I was invited to give an Ignite Talk at Gnomedex in Seattle on August 22nd, 2008. I decided to explain how we got people to come out and dance in the 2008 video.

This was a surprisingly not-so-difficult clip to get. I arrived in Tari, Papua New Guinea with no plans or arrangements and no idea what I was doing. I met Patrick on the runway and told him I hoped to find the Huli Wigmen. He said "no problem" and we hopped in a truck. I visited some Huli villages and wandered around the area all morning. Patrick ...

14 months in the making, 42 countries, and a cast of thousands. Thanks to everyone who danced with me. Make sure to click "watch in high quality" right underneath the video. http://www.wherethehellismatt.com http://www.stridegum.com

I ran into these kids on the streets of Sana'a, Yemen. They kept forcing chocolate chip cookies on me. When I pulled my camera out, they went mad. I stepped back to try to keep them in frame, but they kept following and we ended up shooting an impromptu Beastie Boys video.

I have a bad case of arachnophobia. Sure, crabs have no relation to spiders, but tell that to my deep, irrational fear. Talking helped calm me down, and insulting the crabs actually made them less scary.

I went to the Solomon Islands to research the origins of Rorogwela, a traditional folk song that was sampled in "Sweet Lullaby" by Deep Forest and reused in my dancing videos. My mom just pointed out a grammatical error in the opening. And I got the date wrong. It was on Halloween. Ah, well. If you just can't get enough, there's more detail about...

The coconut (or robber) crab is the largest land crab in the world. It can grow to one meter in leg span and live for 60 years. I had never seen or heard of one until this happened. Christmas Island is in the Indian Ocean, near Indonesia. There are around 100 million crabs living on the very small island. Most of them are not this big.

Is this sort of thing harmful to the whales? I don't know. It's delicate. I think it could be, if they were hounded incessantly day after day. But the local operators are pretty careful, and if the whales don't want to be bothered, it's pretty easy for them to take off. I think whales face much bigger problems than me -- like how climate change wi...

Footage culled from three long days on safari in South Luangwa National Park in Zambia. That lioness in the end is only a few feet away. Also, the vehicle has no doors.

Turn your volume up when the camera drops in th... (more) Added: November 12, 2007 Turn your volume up when the camera drops in the water. You can hear them singing.

www.standagainstpoverty.org

Visit http://earth.google.com/matt to check out some of the places I went during my travels. Just download Google Earth and my KML file, then start exploring.

Here's some stuff that didn't make it into the last video.

I went to Magic Mountain in Valencia, California this weekend with some friends from Australia. We decided to find out if a coin will really hover above your hand while dropping on the Freefall ride. We miscalculated the effect of plummeting inside a giant steel box. The camera fell to the floor but was, fortunately, undamaged. Thanks to Brendan W...

Diving into the hull of the Heian Maru, a Japanese WWII shipwreck that was destroyed by US bombers during operation hailstorm. I shot this with the same Canon Powershot SD500 that I used to make the dancing video. Canon sells an underwater housing that allows me to bring it down to 130 feet. The camera and housing cost less than $500 combined.

Part 3 of 3

Part 2 of 3

I was invited to Champlain College in Burlington, Vermont to speak about the dancing video and how it was made. Here is the talk.

Fitzgerald met Hemingway, Einstein met Gandhi, King Kong met Godzilla, and also this happened...

Here's the original. Made in 2003 and 2004. Posted in 2005.

I had a great time making this. Hope you enjoy it. www.wherethehellismatt.com www.STRIDEgum.com