thefives.tv : Five questions to ask a total stranger

THE GOAL
I've been asked a few times what the goal of the project is. I think it is important that everyone understand what my motivations were for wanting to get this thing off of the ground. I like people, and I like to hear their stories. I like the idea of seeing someone covered in tattoos and learning that they're a brain surgeon. I want other people to know that people aren't what we see, they're people – with different backgrounds, and problems, and families, and ideas – no matter what lives we make up for them. Understanding this may help others to be more respectful of their peers, and may encourage more thought and conversation. That is my goal – thought and conversation. What about you? Why are you involved?

LET'S GET STARTED, NOW!
Let's pick five questions from the list below, then make this thing happen. I envision three or four minutes of interviews, but if they're longer or shorter, they certainly won't be turned away. The idea is to give you the opportunity to talk to as many people as you want, while keeping the length of the production manageable and something fun. Remember, this is all about fun.

I'll take the videos and add pre and post roll branding for thefives.tv. I'll handle the credits, blog translation, and the encoding/uploads of the video to YouTube. If this gets too time consuming I may need some help. I'll arrange storage for these videos and give you instructions for where to upload them when you're ready.

The content will be released under the following license:
Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States .

The tone should most definitely be as playful and fun as the subject being interviewed allows. Take a few still photos of the subject if you can. This will add additional interest to the subject.

EQUIPMENT
I've had feedback that some of you may not have the “proper” equipment to get started. I'm not worried about production quality, but more about the message that the interview sends. So, if you're like Jon Sullivan, you'll use a Macbook Pro's iSight focused on two people or a digital camera's movie mode to shoot. You may have a tripod and a DV camera (they're under $200 at Amazon). Jon and I even talked about doing Skype video interviews with a complete stranger and recording that as content for the project.

Ultimately, as long as we can hear the interview and get some idea of who you're interviewing, make it happen and don't worry about quality right now. The deployment target for this early content is Youtube, not a 100″ HDTV.

THE HOSTS
I'm excited to say that participants are 50/50 on the sexes. The experience of the team varies from professional actors and people that make a living behind a camera to people that just really like to talk to other people. This variety will really add to the feel of the project.

COMMUNICATION
The last thing I want to say is that it is time that we all start the process of meeting each other and working together. I set the domain http://thefives.tv to forward to the Ning site. Each of you need to create a profiles there so we can move these emails to that site. That way things can happen without me.