the dotmatrix project

(originally uploaded by Rikke Moltisanti)

If you think you can capture the essence of a live show like in the above picture, we need to talk. Same thing goes for filmmakers with the following video:

Sorry About Dresden: Shake Your Fist from Sean Coon on Vimeo.

We’re putting on a monthly show in the Back Bar of The Green Burro in downtown Greensboro. The bands are playing for free, a sound engineer is recording the live show for free, photographers are shooting for free and filmmakers are shooting/editing music videos for free.

Cost of admission: FREE

The idea is that if we all collaborate to create art and release it into the wild — online and off — we’ll be opening doors for each other that might never have been opened otherwise. And over time, if people dig the concept, maybe we can turn it into a sponsored event with a sustainable business model to support live, local music in downtown Greensboro.

Along these lines, we’re looking to build a community of photographers and filmmakers interested in participating at least one time. That means you’ll be joining up with a media team and collaborating with the bands before the show on shot ideas. If you want to do more than one show, we’ll do our best to schedule it. If you want to work with a specific filmmaker, photographer or band, we’ll do our best to accommodate that as well.

We’re good like that.

Photographers: We’re looking to meet photographers who have access to DSLR cameras and can really craft a shot. If you have a great eye, you’re in. There’s no pledging involved, no hazing, no sleeping with farm animals. And while that last sentence read like an extremely male perspective on stupid things adolescent men might have to do in order to join something potentially cool — though this ain’t a corny frat — we’d definitely like the talented ladies in our community to participate just as much, if not more. So I promise, no more horrible analogies, ladies.

So if you’re interested in participating, please follow these two steps:

• Join the dotmatrix project flickr group and then contact Mike Dunn or Stephen Charles to get assigned to a show
• Join our dotmatrix project Google Group to ask questions of or communicate with anyone on the project

Filmmakers: While we’d like to have professional filmmakers participate on the project, we’re very open to amateur filmmakers and videographers. All we ask is that you know how to use a modern digital video camera, have a good eye and have at least some experience editing on non-linear systems. dotmatrix HQ has a digital editing bay with Final Cut Pro, so you’ll be able to edit with your co-filmmaker on top notch equipment.

If you’d like to join up, please follow these two steps:

• Subscribe to the dotmatrix project Vimeo channel and contact either Jason Pierce or Andy Coon to get assigned to a show
• Join our dotmatrix project Google Group to ask questions of or communicate with anyone on the project

Cross-Promotions We’re currently working on finalizing deals with local establishments to cross-promote the material created from the show. I don’t want to jinx the potential deals in the works by naming names, but I will say that we’re close to finalizing we’ve finalized a deal where a major movie theater with Carousel Cinemas on Battleground in Greensboro to present still shots and music videos from our show prior to the trailers run before each film shown in the theater. We’re also working on establishing a quarterly photo exhibit in a well known downtown venue to present the best shots of the previous three shows.

Both of these cross-promotions are in the works to market the name and work of our participating media creators.

So are you down or what!?