Flash or 3D.

After the first 200 pages of the book, he launches us into a case study of some useful websites (at least as they were in 2003). The sites in the book are no less useful, beautiful, or innaovative than they were 5 years ago, though. It’s interesting to take a look at what folks were doing back then that the world still hasn’t caught up with. We seem to be constantly wanting to homogenize the experience (maybe I’m guilty of that as well). There’s room to be daring on the web, and I don’t mean large fonts, pastels, and rounded corners.

I hope Jake takes my suggestions to heart and picks the best candidate. If you have a UI design book you swear by, or you have a comment or question about one of these books, I’d love to hear it.

Weekend Projects - Lightweight Photo Service May 5, 2008

Posted by Ryan in : Tech, Web Sites, mashups, interface, open source, Web Services, Programming , add a comment

This is a project I’ve been thinking about for a while, and I’d love to do a hack weekend to get this working sometime.

One thing that’s been a problem with us at Petentials (and many other sites running Drupal) is Photo uploading, sharing, embedding, etc. Aaron Winborn created a great tool called Embedded Media Field that abstracts the hosting of photos, videos and audio files for a Drupal installation - what I’m thinking of doing is writing a custom interface for that module that allows a user to upload the files without leaving the page, and then talks to Drupal to tell it to make a new node for the photo, add it to a gallery, or the same for a batch of images - Aaron’s module does quite a bit of this already.

I was wondering if Menalto Gallery (G2) could help us out here, but that’s really meant to be used as its own system - I really just want to create a REST/CRUD interface we can throw on a subdomain to serve up images and thumbnails, while also generating new thumbnails as needed. G2 has lots of these features, but then we’d have to keep the user tables in synch and I’m not sure we need everything they have to offer.

This is not meant to be a flickr or a photobucket, but the replacement for hosting images in-house. It should be insanely transparent to the users - they should not need to register, have any plugins or enter any extra screens.

My thoughts are the following:

The application by itself won’t do anything - you’d need a CMS to integrate it with. My choice is Drupal, of course.

Certainly on the wish list for embedded media field is the ability to integrate this content transparently in the background (see Vox’s media features). Using something like PingVision’s Drupal Markup Engine and a WYSIWIG editor might get us most of the way there. It’s an API that lets you specify custom tags - mostly these can be used to add images, video or blocks inside a node, but there are dozens of uses that have not been invented yet, I’m sure. If the editor can have plugins written (Kupu is the editor of choice for Acquia’s Carbon). I don’t think it should insert raw HTML, but a custom tag so we can abstract the method of storage - just something like [image:13456] or [video:13456] or [audio:13456] or [gallery:13456] at least until HTML5 gives us a standard for implementing this.

One reason why the Embedded Media Field is so great is because if YouTube changes the player, or if they introduce the option to turn off the related videos at the end, or even if you come up with your own .FLV wrapper, like a deep-tagging service, all your calls to videos are made through this tag - it’s an API for HTML code.

If we get an editor that supports this sort of stuff and a module/plugin for major CMSes and platforms, those can all live in one place. Wordpress has support for TinyMCE or the plain-text editor, but it must support others, yes? Another editor that would be high on my list is the YUI Rich Text Editor.

I could probably go on all day, but I think I’ve gotten a decent explanation for this cluster of projects out there.

Which days of Fringe do I take off? April 28, 2008

Posted by Ryan in : Events, bloggingfringe , 1 comment so far

I have a choice: do I take the first three days of Fringe Week off, the middle three, or the last three? I know opening weekend, the last weekend and Memorial Day will be action-packed, but I also don’t want to lose too much money from work.

Blogging Fringe (or this year, my personal blog and OrlandoScene.TV) will be taking up some time, but I also don’t want to take ALL week off so I can save my pennies. Any thoughts, comments, suggestions?

Hacking as Art

Posted by Ryan in : Reviews, Books, floridacreatives, Arts, Programming , 1 comment so far

Last week, I started the discussion of programming as a form of creative expression with some of the kids at work, and Kevin pointed us to John Littler’s Art and Computer Programming article. That led Eric to post a link to Paul Graham’s essay on Hackers and Painters, which I gobbled up and loved.

I’m writing this blog post so I can click on my own Amazon link to order this book for myself. If you appreciate the recommendation, you could do the same. Hackers and Painters: Big Ideas from the Computer Age is a collection of 14 essays by Graham on “the importance of beauty in software design, how to make wealth, heresy and free speech, the programming language renaissance, the open-source movement, digital design, internet startups, and more.”

Again, I’ll say that I don’t like the use of the word renaissance, since the medium itself has hardly affected 5 generations of men and women. This next wave where we move toward semantic web and a mixture of online and offline applications shows lots of promise, but I won’t agree that this era can be referred to as a rebirth for many years to come, when I’m old and I’ve had some time to look at it from a distance.

Just that first essay where Paul talks about getting a day job and hacking at night is certainly how I’ve always felt about podcasting - I love it, and I’d love to get paid for it, but to do it 40 hours a week would really feel like implementing someone else’s plan instead of creating the art myself.

From Paul Graham’s original Hacking and Painting essay:

If a hacker were a mere implementor, turning a spec into code, then he could just work his way through it from one end to the other like someone digging a ditch. But if the hacker is a creator, we have to take inspiration into account.

I say this all the time, but one reason why I think so many folks at the Florida Creatives Happy Hour are programmers is because of the nature of the medium. We hack in our spare time, we release the apps quietly, thousands of people anywhere in the world may use and love the results of our labors of love, but we don’t get to see them face to face - painters, filmmakers, actors, poets, all have the ability to be present with their audience the first time they experience it. Television and radio are more removed. Web apps further still. We crave that human interaction, and the validation you can only get from your peers and your audience. That’s why all the hackers are there.

One of these days I’ll get some Processing projects going, and have some literal art created by a hacker to show off. When I get some free time, you’ll see. Whenever that happens.

“5 Minute Romance” Follow-up April 27, 2008

Posted by Ryan in : Blogging, 5minuteromance , add a comment

Mark Baratelli asks:

Saw your podcast post re: lady rap and your experience with the puppet festival. What was the outcome of that?

The outcome with Heather was sort of that she was too busy at the time to listen to hours and hours of podcasts, and the memory of it sort of came back to me recently when I thought about writing this blog. I don’t know if she ever listened to any of the shows, but it was a good example about how this blogging stuff is not always good at making first impressions.

I was referencing your (Lady Raptastic) show because it’s not the sort of thing that I myself got into after listening to it once, you know? You’ve got so many episodes, where does one begin to introduce someone to a new universe?

This new media stuff is hard to digest sometimes, I think I am trying to start a meme.

I actually just tried to call Mark so I could record his initial thoughts about the 5 Minute Romance idea, but I got a voicemail. I’d love to get a dialog going here, if anyone wants to chime in, leave a comment or call me.

Also, using the words “5 minute romance” or tagging a post with “5minuteromance” will be a good way to keep this going, I think. I’m going to set up Google Alerts for these and see what happens.

Muder We Wrote at Rollins College April 26, 2008

Posted by Ryan in : Orlando, Reviews, Trends, Games, OrlandoScene, Storytelling, Theatre, bloggingfringe, Rollins , add a comment

Where does one begin? I often find that when writing these theatre reviews, it’s a good idea to gather my thoughts, think about what I want to say and in what order; I don’t have time for that, I’m going back to see the last showing in an hour!

I first learned about this production through a friend who helped to workshop the format for this improvised 90-minute board-game inspired murder mystery… she and several other students, under the direction of David Charles, PhD. - Assistant Professor of Theatre and Dance at Rollins College. The whole play is improvised, so there are bound to be some times during such a long show where the scenes may be stronger or weaker - to counteract that, “Dr. David” and his class developed dozens of devices to help them create a sustainable story throughout the length of the show.

We begin at the stately home of a Mr. Phil Reynolds, a successful lawyer with a deceased rich wife. His business partner Toni and spouse Gene the artist will be guests at tonights party, along with his child Bobby and sibling Toni, servant Pat, and lifelong friend Dr. Chris. An unexpected guest arrives, and, inevitably, there is a murder! Some classic (yet improvised) scenes are played on the stage of the Annie Russell Theatre, which has been masterfully converted to the perfect setting for these 8 unlikely murderers or murderesses to play out their little drama. You’ll laugh, you’ll scratch your head, and above all you’ll have fun.

I’ve got so much more to tell, but no time to tell it… we continue our recap when I return from the last showing of Murder We Wrote tonight!

**** Continued ****

As the play begins, you see a man sitting at a bar, and as he turns to the audience, he gives us the look the look that says “Are you ready for this?”. At all three showings, David’s entrance gave us a laugh. This audience was ready to have fun. The story is set up as an “exploration of the human psyche” where “a seemingly random series of events” may yield “murderous results”, and the setup for the game begins. Three decks of cards are passed out to the audience and shuffled, then used to select a victim, a murder weapon, a location and… the murderer. The recited banter during this section kept us paying attention, instead of looking down at our “ballots” where we would later guess whodunnit. Only the Assistant Director and the killer know all the details of the crime before the final moments of the play when a confession is yanked out of the murder him or herself.

Once the setup is done, we the audience have also suggested a song title, a nervous habit, an annoying catch phrase, and several other ways for the players to use to make us feel as much like the writers of the story as the people on and off stage. Just before, however, is perhaps the most exciting part: the character cards are shuffled, and 7 of the 8 roles are completely randomized by members of the audience. All the parts are non-gender specific, including the married couple, and relationships between siblings and children. Even the order of entrance for the characters is ever-changing, decided by the backstage team of a dozen or more people who are constantly feeding the actors suggestions, props, cues, even their catchphrases, and reconciling any plot holes during intermission. There are countless challenges for the lighting and sound team as well, and opportunities for them to drive the story as much as anyone down at the stage level.

The most rewarding parts of the show come in the second act, where the details of the murder are spoon-fed to us at fixed intervals (or as much as can be with an improvised show). We already know the victim before we take the intermission and make our guesses, and immediately after, the location of the murder is revealed. I don’t know to give credit to one person for this, or the whole team of students, along with Dr. David who playtested and researched this last summer, but there is some expert game design at work here.

Then someone suggests “we should split up and search the house”, and each of the 8 characters takes one of the doors leading to various wings and levels of the house, only to frantically burst out of the door in a ballet of “who am I on stage with, and what do we do now?”, the inner workings of which I know is my job to keep a secret, but congratulations to J. Hannah White, the lighting designer for her brilliant stroke on that one. There’s also a more traditional improv game set up in the coat closet, at the bar, and up on the balcony, where the players pass lines to each other like a hot potato that is always unpredictable and fun. It’s these sort of moments that make us forget we’re watching the story being written in real-time.

Last but not least, all the cast re-assemble in the main hall to try and figure out for themselves who the murderer is. Things at this point can get rather tense, and apparently, a wrestling match broke out during this scene on Friday between actor Seth and Dr. David. The atmosphere teeters on melodramatic as actors are eliminated, concealed weapons are pulled, dead bodies lie on the couch and revealing letters are read… or none of these things happen and they just wing it, it’s really different every night.

What’s that? Sorry you missed it? I feel sorry for your too. This show could run every night down on International Drive if the team were so inclined. I don’t remember how much of Sleuths Dinner Theatre is improvised, maybe I’ll have to go back and do some post-game research. So far, the closest things I’ve seen to this level of story plus improvisation in such a long form are The Adventurer’s Club at Pleasure Island, which I would consider a distant script-heavy cousin of Muder We Wrote (all the endings are decided, most of the jokes and songs are repeated, but the cast is always changing), and SAK Comedy Lab’s The Early Show, which plays every other Friday at Midnight, and is completely improvised with no backstage magic, just the performers left to their own devices.

What makes these other productions around town the same or different from this show? In Murder, we the audience are all following this global discovery as we ourselves and the rest of the actors and around-stage hands and minds try to figure out the story. In regular improv or something more scripted, we either have a better or worse idea of where the ending is. We have an idea of how we think it could happen, and the several dozen people actually driving do as well, but there’s no way to know until the last possible moment when the killer reveals his or her secret and we have a collective pay-off. There’s lots more to say about what’s happening here and how they pulled off the format, but then this would be getting into research paper territory, and I’d need to start giving examples from other historic or contemporary works, and… well, we’re only blogging here!

I’ve never taken a theatre class in my life, and I graduated from UCF 4 years ago (almost to the day), but my biggest takeaway from this was a desire to enroll at Rollins under Dr. David Charles. You can tell everyone involved on this play was having such a great time, and the fact that people were coming back to watch a second, third, or even more showings is a testament to the fun and intrigue of this production, and the charm exuded by David and his cast. Congratulations to Megan Borkes, Ana Eligio, Joseph Bromfield, Chelsea Dygan, Erica Leas, Seth Strutman, Emily Smith, Roberto Pineda, Michael Neil Mastry, Danny Tuegel, Liz Weisstein, and Rob Yoho, along with all the other cast and crew, on an excellent run.

Falling in Love 5 Seconds at a Time April 25, 2008

Posted by Ryan in : Twitter, Love , add a comment

As a follow-up to my last post, I will give the additional point that on Twitter your 5 minutes are reduced to something more like 5 seconds