Anything Weird Interesting and Unique

Online videos are being used for many purposes. This article talks about different applications where online videos can be used.

Citizen journalists and those of you who want to be independent filmmakers, let me tell you about an incredible opportunity.  (And give you tips for winning the grand prize!)

You Tube, along with the Pulitzer Center and the Sony Corporation, are again sponsoring Project Report.

Project Report is a unique video contest that drew thousands of entries in its first year.  The sole winner then, Arturo Perez, used his grant to travel to Jerusalem and document the centuries old religious conflicts through the eyes of young people.

This year, they’ve increased the number of “first place” grants being awarded to five.  So this year there will be a total of five grand prize winners.  Each will be awarded $10,000 grants from the Pulitzer Center to make a documentary-style video of international interest.

Additionally, those five, plus five more, will be awarded Sony VAIO laptops and Sony HD camcorders from corporate sponsor Sony.

Here is how the contest is set up. First, you have to complete the assignment they give you:  Produce a video profiling a person you think the world should know about.

Producing a video to enter is a fantastic opportunity by itself if you ask me.  This post contains some top notch tips on how to make a compelling profile video, so keep reading.    

This Profile Video assignment is due by February 28.

All profile videos submitted by the deadline will be judged.  Prizes will awarded according to standards of journalism, visual storytelling and video production techniques.

If your profile video is one of the ten semi-finalists, you win the Sony HD video camera and laptop.    The top five will also be awarded the $10,000 grant and the ability to work with the famed Pulitzer Center.

Click here to read more about Project Report and how you can enter.  This is absolutely an incredible opportunity for some of you who regularly read this blog.  Working with the Pulitzer Center would be one heckuva way to break into the field.

The qualifying assignment they are giving is a perfect test, really.  Profiling an interesting individual is the core of documentary video making.  How well you can do that would say volumes about your ability to tell a more detailed story involving more people.

What Does It Take to Make a High-Quality Profile Video?

Obviously, you need an interesting “character,” but in addition to that you need to produce a visually-rich, personality-driven video that paints an accurate, yet entertaining image.

Good profile pieces often include more than one interview of the person.  If you do this technique, videotape the interviews in different locations.  Also think about using two cameras that are set to two drastically different shots.  For example, you could have one camera on a three-quarter profile medium shot and the second on an extreme close-up full profile.

Not all interviews should be sit down affairs either.  Get them up walking and talking.    Interview them as they work (or play) so you can get a demonstration at the same time.  This technique can take what might ordinarily be a boring talking head and turn it into something much better.

Add Visual Variety

In addition to the interviews, video your person in at least three different settings or activities.  Videotape sequences of them doing whatever activity is relevant to the subject matter.  If the person you are profiling is a mother and that fact is important to the story, videotape them playing with the kids, preparing lunch for the kids, and cleaning up after the kids.

If you get that much visual variety, then edit it together with narration and a script that ties all your important information together, you will absolutely have a top-quality video that just might win a contest like this!

Good luck.  Let me know.

Lorraine Grula

Welcome back to our weekly series recapping the very latest and emerging vancouver video production success stories.  The hope is that we can learn a bit from these stories, and eventually get better over time at crafting and promoting our own vancouver video production content.

Let’s dig in, shall we?

Learn To Laugh At Yourself

I first learned of this video on a social bookmarking site—don’t remember which one—but I’ve started seeing it pop up on various blogs and news sites in the days since.

The video shows professional angler (that’s fisherman, to you and I who don’t travel in such circles) Drew Gregory.  You can look him up if you like, or you can take my word for it that he’s one of the top guys in his profession.  In the video in question, Drew is filming himself while he fishes—probably something he’s done a thousand times.  This time, however, he has company… a pair of friendly geese.

After a while, one of them turns suddenly and hilariously unfriendly.  Just watch:

Click here to watch the video.

Now, there are two great lessons from this example:

1. Don’t be afraid to laugh at yourself.  Posting your personal embarrassment online for the world to see, and having a good sense of humor about it, is a fantastic way to turn a blooper into fame.
2. The video you shoot may end up being viral for reasons that bear no resemblance to your original intentions.  That is to say:  don’t be afraid to capitalize on a video shoot gone wrong.  The best laid plans of mice and men often turn into viral gold.

The Banned Ad

The latest game in Super Bowl advertising is to submit a commercial you know is borderline objectionable (or flat-out offensive even), wait for the network to say they won’t air it, then promote it online as “the banned Super Bowl ad.”  The publicity your ad gets from having been banned is probably as good as or better than having it actually show on the telecast.  And now companies are setting out to create ads with the explicit goal of having it banned.

This act was perfected by GoDaddy over the last few years, but is now being mimicked by other major brands this year.  Remember the Mancrunch ad that caused a stir last week? Same thing –I have no problem with a gay dating site advertising on the Super Bowl, but the production values of that ad are so bad that you’d think a couple high school kids shot it.  They knew they would be banned, and they set out to capitalize on that.  Good for them.

Bud Light even submitted an ad this year that was borderline—mostly because it involves nudity that is blocked by large black bars.

Sadly, it’s one of those rare Super Bowl ads that actually makes you laugh.  See for yourself:

Click here to watch the video.

I actually think that Bud Light wanted this ad to air on the Super Bowl.  It honestly doesn’t feel like an ad that was created to be over-the-top with vulgarity or offensive material.  It feels like a normal beer-based Super Bowl ad, and my guess is that CBS just balked at the implication of all that nudity.

The lesson then?  If at first you don’t succeed, put the word “banned” in front of your video and watch the views skyrocket.  Or maybe the lesson is better phrased this way:  there’s more than one path to viral success.  This also reinforces the lesson from the first example—that leaving yourself open to different possible uses for your video often provides a greater chance at viral success.

The Remix

One of the easiest ways to experience viral success—particularly if you are having trouble writing an original concept—is to take another popular video and chop it all up into pieces.  We’ve seen all kinds of variations of the remix that have gone on to viral success, such as turning audio from a film into an original song (this one’s a personal favorite of mine), or recutting a movie to make a trailer that feels like another genre altogether (another gem).

Today’s example of remixed footage is the video called “iPad Keynote in less than 180 Seconds.”  And it’s pretty enjoyable.  The creator has taken the Steve Jobs keynote from the day they announced the iPad, and stripped out pretty much everything except Jobs’ use of adjectives like “incredible,” “beautiful,” and “amazing.”  Give it a look—it’s only 180 seconds:

Click here to watch the video.

Now, I’m pretty sure you could take any speech of an hour or more by darn near anyone you can think of… and edit it down in a way that makes that person look repetitive, cocky, or silly.  I don’t think this video is evidence of anything beyond the fact that Steve Jobs talked—without a script—for an hour and a half, and therefore used some of the same words over and over.

But that doesn’t make it any less entertaining.  The video’s already more than halfway to a million views, less than four days from being posted.  The lesson?  You don’t have to create your own video content from scratch to have a successful viral campaign.  In fact, sometimes it’s better to use someone else’s content in a new way than to choose the route of originality.

The creator of this video did one other very smart thing… he picked a hot-button issue.  As the comment total on one of my recent ReelSEO posts can attest, Apple-related content is hugely polarizing… which is a fantastic recipe for viral success.

In summary:

• Be willing to poke fun at yourself when warranted.
• Be open-minded about how your video might end up being used.
• Courting controversy can pay huge dividends.

Good luck to you all in your viral campaigns this week!

Honorable Mention:

I almost included the now-famous video of the poor banker looking at a naked model on his computer while in the background of a news story camera angle (he has since lost his job).  I chose not to because almost everyone’s already heard about or seen this video.  Also, it technically has nudity in it, if you count naked women on a computer screen waaaaay in the background.  And I don’t want to be the guy posting objectionable videos on ReelSEO.com (I have no problem with linking to them, however).

I also wanted to include this video from current pop sensation Ke$ha, which shows her defacing the Hollywood sign.  It’s pretty clearly faked, but is done so well that it’s worth making an example of it. However, as I can’t find any instance of the video having more than a few thousand views—despite major news coverage—I decided maybe it wasn’t quite “viral” enough for this column yet.  Maybe next week.

There’s also this entertaining-yet-definitely-strange Japanese commercial about a business cat.  It’s just too absurd not to mention in some capacity, so… here you go.

Click here to watch the video.

This is a post from ReelSEO Video Marketing.
Permalink: vancouver video production Marketing Round Up – Lessons From This Week’s vancouver video production Successes – 02/05/2010.

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I interview intellectual property and e-commerce attorney David M. Adler, and explores the question: Can you feature someone in a video advertisement simply because you have video footage (or can access video footage) of them using or talking about your product, service, or brand? Also, what is the most legally safe way to feature a video of a public figure for your own business purposes?

For some background on our interview guest, David M. Adler is a partner of Adler & Franczyk, a boutique intellectual property firm focused in 5 basic areas in legal representation: Intellectual Property, Corporate Law, E-Commerce and Internet Law, Entertainment, and Finance. David has also done a number of interviews with ReelSEO covering legal issues with online video marketing. You can watch our full video interview and read the partial transcript below…

Grant Crowell – GC Interactive: We have the example of a billboard ad in Times Square featuring a picture of Barack Obama photographed in a Weatherproof jacket. This is a good example of what I find a lot more people today are doing with online marketing: taking footage of celebrities and using it to imply an endorsement of their own business, for commercial gain. But is this something that is legal to do?

David M. Adler, Adler & Franczyk: It is an interesting issue. The Weatherproof ad with Obama is obviously an advertisement. The question is to whether it’s legal. There’s a lot of sub-parts to that, and there’s not a real clear answer to that. My own perspective, as an intellectual property lawyer, is that I’m a little more conservative. I’d have to say it probably is illegal unless they’ve gotten the proper releases. And it doesn’t sound like they got anybody’s release.

Grant: The New York Times newspaper reported that that Weatherproof didn’t get any releases from the White House. Yet Weatherproof’s CEO came out with a statement saying that they had every right to run the billboard. Is this really a First Amendment issue, as they’ve claimed it to be?

David: This is not a first amendment issue, from my perspective. The first amendment protects certain kinds of speech. It does not protect commercial speech. There’s no first amendment issue to this at all.

Grant: Another issue to this is public figures. The President of the U.S. is the biggest public figure of all. Explain what public figures are and what leniency you may have as opposed to using a private person.

David: A public person is already in the public eye, so they’re used to having their picture taken and being talked about. They have ceded a certain amount of privacy by virtue of the role that they have played in society. That is still balanced by the fact that they have certain rights with respect to the commercial use of who they are. I think the Weatherproof ad has really overstepped that boundary. It’s not about the fact that President Obama, as a public figure, was doing some newsworthy event. Here, it’s clearly being used to promote a product. The fact that he’s a public figure simply amplifies that message.

Grant: So a product is being promoted here. The question becomes, what happens when a public figure (say a celebrity) comes into your place of business. What rights do you have (as the business owner) to do coverage of that public figure?

For example, say Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie come into my ice cream shop and order ice cream there. Do I have the right to video record them on my premises and use that video for commercial gain? What if I just wanted to blog about it on my company website?

David: You’re really straddling the line of the law. On one hand, yes they are public figures. So do they have an expectation of privacy in their comings and goings and where they’re making purchases? Less so than the ordinary citizen. Is it a newsworthy event? Yes, Brad and Angelina make news wherever they go. The fact that they came to a certain place at a certain time and did something – yes, there is some newsworthiness to that. The question becomes, can you take that event and turn that into your own commercial use?

I think if the event of Brad and Angelina showing up at the ice cream shop gets turned into a quasi-endorsement type of video commercial, you’re going to run into problems. You’re going to run into right of publicity problems with the two people involved, as well as the commercial speech aspect that you’re using this to promote your business; and their association with your business could be seen as some sort of implicit endorsement – which it may or may not be, but to the casual observer, most people aren’t capable of making that distinction.

Grant: So from the perspective of someone who happens to be a marketer or publisher of online video, and happens to find a public figure – what would we say are the best ways to go about obtaining permission? It sounds like, 1) Wherever the original video coverage is, you need to get permission from that owner, and 2) Get a release from the public figure’s agent or agency?

David: That’s a great way to describe what to do. You’ve got a couple of different rights going on. First, you have the image, or the video, itself. So whoever created that, whoever filmed it – they own the rights to that product. Putting the product aside, you have the content of the product. You have the people who are represented. Typically in a commercial setting, there are actors and actress being featured, and they sign releases. They know that their name and likeness – their persona, if you will – is going to be used for commercial purposes. They’ve signed away that right. In the case of sort of the casual observer or “man-on-the-street” perspective who is filming people and events, the subjects of that video aren’t necessarily aware that there’s a commercial purpose with their own persona, and may or may not have had an opportunity to approve that use. But in any event, you absolutely have to get the right to use somebody’s public persona – or personal in general – for a commercial purpose.

Grant: Now let’s turn that around. You’ve been a public figure, having been interviewed on Chicago NBC News. I’ve been interviewed on local television stations, myself. They video record us, they put it on their television show. Which in turn, can be also published on their website or YouTube channel… Do they have a right to do that, especially if they never got a release from you?

David: I think they do have a right, but that right is limited. In the case of the original video, the original interview, if you will: That’s called news-gathering. That interview is being done for purposes of reporting the news.

Subsequent uses of that might be commercial. It might run on a website, it might be sold to a 3rd party. But primarily, the nature and character of that content is for news reporting.

I think it would be a different story if that content was turned around and used for a commercial purposes unrelated to the news reporting. For example, if it was used as some sort of endorsement for a product or a service or a person. In other words, if the nature and character of the original use was somehow distorted or used in an unintended manner. The television station that created that interview certainly has the rights to that interview. And no, they didn’t get us to sign releases, because we were probably so glad to be on television, we would have done anything anyway. But it certainly does raise what, I wouldn’t necessarily call a gray area, but definitely an area of concern. And certainly, if you are somebody who has value to your persona and you’re being interviewed, then I think you need to consider that before going into the video interview.

So if you do value your public persona, then before you agree to interviews on video, or being video recorded in general, you should some kind of contract ready to present to whoever is doing the recording for commercial use. Now that might limit the kind of publicity you get, but that’s where it’s worth consulting with an attorney beforehand if it matters that much to you.

This is a post from ReelSEO Video Marketing.
Permalink: Are Public Figures “Fair Use” in Online Video Marketing?.

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Search ads have been the champions of online ad spending for some time. Thanks to Google not only having the majority share of the search market, but also a major tie-in with Adwords and Adsense. But video ad spending is increasing rapidly. So one day these two online titans will face off in the annual tables and duel for supremacy. That fight might be sooner than you think and here at ReelSEO we have front row seats (and a blonde in a fur coat on each arm like all good fight promoters should).

eMarketer have stared into their crystal ball and predicted that US online video ad revenue will continue to grow at an extremely fast rate going from $734M in 2008 to $5.2B or 7x as much in 2014 – just 6 years. In that same time frame they believe that Search ads will tack on another 50%. The difference in growth rate year-to-year ranges from 30 to 50% which means that at that rate, if you extrapolate those numbers out to 2020 Video Ads will already have hit $10B and Search will have topped $20B.

But we have historically seen that money is being shifted out of one form of advertising in favor of another. Remember all those calls that TV advertising was dying and the poor TV execs (who have been pulling in billions for decades) are suddenly in dire need of advertisers?

Well according to eMarketer everything will show growth over the next few years, even classified ads and Sponsorships which have been losing money over the last few years. So they believe the the future will be rosy and there will just be piles and piles of money for everyone to share in the online ad arena.

However, they are calling for the ad industry overall to only grow between 0.3% and 2.7% a year into 2014 yet there will be more than 50% more money in online ads in 2014 than in 2009. So that money must be coming from other forms of advertising. In Q2 of last year they found that budgets have been cut mostly in print ads (37.5%) and (TV 21.4%) with radio and outdoor advertising taking slightly lower hits at 8.9% and 5.4%.

What does that add up to in dollars? 2009 was about $66.9B for TV advertising so roughly $16.75 per quarter or a loss for the quarter of $4B. That is certainly a lot of money and if that happened for a year it would free up $16B roughly for spending in other areas, like online advertising. However, much of those cuts have probably been due to a slow economy and not so much a shift in ad dollars since even online advertising lost ground in 2009 and this year is expected to just top 2008.

So it seems like a change might have to come in the online ad industry.  There are several ways this could happen. Right now the majority of advertisements shown on YouTube are not in fact video ads, but text ads, companion ads and banners. They have begun to do some pre-roll ads but that’s it and considering I recently wrote that a good 15-25% of viewers will click away before a 10-30 second pre-roll finishes (according to TubeMogul), this might not be an ideal strategy for them to embrace.

Ashkan Karbasfrooshan, over at Online Video Insider (part of MediaPost), says that the definition of video ads will change. But that’s like turning beans into peas (comment with the film that is from heh) as far as I’m concerned. Re-defining what a video ad is doesn’t necessarily mean more money is being put into it, it means the definition is most probably covering more than it did in the past. He believes that contextual banner ads (shown as companions to videos) should be included in the video ad revenue streams since they are tied directly to video. But a Video ad either consists of video itself or is in the video player as an overlay is it not? Theoretically, according to him, any advertisement on YouTube should then be considered in the video ad arena – after all, they are a video site and the reason people go there is to watch video so all advertisements there are video-related right?

I can see some validity in that but it just seems like cheating. What seems more likely to me is that other areas of online advertising will start to feel the bite perhaps or other offline advertising will take harder hits and that money will make up some of the difference. Search ads certainly aren’t growing rapidly, but they are growing and with Google behind them I don’t think they’ll die out anytime soon. After all, they own the two largest search engines on the planet. Where I do see some of the money coming from is most likely email and classifieds because really, who clicks on links for products sent to them in email? Unless I specifically request some information in my email, I almost never click a link (thanks to thousands of spam messages, viruses and phishing scams) and I have never purchased anything because I received an email with a link in it. Of course, that’s not a very lucrative area anyway as it hovers under a half million a year.

In order for Video and Search Ads to stand toe-to-toe and start duking it out for supremacy, the money will have to come from one and go to the other. Obviously, the one that would need to start losing money is the Champ – Search Ads. This could happen if Google suddenly decided to shift its focus from words to video in regards to its advertising presence. Or if the evolution of online videos continues and they become far more compelling. Remember that patent Google filed about interactivity and games in YouTube videos? That “game” might shift ad dollars from everywhere straight into interactive online video advertising and, like a pro wrestler on steroids, Video Ads could suddenly balloon into a force strong enough to knock Search Ads from the throne and take the belt home, Can I get a Hell Yeah!?

Interactive advertising seems, even to me, not a major consumer of anything (aside from beer and pizza), like something cool that I would probably get wrapped up in from time to time. I could certainly sit down and play a ‘game’ of choose your own adventure in a Dorito and Mt. Dew sponsored world or perhaps some casual video-based game where I have to use various products (Product Placement Madness!) to solve puzzles and clues to see a portion of a film, video or show. It would be like, I was personally guiding the telling of the story and that is huge in games right now, so why not in advertising as well? Let the consumer guide the ad and they might be more willing to not only watch the ad but eventually to buy the products.

But this Fight of the Decade doesn’t really need to happen does it? There is, according to eMarketer, plenty of money to go round. In 2014 online ads alone will be worth $34B. That’s over 50% more than last year and it sure seems like it’s enough to me. Perhaps that Fight will be postponed. Or perhaps some presently unknown or underestimated innovations in online video ads could mean it happens before 2015.  Of course, we can’t narrow our vision so much so that we don’t see the next big thing coming. That could certainly be detrimental as it might do to online video ads what they did to other forms of ads. In a few years we might talking about Online ad X taking out Video Ads with a sucker punch and setting its gaze on Search as its next target. Then again…maybe we won’t, maybe things in the online ad arena will just turn into a static hierarchy and in 10 years I’ll be writing about how foolish I was to think that Video could ever knock out Search. I don’t have a crystal ball so I don’t know for sure, but isn’t it fun to talk about it!?

This is a post from ReelSEO Video Marketing.
Permalink: Online Video Ads vs Search Ads – The Fight of The Decade.

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Tags: adsense, contextual, emarketer, future, Google, media, MediaPost, product placement, research, statistics, TV, Video Advertising, YouTube

Increasingly, more brands have been expanding into the social media realm. Whether by embracing Facebook, engaging with Twitter, incorporating YouTube, or creating interactive visual content in the online space, brands have been enhancing the online experience. Specifically, it’s the creation of high quality brand videos that have been visibly popping up all across the digital world. This method seems efficient, interactive and is without the cost of the television. However, there isn’t much point in putting out this high quality content if there are no guarantees of who’s going to see it.

So what is the secret to gaining more targeted eyeballs on your well crafted online video productions? Broadly speaking it’s as simple as putting marketing dollars into your YouTube video distribution strategy.

Why Invest in a Targeted YouTube Distribution Strategy?

Many people believe in so called “viral distribution” where once the content is uploaded, a chain reaction of views will follow. The reality is that fewer than 20% of YouTube videos achieve 500 views and only 4% of videos exceed 10,000 views or more. With that said, successful online video campaigns require the same level of planning and consideration that outline clear goals and objectives in the same way that a traditional marketing campaign would.  Objectives should include a targeted distribution strategy that guarantees exposure to the desired, most relevant audience.

The best way to achieve desired results is by focusing your distribution strategy on the places where your most relevant consumer resides. Your video content may not get a multi-million view reach, but once targeted, the views that it will get will be from the audience most likely to benefit and respond.

A Case Study – Holt Renfrew:

Let’s take the Canadian luxury fashion retailer, Holt Renfrew as a YouTube distribution success story.

Holt Renfrew (HR), has been active in the online marketing world and they have incorporated both YouTube and Facebook into their marketing campaigns. HR’s YouTube channel (http://www.youtube.com/user/holtrenfrew) was launched in 2006, but it was not until recently that their views skyrocketed.

The HR YouTube channel hosts 22 videos which are focused on covering events and updates within the fashion industry. These 22 videos have generated a total of 92,000 video views to-date; however 84% of those views came from only 2 of the 22 videos – the male fall vignette and female fall vignette video (see below).

HR employed our services at VMG Cinematic to generate targeted video views for these videos through syndicating the YouTube videos across social media networks.  This involved packaging the videos as IAB-Standard (300×250 medium rectangle) ad units with each unit embedded into a custom social network application (see image on right). The videos were then targeted both geographically and demographically so as to place them in front of the right sets of eyes until the desired results were achieved.

Click here to watch the video.

The Benefits of a Targeted Distribution Strategy

HR desired targeting to a 24-44 yr-old demographic, primarily female

Not only does this method reach the target audience but it also creates consumer interaction - an element often unattainable through traditional media. In comparison to the other 20 videos where the number of comments at most reaches two, the VMG distributed fall vignette videos received positive feedback averaging over 40 responses per video. Again, this accounts for over 84% of the total interaction and feedback. Both of those are pretty significant chunks!

It’s apparent that simply uploading content to your brand’s YouTube channel is not enough. Overlooking a YouTube distribution strategy clouds the brand message outreach and loses itself among the 20 hours of video uploaded per minute. Neglecting trivial marketing strategy points such as distribution devalue the effectiveness of social media campaigns and diminish what would otherwise be a great opportunity to connect.

About our Guest Author:

Marina Arnaout comes from a Communications background with experience in a variety of mediums ranging from TV to out-of-home advertising. She found her niche in digital media at VMG Cinematic.  VMG Cinematic is a Toronto based digital media agency and media production house, whose core specialty lays in online video and branded entertainment. You can follow Marina on Twitter @vmg_cinematic.

This is a post from ReelSEO Video Marketing.
Permalink: The Benefits of a Targeted YouTube Distribution Strategy.

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Tags: case study, Facebook, marketing, SEO, Social Media, syndication distribution, twitter, YouTube

A few weeks back, the U.S. Supreme Court struck a blow to online video when they ruled that the Proposition 8 court case in California could not be broadcast on YouTube.  I was disappointed.   And it seems like I wasn’t the only one.

Two Los Angeles-based filmmakers are taking the matter into their own hands through an elaborate recreation of the trial, which they are posting to YouTube for all the world to see.

John Ainsworth and John Ireland, a pair of filmmakers that were upset with the Supreme Court ruling, decided to create a 12-part series on YouTube that would show the progress of the case in a dramatic retelling.

When the ruling came down, the pair put their heads together on a plan to bring the trial to YouTube anyway, albeit in a slightly different fashion.   They’re compiling information from a variety of sources such as court transcripts and reporters who are inside the court room, and using that to write their scripts.  Each episode will detail an entire day’s worth of proceedings in the case (which means they will have wildly varying run-times).

They held auditions for actors, and over 500 people responded.  There were even some recognizable names among those auditioning, including Tess Harper (who has been nominated for an Oscar) and Adrienne Barbeau (who has a huge list of film credits, most notably for The Fog, Swamp Thing, and Escape From New York).

The first episodes (“Day 1″) —are available on YouTube right now and last several hours long.  There’s one in the works that is over nine hours long.  You can view their YouTube Channel page here. Here is a promotional trailer:

While it’s important to point out that both Ireland and Ainsworth have strong opinions in favor of same-sex marriage—and that Ireland himself married his partner prior to California’s ban on same-sex marriage—I wouldn’t look for these reenactments to have any particular bent on the overall issue of gay marriage.  Say the filmmakers:

“We’re not trying to have it be a social commentary.  We’re literally just trying to get the information out there.”

This is interesting on a whole lot of levels. First, the trial itself is the subject of national debate, as was the decision on whether or not to air the trial on YouTube.  The Supreme Court decided that witnesses in the trial might face harassment or retribution if their likeness and testimony were made public.  And that’s a fair enough point.  I, myself, was hoping to see the trial on YouTube because of what it might mean for online video’s legitimacy as well as the transparency of the court system.

Ainsworth and Ireland seem to be motivated mostly by just getting the substance of the trial out into the public in some way.  And that is also interesting from an online video perspective.  (It’s equally fascinating that they grabbed the attention of legitimate Hollywood talent for their production, which seems to suggest that distribution or the profile of a film project can be a secondary concern for actors who are passionate about a script or, in this case, a cause).

How many years away can we actually be from seeing a film released online that stars major actors?  There are an awful lot of details that can bog down the process of getting a movie made, including production costs, royalties, marketing, and distribution headaches.  I can see a near future where a frustrated filmmaker simply skips the traditional system and goes straight to YouTube for distribution.  I’m not sure the movie-going public is ready to abandon the multiplex just yet, but YouTube is clearly rewriting the rules for the entertainment world, and this reenactment project is but one more baby step in a new direction.

Sadly, these reenactment videos have yet to garner much in the way of views.  It’s possible that the originally-planned live broadcast would have had similarly low audience numbers—how many people want to sit through nine hours of objections, motions, and testimony?  Or, maybe the views are low because of the fact that this is a dramatic reenactment, as opposed to the real thing?  In a way, though, the number of views might be far less important than the awareness generated by their endeavor.  In addition to the LA Times article linked above, the project has garnered national media attention from several outlets.  These films might well be judged for success on criteria that have nothing to do with views.

If anything, you have to admire the sheer amount of effort that’s going into this production.  It’s a pretty nifty end-around on the Supreme Court’s ruling, and one that will likely pave the way for similar films to be made in the future.

This is a post from ReelSEO Video Marketing.
Permalink: LA Filmmakers Tackle Ambitious Recreation Of Landmark Gay Marriage Trial On YouTube.

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Tags: filmmakers, legal, marketing, YouTube

If you are interested in having just one membership that will give you all the resources you need to take full advantage of online video production and marketing, you should check out Traffic Geyser.

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Thanks for reading Video Production Tips

Lorraine Grula

If you have watched the online video marketing space over the past few years no doubt you are familiar with Andy Jenkins.

Andy, most well known as one-half of the founding duo of Stompernet, is a longtime video guy who graduated from NYU.     Andy’s had a spectacular career in both making video and using it for online marketing.  He was responsible for making the videos behind some extremely successful high-dollar product launches.

Andy also has used online video to provide quality content.  I was a Stompernet member for a brief time.  Inside their membership site was a huge library of high quality video tutorials.  Andy is a true expert on how to make and use video.  Best of all, they are not boring!  Andy’s magnificently warm, witty personality makes them entertaining.

Andy Jenkins is getting ready to launch a product he’s calling The Video Boss.   I think it is a title he has earned.   He is in the pre-launch stage now and released his first video.  It does a fantastic job showing how video is easily the best marketing tool available to anyone who wants to do it.

I watched the entire 20-minute presentation and I’ve got to say the man sure knows how to make persuasive video.  It certainly wasn’t complicated from a technical standpoint, rather it was expertly crafted out of visual storytelling basics:

• Andy’s talking head, in this case him walking along the beach.  (Nice background if you can get it!)
• Animated graphics
• Royalty free music, multiple cuts
• Sound effects
• Screen capture video
• Royalty free animated digital backgrounds

The pacing was rapid fire and he kept it alive with lots of humor.   He even went to the trouble of adding incredibly funny “disclaimers” as small font text across the bottom.  Now I will say, and this is not a criticism, that Andy’s talking head audio was not the greatest.  Sounded like it was over-modulated at recording or something.  They had definitely tweaked it in editing.    That just goes to show that nobody’s perfect and mistakes can be overcome.  The show must go on!

Next time don’t forget the headphones!

Even if you have no interest in buying the soon-to-be-released Video Boss video coaching program, Andy’s videos are well worth watching.  Not only can you learn from the actual content, but you can learn from his video style and methods of presentation.  This video was designed as the first in a series to take viewers through a two-week pre launch stage.

The Video Boss product will be expensive, so sticker shock will be an issue for lots of people.  However, no doubt the product will be incredibly informative and worthwhile for someone who is ready to learn video marketing from the master and apply it in their own efforts.

In the interests of full disclosure, I am of course promoting this product as an affiliate.  I know it will be high quality but it’s also not for everybody.  I would caution folks against a high end product like this unless they are completely ready to implement a full video marketing campaign and spend hours and hours learning and then doing.

I’ve listened to Andy a lot of the years, and I trust him to deliver excellent quality.  That is not in doubt.  I myself would love to hear everything he has to say about video SEO and marketing tactics.   He is the boss there too.

Thanks for reading VPT

Lorraine Grula

There are many benefits of using internet video for your business. Listed are a few of these helpful tips.