From time to time I am teaching media students about possibilities and new media. I love the fact that it is now possible to make high quality content without having to invest millions of dollars in equipment.

Cheap possibilities for editing, sound design and motion graphics have been around for a while. With an HDV camera and a high resolution digital SLR you can shoot pretty high quality footage as well.

Still, for years it has been the privilege of big media companies to own distribution. Both newspapers and television channels had this big advantage of being able to distribute.

Now the internet has changed this. There is an estimated 240 million broadband users out there. That’s 240 million potential content producers with a distribution channel. And cheap production equipment. Geeks like me can reach more that 100 000 people with videos like this.

But why the utterly speculative headline for this article?

The Norwegian band Ugress is an example of a couple of guys making high quality music with relatively limited resources. Then they team up with some uttrly creative people making some very cool music videos.

If you look carefully at the videos on their web page, at least two of these videos could have been made with an extremely low budget. No expensive actors. No expensive locations. No expensive props. Of course you have to disregard the insane amount of hours needed to make stuff like this. In a commercial world time is money. As students it is possible to think different. Be creative. Have fun.

You find inspiration over at the web page of Ugress. You’ll find both music and a couple of videos. One video featuring the true story about Makina the rubber duck. One lovely Bollywood inspired show and a fantastic little video inspired by computer games from the eighties featuring sex, drugs and rock & roll…