I’ve recently returned from the Encounters Film Festival, at the Cape Town Victoria and Albert waterfront.
Among the movies was a Serbian film called How to be a Hero, which unfortunately seems to have little or no discernible marketing presence. The film (aside from the camera work) was really rather well done. A overweight aspiring film maker turns 40 and decides to get into shape and run the Belgrade marathon. Perhaps if I knew any Serbian or Croat I could find a little more about it in terms of promotion but something tuned to western markets would probably help it sell a few more tickets here in the “flyover states“.
I attended a debate where the main topic of interest was on the role of the Camera lens as an Oracle, and with it came all the generic questions about social responsibility versus corporate interests etc.
I’d like to say the debate was interesting but as with most public debates the topic becomes obscured as the discussion becomes sidetracked and bogged down like a campaign in a Belarussian swamp, with the same results.
There were some documentary film makers in attendance, including some who introduced the world to the conditions at Robben Island, showed the forced removals of residents of mixed districts, and did so by smuggling prints to London decried the lack attention paid to the rising Xenophobic feelings in the country. It seems most documentaries of import are in large part due to the timeliness of their subject, and frankly having footage others don’t. So many are cobbled together from home video and news footage. But the lens as an Oracle is something I don’t see, it can steer people and societies towards certain courses but most of the time it’s more of a Cassandra doomed to issue warnings and see them remain unheeded most of the time.
Several attendees inferred that perhaps documentary pieces should take more of a stand rather than act as merely an observer. Perhaps we as content producers could use the AIDA formula and give more power to an attended message. This however seems to be dangerous, emotional appeals are fine for commercial and entertainment purposes but when the message being conveyed is a call for more serious action we stray dangerously into the realm of propaganda.
Hello again,
writing this post via notepad and then uploading directly:
In South Africa and heading off via Land Rover into Kruger park for a few days.
I’ve been meaning to update sooner,
slight hitch.. Bandwidth and access is more limited here than otherwise thought.
Will expand on the following when able to (think late July when I’m back in Natal)
1. I’ll be covering the importance of bandwidth (24kps atm on dial up… argh) and
optimizing for other markets.
2. A review of a South African peridocal AdReview 2008 which I happened to glance at
in a bank today. They focused largely on advertisting but had an interesting piece on
the new media in South Africa.
I have to say that I’m in large part impressed with the advertising here, the print ads for
VW are something to marvel at.
3. I’ll also be attempting to attend and cover a film festival in Cape Town the name of
which escapes me, hopefully I’ll run into some of the University of Cape Town’s media
students or professors and be able to converse with them on the state of the industry here.
4.At the moment one of the most highly rated shows on SABC is a soap opera, we’ll have to
look at that. How dramatic narrative can be translated to an online medium, perhaps
something in the pattern of 30s/40s serials.
5. I have some related book reviews forthcoming, but in all liklihood only after I’m stateside
again.
6. As I’m going to be franticly looking for employ when back in August I think I’ll explore
some venues and career options in the new media.
Traditional broadcast channels and New Media producers are having to answer a very important question; How to generate income. With the rise of DVRs and the resulting ability to skip past advertisements companies are losing market share to rating methods that have fallen behind in the face of new technology.
Online content producers have to navigate a labyrinth of differing views on making a profit. Greg Goodfried of the now infamous Lonely Girl 15 has an extremely insightful write up on Brand Integration. Below is an excerpt that I used in a paper on the history of Distribution channels, (which I’ll be referencing in future posts) .
We tried using services like Revver and we do receive some revenue from YouTube because they show display ads around our videos. However, as many of you know, these services pay VERY little. It’s not nearly enough to sustain our production budget.
So, what are we left to do? We try to come up with creative brand integrations that accomplish two things: 1) entertain the community and 2) make the brand feel like they are getting good promotion for their product.
I used the article in a paper on the history of Distribution channels, which I’ll be referencing it in future posts. Film has relied heavily on product placement as a supplementary source of funding since E.T but for TV it’s a bit of a return to the old days. For independent new media enterprises product placement is a viable source of income. Greg continues to list the companies that have paid for sponsorships.
Lonelygirl15
Hershey’s Icebreakers Sours Gum
Neutrogena
20th Century Fox – “Jumper”
KateModern
MSN
Orange Mobile
Gillette
Pantene
Tampax
Disney – Hallam Foe, Enchanted, Ratatoulle
Paramount – Disturbia, Transformers, Stardust
There are already companies developing technology that will allow viewers to mouse over an item in a video and link to said advertiser (for compensation of course!). We as audience members are pretty used to product placement and not resistant to it in moderation. Producers still face the challenge of integrating said products in a way that won’t distract from the story or foster cynicism. The 2003 movie National Security with its shoot outs in a soda warehouse comes to mind as an example of avoid. Spiderman’s use of a Dr. Pepper can is a bit dubious but still is within the realm of the acceptable.
At some point I’ll cover alternate reality games, online properties that have been picked up for production, and other options to pay the bills. I’ll be leaving shortly for a two month trip to South Africa. In the midst of seeing family and gallivanting around the places I knew only as a child I will try and do some posts on the industry there. I’m also in the process of building my website www.radial-sprite.com and will likely be posting less in the forthcoming days anyway.
My younger brother certainly falls into our target demographic and spends a fair amount of his free time browsing internet videos. The band Wheezer put out a new video for their song Pork and Beans. The video incorporates viral stars and incorporates reproductions of several famous scenes. Ladies and gents we have ourselves a feedback loop. As my friend Ross would say “That’s so meta!”
Video Clips Review has an article breaking down some of the references and has links to the original content.
There have been several instances of videos being removed because of copyright disputes, recently I’ve seen fan slide shows of Billy Joel’s We didn’t start the fire removed for said reason, but I’ve seen evidence of 15-20 year olds using online videos as an alternate means of previewing albums. I’ve yet to check the ratings but I maintain a hunch that traditional music video channels such as MTV, and VH1 have had a marked decrease in broadcast ratings (likely partially offset by their web channels). At least in my brother’s case the online availabilty of the video resulted in an album purchase.
This is the final migratory post from my facebook account,
The Cornell Daily Sun has an article about Kevin Spacy and Dana Brunetti’s venture into Viral Videos. The piece I found the most interesting was their take on eyeballs, the conventional wisdom seems to be get your video out to the most possible viewers and it will be noticed, they want to take a more focused approach and act as a filter for industry people.
MP: What are some of the “dos and don’ts” of using the web to get your work out there.?
DB: What you want to be careful of are sites where you lose all the rights to your film. You don’t want to upload to a site where they own it and profit from it, and you can never do anything with it. Most sites don’t do that anymore, but they used to. Now any legitimate site just has rights to use your film in the form that you upload it. Also, get it on as many sites as you can. Granted, YouTube has a different mission than Triggerstreet.com, but they’ve got a lot of eyeballs. So you might get the right kind of eyeballs there, too. Triggerstreet.com is obviously more focused than the YouTube crowd, so you’re probably going to get better exposure in terms of the type of industry people you’re trying to target. YouTube, Break.com, and even MySpace aren’t necessarily geared towards short filmmakers although they’ve tried to be. They’re more about the guy getting kicked in the nuts, or crashing his truck while riding on the hood. It’s all about getting your name out there and displaying your talent: That’s what TriggerStreet.com is.
I can see the logic in wanting to have a channel devoid of clutter and serve as a showcase but studio executives are still going to want to see mass appeal, and forgive the cliche but to see how people in Kansas city react. Displaying content through both means seems like a reasonable alternative one to act as a virtual pitch site and the other as a means of evaluating reaction.
Continuing my migration of relevant Facebook posts, I’d like to point out a showcase piece from BBC2.
The piece really highlights how technology has enabled small groups of content producers to film scenes that would normally require vast costuming budgets, hundreds of extras, and elaborate set extensions. I’m still a proponent of getting as much done in camera as possible but instances such as these highlight how the industry is changing.
My DVX and standard resolution doesn’t really afford enough picture information for effective or at least easy compositing, and even some forms of HD lack the proper color space. Which is another reason why I’m so excited about the Red Scarlett. Check the video out.
It offers a great access to public domain works, including of course several Kurosawa pieces! It’s kind of nice being able to get copyright free material that isn’t on a cheap compilation DVD in a bargain bin. Check it out.
It seems that most of the networks have started to see the benefit of offering content online. I find it rather amusing that there is now a greater selection of episodes legally available online then one would find on a transatlantic flights. It seems that traditional content licensing has taken a back seat.
In a way by offering the content online they are validating other arguments offered by p2p proponents that content obtained elsewhere doesn’t harm DVD sales. After all most of us like the cross compatibility of a DVD, the portability , the additional content, and of course the fact that it’s likely to fund additional episodes..
The Networks making material available online though will still conform to a revenue seeking model. So I imagine they’ll still be vigilant if not doubly so about limiting content access through unauthorized channels such as Youtube. Take a look at the article.
Hasbro’s lawyers have asked SEGA to remove a viral from the Condemned 2 promotional site. The video can now be found on you tube and several other sites. [I've embedded below but please be forewarned it is not child safe and probably would not be prudent to view at work due to the violence.]
This brings up a few points to ponder
1. Does the use of the characters in such a manor constitute satire? Hasbro’s no doubt would like to preserve brand integrity and keep the My Little Pony characters from becoming generic and therefore fair game. But would one of the major network sketch shows have taken down the video?
2. Content regulation: One of the arguments surrounding the video is that the characters resembling cartoon characters may inadvertently lead small children to a site promoting/previewing violent content. This could have been circumvented if the website had an age verification entry portal, or a disclaimer. One of my concerns is that the apparent ease of youth access to questionable material gives ammunition to those who would seek to regulate the internet. At some point election cycles, game designers finally getting lobbyists, or a publicized lawsuit is going to bring unwelcome attention to the world of viral and new media marketing. Depending on the authority of regulatory bodies (how much net neutrality is eroded) it will be an interesting development.
3. Propagation: As in many prior examples the original propagators of the content were asked and attempted to remove their material. Now that SEGA has removed the video from its site who bears the responsibility for curtailing its spread? Pandora’s box so to say is already open, the video is now making the round throughout the internet. So if in a more dire example who would be accountable for potential damage? Certainly SEGA can argue that it pulled the video as soon as it was asked, Hasbro can argue that it was not approached for clearance, and online hosts of course have long since learned to wash their hands.
As for effectiveness:
I like the disparity between the style and subject, and of course the controversy only but helps spread the word about the campaign.
My name is Juard Van Dijkhorst and I’m about to graduate with a B.S in Digital Film production. Instead of packing for my move (Which I need to have completed by this evening), securing immunizations for my South Africa sojourn this summer (to Quote an Aunt “Malaria is jolly bad!”), or do that sleep thing I’ve been meaning to accomplish all semester, I’m here tinkering with ftp, html, and wordpress for the first time.
The intention with this blog is to examine and analyze trends in the new media. The end result however is no doubt unforeseeable.
I’ve done some research papers on the subject and some development for smaller projects but it’s something I’d like to keep up with. I’ll be in South Africa for June, July, and the first few days of August but depending on access and power outages I hope to gradually build this into an ongoing source on the subject.
