Begin at the pulse, not the camera. Hands warm. Breath in the room. Eyes level.
A community is a body—breathing, tiring, healing. It has scar tissue and new skin, calluses from work, bruises from last time.
Point a lens at a wound and call it a story, and you’ve harvested it. Sit with it, feed it, learn its rhythm; then the camera can follow without taking.
Self‑care isn’t luxury. It’s scaffolding and tendon—what keeps the weight from tearing through the frame. Hydrated schedules, boundaries you can feel, sleep like a clean reset. Air, water, salt.
Care puts oil on the hinges so the door stops screaming every time it opens.
Coordination isn’t an invite. It’s a heartbeat we share across rooms. Cadence: check‑ins that surface needs—the latch clicks. One glossary—the legend on the map. Learning loops like blood returning to the heart.
We move together or we grind each other down. Glide or grit. The gap is the distance between with and of.
Making with tastes like a kitchen table: the mic passed like bread; credit wrapped in foil so everyone takes some home. Rough cuts screened where elbows touch. Notes as care, not gotchas. Consent is a full‑sentence yes—green light, not a shrug.
Making of is extraction with nicer lighting: a trailer cut from borrowed trust, a thumbnail that pulls numbers while people disappear. The story shrinks; the community does, too.
We are the media. We are not content. People are not B‑roll. Lives are not datasets. Communities are not pipelines.
Keep the people bigger than the product.
August 2025 update — coordination in practice
Workshops, incoming. Fifteen Zcashers have applied to host their own Zk Av Club (Zero‑knowledge Audiovisual Club) Foundry workshops. We’re doing the unglamorous work—sorting schedules, curating topics, prepping support.
Timeline: Applicants will be contacted by September 30, 2025. First community‑led workshops begin October 2025.
Why it matters: This is “with,” not “of.” Knowledge moves best when the people who need it are holding the mic.
Foundry #7 (August): Audio that holds.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z2xHVmyn6t4
What we covered—quick:
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Start at the mic. Handhelds curb spill; lavs are light but pull in the room; distance is a tax on clarity.
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Fix it in post—on purpose. Open‑source stack (Audacity, OBS) for noise profiles, EQ, compression, and level matching so your videos sit right next to others without volume whiplash.
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Record twice. Separate tracks, local backups, and don’t trust “automatic” noise reduction to decide what your story is.
Notes, guides and tools discussed during Zk Av Club Foundry #7 can be found here: https://cryptpad.fr/code/#/2/code/view/OnrGwIA+ly8tiAEootBIvbBtKWVhnGZFa0qtWKU5kMA/present/
Want to bring an audiovisual workshop to your people?
Apply here →
— Zk Av Club: Don’t just watch.