Category: Video

The Problem with Freedom and @2020fight

In January of this year a problem broke out with a misleading Twitter account. A twitter account posted a video that went viral. This video showed the political and religious tension happening in our country at an anti abortion rally. A Native American man named Nathan Phillips stepped into a group of Catholic boys wearing “MAGA” hats to pray over them. The boys were apparently disrespectful. The virality lead to the Catholic school the boys attend to look into expulsion. Many people ended up being hateful to them on social mediums. When you read one of the articles below, you can see that Phillips and the students actually both seemed to have “good intentions” and were not very upset with each other. Social media took off with this video and made it their own. Thousands of people had signed an online petition started by a graduate of the school to remove its principal!

The virality of this video is chilling. Yes, we love to share videos that turn us to “awe” but we also love to share controversial videos. Rob McDonagh is a social media analyzer who explains why this account is probably not the most honest. The handle @2020fight is the one who shared the video. This account has over 40,000 followers but was not verified. The account was also saturated in political posts, posting over 130 tweets daily. These sort of numbers, and the amount of shady followers says something about the accounts credibility. The account also has a fake profile picture of a Brazilian man. CNN pointed out this weird behavior of this account and Twitter suspended the account. Twitter took a while to take this down, MdDonaugh says that it is because this traffic and virality makes Twitter better and they are not looking out for the good of society.

There are a couple problems here.

1. There is not a lot of regulation on Twitter where things like this can be prevented. They only are addressed once the damage is done.

2. The freedom to share videos, comment with hate, or create accounts with ill intent – hurt our unity but somehow unify Twitter’s popularity and profits.

This being said, there is a disconnect here with the outcomes of virality. Some things are blown out of proportion, sometimes virality can bring justice to circumstances. Do we have too much freedom of speech, sharing, and creating?

https://www.npr.org/2019/01/23/687619696/suspended-twitter-account-plays-a-role-in-misleading-viral-video  

 

Make it #relatable

Disruptive Advertising posted an article a couple months ago called “8 Viral Video Marketing Examples and What We Can Learn From Them”

I decided to piggy back off Abbey Lee’s prior blog post on assessing and expressing the benefits and advantages when marketing with video. Ana Gotter decided to show some examples of viral videos and analyze the strategies used for each in how it’s “viralness” was achieved.

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Here are a couple examples of what was included…

The first video she talks about is a “Dollar Shave Club” commercial which focused on humor and entertainment to grab attention. Dollar Shave actually gained 12,000 new orders within 48 hours from their video marketing. The second video is a Budweiser commercial sharing a “heartbreaking message about not drinking and driving” showing the perspective of a dog being left alone during the night after his owner decided to not drink and drive. This powerful message pulls on people’s ethos and compassion to not only be responsible with alcohol, but buy a responsible represented brand. The third video ranked is to advertise how GoPro’s incredible high quality fish eye software captured a fireman saving a kitten from a fire. This moving story turns heads and shows the power GoPro video has in durability, quality, and accessibility.

As I watched and read, all the videos use some sort of “connecting” emotion to bring traffic and exposure to whatever product their marketing. People listen when they seem known or when there is meaning. The top ranked viral videos all had some sort of relating factor. Whether compassion, justice, humor, or testimony – it’s universal. Which means universally, everyone can relate. And when you relate, you buy.

The article’s conclusion is that these videos all have something in common: none of the videos were controversial. None of the videos included were outrageous, they were relatable average emotions that make people feel familiar and comfortable.

 

Nickelodeon Uses VR to Give Interviewers a New Experience

            Nickelodeon Entertainment Lab created a virtual reality experience to promote the reboot of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle prequel. They set up a booth at Comic-Con where the interviewer was able to put on the VR headset and become a part of the cartoon’s world. Once there, they could talk with characters Donatello and Michelangelo in real time. The production took many weeks of finding the technology that could make this experience possible and weaving it all together into a comprehensive, well thought out system.

            The creators used a variety of tech including Adobe Character Animator, a TriCaster system, MIDI controllers, Unreal Engine and NewTek products to pull it all together. The project put gaming, film, broadcast, and animation together simultaneously to produce the interviews while they were happening.

The Ninja Turtle’s show environment was put into a video game engine and the interviewer was keyed into the world with green screen. They used live-action cameras to film and combined that with gaming footage to create a mixed reality video. Since the whole video was being broadcasted and edited at the moment it was happening, the team was able to hand the interviewer a flash-drive with the footage, ready to publish, as soon as they were finished.

            As for the future of film, VR is predicted to play a large part in it. Gaming and film are becoming more intertwined as movies use video game engines to create special effects. Chris Young, Senior Vice President of the Nickelodeon Entertainment Lab, said “The days of QuickTime and 2D video will fall away. I think the idea of immersing yourself into your entertainment is an idea that’s coming at us like a runaway train. That’s why we’re trying to understand that world with so much energy and effort.” Using this Comic-Con experience was a great way to promote Nickelodeon’s new series and also push the front of what can be done in virtual reality.

Social Media for Filmmakers

Social media is a great forum for filmmakers to put their work out there and get to know their audience. Lights Film School posted tips on how filmmakers can market themselves on social media. Some of the ones I thought are most the helpful are pick your platform, find your audience, plan ahead, use hashtags, and participate in the community. Picking your platform suggests that you choose one platform that fits what your work (ex. Instagram for cinematographers or Twitter for writers), learn how to use it really well and have that be your main media. Finding your audience is taking your interests and things your brand is about, then finding the group of people who also like that. Planning ahead talks about ways that you can use your social feed as a way to curate mini campaigns. You can be intentional about how you post leading up to a film release or new projects and create hype among followers. Using hashtags is a good example of working “smarter not harder”. This tip says to create hashtags for different projects instead of creating new accounts for each one. It makes them easier to find and you don’t have to re-market each project’s account. Lastly, participating in the community is helpful and important, because once you find your audience, you need to connect with them. Putting yourself in conversation with others who have the same interests as you can help to network, build relationships, and grow as a filmmaker. Learning what your audience is interested helps you stay relevant with them and create things that they like. By conversing with other filmmakers you can learn from their experience and what new things are rising in the field. Filmmakers can really take advantage of all the resources social media offers them from feedback to presenting their films.

Societal Perspectives

I decided to take a shot at explaining and analyzing one of my most favorite YouTube Channels called “Jubilee”. Jubilee is an incredible channel that takes hot topic issues and brings people together to talk about a spectrum of opinions. Really, their channel exists to create spaces for people to listen and learn. So many videos have been posted from “Vegans Vs. Meat Eaters, Trumps Wall Vs. No Wall, Abstinence Vs. Premarital, Black Lives Matter Vs. Blue Lives Matter, Marriage Vs. Open Relationships. I think in a society where individualization is the focus of all matters, this channel does a great job in not taking a stance, but hearing stances for the sake of compassion, respect, and being more open minded. They have no agenda and only curiosity. They take an objective third party approach to issues.

Jubilee’s most recent video is “Do All Women Think the Same?” where 6 women had to answer questions varying with answers from Completely Agree to Completely disagree. The questions had a-lot to do with values and beliefs of feminists and non feminists. But some questions had to do with abilities, like how to change a tire. This video is incredible for three reasons.

  1. I think any video on a social platform that shows diversity in opinion is good for our generation.
  2. Videos with visual aids allows stereotypes of all kinds of women to be broken down through a physical creative picture showing differences on a spectrum. Visual faces and names personified in values and beliefs also helps us become more compassionate towards people!

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3. When a social media platform chooses to only publish content that they agree with or are bias towards, we lose the goal our “culture” talks about – where every opinion matters, is seen, and respected.

This kind of video proves that people are different, stereotypes do exist and can be broken, and that we can celebrate spectrums. We forget to create the spaces to do so.

This video gave a voice to those who are overlooked in the feminist movement. In a time where women are looking to be freed from certain assumptions, we have then been enslaved to others to a new majority. I applaud Jubilee in expressing all the exceptions to rules! For minorities on the opinions on women, it probably made them feel less alone, seeing each women was on a certain line in each video.

Subaru Capturing the Feelings of its Audience

This week, my current event focuses on Subaru’s technique in their recent ad campaigns: three ads that highlight three different emotions of owning a Forester. Each emotion builds a special coScreen Shot 2019-02-23 at 10.03.39 PM.pngnnection with the ads. These three are sparked by: joy, anxiety, and the value of lifelong memories.

The first ad shows the worst fear of parents- their child not coming home because Screen Shot 2019-02-23 at 10.03.52 PM.pngsomething has happened to them. In this case, it is featuring the distracted teens in car accidents. The teens (while somehow unharmed) are so distracted, that they go about their business, wether it’s texting, eating, etc, completely unaware that they were in an accident. Subaru uses this ad to tug at parents’ hearts and to get them to connect about teen driving safety. By the end of the commercial, Subaru shows a seen of their new 2019 Subaru alerting a distracted teen who is about to get in an accident herself, thus saving the girl. The mood changes from depressing the whole way through to relief as the mom of the teen gets to watch her teen pull into the driveway, unharmed.

 

The second technique that Subaru takes is capturing the value of lifelong memories that their brand is able to make and be timely with. The second ad follows the movement of the family’s dog as it hops out of the Subaru and walks through a line of different objects that have been in the car beScreen Shot 2019-02-23 at 10.12.31 PM.pngfore. As he walks through, he grows younger, showing the memories and moments are moving back in time. Subaru uses this to show that their brand not only lasts a long time, but is Screen Shot 2019-02-23 at 10.12.44 PM.pngreliable and durable. The dog pulled at my heart (but admittedly all dogs pull at my heart so no surprise there) as I watched, and I can assume it does for some others as well. While not much is happening through the commercial, Adweek makes a great point that Subaru is “unleashing a new approach” to the car advertising world. They are using a “reverse-chronology concept” to get their story across to their audience.

 

Lastly, the third technique is something of a little bit more traditional approach, but nevertheless, my favorite one of the three. Subaru captures a couple enjoying a road trip together in their Subaru. The ad uses humor and adventure to capture the audience. They wanted the ad to be as realistic as possible, so as Cavallucci states, ‘” the whole production [team] took the trip, stopping for beats (memorable interactions with people and places) along the way.”‘

Screen Shot 2019-02-23 at 10.31.56 PM.pngSubaru takes a final approach in this commercial by capturing the joy that people get from owning a Subaru. I really like this one because the humor and storytelling of the couple as they set off for adventure. Maybe it’s because I’m not a parent yet and can’t relate to the first one as much, but this one just seems to resonate more with me than even the dog one. Sure, the dog was cute, but it didn’t scream “get this car” to be as the third possibly could do if I were searching for a car right now.

 

https://www.adweek.com/creativity/subaru-highlights-the-joys-anxieties-and-lifelong-memories-of-owning-a-forester/

 

Pixar’s New Short Film Promotes Disney+ and Talks Workplace Diversity

Pixar released a new short film called Purl in order to promote their new streaming service Disney+. The short follows a ball of yarn named Purl that begins a new job in an all-male office. The other characters have stereotypical white male personalities. They are aggressive, do not include Purl in their conversations and look down on her, they all look the similar, and get excited about going out for drinks and wings. Purl changes herself to fit in, realizing that she gave up who she was when another ball of yarn starts working there and reminds her of who she was. The film ends with Purl going back to her old self and the men working together with many more balls of yarn. The message of the video was to bring up the diversity, expectations, and challenges working women face. It takes a look at “Bro culture” with the company Purl works for even being named “B.R.O. Capital”.

            This film reminded me of the Gillette ad we discussed recently by the way the men are portrayed and the stories Gillette and Pixar are trying to tell. They both are recognizing the behaviors that society has accepted and challenging them. Purl seems to be getting more praise so far for their take on the issue than Gillette has. Many women have resonated with the story and have commented saying that it described their career experiences accurately.

            Videos have the power to convey messages in ways that sometimes words can not. Dove does this in their Evolution campaign which was a huge success and widely praised. Creating this short film was a good way to call attention to issues in society and the Disney/Pixar brand. It brings people into a conversation and spreads their name.

https://nofilmschool.com/New-Pixar-Short-Purl

SING SONG 2019 LIVE FEED: GOOD OR BAD?

Facebook is an incredible connecter and social medium that many older generations use. Abilene Christian University decided to take advantage of this medium for Sing Song this year by using facebook’s creative idea of a live stream.

Because of this live stream, as a competitor backstage, I got to watch the show! I could also be informed on where the show stood chronologically while waiting, but how each act did before I went on. This made waiting backstage way more exciting and the competition way more intense!

Currently, the live feed shows that 85,000 people have watched the feed, and 950 people watched during the actual live stream. There are 1,200 comments of current students and alumni along with 237 shares! This was an exciting idea for ACU to take part in that I think allowed those far away to tune in to a long standing tradition at ACU.

Some girls apart of the Oxford study abroad group in my club stayed up till 5am and got to be apart of the celebration in winning in the overall results Sunday night. Needless to say, the live feed connected people. But what does this mean for future shows?

The Optimist reported last year that the alumni and families who stay in Abilene for Sing Song weekend brought $400,000 of profit to the city (link included below). This means the actual attendance of an audience in Moody, and not online, matters. The power of connecting that facebook and many other social mediums have to offer gives opportunity for those who cannot be present to feel as if they are. We see this now even with the new commercial about Google Portal.

There is no denying that part of the fun for ACU alumni is coming back to be reunited with their friends. That will never go away. But I think there is a possibility that the streaming of the show may take away from attendance in the near future. It is easier, louder, more efficient, and available to you at any time. This means it can also take away from Abilene’s profit in the community – just by the possibility of a click of a button. There is power in connecting and there is power in sharing. But with technology today there is always a question of  consequence too.

https://acuoptimist.com/2017/02/visitors-bureau-sing-song-brings-400k-profit-city/ 

The Power of YouTube

Sarah Perez wrote an article on a study that Google initiated which measured YouTube’s influence on what toys were being advertised and purchased.

It is no question that YouTube has a power of influence, a video archive that has become not only a major hub of entertainment but of income for many YouTube stars. YouTube stars are known for not only vlogging their lives, but opinions. Many “vloggers” upload clothing hauls, makeup tutorials, and lifestyle hacks. Another popular upload for vloggers right now is filming the opening of new toys. This is where google comes in.

Perez states, “According to the search giant, (Google) at least four of the top 10 most searched toys were among those heavily featured in YouTube unboxing videos — subsequently turning them into the most in-demand and best-selling toys of the holiday season.” YouTube is being seen now as a more powerful tool in advertising and the sharing of information than television. The medium of video, paired with comments, likes, and subscriptions – allows for a more interactive and accessible platform. Google’s search engine serves as a review finder – and instead of reading comments, viewers can now hop onto YouTube and see toys visually. The toy unboxing video of the most sold toy “L.O.L Surprise” is what made Google look into their numbers. The L.O.L Surprise toy made it onto Amazon’s “Top 10 List of Best Selling Toys” Not only is visually watching a toy be used and hear people’s opinions on its quality beneficial. The power of YouTube videos being accessible any time rather than on a certain channel at a certain time of day – makes for the perfect advertising tool.

Perez, Sarah, and Sarah Perez. “Google’s Search Data Shows YouTube’s Influence over This Season’s Hottest Toys.” TechCrunch. TechCrunch, December 10, 2018. https://techcrunch.com/2018/12/10/googles-search-data-shows-youtubes-influence-over-this-seasons-hottest-toys/.

 

YouTube Discusses Dislike Button

YouTube is talking about finding a different approach to disliking videos on their website. In 2018, YouTube’s video “YouTube Rewind 2018: Everyone Controls Rewind” became the most disliked video with 15 Million thumbs down. Some of the dislikes came from a place of true disconnect between YouTube’s audience and the content they produced, however many were the result of users just disliking because it was the trend. YouTube wants to find a solution to “dislike mobs” who dislike a video as a group without even watching it and viewers disliking videos without any real reason.

Some proposed solutions are removing the dislike button all together, removing the like to dislike ratio display, and having the viewer provide an explanation for disliking. They are asking creators for feedback and suggestions on how they think they can make this change the best. Some have replied with only having the option to dislike after a certain percentage of the video has been watched.

The removal of the button threatens the ability for creators to see how well they are relating and interacting with their audience. It also prevents viewers from having the opportunity to communicate to the creator whether or not they are enjoying their content. Having no feedback can be harmful to the community that YouTube fosters.

YouTube faces a major decision to make in trying to come up with a reasonable solution that does not upset the creators on their platform or the viewers who use it. As of now, YouTube is not currently making any changes.

After Rewind, YouTube wants to make it harder to dislike videos

https://www.videomaker.com/news/after-rewind-youtube-wants-to-make-it-harder-to-dislike-videos/ 

YouTube is trying to prevent angry mobs from abusing “dislike” button

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2019/02/youtube-doesnt-like-dislike-mobs-will-try-to-prevent-dislike-button-abuse/