With the European Wine Bloggers Conference fast approaching, and the video workshop on Saturday filling up, our videographer Paolo Casalis wanted to dispel a few myths about making videos. For Paolo, a video can be many things; hence why he wanted to offer 4 quick bits of advice as to what you can learn from his workshop! Don’t be afraid of the moving picture, embrace it!

You don’t have to be afraid of video, because….

1. I’m proof that everybody can make videos: I’m an architect by trade and used a video camera for the 1st time in my life in March 2008 when I was already 31 years old!! Twelve months later, my first documentary movie (over 4,000 sold copies up to now) was out. It’s not a question of technique, it’s a question of ideas and stories.
2. the goal is to have fun at my EWBC Video Workshop, not make a full length feature film. We will talk about making a short clip and how to tell an effective story. Put another way, how do you write a blog post, not an entire book. Any one of you can make it, really!
3. it’s not a question of money, you don’t need expensive cameras or post-production tools. To demonstrate it, I will bring and use a little camera like the one in the photo. Though you can even use your phone!
4. video editing will demonstrate you how to produce a quality clip even with a single shot, without any editing.

In conclusion, I assure you that taking a good photo is even more complicated than making a great video (this is my second personal problem: I’m not great at taking good photographs!). So, please don’t be intimidated by video and join me at the video workshop!

See you soon,

Paolo

In response to feedback from our participants, we are creating an opportunity for open discussions in a similar format to the one popularised by BarCamp and our friends at VinoCamp. Great conferences are about a balance of content from inspiring speakers and of networking and interaction amongst participants and speakers.

We are happy to announce that on Thursday 13th at 3pm at the Hotel Vittoria for anyone who is already in Brescia there will be a 3 hour session of focused networking. What we are asking is for you all to pitch your projects, ideas you want to explore or areas of interest in the comments below. We’ll take all these into account and during this networking session those with great ideas will be given a table to set up their laptop and create a space to discuss an idea based on their interest or project. During the 3 hour session, we the organizers will time 15-20 minutes sessions and ask everyone to rotate so that everyone gets a chance to interact with new people.

We are calling this session “Pirlo Talks* with Vinocamp, named after Brescia’s local aperitif made with Franciacorta wines and Aperol. Tables for gathering around, and plenty of power cords, will be made available along with the Hotel Vittoria’s free WIFI. This is your chance to share what you’re working on, thinking about while creating discussions before the main event!

Anyone who wishes to participate is welcome to come and discuss matters of interest with their peers. We hope that all of you make it and share in this pre-EWBC networking opportunity. Please leave a comment below and tell us what you want to talk about. Our friends at Vinocamp will work with us to make sure we get all of you a place to set up, and share!

So what are you working on?

* Free Pirlo cocktails will be on offer for all participants

EWBC 2010 is coming up sooner than many of us would like to admit. We know that most of you are thinking that October is a long, long way away. But guess what?! We’re living it already. Hence, we kindly ask that all of you step into our world for a moment and lend us your expertise.

This year, we’re working on a slightly different format for the event. Based on a considerable amount of great feedback we’re trying to squeeze in more content and ensuring it’s relevant as well as fun and exciting. In an effort to do this, we really need you, the heart and soul of the EWBC. We’re hoping that you will share your expertise to make suggestions on content, considering that many of you are very well educated in the ways of wine and the web.

We have various types of sessions, all in English at this stage, so as to offer a greater variety and range of content. First, we’ll do an hour and a half of “quick burst” 20 minute sessions. The concept: present an idea, get some immediate, creative, and specific feedback and then move on. In total, there will be 6 of these sessions. They will be fast and quick moving, but the idea is to give a “burst of information”, or better yet, pitch an idea to be discussed by others on their websites.

Second, we’ll have 3 one hour sessions, where you can really dig in and present an idea, flesh it out and engage the room. We will reward those whose ideas engage and challenge the audience, as opposed to a monologue, slowly lulling us to sleep.

Finally we have 3 one-hour Workshop sessions on offer. These are special because they’re aimed to not only teach the audience, but offer hands on experience! Video editing? Photography? Writing workshop? Tasting workshop? Sabrage? Who knows!? You tell us!

Hence, this is a Call for Papers from those who would like the chance to take ownership of one of these sessions. Send us a brief overview of your ideas by email or on our Contact form. As you know, we focus on robust, thoughtful discussions, as well as opportunities to helping us become better skilled. Consequently, we will favor those papers that are not self promotional, but rather explore ideas and/or help to educate.

The deadline for all submissions is the 15th of July, and you must be registered as a participant to apply. If we have a large number of quality submissions, we’ll turn it over to you, the registered participants, to decide. You are free to present your paper as an individual, or even a small group of people, but remember, we will be awarding points for quality, originality, creativity and style … as well as content. Let’s try to think outside the box!

Any questions?

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Time: 16:00 – 16:45 pm

Roundtable:

• Esteban Cabezas – The Wine Academy Spain
• Marcio Ferriera – ViniPortugal
• Evelyne Resnick – Wine Brands

Theme: We will have just spent a day looking at where the world wine and online media have converged; how video is changing the way we communicate about wine; how wineries and wine bloggers can communicate better. So to end the day, we want to look at the future, and what tomorrow will  bring us? Will we become more open, or will the inverse occur, creating virtual walls around individual content?

Questions:

• What role will blogging have in the next 5 years of wine communication?
• What importance will we place on video as we move into the next generation of wine communication?
• Do Twitter and Facebook serve a purpose or are they just steps in the evolution of wine communication?
• How can Generics better embrace the benefits of Social Media? And when will we see them doing more?
• The Social Wine world is highly personlized and time consuming at times. Is this method sustainable, or will we see less authentic forms of it in the future?

Time: 15:00 – 15:45 pm

Roundtable Contributors: Rowan Gormley (Naked Wines), Dan Coward (Bibendum Wine Ltd.) & Per Karlsson (BK Wine)

Theme: Generating revenue from your blog can be done in many creative ways, if you understand where you can add value.

This is not a “10 steps to get rich, quick” session (if you want that, bring a big brown envelope stuffed full of money, give it to Robert and he’ll send you the answer in the post). It is a look at different models and ways to add value to the concept of the Social Wine Brand, and therefore justify making a return on that value. We will hear from an innovative wine social network and retailer, Naked Wines about how they help consumers and winemakers to come together to make wine sales more social, from Bibendum Wine Ltd. who are doing a great deal to reach out to non wine bloggers to generate value for their producers, and from BK Wine who are finding direct and indirect ways to generate value and revenue from wine through social media.

Questions:

• What do we mean by “monetisation”?
• What forms can this take?
• What value is there in the “social wine brand”?
• How do bloggers add to that value, and how might they “get something back”?
• What is the relationship between monetisation and trust?
• If I make money, will I lose my readers?
• How do you make a fortune in social media with wine?

Time: 10:00 – 10:45 pm

Roundtable Contributors: Andre Ribeirinho and Ryan Opaz

Theme: Upstairs in the lounge area, Ryan and Andre are going to be on hand to talk about widgets, plugins and other doodads which just might make your blog work better or worse. An informal and networking atmosphere will permit us to share ideas, stories and ask questions. We need maximum audience input so if you have a new tool your using that you think others should know about please come tell us your thoughts. Have you laptops ready so we can trouble shoot on the spot and figure out what can be done to make all our blogging experiences nicer!

Questions to be Addressed:

• What Hardware works best? Should we all be moving to netbooks, are flip cameras the end all be all?
• What plugins/widgets for you blogs are really important to make sure you are successful as a blogger?
• What experiences have we had that are positive or negative with todays technology, and how can we fix the problems we’ve had?

*this is not a formal talk, this is primarily a networking opportunity and open forum for discussion. bring questions, your computers, and new ideas!!!