Johnny Monsarrat: November 2009 Archives

After spending 8 hours in Harvard Square yesterday gathering questions (which is Day 6), last night I went to the convenient classrooms of MIT to record some answers. MIT's layout is a giant corridor system where all the buildings are connected. The whole thing is lighted and heated year-round. I came across some jugglers who let me use them as a backdrop, and did some fun shoots with me fooling with vending machines and nearly getting run over by a janitor with a speedy trash cart.

I managed to get through three whole days of answering video questions (about 90) in 6 straight hours of shooting. That's just 4 minutes per question. Today I'm investing in editing and uploading the video. Monday is up already and you'll see Tuesday and Wednesday tonight. Take a look at Wheel Questions: Complete to see all the replies.

I've been able to take the HP Envy everywhere with no problem. Although I was originally put off by the unit's small screen size, there's no doubting that it's portable enough for me to be efficient, and the battery life stayed strong throughout, so I didn't have to plug it in as I recorded 90 different shots in about 75 different locations (I try to add variety!).

Probably tomorrow I'll know whether there's interest in additional of future Wheel Questions Video Blitz days. Officially I've only done 6 days of gathering questions and have about 220 video questions and over 500 written questions. So I'll be over 1,000 total if I go for another 1-3 days. If you're waiting for your answer, hang in there!

I'm just finishing up editing the video questions from Monday to Wednesday and hope to answer them all (that's 120 questions) tonight, because tomorrow, I reconnect with my sponsors to see about a 2nd week for the Wheel Questions Video Blitz. However, today is another day recording questions, both by video and in writing. This will be the 6th day of question collecting (or, 8 days since the project started), and since it's a weekend in Harvard Square, I expect a ton of traffic, enough to put me on track to collect 1,000 questions in 7 days. My friend Gabe is coming out to assist.

I've gone through some changes in how I approach reaching out to people. I started out leaving myself out of the questions entirely. But I realized that every question is asked in the context of meeting me, and leaving that context out feels weird. So I've been engaging everyone directly and including that interaction on the recording.

I have the patter down pretty well now. Unfortunately, in Harvard Square, I'm trying so hard to encourage people to raise their voices to compete with the bells, the cars, the honking, and chatter, that some vocal quality is lost. You know what I mean. When you have to shout, it's hard to make your voice sound poetic.

So I'm concerned now that I sound fakey or repetitive on the recordings, asking people for their name and question, or with an all-to-hearty Thank You at the end. Since I'm standing a lot closer to the camera, I sound loud no matter what i do. Today I'll make an attempt to both raise my voice (as an example to follow) but also sound more genuine.

I'm pleased to say that the HP Envy with Windows 7 is a stable platform. I have lugged the laptop all around Somerville and Cambridge, using the one-button "sleep" over 100 times in a single day, with no problems, and plenty of battery life. And I'm loving using the Canon FS200 camera, too. I've been turning it completely off between recordings to save power, and there's never been a time that I've lost a shot because I pressed "record" and the Canon needed 1-5 seconds to warm up.

That being said, Corel VideoStudio 12 has apparently decided to crash whenever I do a save. But the saves create complete and correct files, so I guess I can live with that.

OK, off to ask questions now and answer them tonight. Wish me luck! See the last entry and Wheel Questions: Complete for all the recent video I have put up.

This is exciting! I have learned a ton about processing video this week. Saturday was by far the most difficult day, because I had to push the learning curve the entire way. But having taken a holiday (Thursday), been rained out (Friday), and today winded out (30 miles an hour winds are just too much), I have caught up and produced some answers.

Take a peek at Wheel Questions: Complete, for the video from Saturday and Sunday, and you can also find the entire archive of over 11,000 cards.

I've also answered Sunday's questions and expect to have them up tonight.

So far the HP Envy is performing well. This week I did notice that the display is a perfect mirror. In any kind of sunlight it's impossible to read. But in terms of hefting around gigabytes of video data, I really am able to compose and clip videos swiftly. That being said, wanting to edit 30-50 videos a day remains an enormous challenge. This morning I felt "guilty" about sleeping in to 4:45am.

What a wonderful array of questions I've received. The videos are less poetic than the handwritten responses -- it's difficult to come across as pitch-perfect on video. However, a handwritten card will rarely make you laugh. And I think I have several videos that will make you laugh out loud. I've been asked everything from the terribly mundane ("Why is the sky blue?") to the terribly personal ("Why does love hate me?"). It's a real study in what people are really thinking as you pass them on the street and they appear to be just going about their day!

Although it's been one week since I began the project, I've collected questions for only 5 days and answered questions for only 3 days. I would guess I have 150 video questions and 450 written questions, so far, for a total of 600, and I've answered about 1/6th. I have "wasted" quite a bit of time trying to record my video answers in interesting locations. See if you can figure out where I'm recording from.

So... more to go! Tomorrow I go back out to gather more questions, and we'll see if my sponsors want me to continue the project next week! If so, I'll be off to Edaville Railroad for their festival of lights. Either way, I'll answer the questions I currently have collected. Hang in there if you're waiting for your response!

Finally, it's not too late to enter to win the HP Envy 13 laptop at the end of the project, which my sponsors, HP, Best Buy, and Intel, have asked me to give away. Just subscribe to the Wheel Questions blog.

I was up this morning at 5am and published my other blog, Johnny's List of Weird Boston Events, which is now the most popular blog in New England on events! Check it out for the scoop on holiday lights, Santa parades, and how to avoid Xmas altogether if you want to.

Right now, I'm just blogging to report that I just edited 33 question videos in 21 minutes with the HP Envy!! That's really all the review you need. The laptop is working out great for me. Now that I'm up to speed with the camera and software, I really think this project just might work! Of course, now I have to add the answers, which means more video editing. This week's been so intense, I sort of let that slip. Back to work, more later!

I'm thinking that I will post all the question-answer videos one-by-one, rather than in big blocks. That will make it easier to find the questions you really care about, and I'll string them together on YouTube so you can watch them in a series, too. Any advice or feedback on that strategy? A question is usually 5-20 seconds and my answers will be 30-60 seconds.

Last night I was forced to leave the Wheel in Harvard Square overnight. I just couldn't get anyone to help me load it onto the van I'm renting. I lost some sleep worrying that someone might steal it. This morning, walking in, I rounded the corner and... I didn't see it. Wheel Questions was gone.

At least, that's what I thought for half-a-second until I realized that a large advertising stand was blocking my view. As I got closer, holding my breath a bit, yes, it was there! So I set up and started to welcome everyone who stopped to view the installation. Typically, I explain the art work and ask them for a question, no doubt while they're simply trying to read some of the question and answer cards in peace. As usual, a ton said yes, especially when I mentioned the laptop giveaway. (You can sign up to win by subscribing to this blog.)

It was drizzling rain all day in Harvard Square, but I managed to get in 4 hours of standing there with the installation and a table through off and on wetness. I collected probably half of a day's questions, when I wanted to collect a full day's worth.

Now it's the eye of the storm. Before I make a major push Saturday (and possibly Sunday), Thanksgiving is a welcome relief. I don't have any plans, and everyone else is busy, so nobody's going to call to interrupt me. Friday might get rained out, so I might have that day "off", too. Let's see how many of the collected questions I can answer.

Despite a short day today, I met a bunch of great people in Harvard Square this week. I met two brothers who asked "Why can't we be naked?" and started to take off their clothes. Then a ton of high school students out early from school wanting to ask group questions while giggling. The Salvation Army guy came over and did a video question. He's been ringing a bell constantly all day near where I'm trying to record, but when I give him the sign he gives me a break. I do wonder how long you can ring a bell for, before you go slowly insane. I have learned that when you ask someone to record their question a second time, but louder, they often speak in the exact same level of volume. Oy. :)

Amongst the 3,000 people I've met this week, (about 600 of whom submitted a question so far), I even met someone I asked on a date who said yes! And generally people seem to love the project. This means a lot to me. A while back, someone asked me what my own question would be for the Wheel Questions project, and I wrote, "Will trying to change the world bring me love, or just frustration?" This week, at least, things seem to be going my way.

Someone very brave asked a personal question about love on camera. And someone submitted the handwritten question, "Will my children ever forgive me?"

Now let's see if I can fight the need for sleep and go go go with video editing and answers!

Yesterday was far smoother than Monday in Harvard Square, and I definitely collected my daily quota of cards. I would guess I am right on the edge of having enough cards to meet the goal of answering 1,000 questions in a week. That being said, working the Wheel installation from 10am to 6pm left me exhausted. So I crashed, but I'm up early today editing video before going out again to Harvard.

Now that I've gotten used to the camera, I've turned my attention to evaluating the HP Envy itself. After a few days of use, I can tell you... it is pretty sweet. The 13-inch version I have does have a smaller screen than I'm used to, but it's lightweight and the form factor is elegant, very much Macintosh-like. I'd love to have a moment to buy an external monitor for the unit but I can tell a free moment is just not going to happen this week. I was wrong about the Internet plug. The Envy does actually come with a USB ethernet port. However, I really want that VGA or digital monitor jack. Plenty of people seem happy to bend their head down for hours but you're supposed to have a monitor at eye-level as you're comfortably sitting. That, of course is true of all laptops.

The computer is fast, fast enough that any task I throw at it, it can do immediately. I hate waiting! Editing video hasn't been a problem, even on a small screen, and now that I'm "in the groove" with how to properly use the camera, I can chop out a good scene in 2-3 minutes, just what I need. The Keyboard is great as well. My IBM Lenovo Thinkpad has the keys all mashed together and it's easy to mistype. My new HP Envy (which I'm going to have to give away on Sunday!) has space in-between the keys, the feel when you depress them is perfect and it's really the first laptop keyboard that I've enjoyed using. I have big hands (I'm 6'4") and typically I yearn for an external keyboard.

I can definitely vouch that Windows 7 is worth the upgrade from Vista. The best thing about it is that it's simpler without being scrambling-how-everything-works simpler. And it boots quickly. I could really get used to not sitting idle for 5 minutes every time I launch the machine.

There are also only two USB ports, and I can tell the attitude is not to rob the unit of features, but to suggest that a laptop can come in many pieces. If I want more USB ports, I can buy a USB switch. If I want a DVD drive, I can carry it or not, and the HP Envy comes with one. This is unlike my Thinkpad or many other units that cram on the features. My Thinkpad has over 100 keys on its keyboard, 2 VGA monitor plugs (one on the docking station), and even a modem jack, for crikey's sake. The Envy has only 82 keys. No wonder it's easier to use. I'm sure there's a way to access "scroll lock" if I really need it, but does it really have to be a separate button on a laptop this small? No.

So the idea of the HP Envy seems to be simplicity, another feature that makes it Macintosh-like, and it really seems to work! I'll review the machine more later in the week.

It was a good day. My dad came out to help and we got more people than ever willing to go on video... I would say half rather than previously a third being brave enough. I recorded a question from a founder of the band "Boston", a homeless man, a gaggle of schoolkids who all wanted to ask more than one question, a 6-year-old girl with so much energy she couldn't stop jumping with excitement, and an 84-year-old World War II veteran who writes books and still wears his medal.

The most difficult part of the day was the end, as I was unable to drum up a volunteer to help me take down the installation. Most of it's fairly lightweight, but the Wheel itself, an upright cylinder in two halves, is definitely a two-person job. So, I left it there overnight.

Of course, I've done that before. Wheel Questions was installed in Harvard Square 24-hours-a-day from June through October. But it was part of a huge canopy and installation that would be trouble to steal. Just the Wheel by itself... well, this morning I'm anxious to get out and discover that it's still there.

Lots of people have been excited about winning the HP Envy laptop! Put your name in to enter by subscribing to this blog.

I had a great time today in Harvard Square, right next to Harvard University. We had the best location in the best "city square" in all of Cambridge, right next to the subway entrance. Several thousand people walked by in the limited time between 10:30am and 3:30pm that Wheel Questions was open.

Harvard Square is a curious mix of the young, the old, the townies, and students. As we were setting up, some students were doing a survey as a class project to see who liked Craisins, the Cranberry Raisins. Some homeless people expressed an interest, some eloquently, and one in a drunken state where he mistook my hammer for a weapon. Several tourists stopped by to chat. Someone recorded a question on video with her sister dictating the question by cell phone.

A blind woman asked me to help her find her way, so I escorted her for 15 minutes and later she returned and asked a question on camera! And Iearned how to park in Harvard Square for "free": get a parking ticket. Then it's free all day until it's time to pay the ticket, that is. When the event got rained out, I was able to grab a few volunteers to help me close it down without much damage.

I'm definitely learning some things about doing this promotion. I started off by wanting 5-second segments where people simply asked a question. Well, people are interacting with me before and after asking their question, and it's strange-flavored to chop out a question without any context. Leaving in some of their interaction with me before and after the question I think is smoother.

I'm also sensing that video is not going to replace handwritten questions. Only a third of the people are brave enough to appear on video (or they dream about being famous). The two types are working differently as well. Handwritten questions can be deeper and more serious. The people who ask deeply personal questions or truly sad ones tend to want to write them and be anonymous.

Of course, appearing in a video is slightly anonymous, but I get more lightweight questions. That's OK, because I don't know how comfortable I feel giving deadly serious answers on video. The silly and moderately-intense questions are more fun and engaging on video than in writing. But on video, it's hard for a person to be an 'everyman'. That person clearly *is* someone, and I've taken to everyone them to give their first name.

So thanks to the rain, I finally have an early evening. I've been so intensely focused on drumming up questions, and coming up to speed on editing, that I've fallen behind on actually answering the questions. I'll try to finish the video editing and do a ton of that tonight! I may drive out to MIT where I can borrow a classroom late at night to record my answers, when my roommates are sleeping and I shouldn't be making noise.

Finally, I'm thinking that while I do want 1,000 questions and responses (some in writing and some on video), a 5-second question followed by a 20-second answer doesn't make the best video. I think I may string together questions and answers into a 2-minute compiled movie. What do you think about that? Leave me a comment.

Well, it's not exactly dawn, but I'm up early to continue editing video! Now that I know what I'm doing it's so much faster.

Sunday at Plymouth was a normal day at the end of November: cold and windy. Most of the event was in heated tents and I'm starting to see why I got such a good location, outdoors but right on the sidewalk! One of the vendors even told me I was nuts to be standing out there as the event was winding down. Only she said it nicer.

I was out for about 6 hours and recorded a number of written and video questions, but not nearly as many since the main parade was over. Just collecting the questions is a major part of this project. And since the challenge is to answer the questions, I've decided to open it up to Internet contributions. So here it is:

This week the community and I want to set a world record! Take a photograph of your handwritten question, and email it to me, or video record speaking your question into a camera, and I'll include you and get back to you with an answer! Just email johnny@wheelquestions.org

Today in Harvard square will be very active, I suspect. I've been granted a fantastic spot by the City of Cambridge, right next to the subway entrance and center of action in Harvard Square. My friend Gabe is coming to help out. He's a videographer and will help me draw people in and explain what we're doing. And unlike yesterday, I'll dress invincibly for the weather.

Good morning! I've been up since 1am, mostly wrestling with the video camcorder rather than editing video or answering questions. I managed to figure it out and I think today I am ready to hit the ground running. However, yesterday's shoot was a lot of long segments (the video camera was running when I didn't know it), so I have to hunt through and pick out these 20-second questions out of 6 hours of continuous video.

That will take some time, and now it's 7:30am and I need to take a power nap and get ready for my second day at the Thanksgiving Celebration in Plymouth, Massachusetts. So what I've done, just for you, is to create a clip of the 8 questions I've plucked out so far.

Also from yesterday, I have another 30-50 more video questions plus 115 hand-written questions on cards. So I'm well on the way to getting my 1,000 videos in one week. But, I'm a little behind on actually answering the questions!! Fortunately, now that I'm up the learning curve, I do feel I can catch up, especially as I've left a nice little hole in the week that I call Thanksgiving. (As I don't have any other plans.)

So we are a go go go for today! And then tomorrow (Monday), I'll be set up in the heart of Harvard Square near Harvard University. For the full schedule, to learn more about Wheel Questions or the Video Blitz & Laptop Giveaway, or to enter your email to win the HP Envy laptop, go to www.WheelQuestions.org.

The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak. After a long day in Plymouith, I set my hotel alarm clock for 12:01am, it being an abomination to wake up for Sunday on Saturday evening. But, the body just wasn't having it. I finally got myself up at 2am. But Lo! The clock in my room is set wrong. It's actually 1am. I've only lost an hour. Thanks, Daylight Savings Time!

I have no idea if I've left myself enough time to answer all the questions before the festival begins again today at 11am. We will see.

I started by Saturday by staying up all night Friday getting the blog ready and fiddling with my new camera, a Canon FS200. It's a highly rated camera in its price range ($299), and more than sufficient for making Web-only video. Then my buddy Rickland came at 6am and we did our best to load his van without waking up my roommates. No such luck! Sorry about that!

Then we zipped out to Plymouth, Massachusetts, the home of the original Pilgrims who landed here in 1620. Massachusetts, my home state, "owns" Thanskgiving so to speak, because the first Thanksgiving feast was of course here. The place was mobbed yesterday by 120,000 visitors or more for a parade that stretched for 2 miles.

As you know, this week I've been challenged by HP, Intel, and Best Buy, who are trying to sell the HP Envy laptop, to give 1,000 answers, as part of the Wheel Questions project. Considering that it took me 4 months to write the first 7,000 answers, stuffing in an additional 1,000 may not even be possible. But it would be a world record, set both my me and by the community of people who ask!

The first order of business is to attract 1,000 contributors to ask a question, either in writing, or on video. That's why I'm here for this giant festival, and I really couldn't have had a better location, amongst all the food vendors and home insulation vendors and parading pilgrims and indians and pirates. I asked for (and got!) a spot right on the sidewalk, out in front of everyone else.

The set up looks like a big black drum, a "wheel" on its end so to speak, like a Tibetan prayer wheel, but secular. I hang nearly 300 colored cards on the Wheel, all dangling from clips that let them spin in the wind. Each card has a question on the front and an answer on the back.

I also set up a table, because it's always good to have a table you can sit at or stand behind. It signals, "Look! I'm the one to speak to here!" and is a lot better than me simply standing next to the Wheel hoping I look authoritative so I can approach people. Blogger Steven Hughes came out to help me, whose photo and blog link I will attach here later.

So this is me all day, greeting people: "Hi there! This is my art project, Wheel Questions! People ask questions and I answer. So far I've gotten 11,000 questions and answered most of them! This week, HP is giving away this laptop computer and I'm trying to set a world record by answering 1,000 questions in a single week. Do you guys have any questions for me, in writing or on video?

Tons of people said yes. People are drawn to the Wheel Questions installation in any case, even if I weren't there hawking it. From a distance, it looks unusual, worth checking out. Up close, it's a thrill to read people's secret thoughts, since each card says something very personal, like "How can I get kids in school to stop teasing me?" or "When will I find love?". Best of all, Stephen and I discovered that the queue of people lining up for the lunch tent went directly down the sidewalk.

So basically, if you went to eat lunch, you spent 2 minutes in front of Wheel Questions, just waiting in line, whether you ignored me or not! Glare from the sun meant I couldn't really show off the HP Envy, although I had it there on the table. I did bring along a couple of computer monitors, only to find... the HP Envy does not come with a VGA or digital external monitor plug. Hmm. Well, i'm sure you can buy one dangling from a USB connector. Maybe I'll pick one up this week.

Also, it doesn't come with an Internet jack, but the wireless works fine and I'll be reviewing the laptop, the HP Envy 13, as I use it this week for the first time.

But now, to start answering questions! I'm sitting here in the breakfast nook of the Governor Bradford Hotel typing away to you. It's clean but dimly lit and the tables are tiny. I'll answer the ones in writing first and then record video responses to all the video questions. That will be the real test of the Envy. Can I really edit hundreds of short videos, all on a same-day basis, to get to 1,000 answers by next weekend?

Wish me luck!

Oh, and to enter the contest to win the HP laptop, just subscribe to the Wheel Questions blog (or stop by in person at one of the festivals and drop your name in). I'll choose someone randomly at the end of thsi week.

More later with the results before today's (Sunday's) festival begins!

So it's 1am and I'm waking at 5am. No idea if I'll sleep at all this week, because I've been asked to break a world record of advice-giving, using video and a sexy new laptop as a video-editing platform. I'm tired but excited!!

Just drop in your email to enter to win the laptop. And I hope I can rely on your advice this week on how to make the project more interesting and the video more enticing. And subscribe to the Wheel Questions Twitter for more frequent updates.

Here is the press release. Please help spread the word. :)

Advice columns are popular and you can read three or four answers a week in any newspaper. Now there's a Boston-based artist who wants to answer 1,000 questions in a week, a world record.

This would be the second world record for Johnny Monsarrat, best known as the founder of Turbine, Inc., the largest videogames company in New England. He and the Boston community set a first record this summer, through a public art project. Called Wheel Questions, it's an outdoor kiosk that entices visitors to submit a question on a colored card. Monsarrat got over 10,000 questions in four months and answered most of them, all by hand. The results were posted on the outdoor installation and on a website.

Now Wheel Questions is taking it to the new level, through a "Video Blitz", which is sponsored by HP, Intel, and Best Buy. They've loaned Monsarrat an HP Envy laptop computer and video equipment, and connected him with key New England festivals like the Thanksgiving celebration in Plymouth, Massachusetts, and Harvard Square's Sparklefest, home to Harvard University.

Then it's up to Monsarrat to work the festivals, shoot questions all day, and then answer, edit video, and blog from the HP Envy laptop in the evening. Can anyone really answer 1,000 questions in a week? Speed is essential. If each video needs 5 minutes' labor, one night would stretch into 11 hours.

"If the essence of art is impact," said Monsarrat, who will blog about his progress, "then the better tools you have, the more impact." Billed as the dream laptop for digital artists, does the HP Envy have the clout to keep up? Unfortunately, at the end of the week, Monsarrat will have to part with the high-end laptop. It's being given away. You can follow the Wheel Questions story and put your name in to win at www.WheelQuestions.org.

I have exciting news! You and I already set a world record for most contributed questions (in writing), with over 10,000 questions received and mostly answered in just 4 months.

Now we're going to extend it to another world record: asking and answing the most questions in one week ever, and to do it on video. It's a project sponsored by HP, Intel, and Best Buy, and I'll be giving away an HP Envy 13 laptop at the end, worth $1,700. It's called the Wheel Questions Video Blitz.

The idea is a tiger test of the HP Envy. They claim that the Envy is the digital artist's dream platform: the Macintosh of the PC World. Is it really possible to record and edit as many as 1,000 short videos (questions and answers) in a week? We will most definitely find out!

The blitz officially begins this Saturday, November 21 and ends Saturday November 28. But you can enter to win the laptop immediately. It's easy. Just subscribe to the Wheel Questions blog and I'll choose someone at random. For more information see the Wheel Questions Video Blitz.