billyd.net

On The Verge 001: Matias Duarte, Lytro camera, Droid RAZR,...

Tue, 15 Nov 2011 00:00:00 -0500

On The Verge 001: Matias Duarte, Lytro camera, Droid RAZR, Kindle Fire, HTC Titan Ridiculously proud to be a part of this production.

Condo at the End of the World: Life Inside a Nuclear Missile...

Wed, 02 Nov 2011 00:00:00 -0400

Condo at the End of the World: Life Inside a Nuclear Missile Bunker

This is the best thing I’ve made in a long time. Shot by Jordan Oplinger, directed/edited by me. Made as a companion piece for an amazing editorial by Joseph L. Flatley.

Here’s a very small sampling of the direction I’m...

Fri, 30 Sep 2011 14:10:57 -0400

Here’s a very small sampling of the direction I’m trying to take video content on The Verge.

Much bigger things to come. Stay tuned.

Viddler’s New, More In-Depth Learn More Page As part of...

Mon, 09 May 2011 00:00:00 -0400

Viddler’s New, More In-Depth Learn More Page

As part of Viddler’s new Learn More page, I conceptualized a redesign of the section and created a series of 7 new videos to describe the different advantages of Viddler’s business services. Above is one of the videos from that series. Check out viddler.com/learn-more to watch the rest and to see the fantastic page Andrew designed for it. Special thanks to Max Lipka and Ryan DeNardo for helping out with the video shoot.

Viddler Spotlight: Lehigh Valley Homes TV In case I...

Wed, 04 May 2011 23:12:00 -0400

Viddler Spotlight: Lehigh Valley Homes TV

In case I haven’t spammed you with this elsewhere by now, this is my latest video in the Viddler Spotlight series. These guys are real estate rockstars. If you’re a freelance video person in a small town, show this video to your favorite local business and convince them to hire you to step up their game online. I don’t know if these dudes have groupies, but they should.

Billy Disney & Ryan DeNardo set world records on Late...

Wed, 02 Mar 2011 19:32:00 -0500

Billy Disney & Ryan DeNardo set world records on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon

Yesterday Ryan and I were invited to help URDB and Jimmy Fallon break/set some world records on a taping of Late Night. Fallon and all the people over there are extremely nice. Even the intimidating security guys seem like they’d be pretty nice about it if they had to bash my brain in with one of their walkie-talkies. Super nice people. Seriously. Next time you’re thinking of going to sleep, take a triple espresso shot and give Jimmy your attention instead.

And it goes without saying that the URDB guys are awesome, because they have yellow blazers and stopwatches. So give the video a watch. You’ll spot me in the middle of the back of the love seat (the back of my head is famous!), and busting out some killer dance moves on the office chair daisy chain.

Viddler Spotlight: Engadget My latest video in Viddler...

Tue, 22 Feb 2011 23:20:00 -0500

Viddler Spotlight: Engadget

My latest video in Viddler Spotlight series. Read my whole blog post about it over on the Viddler Blog.

SantasBack.com Sometimes the joy of Christmas can be overtaken...

Sat, 25 Dec 2010 12:00:00 -0500

SantasBack.com

Sometimes the joy of Christmas can be overtaken by the stress of trying to give everyone you love a happy holiday season. So this Christmas, keep it fun. Get an egg nog buzz. Get a sugar cookie high. Get down in Toy Town. Yamatalkinabout?

The New Resumable Uploader - Viddler I moved to Astoria, NY...

Thu, 09 Dec 2010 00:00:00 -0500

The New Resumable Uploader - Viddler

I moved to Astoria, NY mid-November. A week later I crashed a helicopter into a local park to shoot a promo video for Viddler. Hi, neighbors!

I was an early beta tester of Gmail. On Gmail, a username has...

Thu, 18 Nov 2010 09:23:00 -0500

I was an early beta tester of Gmail. On Gmail, a username has to be at least 6 characters long, so I was happy when I managed to get billyd. What I failed to realize is that having such a simple email address would result in a lot of unwanted email—email that was intended to go to billyd123 or billydman6969 or billydingdong or whatever.

I’ve received everything from drunken confessions of love from people in the UK to angry rants in Spanish. I even received a bill for an order of steroids, intended for a D-list NYC comedian, along with his contact info and the address for his midtown apartment.

There’s really a treasure trove of good stuff that’s accidentally sent to my inbox, and if I had no sense of morality or ethics, I would post some of the more amusing things here, or even use some of it for moderately high-profile blackmail. But I’m a good guy, and I would never do any of that…well, almost never.

A few days ago I received a series of 6 or 7 emails, all containing various vacation photos. One of them stood out to me: the picture you see above. For whatever reason, I find this photo to be profoundly awesome, and I couldn’t help but share it. I’m thinking of framing this and putting it on the wall behind my desk, and I’m not being facetious, either. I truly find this to be an extremely compelling work of art.

Maybe part of it has to do with the fact that it wasn’t intended to be seen by me. Maybe part of it has to do with the humorous juxtaposition of characters. Maybe part of it has to do with the fact that the gentleman on the left looks like a cross between Wilford Brimley and Hulk Hogan. For those things, I am sorry. But seriously, how could I not share this?

Update: Here’s the full resolution picture.

Introducing Viddler Subscriptions Back when I was in high...

Tue, 26 Oct 2010 03:00:00 -0400

Introducing Viddler Subscriptions

Back when I was in high school, my idea of being defiant was to record an extremely sexually explicit rap song, make a music video where an asian dude lip syncs my lyrics and strips naked, and then submit the result as my final product for my video applications class. That’s actually still pretty close to my definition of defiance, though I no longer have classes and I no longer discriminate on the basis of race when deciding who can lip sync to my voice. Point is, there’s a kitchen in that video. I shot this new video for Viddler in that very kitchen. I thought that would be a good story. Guess not. Anyways, this video stars Aubie Merrylees. He’s great.

The video I made for Viddler’s new Learn More section is...

Wed, 29 Sep 2010 18:44:00 -0400

The video I made for Viddler’s new Learn More section is officially up. Andrew put together a really nifty page to showcase it on. Check out the play buttons that let you skip to the different sections of the video—they even work on the iPhone and the iPad.

Viddler Spotlight: Wine Library TV In film school, while all...

Thu, 23 Sep 2010 18:27:00 -0400

Viddler Spotlight: Wine Library TV

In film school, while all the other kids were aspiring to be rockstar Hollywood directors, or trying to find a way to turn their hobby of making skateboarding videos into some kind of career, I was always much more fascinated with the web. To me, the internet was the only medium that provided a truly blank canvas. Once you get past all the videos of people getting hit in the wiener, it’s an incredibly powerful medium with zero barriers of entry. All you have to do is create something of value, be it informational value, artistic value, comedic value, whatever. Make something worth watching—even if it’s only worthwhile to a small handful of people—and you’ll be able to build some kind of audience. And besides, there are a lot of folks out there that like watching people get hit in the wiener. Let them have that.

When I was in 8th grade, long before things like YouTube and Viddler, I made videos and hosted them on my own website. Online video was my first love, and now she’s my sugarmama, and I wouldn’t have it any other way. That’s why I was pumped a month ago today when I got to sit down with Gary Vaynerchuk, to get some history and insight about what he has been able to accomplish with online video. If I haven’t spammed you with it enough already elsewhere, I really recommend you give it a watch.

Random 60: Is it the tools or the artist? Colin Devroe,...

Thu, 23 Sep 2010 18:08:00 -0400

Random 60: Is it the tools or the artist?

Colin Devroe, Viddler’s Technology Evangelist, does a little 60-second interview show called Random 60. It’s like 60 minutes, except not for old farts. It’s for us young folk who don’t have time to watch someone be interviewed for an hour. If your to-do list includes at least one item, and that one item isn’t “get uterus removed,” then this is the show for you.

It’s an interesting concept, and more importantly it’s a new platform for me to be a dick, so I gladly accepted his offer to be interviewed in today’s episode. If anything, being on Random 60 confirmed something I already knew: If you need a dick for 60 seconds, I’m your guy.

Exclusive Preview of the Cloverfield Sequel People don’t...

Sun, 25 Jul 2010 17:16:00 -0400

Exclusive Preview of the Cloverfield Sequel

People don’t know this but my uncle is directing the untitled Cloverfield sequel. Despite the rumors, it’s actually a prequel that takes place 9 years before the original. It stars my little cousin Tyler, and was shot in J. J. Abrams’ hometown of Pacific Palisades, CA.

I’ve managed to steal an exclusive scene from the film, which I’ve embedded above. Enjoy.

“Sure stranger, you can mug me. But you’re going to have...

Fri, 23 Jul 2010 21:49:00 -0400

“Sure stranger, you can mug me. But you’re going to have to untangle me first, and I’m VERY ticklish.”

(photo by cdevroe)

Unsent Pretentious Emails, Part I

Tue, 08 Jun 2010 19:30:18 -0400

I was cleaning out some old stuff in my email’s drafts folder when I realized something: I’m about two ounces of confidence away from being a total asshole. Which is right around where you want to be as far as I’m concerned.

I found this email that I wrote to an old professor of mine. I was assigned to write a ten page paper, which is normally nothing worth getting worked up about. The difference in this situation was that I was assigned to write a ten page paper with a partner, which is about zero ounces away from being full-blown retarded.

So I wrote the following email to my professor:

As of this afternoon I’ve received nearly 30 emails from students looking for partners for the media critique project. I’ve yet to respond to any them, but if I want to find someone to work with, I’ll either have to send my own spammy email blast to the entire class, or bite someone else’s bait. I’m very hesitant to do this because it is my firm belief that good writing—especially writing that’s as opinion-driven as a critique is—has a strong singular voice. There are many accomplished writing duos in the world of non-fiction and academia, but these are generally like-minded people who have spent long periods of time developing a unified and cohesive thesis, not students who met after one of them emailed their entire class to say, “yo i need a writing partner for class i don’t care what film you wanna do its whatevs to me lol.”

I’m sure this is an assignment you’ve been doing this way for a long time, and I’m sure plenty of quality papers have been produced in previous classes. Unfortunately, as someone who has been involved with far too many “group” projects, I have this bit of behind-the scenes insight to share with you: the majority of those papers were written by one person.

The first example paper you posted, for instance, contains technical errors that are consistent throughout the entire paper, suggesting that it was mostly constructed by one individual. In American English we always put commas and periods inside quotation marks, without exception. Either that paper was written by one person, or it was written by two British people. Similar examples can be found throughout the rest of the paper. For instance, both the MLA and APA style guides say to italicize film titles. Some older versions the MLA guidelines say it is okay to italicize or underline movie titles, but neither MLA or APA say it’s acceptable to put a film title in quotations, let alone put it in quotations and italicize it. This error is made consistently throughout the paper, and is one that I cannot attribute to both the authors being limey bastards.

I’m super protective of creative work that gets handed in with my name on it, and I know I’ll inevitably end up writing—or, at best, rewriting—the majority of whatever I were to work on with a partner. Since I live an 80-minute train ride away from campus, I’d really prefer to not have to deal with all the minutiae of coordinating a bunch of group work that I’d just end up doing the majority of myself. I realize that the assignment says we must have a partner, but is there any way I could bypass the BS and take sole credit for my work? Either way I’m going to be writing it on my own.

With love,

William Lawrence Disney

The email was never sent, and I ended up finding a partner. The paper sucked but we got an A anyways, because my teacher’s a big dummy.

Viddler Business profile: Gamervision I’m happy to say...

Fri, 21 May 2010 20:15:00 -0400

Viddler Business profile: Gamervision

I’m happy to say that I’ll be starting full-time at Viddler on Monday. One of the more exciting projects I’ll be doing involves hopping around to make video profiles of their various business customers. Embeded/linked above is the first video in this series—a profile of Gamervision—that I put together with the help of Jordan Oplinger. Super fun group of people over there at Gamervision. Excited to see who will be next.

“I Love You” - Cementerio de San Juan Just got back...

Fri, 21 May 2010 19:35:00 -0400

“I Love You” - Cementerio de San Juan

Just got back from a lovely trip to Puerto Rico with Caitlin. The co-op she was assigned to for student teaching has a house there, and we were graciously invited to stay at it. We left just two days after I graduated, ‘cause I don’t take days off, I just take off in planes. Yamtalkinbout?

Anyways, this video pretty much sums up our relationship.

I’m gunning for you, tits mcgee. (Game link via...

Fri, 07 May 2010 14:02:15 -0400

I’m gunning for you, tits mcgee. (Game link via puffalump.)