The CAM Video JAM.

It was March 22, 2011 The Video Jam team (Utah Snyder and Michael Stoltz) had been preparing for two months but, no one could have prepared for what happened. The biggest baddest Video Jam in Video Jam history, it was the second annual all-submission show. With sixteen submissions, a big backyard, about a hundred people and two coolers full of beer, the show began. For those of us involved though, the show really began two years ago with two friends and one idea. The idea, a video art show that had the potential to include everyone. From artist to critic, from intellectual to less intellectual... We would hook them with a funny video from youtube and then have them wade through a five minute, black and white, silent animation created from copy machine errors. Our first show was in May of 2009 and we have had a show every month since then. The Video Jam now has a small loyal following and the word is spreading. It's been two years and hundreds of videos and now we are changing it up a bit, no longer doing monthly screenings, The Video Jam will be focused on creating larger events and exploring different venues. We are currently scouting locations for the release of the feature length, "Visible Language", by artist Ken Adams. Why the change? For each show we would collect as many dvd's as we could from multiple sources and then watch each one and then choose the best stuff to put in the show. After two years of previewing videos it's easy to tell the good from the bad. Many times you can even tell by the opening credits if it's good or bad. Often a convoluted or boring synopsis will give it away as not worth watching. There is a lot more bad than good. It takes a long time to find an hours worth of videos for each month. Then there's the time of arranging the videos and rendering and burning a master disc. There's not much time left for promotion. So we end up investing so much time into these monthly shows and then about seven people show up to watch for an hour what took us weeks to put together. We love what we do but, we want more people to see the show, so we have decided to give ourselves more time for promotion. We plan on doing what we have done in the past just more spread out while expanding to doing more submission shows, shows that focus on one artist, themed shows, and moving to different venues exposing ourselves to other crowds. The Video Jam has grown and will continue to grow. We now have over one hundred followers on facebook and recently won an award for one of our shows during Contemporary Art Month.