the dotmatrix project

untitled, originally uploaded by lisa scheer.

It was only a matter of time before Lisa captured a portrait of someone I knew in Greensboro.

Any guesses?

A shout of thanks to Mark Burger for the well written story. You never know how these things are going to turn out…

In newsstands tomorrow!

A beautiful coffee table book of everything Greensboro, North Carolina.

Check it out.

Shot by the illustrious Stephen Charles.

Created with Admarket’s flickrSLiDR.

dotmatrix project II was a smashing success. A big shout of thanks to the following people:

• The bands Carolina Clearwater & Old Stone Revue — Great music, great times. Thanks again to both bands for playing. We’ll be in touch about the music video and album.
• The film crew (Andy Coon, Dara Montaque & Matt Williams) — Dara “I’m Getting The Damn Shot” Montaque was all over Sam’s guitar solo! Though, I was surprised she didn’t try to pick up a drum stick and start playing. Thanks for making it happen, people.
• The photo crew (Stephen Charles, Andy Henley & Tanya Peterson) — The photos trickling in above are looking great. Thanks again for putting in the work.
• Dan Bayer — Sound man, mixmaster extraordinaire. Thanks again, Danny.
• Danielle-Leigh McQuinn — Traffic literally stopped when you walked by outside. Handing out flyers and directing folk upstairs was a huge part of the evening’s success. Thank you!
• Erica Thompson and Dima Fakhoury — Young, passionate, smart, great ideas; sorry you both missed the show, but *thank you* for all your continued help.
• Molly McGinn — Thanks for helping me with all the details.
• Justin Reich — the posters, the MySpace, the everything. Thanks, man.
• Special guests: Josh Neas, Kathy Clark, Chris Jackson, P Mac and Boss Bank. Great to see you all at the show, and I’m looking forward to working with you more in the future.

And to all the people who have showed up for our events, thanks so much. I hope you are having as good as time as I am. See you next month, June 26th, for Citified & Dawn Chorus.

(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!?

(originally uploaded by Mikey aka DaSkinnyBlackMan)

(originally uploaded by Mikey aka DaSkinnyBlackMan)

(originally uploaded by Mikey aka DaSkinnyBlackMan)

Many more to come.

Poster by Justin Reich.

(shot by CharlesMedia™)

To be clear: Little Mascara is what died (broke up); as far as I know, Max Diablo is alive and well.

This (no light) shot was taken during ConvergeSouth Music 2007 by Stephen Charles — one of Greensboro’s most talented photographers. He’s volunteered, along with the infamous Mike Dunn (Mikey aka DaSkinnyBlackMan), to coordinate the photography community in contributing to the dotmatrix project event, scheduled to kick off in April.

I can’t express how grateful I am to be surrounded by such talent. Thanks again, guys.

(originally uploaded by CharlesMedia™)

Turn up the volume; the dotmatrix project is about to cross-over into the real world.

Beginning in April we’ll be putting on a monthly show at The Green Burro in downtown Greensboro, building upon the collaborative format of ConvergeSouth Music 2007.

Along those lines, we’re actively working to align with folks representing the diverse creative communities within this region, particularly photographers, filmmakers and musicians, to plan live events where each community can contribute to the promotion of the others by simply performing and creating art.

Here’s the ballpark concept for the project so far:

Pre-Performance

• The film and photo community leads book media creators interested in participating
• The creative team and sound engineer meets with the band(s) to collaborate on ideas and discuss strategy

The Performance

• The musicians play their set and sell enough merchandise to become filthy rich
• The filmmakers shoot songs, green room banter, the audience, etc.
• The photographers shoot the event
• A multi-track recording is made of the show
• The audience contributes by shooting via cell phones, cameras, whatever and uploads their media to specific spots online

Post-Performance

• The filmmakers edit together their videos based on pre-performance conversations, taking audience submitted media into consideration
• The photographers, well, they make each shot look great and tag/post them to flickr
• The sound engineer will mix down the recorded performance to a live CD format

Promoting the Hell out of Everything

• Our new media peeps will post the final videos across numerous online spots and distribute meat space copies of the video to regional public access channels and networks to promote the event, filmmakers, the band and original music in downtown Greensboro. We’re also working on a deal with Carousel Cinemas on Battleground to play the videos prior to each movie shown in the theater.
• Every three months we’re planning on putting on a photo exhibit of the best shots from the previous three shows to promote local photography and original music in… you guessed it, downtown Greensboro (venue TBD)
• We’ll also register each show recording with Creative Commons before uploading the tracks to numerous spots online, including the Internet Archive and Last.fm. The band will get the master for duplication purposes.
• We’re going to use each event as an opportunity to pimp media created at prior events, as well as educate the audience about how each of them can support indie artists by using the web

Aside from sponsor partnerships to help offset production costs and the dollars exchanged at the bar to quench the palette of the audience, the entire event will be run without exchanging cash. This is a barter deal for everyone involved.

Our long-term goal in putting on the dotmatrix project is to contribute to a sustainable, vibrant original music culture in downtown Greensboro. The Green Bean, Solaris, Greene Street, The Rhino, Fishers, The Press; each establishment has added a dimension to the mix, but we’re not yet at the point where original acts are wading in a culture that’s amped to listen.

In the short-term, though, I’ll be satisfied with having a blast and pimping each other into perpetuity online.

All that said, we’re looking for bands that want exposure and the rights to crafted media of their performance in exchange for a few hours of jamming for free. With photographers and filmmakers, we’re looking for talented and skilled eyes to cut their teeth on capturing the vibe of a live event and their time in post-production to receive multiple avenues of exposure in return.

If you’re any of the above contact me at sean at dotmatrixproject dot com.