You may be wondering what’s the deal with this massive hard on I got for viral videos. Part of it might be explained by my undergrad thesis project for the Institute for Multimedia Literacy my last year at USC, entitled the 10^6 Project.
http://www.facerocker.com/106/
With this project, I created a number of accounts and attempted to achieve viral success by *gasp* employing the same techniques that the large ad agencies and seed companies use (but on significantly smaller scale) with a few web videos. The project also consists of interviews with professionals currently working in the advertising industry, users who have achieved viral success, and professors who are studying it.
An excerpt from my conclusions:
Finally, as one steps back from the gritty mechanics of creating and promoting a video, one begins to see the deficiencies and weaknesses of the medium, as well as how the advertising agency is slowly but surely infiltrating it. The economics are clear – as more people turn to web videos for entertainment, the more focus those videos will get towards monetization efforts.
From the conversation with Alexandra Juhasz, it’s clear that web video content is far from being free of the clutches of corporate interests. It’s an incredible new medium, with incredible possibilities. But those who espouse YouTube and web videos as a truly democratic medium of communication are only fooling themselves. Seven out of ten of the top viewed YouTube videos of all time are major label music videos. Videos are removed quietly and invisibly, with little recourse for the user.
Each time a poorly executed ad campaign results in backlash, the advertising agencies get smarter, and their next effort will be subtler and better designed to slip under the collective radars of the viewing public. Every single person I talked to agreed – the internet audience hates being deceived, and hates being advertised directly to. And nobody likes to think of themselves as unpaid shills for corporate interests.
Yet the very definition of a successful viral video advertisement, which compels its viewer to pass it along, requires the user to like its content and to be deceived.
Viral advertising seeks to evoke the emotions necessary in the viewer to unwittingly convert him or her into a conveyer belt, passing along the embedded message to their friends inside the trojan horse of word-of-mouth. It seeks to bypass critical analysis entirely, replacing thought with action, a voice with a mouthpiece, and trading a few minutes of entertainment for capitalistic duty. The best viral advertising is unseen and unfelt – it, like the numerous distractions that fill a day, fades into the static, and while perhaps memorable, is otherwise indistinguishable from every other piece of web video media that is consumed.
I’m not attacking advertising – they are only moving in a sphere that makes economic sense, and doing things the way they are because they know they’re not welcome. I’m attacking the fact that the consumption and transmission of viral videos is an impulse and without thought or consideration. Perhaps that is the reason so many people were angry at Dan Greenberg’s article – they weren’t outraged at the dishonesty of advertising agencies (after all, most people seem to just assume that), they were outraged that their castle had been undermined without their knowledge.
To some it may seem hypocritical or ironic that I’m simultaneously trying to make videos viral, as well as warning against the dangers of those same techniques. I feel that only by being open with what gets done can we understand it.
See, many of the people who worked at promoting and producing viral videos I reached out to for interviews were cagey or unresponsive. They didn’t want to reveal all of their cards. That’s fine – if everyone knew how they did what they do, they’d have a much harder job.
But I think everyone should know. That was the goal of my experiments to begin with – to see what exactly it took to get a video viral, and to share that knowledge, and to bring people along every step of the way. I’m fully aware that some of my techniques for promoting the videos were a little cagey, but one should understand that, cagey or not, they work and if they work, they’ll be employed by others who’ll be less open, and less forthcoming.
And the beauty of it is how fluid everything is. Technology has always enabled this back and forth race between the haves and the have-nots, between lock pickers and lock manufacturers, between the RIAA and hackers, and here between video consumers and corporate interests. These techniques I’ve outlined may work now, but as the consumer gets more savvy, the landscape will change, and both parties will have to adapt.
So if nothing else, think about what you’re viewing. Think about where it’s coming from, how you found out about it. Don’t consume mindlessly. And regardless of whether it’s a gem of honest media, or a cleverly disguised advertisement, be aware of it.
Only through mindfulness can we ensure the web video genre retains what little freedom it has left.
-fw
The music industry currently treats downloadable content like movie companies treat licensed video games – quick cash grabs that are just a part of the overall marketing mix. But inherent in both of these approaches is extreme short sightedness and inability (or perhaps unwillingness) to challenge the status quo and try and do something, you know, different with this new medium. Doing that would be risky, but as CD sales start to drop, new media formats have room to step in.
There’s some back and forth between Activision and record labels about who pays for it. Right now, Activision/EA acts as a licensor, so they pay the record labels for the privilege of hosting the songs on their service. Most “free” tracks or reduced price tracks are tied in with some overall promotion, for an upcoming record or movie. But things will need to change if this format is to evolve – Activision/EA need to shift from paying out of their pockets to get stuff on, to profit sharing with labels iTunes style. Not, as Activision CEO Bobby Kotick seems to suggest, getting money from labels.
In order for this to happen, labels need to see Rock Band and Guitar Hero DLC not as promotions for physical CD sales, but as a separate entity entirely, with physical sales boost as an ancillary benefit. That is, assuming further market saturation, DLC sales have the potential to be formidable sources of profit in their own right. In a lot of ways, game content seems ideal for the labels – piracy is prohibitively difficult and there’s a lot of control as to how the content gets consumed. And now, the criteria for acquisition isn’t centered around the vagaries of demographics and how the music appeals to those various demographics and niches, but on the much more manageable idea of “if the song is fun to play, I will play it.”
There are a couple of ways to monetize this continuing forward. Activision’s been considering a subscription model, which if they worked something out with Microsoft to tie into Gold Membership, may work in helping clear that initial hurdle of a subscription fee. What a subscription model allows is infinite free reign to the tracks available in the music library – think Ruckus but nearly unpirateable. Content maybe streamed as you play. Activision’s current idea is a limited number of songs a month, but that’s retarded – it needs to be unlimited for people to justify subscribing to the service.
An iTunes-system doesn’t make much sense because unlike songs, game content needs to be demoed somehow. iTunes’ 30 second demo is enough, but people treat game content differently – they need to know if it’s fun. Microsoft might even dredge up its Zune “Three days or three plays” idea, but at the very least the subscription model allows people to try songs without penalty. An extreme idea might be to allow people free access to play the songs, but a lo-fi non-master version of the track – basically perfect for demoing gameplay. Interestingly, this would answer a lot of questions as to exactly how much the quality of the song contributes to how much fun the song is to play.
Opening up the DLC would require a bunch of content, and for record labels to give up master tracks, and for people to author the note charts. This last part is key – bad charting is disastrous. It nearly ruined Guitar Hero 3.
Anyway, here are some predictions, assuming everyone doesn’t get sick of music video games, and assuming record labels see some potential in DLC as a separate music delivery format as to what might be coming down the line:
Filmmakers right now owe it to themselves to intimately understand the technology that powers their art form. That means cameras and computers. We should know what a B-Frame is, or the difference between megabits and megabytes, or why HDV takes up more processing power to playback, or what’s the difference between 3:2:3:2 and 3:2:2:3 pulldown. We owe it to ourselves to understand what h.264 is, and what the difference is between VP6-S and VP6-E, and what values to enter for a data rate, and why we should be encoding in multiples of 16 for width and height.
The reason for this is simple – movies and music videos are splitting up from movie theaters and television. The tools to create movies and becoming more diverse and more complex. Never before have you had so many options as a filmmaker, and never before have you had so many opportunities to fuck yourself. Whereas once you would be deciding between maybe three or four 16mm camera options, and a limited number of film stocks, now you have a myriad of decisions. Should we set it to 24p or 24pA? What about choosing a camera that does 4:2:2 versus 4:2:1? Does it even matter?
Simply put, as the tools become more complex, our understanding of these tools should grow proportionally.
The problem is right now, there’s a void between creativity and technicality. The right-brain/left-brain creative/technical modes of thinking are divorced, when more than ever, they need to work hand in hand. It’s almost as if people are afraid if learning the technical details, as if it somehow fundamentally conflicts with their idea of the ethereal art of filmmaking, and that such details shouldn’t matter because this is creativity and vision we’re dealing with, not bits and codecs and mundane stuff like that. But my concern is simply practical – if you don’t nail down a workflow that you understand from the beginning to the end, you can quite simply fuck yourself later, and no amount of creative thinking can outwit problems that required fundamental technical know-how. There are now more things than ever to worry about, and the problem is, mistakes in these new realms are not immediately apparent the way, say, screwing up an f-stop would be.
Here’s an example – a project I was prepping for a film out was shot at 29.97 with 3:2 pulldown. It was dropped into a Final Cut Pro timeline at 23.97 without removing pulldown. Then it was exported to a color corrector in this form, who returned it using the lib-quicktime codec at 24p (although Quicktime player itself reported it as 23.97). Then this new footage was dropped in on top and everything was going out of sync on export. Every step of the way, there was something fundamentally wrong, but on the surface, it didn’t look wrong. That’s the hidden danger of ignorance – your mistakes will hide from you, and when they do rear their heads, it’ll be that much harder to figure out what went wrong.
The DP and AC should have double-checked their workflow. The editor should have checked the format of the footage. Everything ground to a halt simply because key people in creative positions misunderstood and neglected to attend to technical fundamentals.
But the biggest problem with ignoring technicality is we let ourselves get fucked by the companies making the products.
Equipment in the film industry seems driven by a herd mentality. A lot of people own G-Drives, but when you ask them why they paid twice as much as the usual for an external hard drive, they’re hard pressed for an answer. More often than not it’s because someone recommended it to them, or that’s what they used at work.
Another example is the Panasonic HVX-200. Tons of people use it, and while there are good reasons to use it, anybody who takes a moment to examine the P2 card format would know that they’re getting fucked. Panasonic essentially sells SD cards with a RAID controller using the outdated PCMCIA Card format to interface with it at a ridiculous premium that people pay just because it’s P2 and all the pros are using it. In fact, the PCMCIA format was outdated months before they announced the P2 card format – the guys in charge of that standard even said “Hey everybody use ExpressCards from now on – it’s faster and basically better in every way.” Wonder why you have to find an old Powerbook to use on set to capture the P2 footage? It’s because all the newer laptops got rid of that outdated port, and you’re forced to use outdated technology.
(Incidentally, the Sony EX1, which tends to get eschewed because it does 4:2:0 does use the up to date ExpressCard format.)
And I’ve heard people say the Panasonic shoots 4:2:2 and that’s better, but they can’t tell me why it’s better or why they need 4:2:2 for a web short. They know that everyone uses the Panasonic. All the pros do. So they should too.
Don’t get me wrong – you can go too far with technical knowledge. The only thing worse than a creative person who knows absolute jack about the technical aspects of their craft is a non-creative person obsessing over every bit of technical detail. The answer, as always, is balance. Otherwise, on the other side of the coin, you got entire forums dedicated to people arguing over how 4:2:2 is absolutely necessary, and how can you even think of shooting at 4:2:0, and how 35mm adaptors that cut your depth of field to like the depth of pores on an actors nose are incredible and everyone needs to get them, or how film will never die, or any number of intellectually masturbatory debates one can curl up next to on a lonely night. It’s easy to fall in love with the gadgetry behind filmmaking and lose sight of the ultimate purpose of all that gadgetry to begin with.
Know the reasons for all your actions – creatively and technically. Understand how every choice you make affects your work down the line. Never be satisfied with “everyone else does it” as a reason.
New blog is now: http://www.facerocker.com
Peace
Gordon probably worked his shift as night manager at the Butte KFC/A&W Combo Restaurant in Butte for as long as any of the other night employees could remember. As far as they were concerned, he was as permanent as the mute Colonel Sanders statue sitting on a park bench in the corner of the restaurant, one arm hung over the back of the bench inviting wayward fast food connoisseurs to take a seat and a photo to prove their conquest of this particular hybridized fast food chain. Like the statue of Sanders, Gordon had been there since before they started working, and he would be there long after they had left. And like that fixture, no visitors have ever pulled out their cameras to pose with either of them.
Logan and I walked into this restaurant at nine o’clock. According to their dinky sign, they were already closed, but the door was unlocked. Gordon stood behind the counter, blue employee shirt bulging from his man tits and gut, wispy moustache curled into a lecherous smirk. He was staring at Heather’s chest as she stood trying her best to avoid his gaze. She had eyes too wide apart, but to Gordon, she was the primest piece of ass he had seen all week.
“You… want chili cheese on those fries?” he asked.
She shook her head. “No thanks,” she said. Her voice was shrill.
“They won’t cost ya nothing,” he leered. She didn’t know it, but Gordon, king of the domain of fried chicken and root beer floats was offering her his kingdom. He had not charm, nor looks, nor physique, but he had a whole vat of chili and cheese he was willing to look the other way for.
I was up at the counter but he was looking at her still. I started to order, but was interrupted. “What’s your major?” he asked.
“Biology.” She kept her responses curt. He conducted a mammogram with his eyes.
Another employee plopped the bag of food she had been waiting for. She grabbed it and turned to leave.
“Come back and visit us, real soon,” he said. “Don’t get too mad at us or nothing.” She had already gone.
Next time, just take my goddamned order, Gordon.
According to the Creation Museum, dinosaurs were:
- All herbivores before Adam ate the forbidden fruit
- In the Garden of Eden
- All aboard Noah’s ark
- Hitched intercontinental rides on floating sea logs during the Ice Age
- Mistaken as dragons by cultures around the world
YEAAAAAAAAAH
What the hell is the problem with hotels and free internet.
Wireless internet in a hotel should be like having a shitty pool out back, or grainy HBO, or an ice machine that works half the time – the kind of thing that everyone has and it’s not even a big deal anymore. In fact, it shouldn’t even need to be mentioned on the roadside sign, it should just sort of be assumed that whatever dumpy motel or hotel you’re pulling into for the night has it, the same way when I walk in to the room, I expect the plastic #2 seat on the toilet so you can take a dump without teabagging the poo water.
Hell, a lot of REST STOPS seem to have wireless internet now too so you can pull over, buy some chips out of a rusty vending machine, and look up your goat porn all in one go. Plus, they offer this service for FREE.
That’s the big thing that gets me – it’s freaking FREE. Entire cities are gearing up to provide free internet citywide. Forward thinking airports around the world offer it for free. Even Starbucks has dumped their absolutely retarded deal with T-Mobile and is rolling out free internet access. However, with hotels, it’s totally hit or miss, and most annoyingly, the nicer the hotel, the more likely you’re going to have to pay ten bucks to be able to use their wireless internet for a 24-hour period.
This is a graph I threw together illustrating my point:
See, when you’re in the OK hotels, like Best Westerns or Holiday Inn Expresses, you’re riding fine. They do things right, they give you free internet. But then, you hit a threshhold for more expensive “nicer” hotels, and all of a sudden they are justified in charging you up the ass for temporary internet usage. I call this “being in Douchevalley” because dammit you’re already paying like twice as much for the room and really other than a little less crusty starch in the sheets and thicker towels, you’re not getting twice the room quantifiably, and on top of that, now it’s costing you another ten bucks a day just to use the internet.
I say you might as well go huge and get a room at the hotel with complimentary masseuse and aromatherapy soaps and candles included with your room.
I brought up the term “Broses,” then Logan said “Let my party go.”
