The Road to Firefox 2

Toronto Visit part 2

John — Mon, 11 Sep 2006 19:22:35 +0000

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A Visit to Mozilla Japan

Asa — Fri, 25 Aug 2006 01:11:14 +0000

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Behind the Scenes: The Firefox crop circle!

Matt — Sat, 19 Aug 2006 01:46:17 +0000

Earlier this year Mozilla launched one of its most exciting outreach campaigns to date, Firefox Flicks. Beginning as a contest, Firefox Flicks encouraged hundreds of non-developer Firefox fans to create Firefox commercials. By the end of the project over 280 flicks had received hits numbering in the millions, marking an unmistakable victory for both Mozilla and the online video community.

Today, however, we are ready to mark the next victory for Firefox Flicks! This summer John Carey and I, Matt Shichtman, not only completed successful internships as documentary filmmakers for Mozilla, but also left a 45,000 sq. foot crop circle in our wake. Through our video blogging, we brought people a little bit closer to the heart of Mozilla, and we reached out to the community and built a team that was able to create something very special!

Initially, we had no idea how we would pull off something of so grand a scale as a crop circle. We considered bringing in a company from the UK to make the crop circle (What are we doing) but the costs were prohibitive and we couldn’t see going down that path. We began to lose momentum. Time passed, and with only a few weeks left in our internships, John and I began to think that the idea that everyone had fallen in love with was not going to come to fruition.

Then something wonderful happened. John and I were invited to OSCON, Tim O’Reilly’s Open Source Convention! (Mozilla Hits OSCON!) to present and film a screening of the Firefox Flicks top videos. There we met Beth Gordon and some of the folks from Oregon State’s Open Source Labs. Beth was immediately geeked about the crop circle and breathed life back into our foundering project. Within a matter of days, the OSU gang had created wiki pages, a list-serv, and had begun to work out the logistics. Beth contacted Alex Polvi who, with help from his parents, was able to locate a suitable field, and, before we knew it, the ball was rolling!

On Aug. 11^th, work officially began on the Firefox crop circle. The morning was spent doing a practice run in a nearby field. By noon, we had figured out our strategy and began work on the main attraction! Everyone worked through the night and the crop circle was completed the following morning. What a blast! We took a ton of aerial footage via airplane (thanks to David “Crash” Mandrell) and helicopter.

My internship wrapped up that weekend but John headed back to the Mozilla office for his final week and started editing all the footage together so we could share it with the world.

Now, without further adieu:

Behind the Scenes: The Firefox crop circle!

(Click to play the video. 39 MB.)

(Update: a Theora version is available here.)

For a complete history of the Firefox crop circle please see our earlier podcasts:

What are we doing
Mozilla Hits OSCON!
Circle Making Part 1
Circle Making Part 2
Circle Making Part 3
Circle Making Part 4

And don’t forget OSU’s Linux User Group’s page for a the text and photo version!

Circle Making pt. 4

Asa — Thu, 17 Aug 2006 17:35:06 +0000

(Click to play video)

Circle Making pt. 3

Asa — Wed, 16 Aug 2006 19:44:47 +0000

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Circle Making pt. 2

Asa — Wed, 16 Aug 2006 19:03:02 +0000

(Click the image to view the video)

Circle Making pt. 1

John — Tue, 15 Aug 2006 00:35:27 +0000

(Click the image to view the video)

Theora Version!

Firefox to the rescue!

John — Tue, 08 Aug 2006 02:09:32 +0000

Check out how Mitchell Baker, the CEO of Mozilla, spends her spare time!

(Click the image to view the video)

Theora Version!

Mozilla hits OSCON!

John — Thu, 03 Aug 2006 00:59:28 +0000

Last week we were luckly enough to go to OSCON 2006 in Portland. This is part one of our adventures in Oregon.

(Click the image to view the video)
Theora Version!

Intern Basketball Challenge!

Matt — Tue, 01 Aug 2006 02:10:27 +0000

Every now and then interns and staff alike need to blow off some stress in a fight-to-the-death Basketball throwdown!!

(Click the image to view the video)

Theora Version!

Mozilla international

Matt — Wed, 26 Jul 2006 03:15:47 +0000

As part of the ongoing effort to bring Mozilla’s operations to our viewers, John and I have been busy traveling the world and filming Mozilla’s international offices. We are finally ready to release the first of our international office series, Toronto. John spent 3 days in Toronto, Canada filming the office and meeting the staff. Enjoy!

(Click the image to view the video)

Theora

Comment Moderation Turned On

Asa — Tue, 25 Jul 2006 14:17:37 +0000

Due to massive increases in comment spam, we’ve turned comment moderation on. This means that your comment will not show up immediately. Matt, John and I will do our best to keep on top of the moderation queue.

Sorry for the inconvenience.

Filming in Japan is underway!

Matt — Fri, 21 Jul 2006 05:45:06 +0000

As of today, filming in Japan has officially commenced! I landed last night in the Japan Narita airport around 4 pm Tokyo time, spent the night in Tokyo at the Akasaka Exel Hotel, and will spend the next couple days hanging out here at Mozilla-Japan. The office is very friendly, though surprisingly small, only about 6 people. I will attempt to film as much as possible while I am here. So far today, I think my camera has been off for about 5 minutes. I fully understand that most Mozilla enthusiasts will never have a chance to visit Mozilla-Japan. Therefore, please let me know if there is anything in particular that you would like to see! Here are a couple quick pictures to whet you appetites.

: )

Mike Beltzner Appreciates Style

Asa — Fri, 14 Jul 2006 21:18:12 +0000

Matt and John are out today so I’m taking a shot at posting. This short clip is Mike Beltzner at the intern-hosted barbecue discussing some very interesting user feedback.

(Click the image to view the video)

Theora Version!

We love feedback so much that we’ve dropped the registration requirement here to make it even easier for you to tell us what you think of our early video podcasts. Click the link below to join the discussion.

“What are we doing?”

Matt — Wed, 12 Jul 2006 19:21:00 +0000

In traditional Mozilla fashion, John and I have been feeling out the territory as we go and are finally ready to release our second, and most produced, video to date. It has been a crazy couple of weeks and we have tried to capture as much of that as possible.

John and I will be doing a lot of travling in the near future trying to bring the camera to Mozilla operations internationally and will also attempt to increase the frequency of our posts. Again, many exciting things are happening here at Mozila! Stay tuned!

Watch the video: High Quality (61.1 mb) | Medium Quality (coming soon) | Theora (coming soon)

Interview with Mike Connor, Lead Firefox Engineer

Matt — Sat, 01 Jul 2006 00:45:48 +0000

Although we will be putting out some produced videos, our viewers have spoken (or at least one has) and they have suggested that they would like to see more behinds the scenes footage! Who would we be to deny them that? So here you have it! All the Mike Connor you could ever want and more!

For those of you without the necessary Quicktime plugin, you can view a lower quality Flash version over at YouTube or Google Video. And for everyone else, download your Theora version here.

TEASER TRAILER!

Matt — Fri, 30 Jun 2006 19:46:43 +0000

Hello! We (John Carey and myself, Matt Shichtman) are finally ready to launch the teaser trailer to the firefox summer video projects! We will be spending the summer putting together short bits of video with the purpose of bringing you, our viewers, the Mozilla experience as we near the release of the much anticipated FIREFOX 2. Some videos will be produced segments, others might just be behind-the-scenes footage or interviews. Simply put, we are going to post as often as possible to keep all of you in the know. We have been interning here for a couple of weeks now, and let me tell you there is never a dull day at Mozilla. Stay tuned!

For those of you without the necessary Quicktime plugin, you can view a lower quality Flash version over at YouTube or Google Video. And for everyone else, download your Theora version here.

A Summer of Videos

Asa — Thu, 29 Jun 2006 20:49:35 +0000

Welcome to “The Road to Firefox 2″

This summer, our two video interns, John and Matt, will be bringing you all a behind the scenes look at the Mozilla project as we drive towards Firefox 2. The videos will include short clips, interviews, and some more produced pieces that we’re tentatively calling Web Diaries.

We hope you enjoy this trip into the belly of Mozilla (watch out for those teeth on the way in!) and we look forward to hearing your responses.