7 Tips for Success in Online Video

7 Tips for Success in Online Video
Advice to the Online Video Community--
During the interview with the wizard of web video, Yaron Samid, he had some great advice for the online video community. It has been arranged into 7 Tips.

Online video producers, independent filmmakers, programmers and entrepreneurs, listen up! Pennyreel presents . . . Yaron Samid.



Tip 1: Give Back.
I believe in giving back as a principle of not only your life but [also] your business. If you are in the process of helping others you’re going to make money. Make that the filter of everything you do and it guides you in the right direction. [See the full post on Yaron Giving Back]

Tip 2: Get a Mentor
A lot of budding entrepreneurs simply don't have the experience that, now after 12 years of doing this on my own, I have learned the hard knocks way. As a budding entrepreneur you really need some mentorship, from some fellow serial entrepreneurs who have done it before. [They] can tell you here's step A, B, C, D and, by the way, it might be mundane stuff you should do, but there is a checklist of stuff [you need to complete] in order to move forward.

Most start-ups fail early on because most entrepreneurs can't get the first steps under their belt. A lot of that has to do with who you know that can mentor you. I faced that [problem], as a budding entrepreneur.

Tip 3: Pick the Right People
[Picking the right people] is probably the most important decision you will make as an entrepreneur. Who are your partners? In other words, [. . .] your cofounders. It is single handedly the most critical factor that will dictate whether you make it, or break it. Are you going to work well with these people? Can you navigate all the different dynamics that come down the road? Your business plan will change, your idea will change, the market will change and that you have the right team that can navigate that appropriately, is the most important thing to success of a start-up.

The good investors know that, and they invest in teams, they don't invest in ideas.

Tip 4: Don't Worry About the Money
Its very difficult to sell subscription content online as an independent producer, its almost impossible. So you're really limited to advertising and even that is difficult because you need a critical mass of viewers in order to even start selling any ads. You can put some Google Adwords on your site, but that’s not going to generate a lot of revenue until you get some traffic. The big money is in "in-stream video advertising" or "brought to you by" sponsored content, but that’s very hard to get.

The way you get that is, first of all, not worrying about it, first of all, focus on your content. Make great content for a high value audience [ . . .] advertisers care about your viewers, they don't so much care about your content. They want to sell their product and they want to sell their product to the type of audience that buys their product.

I would not focus on trying to sell your content whatsoever. If you are in the independent video content online, you're not going to make money selling it, its pretty much the standard today that content is free online. Focus on building great content for a high value viewer and you will be able to sell advertising when you get critical mass.

Tip 5: Wait to Get Funding
The whole venture capital market is fundamentally broken. I'm actually trying to do something about that in my latest venture but we won't talk about that today.

I made quite a few mistakes in the past, going way too early to investors, trusting people that they would take care of my interests . . .when really, its a business, right? Investors are going to try to get a return on their investment. From my own personal experience, I can tell you that one of the critical mistakes is going a little bit too early to the investors. You have to get it self-funded to the point where it has more concrete value [to investors and you can] keep more control in [your] pocket.

Sometimes you can't get away with doing it any other way because you don't have any money and your living on ramen noodles [. . .] so you got to take money wherever you can.

Tip 6: Promote Yourself
I would say that is critical for distribution to be a part of the communities where your audiences are hanging out online. You should definitely be blogging, you should be commenting on other people's blogs, you should have a Facebook page, you should have a Myspace page, [and] you should be in every social network expanding your social graph as far as you can. You are now part of a community; you’re not just trying to manipulate people to watch your content, but rather your offering some cool content into a community.

You have to be a certain type of person to be OK with [self promotion], but it is very important to grow the overall exposure to what you do. It is to grow the exposure of who you are. You definitely have to be out there selling yourself as a content producer because that’s really part of your business. Your putting something out there that's part of yourself. . . a self-expression. . . art that you create. The more people can go beyond the facade of just the content and see the actual producer and know a little bit about them, the more it becomes an emotional investment for the viewer. It’s very, very important.

[For content producers] there are several sites where you can cross post to as many end points as possible. One I would recommend is Tubemogul. On Tubemogul.com you can publish once and post to all the typical video sharing sites. Blip.tv is the hands down gold standard platform for independent content producers who want to get their content hosted and seen. Those are two sites that I would recommend right off the bat.

Then there is the general principle, which is to be in as many places as possible. Don't limit yourself to distribution channels. If you can get everywhere, be everywhere. Do the legwork to be everywhere. There are several different sites where you can go one by one and get your content up there and you should. Because the whole principle of video online is that it’s available when and where the consumers want to interact with it, not where you want to interact with it. Forget the whole destination site model where [you say] "I'm going to bring everyone to my website," because you don't need that. You need your content viewed.

Tip 7: Get Started
I'd say one of the biggest challenges is just taking that first step. You have an idea, your excited, you believe in this thing, its going to change the world, but now you have to take that very first step."

So get out there and take it!

The Veoh Ruling Comes Down in Favor of Distribution

Is a website liable for infringing on copyrights if it distributes (unwittingly and without intent) copyrighted material without consent of the owner? A recent ruling in the veoh case by a federal court in Northern California has decided in favor of the websites.

Here's the summary of the decision: The sites must...

• Provide adequate notice to users that uploading copyrighted material is prohibited
• Swiftly comply with DMCA takedown notices “on the same day the notice is received (or within a few days thereafter).”
• Use fingerprinting and other technology to detect copyrighted material, even if the methods are flawed.
• Take measures to control infringing users. Specifically, infringing accounts need to be terminated and the email banned from any new accounts. The court held that IP address banning was not necessary: “…Io has presented no evidence suggesting that tracking (or verifying) users’ actual identity or that blocking their IP addresses is a more effective reasonable means of implementation.”
• Transcoding files to Flash format does not put the files in the site’s control; they are still protected by the DMCA safe harbor.
• Sites are encouraged to spot check videos, and if they do, to remove content that is likely infringing.
• Sites are NOT required to check every video. The court said “this court finds no reasonable juror could conclude that a comprehensive review of every file would be feasible. Even if such a review were feasible, there is no assurance that Veoh could have accurately identified the infringing content in question.”
• It’s important to have lots of non-infringing content. The court noted that Veoh had received DMCA notices on only about 7% of its content. This helped its argument that it was different than Napster, which “existed solely to provide the site and facilities for copyright infringement…the sole purpose of the Napster program was to provide a forum for easy copyright infringement.”

Yaron Samid: the Wizard of NY Web Video

An Interview with Yaron Samid:
The Wizard of NY Web Video

This is a two part interview with the founder of the NY Video 2.0 Meetup and serial entrepreneur. In part one he discusses the Web Video community, and giving back.

Sunshine Suites is a sponsor of NY Video 2.0, and one of the few places outside of coffee shops that NYC web start-ups can afford office space. Their offices in Tribeca – adorned in minimalist white stools and retro padded eggshell chairs – are trendy, cheap, well run and altogether quite impressive. Yaron hosted this interview in one of their well appointed conference rooms.

Can you tell us a little about yourself and your values?

"My name is Yaron Samid. I am the organizer of NY Video 2.0.

"NY Video 2.0 is a monthly gathering of peers in the online video space in NY city. Made up of everyone from start-ups to DVD companies to tv companies to networks, investors people in the web video space. and we get together once a month and we have anywhere from 2200 members usually 500 members who show up. We meet at Webster hall.”

"I got into this space simply because I am one of the peers, I am a serial entrepreneur, I have been in the space for about 12 years. Most recently started a company called Pando Networks about 4 years ago. Pando is a p2p company that enables people and companies to move large media online in a very very cost effective manner. I also did a few other media based start-ups so I've been in the startup scene for quite some time and really gotten my hands dirty in figuring out the business of video online.”

"Regarding my values, I guess I’ll speak to that as it pertains to the group. We started a group, NY Video 2.0, 2 years ago with the spirit of just hanging out with fellow entrepreneurs who are trying to figure out the video game, you know? The video business--which, we still have yet to figure out, by the way.”

"So 2 years ago I got about 30 buddies of mine who were also starting up companies in NY and rented out a screening room in Tribeca Film Center. 4 or 5 companies got up and showed their product and then we talked about it and we tried to figure out how we're going to make this thing work and help each other out as fellow NYers." It was interesting, I noted, that in talking about himself, he hardly mentioned himself at all.”

"The spirit of that very much speaks to my personal values which is, I believe in giving back as a principle of not only your life but of your business. If you make that your filter--of everything you do--I think it guides you in the right direction.

"I've been given back so much, by organizing this community--10 fold what I give to it. I spend a few hours a month basically organizing the event, the venue, the presenters and as a result I have become something of a connector in the community. I see a lot of startups, I talk to a lot of media companies and investors who want to pair up and I am able to broker a lot of relationships, just as a labor of love--I enjoy helping people out."

"You know the conservation of energy law in physics? I believe there is a conservation of good energy law. If you put out good vibes and good energy and you give to people--you get back. Thats really what the community is about. Its a free group, its about helping other people out.

"Thats really been the most rewarding part, at least for me personally, and I think for people who attend as well."

You seem to really believe in giving back, was this a goal of yours from the start or did it evolve somehow from the Internet work you do?

Naturally upbeat and gregarious, Samid’s genuine enthusiasm shines through as he discusses his passion.

"I think this has more to do with the individual DNA of a person. I've been involved with a lot of volunteer type of stuff that just--its something that might not fill your wallet, but it will fill your soul. If your that kind of person than it permeates into everything you do. I might not have consciously set out on my career to be a community leader and organizer, but I think it happened because thats kind of the person that I am. So it wasn't a conscious decision.

"Two years ago when I started the NY Video 2.0 community, it very much stemmed from an after-work, non-profit-motivated type of thought and it became something way beyond."
"I really thought it would be a few people getting together and talking about the business of video. When I think of 2200 people getting together and all the business development, all the hires, and all the connections, that happen from it . . . its really very rewarding."

"By the way, I have to give a big shout-out to meetup.com and Scott Heifermen who is the CEO there. Meetup really facilitates the gathering of people offline, thats the goal of the site. Without meetup.com as the platform, I wouldn't have been able to grow the group to where it is today. The site handles a lot of the administrative stuff, the RSVPs, the calenders, the emails and so forth."

"It was born on that very value [giving back], Scot Heifermen who started meetup.com, started it on 9/11. I saw your tattoo there. On 9/11 he said, 'you know, I'm a serial entrepreneur, I've been doing stuff, but I want to do something more substantial, how do I give back to my community?' and he built meetup.com to get people off of the web and meeting face to face as a community. Very much the same spirit."

Indeed it is.

Next post will be some lessons Yaron learned the "hard knocks way" for web video entrepreneurs.

On the Fate of E.L.A.

Fernando Sarmiento and the visionary production team at PepperMelon have really taken it a step forward. Follow ELA, the young warrior princess, as she uses the power of light to battle her arch nemesis, Havra the Merciless, and his unnamed minions, who I think might be the mooninites.

Honestly, this is talented, funny and totally new. So hang on to your face cause its about to get blown right off!

Alexandre Orion and his Worthy Cause

Below is a video created by the team that helped document artist Alexandre Orion's latest work in the brilliant new urban genre of reverse graffiti. I will leave the proper intro to the professionals...

"Alexandre Orion – Skulls in Sao Paolo

Hailing from Brazil, Alexandre sees his art work as a way of getting an environmental message across to those who ordinarily wouldn’t listen. A few years ago he adorned a transport tunnel in Sao Paolo with a mural consisting of a series of skulls to remind drivers of the detrimental impact their emissions have on the planet.

The Brazilian authorities were incensed but couldn’t actually charge him with anything so they instead cleaned the tunnel. At first the cleaned only the parts Alexandre had cleared but after the artist switched to the opposite wall they had to clean that too. In the end, the authorities decided to wash every tunnel in the city, missing the irony completely, it seems."
--Linda @ environmentalgraffiti.com

VuClip Converts Video for All Mobile Phones

VuClip claims that it can convert any video type into a format compatible with any video-enabled mobile phone, in 20 seconds or less.

While I confess that I'm only going to want to use VuClip if I'm stranded at JFK and I've got excellent reception and I've read the Times and the Journal back and forth, I am impressed with their effort to distribute more video to more people, for free. For example, the company claims to allow any web-enabled phone to view YouTube videos. YouTube videos, like most online videos, are encoded in Flash, and few phones are Flash enabled.

For those of us who are suspect of the idea that video-on-mobile phones will be a big market, it wasn't too long ago that TV-on-the-computer seemed like an awkward and unpopular set up.

Le Grand Content

A pennyreel favorite: Clemens Kogler and Karo Szmit's, Le Grand Content...

Hats off to Stewart Hendler...or whoever did it

Three days ago, The Closet went up on youtube. A month ago it played at Outfest and tomorrow you can see it at The Palm Spring International Shortfest.

In the interim, it is fast approaching 3000 views on youtube -- in addition to being embedded into a bevy of other sites, including this one -- and has retained its five star ranking, which it deserves.

I would like to congratulate Mr. Hendler, the director, as well as the entire cast and crew for contributing to a beautiful piece of film. The writing is there, the acting heartfelt, and the look -- the composition of shots and scenery -- is superb.

I also want to thank the people who put it on the web. The film sends an important message, and it takes a truly admirable level of dedication to that message to give the film the exposure it deserves, even in the midst of its festival circuit tour.

Thank you. I wish there were more of you.

The Closet:

Video Without Actors or Studios

Amateur video artists have some great tools at their disposal to hone their filmmaking skills without actors or a studio. Two of these methods that have been used effectively in online video are Brickfilms and Sims movies. Brickfilms are simply stop-motion animated legos, and the Sims movies are made using programs that manipulate the Sims computer game.

Brickfilms have been on youtube for a while now, and the cool thing about them is that anyone with some patience can make them. Kids, filmschool students and amateurs can all shoot their own film with colorful characters and sets. You can find quite a variety of great short films by searching for "Brickfilms." I believe that the reason for the great variety and quality of these films is because of the arduous stop-motion filming process. The intense amount of time it takes to shoot a brickfilm means that it has to be planned out beforehand, and that the artist really has to want to make the film. One of my favorite brickfilms is called "Cognizance" and it may even choke you up a bit. Check it out:



The Sims movies are also cool because you can really "direct" the characters. Unlike a brickfilm, where you must precisely move each lego piece, Sims characters have a range of actions that they can perform like dancing, laughing, flirting, etc. Thus when "directing" a Sims movie you create the set, choose the camera angles, props, etc, but then you just tell the Sim what to do and it performs the action. Like the brickfilms, this has produced some cool little films where artists are practicing their craft. With Brickfilms and Sims movies, we finally get some online video that breaks away from the viral videos and punchlines of youtube.

Keep it Simple

Along the lines of Ryan's comments in the post below, one aspect of commercials that allows for an easier transition to the online video medium is their brevity of message. For example, the two commercials cited in the post say two very simple things: Sony Bravia televisions are colorful and Kobe Bryant, who wears Nike shoes, can jump high and quick. The commercials themselves endeavor to send their messages in a spectacular and entertaining fashion.

A high concept film is loosely defined as a movie with a plot that can be summarized in 25 words or less, and they can take hours. Given the notoriously short attention span of the online viewer only the most arrogant producer would be bold enough to believe they could enrapture an internet audience long enough to tell such a story.

This, in part, is why the comedic short is so popular online, because, in the end, it all comes down to an ultimately short and simple punchline.

Here is a vid that takes a novel approach. The story is all in the title:

"Death Star over San Francisco"



I'm not saying this is the solution, but I do believe that online video is the best venue for this type of creative expression.

Commercials in Online Video

For better or for worse, some of the most popular videos online are basically commercials.

The best thing about commercials in the online video arena is that they put monetary value on the medium. Everyone in online video, from the studios to the youtube stars, are trying to figure out how much online videos are worth. Even if viewers generally don't pay for online video, at least advertisers agree that they are valuable. This is an important step toward legitimizing the industry, attracting more creative talent and bigger budgets to online video. I would venture to say that online video has benefited from commercials. Commercials for TV or pre-roll cinema are very conducive to the online video format. Some like the Nike commercial with Kobe jumping over car are just fun, popular, made-to-be-viral videos:



Others like the Sony Bravia commercials could be called art:



If a video is well done, and gives people enjoyment then I think the advertiser deserves the attention.

However, there is something depressing about it. I think commercials have their place, but where is the quality are that isn't commercial? It would seem that the most popular non-commercial art is newsy and comedy. I would think that short films should be huge on the internet. I live in New York, I know that there are tons of film schools with tons of students making short films, and tons of out of work actors. So where are they?

Can YouTube Monetize (aka Cashitize)?

Google (parent company of YouTube) CEO Eric Schmidt was on Mad Money with Jim Cramer yesterday, and the Schmidt admitted that despite YouTube's enormous traffic, the company has not yet figured out a way to monetize it, and has no real plan to do so. Instead, he simply expressed his confidence that the company will some day figure it out. The exchange follows...

Cramer: LET’S SPEAK ABOUT A QUESTION THAT AGAIN, I’M TRYING ADDRESS THE QUESTIONS HOLDING THE STOCK DOWN. YOU HAVE TREMENDOUS DOWNLOADS IN YOUTUBE ARE EXTRAORDINARY.

Schmidt: IT’S UP TO 1.3 — MILLION MINUTES EVERY TEN MINUTES OF UPLOAD? IN OTHER WORDS EVERY MINUTE WE ARE PUTTING THAT MANY VIDEOS IN. IT’S UNBELIEVABLE.

Cramer: BUT AT THE SAME TIME, WHAT ADVERTISER WANTS TO PUT A 30 SECOND ADVERTISEMENT IN YOUTUBE, WHO WANTS TO LOOK AT THAT VERSUS THE ADVERTISEMENTS WE ARE DOING FOR THE OLYMPICS WHICH ARE JUST GIGANTIC 1.7 BILLION IN REVENUE. ISN’T IT TRUE THAT PEOPLE DON’T LIKE ADS ON YOUTUBE?

Schmidt: WE HAVE NOT FIGURED THAT MODEL OUT YET.YOU’RE COMPARING A 50-YEAR-OLD MATURE MODEL THAT WORKS REALLY WELL ONCE EVERY FOUR YEARS IN THE OLYMPICS, VERSUS SOMETHING THAT’S JUST STARTING. WE HAVE LOTS OF TRAFFIC.

Cramer: SO YOU ARE JUST SAYING SOMEONE WILL JUST FIGURE IT OUT.

Schmidt: HOPING IT’S GOING TO BE US THAT FIGURES IT OUT. WE’RE TRYING DIFFERENT THINGS WE TRIED PRE-ROLL AND POST-ROLL NOT ANYONE ONE IS REALLY, WE HAVE A COUPLE NEW ONES COMING OUT.

Cramer: YOU’RE MAKING SO MUCH MONEY YOU DON’T HAVE TO WORRY ABOUT IT. IT ISN’T LIKE IT IS GOING TO HIT YOUR BOTTOM LINE.

Schmidt: IT DOESN’T HIT OUR BOTTOM LINE.

Cramer: SOME ARE SAYING IT WILL.

Schmidt: BUT EVENTUALLY WE’D LIKE TO MAKE MONEY OUT OF IT, BUT IF WE DON’T, THE FACT THAT SO MANY PEOPLE COME TOYOUTUBE, MEANS THEY ULTIMATELY GOOGLE AND DO GOOGLE SEARCHES AND CLICK ON ADS. SO DON’T BE TOO WORRIED ABOUT ALL THAT TRAFFIC GOING TO YOUTUBE. I’D BE WORRIED IF PEOPLE WEREN’T USING YOUTUBE. SINCE IT IS AN ENORMOUS SUCCESS GLOBALLY WE KNOW WE WILL BENEFIT.

Videos of the exchange are here.

Randy Hardin, Ladies and Gentlemen

Now THAT's what I call acting!

wrongmatch.com people, who knows about it? What happened to the site? What else have they done? This performance is genius

On Sputnik7

Online video has not just resurrected the music video, it has effectively replaced the woefully inadequate and banal cable channel, MTV, also known as the 53rd arm of notorious youtube, public domain, and open market media enemy, Viacom.
I have personally taken shits and looked at them and found them far more insightful, innovative and entertaining than anything that has passed through the cancerously clogged colon that is MTV networks in the past seven years.
Enter Sputnik7.com.
A new site that uses the audiotube player format to allow users to view and share their favorite vids with other likeminded contemporaries and fans, Sputnik7 covers the whole spectrum of the music video and indie film industry,. Including, interviews with the creators, documentaries, the latest from the greatest video effects houses, and press junket clips as well.
I won’t fault them for their lack of embedding capabilities, as they have artists livelihoods to protect, and, as far as I can tell, we the viewers would rather fistfuck ourselves with a porcupine glove before we paid for less than five minutes of video. So you must visit the site to view and you should cause its gooood.
My current favorites:
Their inside info on the making of Little Red Robot’s “Ay Yo My Man” is awesome as the song itself.
In the Fantasy section they have uploaded Alessandro Bavari’s “Headcleaner” a horrific/fantasy at times reminiscent of a Dali masterpiece brought to life.
And, my personal favorite, from the vfx and design media geniuses at Headlight, their reinterpretation of The Boy Who Cried Wolf fable, “Wolfie” performed in stop animation with Russian Babushka dolls is eerily brilliant and delightful.
I look forward to Sputnik7’s embrace of the dramatic works that are both sorely lacking on the internet and sure to come their way given their refined taste for the best of online video.

Drawn by Pain -- Standing Out From the Crowd

Drawn By Pain -- Standing Out From the Crowd

The 12 part web series, Drawn By Pain is a bold and ambitious piece of art that stands out from the crowd. This web series demonstrate what a group of dedicated video artists can do when they come together. In the words of the writer and director, Jesse Cowell,

"'Drawn by Pain' quite simply is a labor of love by a very small group of people whose hope is to bring something different and cool to the web."

Mission accomplished Jesse.

The story of "Drawn by Pain" follows a woman whose painful childhood awakened her anime drawings into a force that protects her in the real world. This concept is executed beautifully with blue and white animations interacting with the live action characters. Kudos to the DBP team for daring to do something so ambitious and out of the ordinary. Jesse says it best,

"We really believe web content can expand into something that not only makes people laugh, but moves people and excites them as well. We hope in our own way to be contributing to making the small screen become a bit more cinematic."

The show is very well done, especially considering the small team and shoestring budget. It is clear that the creators refused to sacrifice quality despite being small and independent. The series has beautiful cinematography and lighting and an enthusiastic cast. However, the series really comes into its own and truly shines in the mixed anime and live action fight sequences.

11 of the 12 part series has already been posted, I can't wait to see the finale, and what comes next from these guys. Drawn by Pain has received some success over the last year, winning the 2008 People's Choice Webby Award. Hopefully their success will inspire others to try to add something new and different to the online video world.

Online Video by Any Other Name

Brook and I went to our second NY Video 2.0 meetup at Webster Hall last week and the energy was very different this time--I would call it "angry and excited," like a crowd gearing up for a protest. The crowd was protesting against the "televisionification" of online video. Sites like Hulu, NBC and South Park Studios are great for watching "tv" on your computer, but that is not really what online video (or the Internet) is about.

The Internet is about an individual's work standing or failing on its own. The July NY Video 2.0 Meetup was a little different then prior meetups. It was a town hall style meeting with the focus was on individuals whose work has integrity, the "Content Kings." These are a half dozen panelists who are successful web video artists. The panelists shared experience and offered some inspiration to the artists and content creators who want something more than Leave Britney Alone and Chocolate Rain out of the Internet medium.

Several topics were discussed, from monetization (aka "cashification") to the next generation of technology. The first topic though, was a surprisingly emotional one, what do we call this new art form? "Web tv" was rejected immediately as being too restrictive. It wasn't settled exactly how we should label the varied video content we see online. The consensus seemed to be that the word used for online video would in some way define this new generation of content. Personally, I think we should just call it by the medium it is viewed: online video, tv, or dvd. Why label it at all when we can let the work speak for itself?

Perhaps the question of what to call online video, and what online video is to become are really the same question. In which case, it would be really disappointing if online video just became "tv." However, I tend to agree with Shakespeare, "A rose By any other name would smell as sweet," and if we still have innovators producing content like we saw last week, I don't care what we call it.

Web Video Resurrects the Music Video

Since MTV and VH1 no longer show music videos, the format has moved to the web. Music videos from major- and minor stars rack up hefty hits online. Avril Lavigne's "Girlfriend" has racked up 95 million hits on YouTube. And now we're starting to see music videos that look as if they were made for the web video format, instead of glossy, splashy MTV.

Take a look at Grace Jone's new video, "Corporate Cannibal"...



The video has all the hallmarks of a web video: it's low-fi, simple, employs artistic know-how to gloss over the low budget, is equally effective at any resolution, and it doesn't rely on a multi-camera shoot.

It's a fantastic music video, and an even better web video. And it underscores that the music video's new home is online, not on air.

On the White Clown Looming in Our Future

Pennyreel Presents a Straw Man Argument

The majority of videos, and the most watched, on the internet are pornographic. These, however, comprise their own separate industry and are of no pertinent concern to this blog, though they are oft and greatly appreciated by this blog writer.

But what of the rest? The studio funded content, produced for TV and Theaters, re-posted on the internet for wider consumption, commercials both overt and subtle (meaning viral), and the real, user-generated content, which greatly outnumbers the others. This last brand of video comes from a dizzying array of home-grown creators, and yet the users have allowed the well funded ad agencies to set the standard for what is expected of an online video.

Commercials and viral ads have no interest in longevity. They are designed to tout the existence or pending release of a product. The ultimate success being to “go viral”: to become suddenly, wildly successful and then to peter out into useless oblivion like a cheap Chinese firework. Backed by corporate funding and the talent of creative professionals, the creators of this content see no financial incentive in sticking around. A theatrical release has multiple opportunities for revenue gain; from cinemas, to dvd, to premium cable and finally to network premieres, but for an online video, there is but to exist and then to fade away. Such is the current business model for online video. The fact that user-generated video has emulated this practice has resulted in mainstream media’s successful subjugation of online video to date. This does not bode well for our future. To be sure, the scarcity of quality user-generated content has already begun to adversely affect online advertising.

We are the modern day equivalent of Ray Bradbury’s White Clown’s. Employing brief demonstrations of superficial entertainment and inexplicable violence in a desperate attempt to capture, lose, and recapture the attention of the Millie’s of the world.

But is this really the case? Is online video a symptom of society’s downfall? One of the many ailments brought about by the ADD generation? It has been proven that there is money in being society’s taste equivalent of a waste basket. Whole industries have been borne from satisfying the average viewer’s guilty hunger for the banal and temporary escape, but must it really be accepted, at this early stage, that the internet is the most inferior venue for media?

Pennyreel presents a direct quote from Fahrenheit 451:

“Give the people contests they win by remembering the words to more popular songs.... Don't give them slippery stuff like philosophy or sociology to tie things up with. That way lies melancholy.” -- Fire Captain Beatty

Pennyreel presents the TV Guide listing for Fox at 9pm on Thursday, July 31^st 2008:

Don't Forget the Lyrics! Hosted by Wayne Brady

Singer Kenny Loggins makes an appearance to help a contestant who is an avid rock fan.

Obviously, there has never in the history of entertainment been a shortage of shitty things to sit and watch. The point is this: the prevalence of total crap within a medium is less symptomatic of an ailing society than it is indicative of an audience hungry for something that moves them, and willing to look for it. If viewers are eager to flock in droves to sites like break.com than how voraciously would they consume a site that offers truly innovative content?

What is insulting about ad agencies and their ilk, is that, when it comes to online video, they openly think they are smarter than us, think they can fool us. They take this position in spite of the fact that the savvy web surfer community has continuously demonstrated its uncanny capacity for scrutiny. I do not mind being tricked, in fact I enjoy it, but I watch to see and admire the craftsmanship, not to be made to feel stupid.

It is the belief of this author that there is nobody currently working in film or television who has what it takes to make the kind of content online video needs. It is a venue for people who think a different way. What is most attractive about anything labeled amateur, is that it is inherently genuine, inherently new and raw.

Do not worry about the technology; the technology will come no matter what. High quality equipment will get cheaper and hi res video will become more prevalent, as sure as the world will turn. Worry about the integrity of the industry. Worry, my friends, about the story you are telling. Are we the white clowns or are they? It’s anyone’s game at this point.