Meeting Report: Sunday, April 19th, 2009

While host John Herman was away in NYC, the meet-up was run by the wonderful Bryan White with notes by Larry Clow (but feel free to make suggested changes and additions in the comments –especially if someone was missed). Thanks guys! Take a look at who stopped by…

E. Christopher Clark is the editor of Geek Force Five. Formerly billed as the “five most notable manifestations of awesomeness in a geek’s universe,” GFF will now offer “five loaves of geekery delivered fresh daily” in order to keep it more current and spontaneous. GFF just wrapped up its first annual March Madness tournament, in which 64 geeky topics battled it out, with Star Wars triumphing over The Beatles in the final round. Chris will have a table at Free Comic Book Day in Rochester on May 2. He’ll be selling copies of his book “Those Little Bastards,” with half the proceeds from sales going to Social Media for Social Change.

Director Bill Rogers of the Coruway Film Institute, Now or Never Media and producer and star of the “Bald Guy on Climate Change” films spoke briefly about Twitter, which he’s been using to find people interested in climate change. However, he wonders how people are using Twitter, whether as a broadcast platform, a way of interacting with other people, or some combination thereof.

Laurie A. Couture is the author of “Medicating Instead of Punishing,” a book about parenting and education in industrialized cultures and how best to move back to natural ways of parenting and education. She recently learned a documentary she was interviewed for, called “The War on Kids,” was recently screened in New York and Boston. She’s currently working on revamping her website and will soon have a Twitter account. In the meantime, she can be found on Facebook.

Zachary Pike is an animator; he’s currently teaching illustration and digital art at York County Community College and thinking about going back to get his Master’s in Fine Arts. He’s also working on a screenplay, tentatively titled “Ink,” about a psychic detective in the Irish mafia.

Chase Bailey is a producer/writer/director with Left Bank Films, a production company based in Paris and Portsmouth that produces independent films. Chase is currently working on the short film “Crooked Lane,” a psychological thriller in the vein of “The Sixth Sense.” Left Bank focuses mainly on independent features but also produces short films.

Justine Graykin is a speculative fiction writer who’s currently working on podcasts of her most recent novel, “Archimedies Nesslerod.” Two chapters of the book are up, and she’s working with her husband, Larry, to record to rest. Justine hopes to create an audiobook version of the novel as well. She’s looking for other alternative venues for getting her work out into the public. Justine also does readings in the greater New England area with Broad Universe (broaduniverse.org).

Along with the recording of Justine’s book, Larry Graykin is working on getting artspider.net off the ground. ArtSpider is a site that will connect all the NH arts communities, so that writers, musicians, illustrators and so on can collaborate with each other and find new audiences. He also likes to compose music and has been working on background music and recording for Justine’s podcast. At the moment, the ArtSpider FAQ is live at artspider.info and Larry hopes the main site will be live sometime in the fall.

Documentary filmmaker Dennis Kleinman’s latest film “Alaska’s Extreme Machines” premiered last week on the National Geographic Channel. It’s about “Alaska and manliness—big Alaskan guys doing stuff in tough environments.” He’s working on a series called “Extreme New Hampshire” and is also developing a video game for Sega.

Brian Paul is a performer with a focus on improv comedy. He’s in a lot of online shows, most notably Odd Noggin Land, a surreal musical web series about people with food items for heads, where he plays Cheeseburger.

Graphic designer Tara Walker is newly unemployed, but most recently worked as the marketing designer for the William Arthur stationary company in Maine. Her full page ad for William Arthur can be found in the latest issue of Martha Stewart Weddings. She also recently wrote an article for Geek Force Five on Cut&Paste. She can often be found at Breaking New Grounds with her yellow laptop, or online at tarawalker.net.

Leslie Poston can be found on Twitter @geechee_girl and at uptownuncorked.com. She just sent “Twitter for Dummies” off to press. Leslie also recently started the Social Media Breakfast in NH, and so far, an average of 60 to 80 people show up each month. The last one was held at UNH, and the next Social Media Breakfast is slated for May 15. She’s looking for speakers on inbound or viral marketing. Leslie’s also working on Podcamp NH, along with Nick Plante (@zapnap), Amy Greenlaw (@girlgamy), Christine Major (@cmajor), and John Herman (@johnherman). They’re looking for all sorts of help. Leslie is also starting a side project with Amy Greenlaw called Film Pop, which will promote and market independent films online. It’s so new they don’t have a website yet. Uptown Uncorked is also going through some changes this summer, and Leslie is looking for graphic designers, web designers, programmers familiar with PHP and Ruby on Rails who might be available toward the end of the summer.

Andrew Pinard is a full-time performer who’s been making a living lying to people for 19 years. Among his many projects, he performs sleight of hand entertainment for corporate and resort audiences. His original musical, Fantasmagoria Cabaret (fantasmagoriacabaret.com), was recently premiered in Concord . He has a number of other projects in magic and lectures on con games, cheats, swindling and other topics. His touring exhibit, The Strange Thing, can be found at thestrangething.net. He’s also been traveling around the country interviewing veteran magic performers and creators in Continuum, a segment for the DVD video series Reel Magic Magazine (reelmagicmagazine.com) and is waiting for iTunes to approve it for sale as a movie. He’d like to try work with artists and presenting organizations to create a circuit to promote the work of, and provide performance venues for, NH performers, writers, and authors. He can also be found at absomagic.com and andrewpinard.com and he’s always looking for creative and interesting people to collaborate with.

Eric Lecuyer is a writer who dabbles mostly in fiction. He’s currently working on his second novel, which he hopes to have finished by the end of the spring, edited by the end of the summer, and off to an agent or publisher shortly thereafter. He also dabbles a bit in poetry, short stories and has a couple screenplay ideas. Eric is the co-founder of the Deep Thought writing workshop that meets at Toadstool Books in Milford the second and fourth Friday of each month. Deep Thought can be found on Google Groups. Eric is also part of the Monadnock Writing Group that meets in Peterborough the third Saturday of each month.

Bryan White is the editor of Cinema Suicide, a daily digest of horror/cult/B-movie/trash cinema news, reviews and commentary. In addition, he’s at work on a couple of screenplays; one is a sort of H.P. Lovecraft-in-the-mountains/Manly Wade Wellman feature (that won’t be produced) and the other is a script for a zombie movie that’s basically Reservoir Dogs with zombies. He recently started a column for Sound on Sight, a Quebec-based blog/podcast site. His column is called The Weekly Body Count. Bryan’s also looking into starting his own podcast with Larry Clow and Steve Calebro.

Photojournalist Scott Yates lives in Newmarket and works for the Portsmouth Herald and Seacoast Media Group. He’s primarily interested in music and you can find him most sunny days in Market Square attacking the buskers on the street and producing audio recordings. He’s online at http://scottpyates.blogspot.com. Scoott’s looking for some creative non-fiction stories to go with some of his photos and he’s also available for freelance gigs.

Desmond Haupt is eager to get back in the field of film add video production. One project he’s always been interested in is a documentary for recent amputees. An amputee himself, Desmond has done martial arts and other extreme stuff and thinks it would be interesting to produce a documentary showing the possibilities that amputees have. He’s interested in taking on any sort of film jobs and is willing to travel.

Brian Moreau is looking to get involved in any sort of media he can. He prefers film and is willing to work behind the scenes, act and anything else. He also does some writing, including poetry and short stories. He’s on Twitter at @macvulpine.

Mike Focarra is the owner and director of Shoe Some Films. They recently produced a music video for The Minus Scale and hosted a premier at Buoy in Kittery. They’re in production right now on a horror movie about the birth of the Jersey Devil (they’ll be blowing up a (fake) pregnant woman sometime this weekend, if anyone wants to help). Mike does different projects throughout the year and is always interested in working with people.

Science-fiction writer James Patrick Kelly spoke briefly about the New Hampshire Writers Project and how the beginnings of the NHWP were a lot like the beginnings of NH Media Makers and wonders how NHMM will grow in the future. . Next Saturday, he’s heading out to L.A. For the Nebula Awards (he’s been up for the award 11 times and has won once). Jim handed out copies of a CD recording of his story “Don’t Stop.”

Writer Jacqueline Benson is mostly working on stage and screen productions. She has a documentary premiering at the Beijing Film Festival this year and has a couple other projects coming up that she can’t discuss yet. She’s working on a couple film projects with Mike Foccar. One project she’s currently seeking help on is a film about ghost stories – specifically, true ghost stories that take place somewhere between Kittery and Brunswick involving locations that people can go out and actually visit.

Kevin Baringer does web development as well as some acting and tech work at the Players Ring in Portsmouth. He’s working on a long-brewing side project called barearts.net, an online art gallery for local independent artists. Kevin’s also keen on starting up a local access internet channel and is looking for ideas, feedback and other thoughts. He’s on Twitter at @kbaringer and at kevinbaringer.com.

Kevin shot some video at the meet-up using the iSight camera on his MacBookPro. Take a look:

Marc Murai is the executive producer and director of NH Theater Live (on MCAM 23). He recently moved out here from California a year and a half ago and is an Emmy and Peabody-winning producer. Marc is signing a preliminary intent to purchase agreement for the Ioka Theater in Exeter and is working on putting together a business proposal to help save the theater. It’d be a tragedy to filmmakers and the community to lose it, and Marc hopes to come up with a business plan and grassroots campaign to help save the theater. He also wants to find people willing to document this effort so that it may become a resource for other communities around the country looking to save old movie houses. He can be reached online at http://mamuproductions.com.

UPDATE: Seacoast Online picked up the Ioka story and reported on it here.

Larry Clow is a freelance writer who writes for a number of local publications, including The Wire and Foster’s. He also writes reviews for Cinema Suicide and occasional pieces for Geek Force Five.

Kevin McLitzi is the community manager for DimDim. He’s been a social media/web guy for the last 15 years and is helping Leslie set up the Social media breakfast in NH. He’s looking to get in tune with the media makers scene in NH.

Matthew Craig spoke about xiph.org, an open-video initiative put together by the W3C standards board. It’s a multimedia format that allows users to view video content without downloading codecs or third-party programs. It’s already in upcoming versions of Opera, Firefox and Safari, and it will make sharing content easier for artists. Matthew is talking about Xiph at the Open Video Alliance Conference in New York in June.

Jen Hogg is an illustrator and graphic artist. She’s also a member of the Exeter Arts Committee and helped organize an upcoming shoe called Buds and Blooms at Exeter Town Hall. She reminded everyone that the space at the town hall is open to the public as long as it has to do with the arts, and anyone interested in using it can contact the arts committee.

Illustrator Jeremy Couturier is working with Justine Graykin on illustrations for her novel. He’s also working with Jason Baraza and PT Sullivan on the College of Beer website and recently licensed some of his artwork for some handbags. Jeremy has a shop on Etsy and can be found on Facebook, Twitter and other locations.

DISCLAIMER: Next month is NH Media Makers 1 year anniversary. Expect lots of opportunities to make (and be a part of) media that day. Let’s go crazy. Bring a project with you. Let’s make it a real media circus. And feel free to suggest ways we should celebrate!