Many people are familiar with Improv - last year's Fringe Festival featured a long-form improvised show called "Is This Seat Taken?" by the iconic David Charles and Jay Hopkins. SAK has been doing a late-night show called "The Early Show" long after their regular programming on certain weekends for a number of years now. The Orlando Improv Festival is now trying to help long form become more visible with this event.

read more

Matt Palm form the Orlando Sentinel has posted a blog recap of the Fringe preview, which was staged as a Pep Rally this year to fit with the 20-year high school reunion theme.

Orlando Fringe Festival: Pep Rally Preview gives us a peek

There was even extra applause for an act that finished right on time as the cheerleaders joined them.

There’s always much merriment at the annual preview, which raises funds for the Fringe Festival as well as anticipation. Co-host Beth Marshall, the Fringe producing artistic director, started out proudly saying, “I am vertical this year,”

The festival tickets are now on sale, and they were very proud to announce that the preview was successful for them, raising a surplus of $3000 over their goal.

I have been looking for video shot during the event, but Google is returning some weird results - the official Orlando Fringe website doesn't even show up in most search results. I ended up locating several videos on YouTube. If you are reading this and you have a YouTube video that is not on this list, I will be happy to add it. My YT username is "liberatr". I will be adding new video to this playlist throughout the season.

This year's festival is going to be exciting. More experimentation, lots of returning artists, lots of past Patron's Pick artists, and lots of visiting and International artists, who are the real icing on the cake. I love that local artists have such a great outlet for their work, but the fact that this festival brings in so much original material from outside of our state and country is one of the real selling points for me.

read more

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Michele is a creative professional living in Ft Myers and generally stirring things up in Southwest Florida and beyond.

Links mentioned in this podcast:

• Florida DrupalCamp 2011 + Social Media Club Mini-Conference
• Ghost Executive Group
• @ghostexecutive
• BarCamp Southwest Florida
• Back to Work Southwest Florida
• Video: The Art of Friending on Facebook
• Social Media Club Southwest Florida
• Southwest Florida Creatives Website
• Southwest Florida Creatives Facebook
• Southwest Florida Creatives LinkedIn
• @FLCreatives

Download Podcast 31

39723_1533925945389_1152016756_1516110_2165574_n.jpg

Michele is a creative professional living in Ft Myers and generally stirring things up in Southwest Florida and beyond.

Links mentioned in this podcast:

• Florida DrupalCamp 2011 + Social Media Club Mini-Conference
• Ghost Executive Group
• @ghostexecutive
• BarCamp Southwest Florida
• Back to Work Southwest Florida
• Video: The Art of Friending on Facebook
• Social Media Club Southwest Florida
• Southwest Florida Creatives Website
• Southwest Florida Creatives Facebook
• Southwest Florida Creatives LinkedIn
• @FLCreatives

Download Podcast 31

39723_1533925945389_1152016756_1516110_2165574_n.jpg

Michele is a creative professional living in Ft Myers and generally stirring things up in Southwest Florida and beyond.

Links mentioned in this podcast:

• Florida DrupalCamp 2011 + Social Media Club Mini-Conference
• Ghost Executive Group
• @ghostexecutive
• BarCamp Southwest Florida
• Back to Work Southwest Florida
• Video: The Art of Friending on Facebook
• Social Media Club Southwest Florida
• Southwest Florida Creatives Website
• Southwest Florida Creatives Facebook
• Southwest Florida Creatives LinkedIn
• @FLCreatives

Download Podcast 31

ArtsFest is a celebration of Central Florida arts and culture that takes place for 10 days over four counties. Presented by Bank of America, ArtsFest includes hundreds of FREE arts and culture events held in various locations throughout Lake, Orange, Osceola and Seminole counties. ArtsFest provides you with a taste of everything the arts community has to offer in your own backyard!

http://www.artsfestfl.com/

read more

This will be the 20th year of Orlando Fringe, so apparently the theme this year is a 20 year reunion. Fringe is hoping to have people come in past Fringe t-shirts to the Shakes to get a massive group photo. They did something similar a few years ago for the "protest" theme, and the shots came out great.

From Beth Marshall:

We will be taking a long shot group photo in front of Orlando Shakespeare Theatre (812 East Rollins St.) on Mon. Feb. 7th at 4:30pm.
The look of this shot will be that of a group class photo in a highschool yearbook.
We want YOU to be a part of this event!

Here's how you can help...
Bring yourself, your friends, kids, spouse, partner, pets etc... and pose for this shot.
Come dressed in either past Fringe T-shirts, past show t-shirts OR a highschool archtype such as (Goth, punk, geek, jock, teacher, prep, etc...)

read more

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John Rife is one of the original founding members of Florida Creatives in Orlando, and now he joins us to talk about his adventures in blogging about local food, and his experience planning the first-ever Winter Park Harvest Festival. The festival will be held in Central Park on Nov 20th, just a few days before Thanksgiving. Local farmers and tons of others will have their wares on display. You can think local, grow, learn, taste, listen and play, with a "Farm to Table" dinner at the end.

• Winter Park Harvest Festival - November 20th, 2010
• John Rife's A Local Folkus Blog
• @JohnRife
• JohnRife's Finding America Videoblog
• Slow Food Orlando
• UCF Digital Media Visual Language Graduate Program
• Central Florida Veg Fest - Saturday, October 23, 2010
• Congress for New Urbanism, Florida Chapter

Download Podcast 30

n516149009_863681_152.jpg

John Rife is one of the original founding members of Florida Creatives in Orlando, and now he joins us to talk about his adventures in blogging about local food, and his experience planning the first-ever Winter Park Harvest Festival. The festival will be held in Central Park on Nov 20th, just a few days before Thanksgiving. Local farmers and tons of others will have their wares on display. You can think local, grow, learn, taste, listen and play, with a "Farm to Table" dinner at the end.

• Winter Park Harvest Festival - November 20th, 2010
• John Rife's A Local Folkus Blog
• @JohnRife
• JohnRife's Finding America Videoblog
• Slow Food Orlando
• UCF Digital Media Visual Language Graduate Program
• Central Florida Veg Fest - Saturday, October 23, 2010
• Congress for New Urbanism, Florida Chapter

Download Podcast 30

n516149009_863681_152.jpg

John Rife is one of the original founding members of Florida Creatives in Orlando, and now he joins us to talk about his adventures in blogging about local food, and his experience planning the first-ever Winter Park Harvest Festival. The festival will be held in Central Park on Nov 20th, just a few days before Thanksgiving. Local farmers and tons of others will have their wares on display. You can think local, grow, learn, taste, listen and play, with a "Farm to Table" dinner at the end.

• Winter Park Harvest Festival - November 20th, 2010
• John Rife's A Local Folkus Blog
• @JohnRife
• JohnRife's Finding America Videoblog
• Slow Food Orlando
• UCF Digital Media Visual Language Graduate Program
• Central Florida Veg Fest - Saturday, October 23, 2010
• Congress for New Urbanism, Florida Chapter

Download Podcast 30

http://sites.google.com/site/lifeinadayfaqs/

How do I submit my video(s)?
Between 24 July and 31 July, just click the “Submit” tab on Life In A Day channel and upload the footage directly from your computer. The “Submit” tab will become visible on 24 July.

Does my video have to be documentary? Can it be fiction?
All we’re asking is for you to document your world over the course of a single day; we expect most videos to comprise documentary footage, but if you think that your world is best captured through fictional storytelling or even animation, it is entirely up to you.

Do I need permission to record other people in my video?
Yes, you do need permission to include other people in your video. If your video makes it through the first stage of our selection process, we will email you release forms which you must send back to us signed by anyone who appears in your video.

Can I use music?
Please avoid the use of music within your submission.

What do I need to know about recording sound?
It’s important to think about the audio on your video, as sound recording often affects the overall quality of a video. Good sound recording will probably increase the chance of your footage being chosen to be in the final film. If possible, it would be great to enhance your recording by using external microphones, in addition to those built in to most cameras.

When is the Sundance Film Festival?
The 2011 Sundance Film Festival will take place from 20 January to 30 January 2011. The premiere date of Life In A Day will be announced closer to the start of the festival.

Edit: Lately I've been thinking Battledecks would be a great addition to the Fringe. The Pecha Kucha mentioned below is pretty similar.
Edit 2: The short slideshows will be held at the Outdoor Stage on Monday, May 24th, around 7PM.
Edit 3: We have a facebook event for Small Talk at Fringe: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=364435458753

read more

The Fair Trade Project is holding a poker run–bike style! Registration is only $5 and will start at 2:30pm at Austin’s. The 10+ mile ride will start at 4 and take you to local stores that sell fair trade: Chamberlin’s Natural Foods, Enzian Theater, Ten Thousand Villages, Whole Foods and Austin’s. You’ll pick up a playing card at each stop to complete your poker hand.

We’ll have great prizes from each stop for the person with the best hand, plus additional prizes, including great stuff from local bike shops. After we give out the prizes at 6:30, we’ll have a free show featuring local music.

Even if you don’t participate in the ride, we hope you’ll join us for the show. See you there!

Read more from The Fair Trade Project Facebook Page:

The Fair Trade Project seeks to help disadvantaged producers receive a just price for their goods while building relationships and encouraging social and environmental responsibility. When people are paid a fair price for what they produce, they can pull themselves, their families, and their communities out of poverty.

You can make a difference simply by buying fair trade products.

Download a 10 minute podcast about the 2010 Florida DrupalCamp and our Coding for a Cause non-profit benefit

Open Source software tools are a great resource for companies and organizations to cost-effectively connect, communicate, and organize members using the Internet. One of these free tools for website creation and management is Drupal, a content management system that uses a modular approach that allows organizations to easily customise their websites and use blogs, video and user content to build their communities.

Drupal has a very active community that will gather at DrupalCamp Florida on February 20 and 21st, where new and seasoned users learn about and share their knowledge of Drupal. The event is an opportunity to get an overview of Drupal and the developer and user community in Florida. Guest speaker Addison Berry of Lullabot will discuss how everyone can participate in the growing international community. Saturday will be a day-long educational conference with beginner, intermediate and advanced tracks. Addison Berry of Lullabot will Sunday will be a Site Development Sprint to build a Drupal web site for a non-profit organization.

Information and Registration - www.2010.fldrupalcamp.org

Date: Saturday February 20th and Sunday February 21st

Location: Mind Comet, 385 Pearl Lake Causeway
Altamonte Springs, Florida

read more

Open Source software tools are a great resource for non-profit organizations to cost-effectively connect, communicate and activate donors and members using the Internet. One of these free tools for website creation and management is Drupal, a content management system that uses a modular approach that allows organizations to easily customise their websites and use blogs, video and user content to build their communities.

Drupal has a very active community that will gather at DrupalCamp Florida on February 20 and 21st, where new and seasoned users learn about and share their knowledge of Drupal. The event is an opportunity to get an overview of Drupal and the developer and user community in Florida. Saturday will be a day-long educational conference with beginner, intermediate and advanced tracks. Sunday will be a Site Development Sprint to build a Drupal web site for a non-profit organization.

read more

Download Eco Footprint Special: 350.org
ecofactory_350.mp3
Length: 3:04

Gabe LeBlanc of EcoFactory left me this message about the event being held on 10/24/09 to raise awareness about the level of Carbon in the air. More info can be found at http://350.org and http://ecofactory.com

Gabe is offering free beer to the first 350 people to arrive at Orlando Brewing at 3:50 PM on October 24th. Gabe is doing awesome stuff in our community, and I recommend everyone go and support him, or find a similar event in your area.

WHAT: The 6th Annual ALL HALLOWS 10-FOR-THE-FRINGE
10 plays-10 minutes each-$10!

WHEN: 2 days only

Friday, October 16th
hosted by Wayburn Sassy
and Didi Panache

Saturday, October 17th
hosted by Wanzie and Pepe’

TIME:
7pm Reception / 8pm Showtime

WHERE:
Lowndes Shakespeare Center (Mandell Theatre/Patron's Room)
812 E. Rollins Street
Orlando, FL 32803

About The Event:
Costume Contest Nightly
Top prize gets a 2010 Fringe Superpass
50/50 Raffles
Silent Auction
Beer and Wine by Donation (with appetizers)

TICKETS: (* we are in a smaller venue than usual, so please book tix in advance) GENERAL ADMISSION.
For advance reservationcall the Fringe office at (407) 648-0077 (MC/Visa). PLEASE DO NOT CALL ORLANDO SHAKES!

read more

'The Habit' opens on September 26 and 27, 2009 at the
Catherine Hickman Theatre in Gulfport, St. Petersburg at 3 PM. See address below please.

As usual, I'd love to see you in the audience. Tickets are available by calling at 727-656-8053. I will gladly send you tickets (in advance, seniors and students at $13 each) by mail. The price is $15 at the door. Let me know if you want them by mail ASAP. Drop me a line or call.

In a daring look at a religious woman facing the crossroads of her life, The Habit guides its audience from the familiar images of docile convent life to a path sprinkled with hints of a more profane one. Meeting a charming young man—more of the scoundrel type—at the hospital where she works as a nurse, she keeps hearing him telling his enchanting and magical stories. Suddenly, in a do-or-die move, she accepts his offer of eloping with him. However, as the play moves on, the audience is not really quite sure if HE is a figment of her imagination, or if SHE is a figment of his. Through music, dance, mime—following Loria’s idea of what theater should be—The Habit portrays, most importantly, a human being’s moment of truth, as everyone in the audience may have experienced at least once in their own lives.

Here's the link to the description of the show:
http://www.wilsonloria.com/Habit.htm
http://www.wilsonloria.com/habito_port.htm
www.wilsonloria.com

See you at the theater.
Thank YOU!!!
Wilson

Hear a Blogging Fringe interview with Wilson Loria, Jeremy Seghers, and Brandon Haydon

read more

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Download Podcast 26
flcreatives_26_thorspecken.mp3
Length: 28:16

If you've been out at cultural events in Orlando in 2009, there's a good chance you'll see a man looking down at his sketchbook with his watercolors out. He's Thomas Thorspecken, and he's drawing and painting the scene around him. Check his blog in a few days and see the results.

Shameless Links:

• Thomas' Blog, Analog Artist Digital World
• 23rd International Sketch Crawl Orlando
• More to come...
• Florida Creatives on iTunes

Photo above: Tess at Kerouac House

06-03-09tesskerouactattoo.png

Download Podcast 26
flcreatives_26_thorspecken.mp3
Length: 28:16

If you've been out at cultural events in Orlando in 2009, there's a good chance you'll see a man looking down at his sketchbook with his watercolors out. He's Thomas Thorspecken, and he's drawing and painting the scene around him. Check his blog in a few days and see the results.

Shameless Links:

• Thomas' Blog, Analog Artist Digital World
• 23rd International Sketch Crawl Orlando
• More to come...
• Florida Creatives on iTunes

Photo above: Tess at Kerouac House

06-03-09tesskerouactattoo.png

Download Podcast 26
flcreatives_26_thorspecken.mp3
Length: 28:16

If you've been out at cultural events in Orlando in 2009, there's a good chance you'll see a man looking down at his sketchbook with his watercolors out. He's Thomas Thorspecken, and he's drawing and painting the scene around him. Check his blog in a few days and see the results.

Shameless Links:

• Thomas' Blog, Analog Artist Digital World
• 23rd International Sketch Crawl Orlando
• More to come...
• Florida Creatives on iTunes

Photo above: Tess at Kerouac House

• Hand-made food
• It was all grown locally
• Community
• Deliciousness
• Someone made a video about it!

Here is a summary of what we discussed on the call:

BarCamp Meeting - Jan 12th, 9PM

Gregg Pollack
Greg Pederson
George Drage
Eric Marden
Ryan Price
David Rogers
Rachael Page
Joshua Blount

Gregg

• has been talking to Wall St. about Ignite and BarCamp
• One day event instead of 2 days

More venues - CityArts? CoLab?
Evening event - CityArts? other downtown venues that don't open until later, but it would be nice to give the business to Wall St since they were so nice with the space

Monetary

• $2000 food from Wall St - per day
• $2000 t-shirts
• $ 600 promotional materials - signs, posters, flyers
• $ 150 chars - 200 chairs - kirby rental
• $ 25 nametags
• $FREE A/V, projectors, sound, (donations, or available by venue)

Dates

• FOWA - last week of Sunday, Feb 22nd - 24th
• massive coworking at Brik-o-lodge on Monday
• Avoid April 12th - Easter
• -- email the list to ask about dates - Eric Marden
• -- if you want to get more involved, Florida Creatives Monday the 19th
• Eric will also make an official BarCamp wiki page

Coordinators

• sponsors -- David Rogers david@ethos-consulting.com
• food / venue -- Gregg Pollack greggpollack@gmail.com
• shirts / graphics / eventbrite / wiki -- Eric Marden eric@xentek.net
• tangibles / promo / posters / cards / badges / web -- Joshua Blount hello@joshuablount.com
• facilities / Wi-fi / AV / sound -- Thomas Meeks thomas@thomasmeeks.com
• media / press releases / blog badges -- Ryan Price rprice@ryanpricemedia.com
• Wi-Fi - repeaters? Mike Blake, contacts with the city of Orlando?

You can listen to the other half of this call at the Project X half of the conference call

You can edit the Orlando WiFi page or the wiki page for other cities at http://floridacreatives.com/wiki/florida<!--break-->

Download Steering Committee 2a

You get a ticket to all of the following:

Orlando Ballet
Orlando Museum of Art
Orlando Opera
Orlando Philharmonic
Orlando Shakespeare Theatre
Festival of Orchestras
SunTrust Broadway Across Orlando

Really.

Visit RealOrlando.org to download an order form PDF and mail in your order (lame).

Don’t forget to Subscribe to the Daily City Blog (RSS), courtesy our good friend (and sometimes collaborator) Mark Baratelli.

As we rolled into the weekend last night with some light rain and lots of folks crowding the Shakespeare Center, I noticed three college-looking kids soliciting people for photographs. I walked up to tell them about Blogging Fringe, and it turned out they were the Orlando Metromix “SHOCK SQUAD”! Is Metromix the Sentinel one, that’s going to be changing their name? It’s not CityBeat, is it? It’s one of those. I went to see what coverage they had of the festival, and it was exactly one article - recommendations based on watching the preview. Also, no comments allowed. They asked me to link to them, and in hopes that they link back, here we go.

Check out Orlando Metromix’s Fringe Photoset - lots of familiar faces in there.

Last night, I lost my festival program. Normally no big deal, but this was different - I had written all sorts of notes in my program, marked down page numbers of shows, kept my tickets inside, and started to feel like my program was a treasured item - sort of like a stuffed animal or something, now lost. I checked the Brown Venue, the Blue Venue, the Ticket Booth, and the Garbage Can too, but my program was gone. I went to the box office to get some tickets re-printed ( handy reason for using credit card or the internet to buy your tickets), and proceeded to go through the tickets I did have with the volunteer to make sure I wasn’t missing any others.

Apparently, I’ve seen a lot of shows:

1. A Brief History of Petty Crime
2. American Squatter
3. Boom
4. *Flamenco con Fusion 08
5. Galapagos: The Directors Cut
6. *Mark Baratelli
7. Move!
8. MR. FOX
9. *Mr. Marmalade
10. On Second Thought
11. *once upon a time: The End
12. Oral
13. Parlour Games
14. perfectly broken
15. Power To Pleasing: The Sex Lives of Teenage Girls
16. *Red, White, and Ignorant: An American Love Story
17. Shadows In Bloom
18. Skip Peril and the Players of the Lost Trunk
19. *Swell
20. The Boy’s Own Jedi Handbook
21. *The Bric-a-Brac Vagabond Vintage Variety Show
22. The Cody Rivers Show presents: Stick to Glue
23. The Greg Barris Heart of Darkness Rock and Roll Circus
24. *The Screw You Revue: Déjà vu
25. *The Slipknot: A Benefit for the Orlando Fringe
26. Totem Figures
27. TV iMature
28. *Wet
29. When Pigs Fly

* Indicates shows I have not seen, but I have a ticket for.

All of these shows (that I have seen) are awesome. Go see them all. If I could only tell you three, I would include The Cody Rivers Show, On Second Thought and Boom (not in that order). I would say Power to Pleasing, but it’s sold out. I continue to tell folks that if they haven’t seen any dance, they MUST go - we always have great dance at this festival, and I’m seeing all of the 5 dance shows this year. Lastly, (not leastly) if you’ve never seen TJ Dawe, Barry Smith, Jimmy Hogg, Greg Landucci, Gemma Wilcox or any of the other out-of-town monologists (like Paul Hutcheson from On Second Thought, mentioned earlier), they are all worth your time and money. This is also not counting Patron’s Pick day, where I plan to see some shows that have floated to the top, but I managed to miss. It should be a fun experience.

What was also a fun experience was getting a random contact from some folks from Rake Theatre down in Boynton Beach - they’re putting on Fluency this week at the Fringe. Apparently, they are wanting to start an all-Florida arts blog - a very ambitious project. I have about 3 such very ambitious projects in my head, in the works with locals, or I at least own the domain name for them.

The South Florida folks’ project is called, of all things, Florida Arts Blog, which is a Wordpress.com site right now, but for some reason the posts about Fringe have disappeared… ::shrug:: Something and someone to watch in the coming weeks and months. I am trying to sell them on Florida Creatives myself, blogging can come later. They’ve also got a link to Mark’s Orlando Arts Blog up there… I wonder if they’ve been emailing him too…?

Other things happening this weekend would be:

Orlando Silent Rave (see a video)
Saturday, May 24th, 5:24PM @ the Green Lawn of Fabulosity

Kite Flying 2.0 with Radio Rickshaw and Greg Barris
Sunday, May 25th 11AM - 5PM @ the Green Lawn on Drunkenness

Zombie March 3.7 with Rich Weirdos and Friends
Saturday, May 24th @ 3PM Park Ave and 5PM Lake Eola

If you know of more cool stuff, leave a comment and we’ll get it listed.

May 24th on Park Ave at 3, around Lake Eola at 5
www.richweirdos.com/zombie

The main reason I look forward to May every year is the arrival of the Orlando International Fringe Theatre Festival (Thursday the 15th through Monday the 26th). Every year, theatre companies, dancers, comedians, clowns, musicians, improv actors, writer/directors, solo acts and large ensembles, exuberant teenagers and road-hardened veterans alike grace Loch Haven Park with their creativity and energy, and Orlando gives every ounce of it (and more) back to them as many of the national and international acts begin their Canadian Fringe circuit, which brings them to a new city every two weeks. Show prices range from free (as in free software) to $10, and all shows require the one-time purchase of a $6 festival button - 100% of your ticket money goes to the artist. This is one of the only unjuried, uncensored events I know of in Orlando outside of a few open-mic nights, and even some of those are passing judgment on the performers (the other best example here is BarCamp).

18 months ago, I started gathering a group of my friends together every third Monday of the month for an event called Florida Creatives Happy Hour (Monday the 19th, 6PM @ Loch Haven Park). Now, those original 8 friends are hardly in the same room, but the group has grown to something resembling a small political party representing the creative professionals and hobbyists here in Central Florida (with a group getting started in Jacksonville as I write this). This month’s Florida Creatives falls during the Fringe Festival, so at 6PM on the 19th we will be descending upon their “Green Lawn of Fabulousness” to have a beer and some soul food and socialize. At 7:45, we will be attending American Squatter, starring Barry Smith, the creator of last year’s sell-out hit Jesus in Montana. Tickets are $10 plus your $6 Fringe button.

Despite the fact that Fringe starts on the same day every year, another festival seems to think they are better than the Fringe, by starting on the exact same day. Yes, the Florida Music Festival runs Thursday the 15th through Sunday the 18th this year, at pretty much every available venue downtown. In past years, you’ve been able to buy a one-time pass that gets you in to all the shows for the whole weekend, as well as nightly passes - buying a ticket to just one show will hardly do such an event justice. The festival also has a short film as well as an art contest, check these out too if you can find the time in between all of the other events happening at the exact same time.

What other events? How about that bizarre craft bazaar held semi-bi-anually at Stardust Video & Coffee, Grandma Party? (Saturday the 17th, 10AM to Sunset) For some reason they opted out of celebrating Earth Day in favor of overlapping with FMF and Fringe this year - the reason why is left as homework for the reader. Actually, if you find out, please try to explain this one to me too. At G-ma Party, you’ll not only find loads of handmade goods, like the cereal-and-eggs inspired work of the Breakfast Bunch, but trendy t-shirts, buckets of buttons, live music by some of Orlando’s best local bands (at least those who are friends with the festival organizers), a bal-looney community pool, and of course rummage piles and raffles.

Not as culturally significant, but still worth a mention, the second ever Florida Drupal User Group meeting will be held at the offices of MindComet in Maitland this Saturday (May 17th, 1PM). Check out the event and any follow-up at groups.drupal.org/florida.

Still more to come in this round-up of events, because I couldn’t write such a blog post without mentioning the Corazon Art and Music Festival being held at the Orlando Brewing Company (Sunday the 18th, starts 1PM, All Day). As I’m writing this I don’t have access to any listings, but I know tickets are $5, and I can give a serious recommendation, as this event is being thrown by Robert and Jonathan from Gamble Records, the folks who brought us the ELLA Music Festival in October. I expect you will see lots of singer-songwriter type acts, and you can trust Robert Johnson’s rolodex to bring you some great music (and art?).

There must be more happening during the next two weeks, but isn’t that enough? Of course, we can’t forget about this Friday (May 16th, 8AM-11AM) and the Likemind Orlando coffee meetup at the Lake Eola Panera Bread. This month there will be free coffee and hopefully a few free copies of a book called Murketing - I don’t have a lot of details about it, but I know the publishers of the book are sponsoring the coffee and snacks all over the US, so they get serious props.

If I’m missing anything here, please leave a shout-out, and I’ll try to include it in the next bulletin. Until next time, have a great May!

Blogging Fringe (or this year, my personal blog and OrlandoScene.TV) will be taking up some time, but I also don’t want to take ALL week off so I can save my pennies. Any thoughts, comments, suggestions?

Tisse, Katrina Priore, Dana Delapi and Becky Lane talk to Ryan Price during BarCamp Orlando 2008.

Florida Creatives on iTunes

Download Show 16

Today at BarCamp I suggested we create a “secret” handshake for Florida Creatives members or people who are involved in the local community.

Here are some suggestions: hugs, peace sign, hang loose, three-fingered wave, etc.

What would you use as the Florida Creatives secret handshake? Record something and post it in the comments!

Sunir Shah and Alex DeCarvalho talk to Ryan Price at BarCampOrlando Dev Day about FreshBooks and ScrapBlog, where each of them are the "Community Guy". We also talk about BarCamp and the aesthetic there vs. a regular conference.

Shameless Links:

• FreshBooks
• ScrapBlog
• BarCampOrlando
• Florida Creatives on iTunes

Download Show 15

BarCamp Orlando is a weekend for all types of creative folks to come together and share with each other. The event is dubbed an “unconference”, a format which derives power from the people instead of the event organizers or the presenters. Everyone has an equal opportunity to get on stage and speak, teach or lead a discussion, playing off of the idea that at any given conference, the people in the audience have more knowledge collectively than the presenter(s) on stage.

This second installment of BarCamp will be held over 2 days, Saturday and Sunday, April 5th and 6th, in downtown Orlando at the Wall Street complex, from 10AM - 6PM each day. Registration is free, and a registration promises a shirt and lunch on the sponsors of BarCamp, businesses who are passionate about the technology and media communities of Central Florida.

Saturday is the designated “Dev Day”, playing host to everything from web programming to robot building and video game development and everything in between. iPhone hackers, guys with soldering irons, the latest technologies, and plenty that haven’t been realized yet. Every 30 minutes, both venues will have a different talk going on, so if you’re feeling lost in the jargon, apply the “rule of 2 feet” and check out what’s happening in the other room!

Sunday is dubbed “Media Day”, and is the place for storytellers, journalists, writers, designers, filmmakers, musicians, 2D and 3D artists, podcasters, bloggers and social networkers to show off their work, share their tricks or talk about the state of the industry. From 12 to 1 we will be talking about the “Past, Present and Future of Media in Central Florida”, hoping to give our community a sense of our story, and where we’re headed.

Registration is free, and the event runs from 10AM - 6PM both days with a lunch break at 1PM. The event will be housed in Slingapour’s and One-Eyed-Jack’s, with Wall St Cantina acting as our “hallway”. There will be projectors and microphones, chairs and a space to speak. All you have to do is write your name on the whiteboard and you get 20-25 minutes to share your passions with a group of energetic, engaged geeks and creatives. I would not use the words “captive audience” to describe the BarCamp crowd, because they all want to get involved.

Visit www.barcamporlando.org today and register for Dev Day, Media Day or both days. Wall Street Plaza is at 18 Wall Street Plaza, Orlando, FL 32801 - barcamporlando.org/where has a map to the venue and information about parking.

Abani, a professor of creative writing at the University of California, Riverside, will speak about “Human Rights in Politics and Art” at 3 p.m. in the Cape Florida Ballroom, room 316, of the Student Union. The event is free and open to the public. Details here.

• Florida Creatives @ Enzian FilmSLAM (2008/03/09)

  Second Sundays, Enzian has an event for local Florida filmmakers to showcase their work. It costs just $5 to get in, and you get to see a half-dozen or so new short films. At the end you get to vote on which one you think should get shown at the Brouhaha Grand Slam in December. Enzian even has food and drinks available because they don’t want to hear grumbling tummies over the films.

  Then we go across the street to Copper Rocket - you meet some filmmakers, some filmmakers meet all of us, we have fun.

  FilmSlam - 3/9 1PM at Enzian
  Happy Hour - 3/9 3PM at Copper Rocket

• Florida Creatives @ OMA First Thursdays (2008/03/06)

  On the first Thursday of the month, the Orlando Museum of Art opens their galleries up late and has a themed exhibit in the front room - the theme this month is “Beat-niks & Bongos: Abstract Art”. I believe admission is $9 for non-members. There are food and drinks available for additional monies. 3/6 6-9PM at Loch Haven Park

  First Thursdays are also when Dandelion CommuniTEA has their art openings, immediately following First Thursday. Dandelion is behind Colonial Photo and Hobby on Mills (they are on Thornton).

• Coworking Tuesdays

  This is a new event that will hopefully coalesce itself into tradition in the coming months. Anyone who works out of their living room is invited to work outside their living room by joining some other folks in the same boat every Tuesday… somewhere. A regular location will emerge, I’m sure. We had settled on B&S Daily Market, but Manny has admitted defeat and closed up shop. Watch this space, the Coworking Wiki and Coworking Mailing List for more details.

• Florida Creatives Happy Hour (2008/03/17)

  Yes, it comes around so quickly, doesn’t it? We get together at the Crooked Bayou every month from 6-9 PM so you always have a place to meet new people and catch up with folks. It’s important to our community to have these Third Places (not home or work/school) to gather and visit. If you’ve never been or you feel like it’s been too ling since you’ve been around, there’s never a better time to make a habit of attending.

  This is the last Florida Creatives before BarCampOrlando goes down on April 5th & 6th, so you’ll want to attend if you’re interested in assisting with planning activities, passing out fliers or doing any other publicity. I also believe that will be the last week to find sponsors.

Jason Hawkins is a winner. We’ve featured his SOLMI videos here before, and now he’s creating lots of video for other folks in town. I dig his motion graphics, camera work, and the way he (or his camera) captures color.

Also, props to Jason Seifer. Kissy face? Nice work, broseph.

On a very serious note, if you’re reading this blog, you should make plans to go to BarCampOrlando and do a presentation - if you’ve got short films, this is a great captive audience to show them in front of - 20 minute time slots. If you do a podcast or vlog, work in television, motion graphics, design, or anything of the sort, the second day in particular will be of interest to you and you should really sign up to present. As I said on my blog about BarCamp:

I’m recruiting presenters and attendees for the New Media Day. Be there, bring your A-game. (your B-game is equally welcome)

At the last event, I think everyone’s understanding that there were going to be some crazy awesome presentations as well as some mediocre ones was not very solid. I spoke to a few people who presented and said “I thought I was going to be all by myself in a room with like 5 guys all scratching their chins, but I was SO wrong”, the other half of them said “I thought about presenting, but I didn’t think I was ‘good enough’, but then I saw it was just a bunch of guys like me, so I’m going to blow them all out of the water this time”.

Really, those are you only two options. You should have either presented at last year’s BarCamp, or decided that you were definitely presenting at the next one. If you weren’t there, then take my word for it and create a presentation. Really.

If you’d like to see your Orlando Video here, email < liberatr AT gmail DOT com >.

Cheers to Dan Benjamin for giving some of the geekier kids in Central Florida an excuse to eat a healthy lunch yesterday at Power House Café in Winter Park.

lunch_fu is often announced via twitter, but also shows up on Facebook and Upcoming as well, so there are lots of ways to get notified. Meagan Fisher normally posts the invites, so watch her posts as well as Dan’s for whispers of upcoming lunches.

There’s even a fun mascot. You gotta love that.

If you notice from Bill Couch’s photo - the turnout was substantial - the folks at Power House were none too pleased with us pushing 6 tables together. This event is organized in an informal ad-hoc fashion - yet still garners a large following - there is room in this community for more events. Florida Creatives wants to help.

Also worth taking a look at is the coworking event happening every Tuesday in Winter Park called Cup-O-Code. Folks show up around 7PM and sit in the meeting room to work, catch up, have some coffee and enjoy the accommodations at Cup O’ Soul in Winter Park. Ample parking and free wireless.

Watch this space and the Florida Creatives Mailing List for an announcement about an event after next month’s Enzian FilmSlam. The Enzian event starts at 1:00PM and is always finished by 3, so we will be migrating from the theatre to a nearby location for some conversation and refreshments.

When I had finished writing the email, I realised the opportunity to add a creative guide to the FLCreatives Wiki. The idea with this is that any of our members can write or re-post a how-to, something they feel might be useful to folks browsing for information, sort of the ultimate FAQ for Florida Creatives. Because it’s listed on the wiki, other folks can edit and re-structure the guides to make them more useful, or add pictures, video, slideshows, web links and more useful or up-to-date information.

The first such guide I wrote was a re-posting of my talking points from BarCamp Orlando and BlogOrlando about Podcasting Theory. I don’t think this has received any edits since October, but the wiki makes it easy to find out - every page keeps a full history of all the edits and who made them.

Here’s today’s new creative guide: Getting into Florida Film

Right now the first part of this guide mentions that there’s a Film Industry Professionals Meetup (7PM) tonight at McRaney’s Tavern on Fairbanks Ave - that’s one of the first edits that should be made, of course, because normally they meet on the Second Thursday of the month, not Wednesdays. I just posted the text as it was in the email.

Please help us have a great resource for folks new to town, students or just curious people by adding your own Creative Guides to the list. We’re the locals, so we have a different way of noticing what’s important, we’ve been in the trenches.

I also edited a few pages - like the Orlando Networking, Orlando Events and Orlando Resources lists. Almost anything that deserves a bullet point on this wiki deserves a full wiki page, so that’s another way to contribute - write up the history of your group or a place you like to visit in town. I promise to give it a feature here on the blog and in the mailing list.