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
My two main criticisms of this video are that it is too long for the amount you have to say, and
you yourself seem bored. Your expression hardly ever changes, the pace of your delivery hardly changes, your level of general excitement never changes nor seems to rise to a level that makes me the viewer think that what your saying must be interesting, because you yourself seem so interested in it.
Your eyes spend a lot of time looking to your left, but not at anything in particular. The camera is your audience, and we are flattered that you are so interested in us that you look at us. If you look away a lot, then we feel boring.
People keep watching videos because they wonder what you are going to say next. If you say something that gets an idea across, and then embark on a new section of speech that is predictable and adds nothing, people will lose interest.
Lloyd: The background is out of focus, which looks pretty, and while it establishes you as being in a real place, with a sense of space, it isn't distracting.
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.
Check for proper lighting.
Lloyd: The lighting puts one half of your head in deep moody shadow. Possibly this suggests that you are talking about something a bit moodier or darker than you actually are. It gives you head good 'moulding' - that is, the rounded 3D shape is emphasised, which gives you weight and presence. One snag with the lighting is that there are no bright highlights in your eyes. Your eye-sockets are in shadow, and just one tiny bright highlight in each eye would make you look a lot more alive and alert and friendly. If you want the dark eye-socket shadows, then point highlights can be added to your eyes with a small flashlight placed lower and closer in to the angle of the camera. When you lift your head, we can just see the highlights appear for an instant. Have a quick watch of the video, and see how much more alive your eyes look when they have highlights.
- 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
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
Quote:1. Put your viral video everywhere. You should post it on every video sharing site you can find. Services like TubeMogul make this easier by letting you upload your video once and then distributing it for you.
2. Promote your viral video. Email the link to your mom, your cousin, your high school class. Make it easy for everyone to then forward the video to all of their friends.
3. Keep your viral video short. You want this video to be watched as many times as possible, and that’s more likely to happen if people can watch the video quickly. Thirty to sixty seconds is generally a good length for a viral video.
4. Make your viral video funny. Humor can be hard to get right, sometimes, but it’s the surest way to make people want to share your video. Think about all of the viral videos that you’ve seen—most of them have been comedies.
5. Don’t make your viral video an advertisement. Some companies have successfully used viral video to promote a product, but “going viral” is usually a spontaneous byproduct of a great video, not an intentional goal.
6. Content beats quality in a viral video. Most successful viral videos are made by amateurs, so good content is more important than high production quality. If viewers enjoy what they see, they’ll overlook a shaky camera or focus troubles.
7. Don’t use copyrighted content in your viral video. If you hope to have your viral video seen by thousands of people, make sure you’re not using any unlicensed music or images that could get you in trouble with record companies, television networks and their lawyers.
8. Keep trying to make viral videos. Often, it’s completely random videos that go viral, and no one can predict with much accuracy what is going to catch on and become a big hit.
Good YouTube Videos
5-minute videos of people talking to the camera, with minor props and post-processing
Scooby
Lindybeige
The Secret Life of a Viral Video
http://bradblogspeed.com/the-secret-lif ... iral-video
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.
This was my viral video. In June 2013 someone mentioned this on Reddit and in one day I got more subscribers than in the first four years of my channel combined.
I actually learned to make videos so I could edit them. I love the creative control of editing, so I started filming videos so I would have something to edit. The editor has all the power. I have taken some crappy videos and made them into goldmines with my editing skills.
I posted a video on Youtube every week for a year before I got any real traction. I started out posting comedy sketches, but they didn’t really get that much attention. I started to post pranks on my channel and I’d get more views on one of those than I would on all my sketches combined. After a while, it got to a point where my subscribers only wanted to watch pranks. I couldn’t even post a sketch video without them saying, “I didn’t sign up for that! You suck! Post a prank!” So, I decided to turn it into a full-blown prank channel.
The turning point for my Youtube channel was the pee prank I pulled on the cops. On that video alone we got, like, 2 million views in a week. That cop video sky-rocketed us from 40,000 subscribers to 180,000. To my knowledge, I’m one of the only people who has pranked the cops legally and filmed it. Apparently they sent out a districtwide email about me. One time, a UPS guy told me he was delivering stuff to a state building, and he saw my picture hanging on the wall, and underneath it said, “Attention law enforcement: Roman Atwood preys on unsuspecting police officers.” If that is true, I need to steal that picture.
When it comes to pranking, I like to keep things original and simple. The simpler a prank is, the better. People like when you mess with their minds more so than pull off some intricate prank. I remember one video we had, I got some of those mailbox stickers of the letter “B” and would stick them on people’s backs. Then another guy would go up to them and say “Hold still! You have a ‘B’ on you!” The people would freak out and rip off clothes. Then the guy would pull it off and show them the letter. It’s so simple but it’s so funny.
Consistency is key. I think I gained such a following on Youtube because my pranks are original and I post them consistently. I never take two weeks off. My subscribers know that every week there will be a new prank. I work extremely hard.
Interesting that you've gone back to 4:3. It makes you seem larger in frame, and presents fewer distractions. Most people watching on YouTube will perhaps not like it, though. With a simple face-talking-to-camera, though, I think it can work. If we are not distracted from the central thing, then as long as the central thing is interesting, this is good. When talking to someone in a cafe who is dull, people look around for some interest. This is not an option with a YouTube video. |