Table of contents
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Child pages
Child pages (Children Display)
Related pages
Learning resources
- YouTube
Misc ideas
- Keep in mind that giving other people screen time is also giving them power.
- If you look at the videos in the playlist below you can see that this guy started with a clearly visible microphone next to his face like a telemarketer (in the earliest videos he uses the camera's default mic), he had a stationary camera (on a tripod), the room is lit normally, and the videos are longer on average (7-10 minutes). In his later videos he switches to a hidden mic, the room is lit in a blown-out way that makes it look more like a TV show, he has someone holding the camera, and the videos tend to be shorter (2-5 minutes).
- Consider starting your video with a montage to 'hook' people:
Questions
- For Lloyd:
- How does he decide whether to include plates or not? And the other decisions he makes.
- I should figure out how many of the top 50 YouTubers use various techniques.
- How does he decide whether to include plates or not? And the other decisions he makes.
Lessons I've learned from making videos:
- Think of things you want to see in the video, and then string them together. This is how George Lucas and Steven Spielberg came up with Raiders of the Lost Ark, and I found a video in which John Cleese of Monty Python says that Python used the exact same method when creating their films:
Quote:Tim Rice:
[re: how they created Life of Brian]
Was it the laughter idea, or the message? Which was the first of the two that--
Cleese:
It's the laughter, we go for the jokes first. The reason it sounded like an interesting territory to go into, to explore--because when you go in there [to write the movie] you really don't know what you're going to write. We usually sit around for about three days discussing theoretically what we're going to write, then we go and write something completely different. And the film actually starts when somebody comes in halfway through the second week and reads something out and we all laugh. And that's the first point on the graph, do you see what I mean? And then we wait another week and then somebody else writes something funny and then we have two points on the graph, and when we've got about six or seven we start writing stuff to join it together. It's really a pretty slow process, because it's sort of democracy-gone-mad.
Source: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ni559bHXDg&t=7m
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Intros / Title plates
Modifying the audio
- Remove background noise
- If you've recorded some of that noise on its own, use Audacity to take it out of your dialogue.
- Lloyd: There is some annoying constant noise. Computer cooling fans? Possibly, if you recorded some of that sound on its own, you could remove much of it using something like Audacity.
- If you've recorded some of that noise on its own, use Audacity to take it out of your dialogue.
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- Download the book onto your desktop app so you won't have any lag going from one page to the next.
- Apply make-up to make red spots on your face less distracting.
- Get into a quiet location.
- Set your laptop screen to not turn off for an hour when you don't put any input.
- I had to set the gain on the receiver to -10dB to get it to stop blowing out when I spoke loudly.
- Do tons of tests before you start! Make sure everything is perfect!
- Reading:
- Consider reading more slowly than you would speak it as dialogue.
- Feedback from Joey on Chapter 2 of Reminisences: try talking a little bit slower for the role. I felt your tempo was slightly rushed for this segment.
- Consider reading more slowly than you would speak it as dialogue.
Misc
- check to see what the sound will be like; will there be an echo, or excessive background noise? In the video below the camera's default mic picked up the echo in the room and sounded pretty bad; luckily I had a second microphone recording at the same time.
ex: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-EGGJ0-XcgQ
- have the mic set up so that you don't have to shout or strain yourself to be heard, as it will sound bad later:
ex: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Lwvhm66ZbA
- check the lighting: harsh shadows may not look as nice; in the video below I'm directly in the sun and it looks much worse.
ex: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Lwvhm66ZbA
Business Insider article - Here Are Ten Tips To Create A Viral Video
http://articles.businessinsider.com/201 ... z1lX7E4XYb
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Quote:So I began to look into the videos that had in fact, gone viral, specifically, those that involved a brand. The majority of them fell into what I call the "Hire J.Lo" bucket, i.e., brand hires a celebrity, spends a ton on production and media that a lot of people might see and share this shiny video online--and if they don't, the brand is ready to force you see it as pre roll.
But is this really the desired effect that you're looking to create? It kind of feels like cheating--after all, isn't the appeal of a viral video the warm feeling your brand gets because thousands of people are sharing a fun video about you? In this scenario, thousands of people just can't avoid your video.
The second, and much more elusive effect is when a brand produces a piece of content that people fall in love with and actually want to share with their friends and followers. These usually don't involve huge budgets and just represent a clever bit of storytelling that is purely designed for web audiences. These, I determined were videos that had truly viral elements, which got me thinking, even if there is no magic bullet for creating a viral video, there must be attributes that they share and could be replicated to increase the probability of having your video go viral, and this is what I found:
1) Create lots of videos. Simply put, the more videos you produce, the greater your chances that one of them will go viral. Think of it this way, if you're flipping a coin and are looking for a run of 10 heads in a row, it may happen in your first 50 flips, but if you flipped the coin 1,000 times, there's a far greater chance it'll happen. The same logic applies here.
2) Create lots of funny videos. If you've never had to have an uncomfortable night where one of your friends "invites" you to their stand up routine on open mic night, consider yourself spared. I've come to the realization that everyone on this planet has an inner desire to be funny--no matter how inherently un-funny they are. Luckily for us, things like Facebook walls give people the opportunity to entertain with humor, even if they didn't write the material. So, if you can't actually be funny, you can, and will want to, share what's funny.
3) Create videos that automatically seed themselves within communities and fan bases. Hives of enthusiasts for everything from RoboCop to Glass Blowing are everywhere and rabidly engaged--if you give them some content that plays to their fanaticism, either negatively or positively, chances are that they'll be seeding the content and posting it everywhere for you.
4) Exploit parody laws - There's a reason that Weird Al has 7 Platinum Albums on his wall. Your lawyer might not sleep much while this is happening but parodies consistently outperform completely original content. Parodying something popular lets you ride existing popularity and, as a bonus, gives your content long tail shelf life. [EXAMPLE - Twitter/Social Network Parody]
5) Holy s**t--is that real? Creating a discussion as to a piece of media's authenticity can cause a stir and a lot of shares online. Relativity Media did this to great success with the Times Square Billboard Hack Video it created to promote the release of Limitless this spring. Before that, HiTec Sports created some brilliant YouTube slight of hand with this Liquid Mountaineering Video.
6) Showcase techniques such as miniatures, stop motion, time lapse, action figures, and Legos. People love visually compelling content and one way to create it is to experiment with filmmaking techniques to try and show people something they haven't seen before. Videos that are unexpected get people excited and foster a "saw it first" mentality. [EXAMPLE - "Gulp", the world's largest stop motion video by Nokia]
7) Play with memes - they're like the internet's greatest underground hits - but, timing, and the ability to act quickly is crucial - by now, planking might feel as overplayed as Black Dog on FM radio, but if you catch on to something new like the Honey Badger or Chuck Testa and can act quickly to people at the right time, you've got a chance at some resonance.For reference - knowyourmeme.com
8) Push the boundaries of what's comfortable or expected from your brand. If you've got a brand that people associate with one audience or mentality, doing something unexpected will draw attention. For example, if you're Woolite and you hire Rob Zombie to direct a commercial for you, the chatter surrounding the strangeness of that choice will pique people's interest.
9) So bad it's good - The web loves epic failures and anything done so horribly that it's awe-inspiring will create a lot of finger pointing. [EXAMPLE - Preposterously bad VFX reel]
10) Combine these techniques. If you kick it up a notch and combine any of my tips, you're compounding the likelihood of it happening. For example a recent video that was sourced by Duck Tape brand Duct Tape on Tongal combined #7, a meme (Tron Guy), #3 an enormous, geeky fan base (Tron), and #6 a technique (Stop Motion) then debuted (above J. Lo) on the Ad Age Viral Video Chart. [EXAMPLE - DUCK TRON]
About.com - Tips for Making a Viral Video
http://desktopvideo.about.com/od/videoo ... lvideo.htm
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Funny Videos
Little Kid does worlds best Batman Spoof
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NgCM46CSwd8
- note that the video/sound quality isn't great, but it doesn't make a difference (or may actually be better for that reason)
- trying to figure out how they created it: it seems to just be a collection of a couple different ideas around a central theme; they just cut from one idea to another, so my guess is that they started w/ a single idea (little kid in a batman costume has the same deep voice as batman), and then built off that idea by coming up w/ funny situations that such a kid might get into.
1. justice for dinner
2. interrogating the dog
3. eating w/ a fork
4. another food interaction w/ mom
5. random lip thing (not sure if that's a reference to something)
6. friend w/ a joker costume]
I'm reminded of the way I heard that George Lucas and Steven Spielberg created the movie Raiders of the Lost Ark: they started with a general idea (recreate the action/adventure serials they'd watched as a kid), and then came up with individual scenes they wanted to see (eg Lucas wanted a little monkey giving the Nazi salute), and then created a plot that would stitch these different scenes together. At least that's my understanding of their process at the moment.
DiranLyons uses "Adobe Premiere (and on rare occasions After Effects)" to make his mashups.
Successful YouTubers
Lindybeige
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