Wire 106 Twitter Watch Along

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Glad to see Omar dressed up for the wire106 twitter watch-along

Last week was focused on introducing audio so we did three Wire 106 Listen Alongs via ds106radio that focused specifically on audio. This week we’re introducing visual/photography, so we wanted to switch it up and have folks watch and not listen. Do do this, Tim Owens pointed me to 6IRCNet Synchtube, which allows you to take a video uploaded somewhere online and watch it together with others. I had uploaded an episode of 6 of Season 2 without audio to another site, and I simply grabbed the raw URL of the mp4 and ran it through Synchtu.be which allowed eleven of us to watched it together in the wire106 channel for an hour with Twitter as our commentary tool—all of which is aggregated around the hashtag #wire106.

Last’s week ds106radio experiment, and this week’s Twitter Watch Along is a fun way to reinforce the course as community and remind everyone that online does not mean alienated and alone. What’s more, there are free tools out there that make the experience that much simpler and compelling.

As for watching the episode without sound, I think Carmella Mitchell and Kris Hooks got it right: it’s hard to focus on an episode of TV without the sound. You become so easily distracted. While listening to the sound last week, on the other hand, was the exact opposite experience. You are totally sucked in with audio. It reminds me of the idea Jen Ralston brought up in her interview about sound in The Wire: “sound doesn’t blink.” That was never truer when trying to watch an episode without it, you can peel away from the action without the soundtrack to keep you anchored.

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9 Responses to Wire 106 Twitter Watch Along

  1. Pingback: New blog post: "Wire 106 Twitter Watch Along" http://bavatuesdays.com/wire-106-twitter-watch-along/ #wire106 #ds106

  2. Well, it was fun to watch along with a Friends and the Lawyer Lady’s doll hair for all the clues but with no sound, but it was sad when Dee in the Library with the Belt.

    Plus Jimmy and Bunk at the Traintracks with the Booze. And Omar in the Courthouse with the Tie.

    Plus it was a sad time for Ziggy and his Dad at the dockyards. It is a Bleak Place, even with colours on the containers. But mostly rust.

    I will tune in for another one of it but not tonight if I have a mission.

    Well, bye!

  3. Ryan says:

    Do you follow the Open Culture blog? Just today they posted an article about how Stephen Soderbergh is using his retirement. One of the things he’s been working on is recutting Raiders of the Lost Ark into a silent B&W film as a lesson about staging in film. Thought you might be interested, you big film nerd 🙂

    • Reverend says:

      Awesome link, Ryan, in particular this bit:

      On his web site, extension765.com, Soderbergh presents a short lesson in “staging,” a term that refers in cinema “to how all the various elements of a given scene or piece are aligned, arranged, and coordinated.” He tells us: “I operate under the theory a movie should work with the sound off, and under that theory, staging becomes paramount.”

      It’s exactly what we are doing right now with these episodes, so good. I feel a post a comin’.

  4. Tim Owens says:

    So this is working without YouTube in the mix? That is super awesome! Such a great tool for online group viewing sessions.

    • Reverend says:

      The coolest thing is I don’t even need YouTube. I just make an episode public for an hour and pull that mp4 in. It is dead simple. Worked like a charm two nights in a row. You rule!

  5. Pingback: From Radio to Television to Wire 106 or, Why I teach | bavatuesdays

  6. Pingback: Wire 106: S02E06/E07/E08 “All Prologue,” “Backwash,” and “Duck and Cover” | bavatuesdays

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