Staff Blog

Hey Everybody!

We know that you already like Vimeo, but what about couches? TVs? Wouldn't it be great to watch Vimeo from your couch... on your TV!? We thought so too, and today we are happy to announce the launch of Couch Mode. Couch Mode is a special new section of Vimeo that allows you to watch collections of videos (such as Staff Picks, your inbox, your videos, etc.) completely uninterrupted like a TV channel. Just press play and grab the popcorn.

That's not all. You can still do many of things you already do on the site today: like clips, add them to your Watch Later playlist, and get more information about videos and other users. We're extremely excited about the potential!

Couch Mode is optimized for Google TV and will be available in the Spotlight section soon. Don't have a Google TV? No worries, Couch Mode will work on your desktop too. However, we use a lot of HTML5 and CSS3 technology for this (no Flash!), so at the moment it will only work on Chrome and Safari.

You can navigate around using either the mouse or the keyboard via arrow and return keys. Hitting escape at anytime will bring you back to the currently playing video and clear any overlays. Of course, we also recommend hooking your computer up to the biggest screen you can find!

Let us know what you think!

Hey Vimeo,

The Staff is still abuzz with delight at the success of our very first Vimeo Festival and Awards, we couldn't be prouder of the community we've built together over the years. We love you guys!

Now it's time to get back into the groove of things so without delay here's a Weekend Project. This week's challenge was inspired by Luke Geissbuhler's video "Homemade Spacecraft". Luke, together with his son, managed to send a camera out into space, high above the Earth, and then retrieve the camera along with it's awesome footage. If you haven't seen it yet it's well worth a watch.

Homemade Spacecraft from Luke Geissbuhler on Vimeo.

In the spirit of ingenuity with video camera placement, I'm challenging you all to put your cameras in nontraditional settings to capture camera movement. No tripods or holding of the camera is allowed. Maybe you want to see what it would look like to shoot video from your bicycle's handlebars as you cruise around your neighborhood or attach the camera to a door knob for a fresh perspective on a room in your house. I made a video in the office to illustrate some examples, check it out:

Weekend Project - No Tripods or Cameraman from Daniel Hayek on Vimeo.

Don't be afraid to try something unconventional and have fun experimenting. The video that uses the most creative methods to get camera movement to tell a story wins!

The winner will take home a fully loaded Plus account or 2.5 GB more of upload capacity if they are already Plus. And the runner-up will receive an extra 1 GB of upload capacity whether Plus or not.

Your video should be no more than 2-3 minutes in length. Submissions are due Tuesday (10/26) at 11:59 PM (EST). Be sure to submit your video to the Weekend Project Group otherwise it will not be considered. Please note that the Community Staff must approve videos for inclusion into the Group.

Have fun with this project!


UPDATE-

Okay, this was a tough decision and I was very happy with the number of awesome submissions, great work everyone! In light of this I have decided to award two winners and two runner- ups

Here they are-

Winner- In the Skin of...(http://vimeo.com/groups/weekendproject/videos/16224130) by Remi Monedi (http://vimeo.com/remimonedi)

Winner- Beautiful Day for Shoes (vimeo.com/weekendproject/videos/16229047) by Jon Betz (vimeo.com/jonbetz)

Runner Up- Unsteady (vimeo.com/groups/weekendproject/videos/16231220) by zanaganda (vimeo.com/user1682235)

Runner Up- Weekend Project No tripods or Camera Man (vimeo.com/groups/weekendproject/videos/16120016) by David Leigh Newton (vimeo.com/user1972471)

Thanks to everyone for their submissions, seriously these were fun to watch.

Hello Vimeo!

Wowza, can't believe the Vimeo Festival + Awards are over! We're still getting back to our normal sleep schedules, but we couldn't leave you guys hanging! It's once again time to pull out some amazing videos, Groups, Channels, and members from the community, and this time it's all about mobile filmmaking!



First I'd like to mention Michael Koerbel. I had the pleasure of meeting him at the Vimeo Festival and he is doing some amazing work. Check out his most recent project, "Goldilocks" which was shot entirely on an iPhone 4!



Still in the mood for some mobile footage? Check out the iPhone Cinema Channel highlighting films made exclusively with iPhones!



But wait, even more mobile footage! Be sure to check out the Mobile Phone Galore Group where you can add your own mobile made films!

Well that's just about all for me guys. Remember, spread the love, give a "like" here and there if you find something cool.

Peace & Rockets,

Matt

Wow! This past weekend exceeded our wildest expectations. The screenings of the finalists' works were very well attended, and the experience of viewing these exceptional videos in a true theater setting was amazing.

The Awards ceremony on Saturday night was first-class, all the way. Ze Frank hosted with the combination of professionalism and humor that we knew he'd deliver, and his "co-host" - the three dimensional, projection-mapped screen/sculpture - took the ceremony to the next level. Full video of the evening coming very soon, don't worry. For now, here's a teaser.

The Vimeo Awards finalists were all deserving of praise, and the winners were gracious in their acceptance speeches.

When Eliot Rausch stepped up to the podium to accept the award for the Documentary category, his shock and appreciation were obvious. Later, when he returned to accept the award for Best Video and the $25,000 grant towards his future work, his genuine gratitude moved us just as much as his film, 'Last Minutes With ODEN' had. It was truly a special moment for everyone in the room.

And the winners are:

Narrative: "Thrush" by Gabriel Bisset-Smith
Documentary: "Last Minutes with ODEN" by Eliot Rausch
Music Video: "Liars 'Scissor'" by Andy Bruntel
Animation: "Between Bears" by Eran Hilleli
Original Series: "Break-ups The Series" by Ted Tremper
Experimental: "oops" by Chris Beckman
Motion Graphics: "TRIANGLE" by Onur Senturk
Captured: "Fluid Sculpture"by Charlie Bucket
Remix: "BREAKDOWN the video" by Kasumi

The great thing about this being a celebration of online video is that you can watch all of the winners right on our Awards site! We highly recommend you check out these works that we all found so inspiring. Community Choice winners will be announced next week, so stay tuned for that announcement.

We want to thank everyone who submitted their work for making this first annual Vimeo Festival + Awards such a success, and we look forward to seeing your entries next year.

Love,

Your Exhausted But Immensely Satisfied Vimeo Festival + Awards Team

Ladies and Gentleman, the Vimeo Festival + Awards are now over. Thousands of people from across the world gathered in New York City to meet the people behind the profiles and hear from inspiring speakers and Vimeo Awards judges. We held a series of eclectic screenings of amazing shorts submitted to the Vimeo Awards this year, including two finalists' screening that were just plain incredible. Workshops gave everyone the opportunity to really learn the professionals in the filmmaking world while 'Vimeo World' provided a pop-up gallery of technological art, installations, and video projection pieces for all to enjoy.

We would like to thank each and everyone of you who came out for our inaugural Vimeo Festival + Awards. We had such an amazing time we can't really even put it into words. So we made a few videos to give everyone who couldn't make it this year a little taste of the what went down. Check out Day 1 and Day 2.

Stay tuned for more videos from the event, including the insane architectural projection mapping performance on the Vimeo/IAC HQ. And, of course, the Vimeo Awards Show! If you have footage from the event, please add it to the Vimeo Festival Group - vimeo.com/groups/vimeofest

We'd also like to thank all our sponsors for helping us make this whole event happen. Special thanks to Nokia, Honda, and Amstel for their generous support as well as Canon and Vizio and all of our media sponsors. Thanks!

The months of preparation and organization have all led up to this. Tomorrow, October 8th, marks the beginning of the first annual Vimeo Festival + Awards. We couldn't be more excited, and we can't wait to see everyone here.

Don't make the mistake of showing up to the Festival late. Dr. Reginald Watts' opening remarks are not to be missed and start promptly at 10:30 AM. His insights into the Festival events, the nature of technology, media, and the fabric of space and time itself are entirely unique.

To help you manage your Festival experience, we've developed an exclusive mobile site that will work on Android and iOS devices. It functions like a slick app, and allows you to view events, add them to your personal schedule, view the finalists, see the venues on a map, and one more ultra cool function: interacting with a massive video wall.

We just couldn't resist the temptation to exploit the unbelievably huge video wall at Vimeo/IAC HQ, so our mobile site will allow you to directly interact with what is being displayed at all times. It's a lot of fun to play with! Add the mobile site to your phone's home screen.

If you need a refresher on everything that's happening this weekend, you can still head over to the Festival + Awards site. The fun starts tomorrow!

See you soon,

The Vimeo Festival + Awards Peeps

Hello party people!

It's another great week here at Vimeo. As fall is falling and temperatures are cooling, things are heating up over here as we gear up for the Vimeo Festival + Awards this coming Friday and Saturday! Despite all the time and energy we're putting into that, you know we still have to chill and watch some awesome content. Now I'm going to share with you some great stuff I found this week.



First off, here is Nathaniel Hansen. He has put together a series of short documentaries featuring people he just finds interesting around his neighborhood. My favorite in particular is a video featuring Gilbert, the Beacon Hill "town crier". Check it out!



Still in documentary mode and craving some more? Here's an awesome channel called Perspectives on Portraiture that you definitely need to browse through.



What's that? You want even MORE docs!? Engage doc overload! Here's a group for you to feast your eyes upon. It's called untold.docs and it promotes important, unheard stories. I dig it, and you should too.

Don't forget, on 10/10/10 the entire world is being documented as part of an amazing project called One Day on Earth. You (yes, you!) are the most important part of this project, to learn more about it check out our blog post from last week.

And last but not least, as I mentioned earlier, the Vimeo Festival + Awards are rapidly approaching! Didn't get your tickets yet? What are you waiting for! They're still on sale, and time is running out. Register now!

Hey Vimeo,
Throw your hands in the air and wave 'em from here to there because it's the weekend. Finally!
This Weekend Project was invented by Justin Johnson a vidblog pioneer and one of our community's finest. The swishblog is a new take on vidblogging that employs quick pans or tilts at the beginning and end of every shot. When you edit your clips together, the pans and tilts will give your video a whole new feel. I find it a bit like scene changes in dreams where all of the sudden you're somewhere else, but nothing seems out of the ordinary.

Here's one dalas verdugo did at Cape Lookout.
And Clintus McGintus made September Swish Blog - Science, Sushi, Playtime, Football recently.

Our guest judge and all-star Vimeo Application Developer, Kevin Sheurs, will choose the winner.

Swishblog Rules:
- Your swishblog entry must be under three minutes in length
- All scene changes must use the quick-panning-or-tilting-swish technique
- Your video must have at least six "swishes"



There will be our usual prizes: The winner will take home a fully loaded Plus account or 2.5 GB more of upload capacity if they are already Plus. And the runner-up will receive an extra 1 GB of upload capacity whether Plus or not.

Submissions are due Tuesday (10/5) at 11:59 PM (EST). Be sure to submit your video to the Weekend Project Group otherwise it will not be considered. Please note that the Community Staff will approve videos for inclusion into the Group.

Have fun!


Update- Kevin has picked a winner! Zurich Water Sports by Steffen. Congrats Steffen!

The runner-up is Swished by Lucid Cine.

Honorable mention to Bill Newsinger for his video melancholia.