The Canon 5D and 7D are all over the place now. This is nothing new or groundbreaking, but it clearly shows that, when used well, these HDSLR cameras can be used for newsgathering and documentaries as well as scripted/planned shoots. Very nicely done.
Q4 of 2009 has seen a number of wonderful projects wrap up and get distributed.
Winnetka Story is a feature-length documentary about the history of Winnetka and the North Shore area, outside of Chicago. Once again I worked with the wonderful John Newcombe, with whom we authored the DVD for Rancho La Cañada: Then and Now a few years ago. Hearken Creative did all of the DVD authoring and DVD menu design, as well as managing the production for the packaging.
Servant Partners launched several new videos prior to the Urbana missions convention that Hearken Creative produced. Most of the interview footage was interviewed and shot by Loren A. Roberts, with video from around the world provided to us by Servant Partners in various formats. HCS brought it all together and turned it into several promotional videos, for use both online as well as looping on plasmas in the organization’s booth at the 20,000-person convention. In addition, HCS authored the DVD, designed DVD menus, and duplicated copies of the DVD for all staff members. Below is one of the four videos produced:
And finally, Dave Schultze of Schultzeworks created a video promoting a computer design that he calls the “Philco PC,” an homage to the Philco Predicta television set from the 1950′s. I was able to work with Dave, consulting on camera movement, editing, and pacing for the video (Dave occupies my old office space, and we have become good friends over the past few years). We were stunned at the response after releasing the video: Vimeo shows that it has close to 100k views of the video, the design has been featured on EnGadget and the NY Times, and Dave has received calls from news outlets and potential clients. This was a great collaboration for us, and HCS looks forward to consulting in the future for other friends and clients! See the video below:
http://www.vimeo.com/7951005There are many changes coming to Hearken Creative in the new year, but the one thing that will not change is our passion and dedication to making our clients look awesome, bringing creative and powerful solutions to the world of advertising design and corporate video.
MediaPost’s Research Brief has an interesting collection of data from Nielsen Online. Note how much video is watched on Facebook versus Myspace:
Top 5 Social Networking and Blog Sites Ranked (April 2009, U.S. Home and Work) Site Total Video Streams
(000)Time Spent Viewing
(Minutes x 000)Myspace.com 120,793
384,030
41,537
113,502
Stickam 19,617
54,522
FunniestStuff.net 10,206
34,456
Funny or Die 6,503
17,725
Source: Nielsen VideoCensus, June 2009
So we all thought that Facebook was taking over the world. It turns out that more people are watching video on Myspace, and for a longer period of time (a ratio of 3 to 1!).
What does this mean for us? Not much. I won’t post personal video to either Facebook or MySpace, because I’m scared about the ownership issues involved. Promotional video (movie trailers, band promos) should go up on all of the sites to ensure maximum saturation. And I can’t help but cringe at the quality of video on both MySpace and Facebook; it is for that very reason that I have posted my company’s promotional work on Vimeo instead of any of the top social networking or video sites.
It does have relevance, though, to remind us that the “hot trends” that get reported on often only have a kernel of truth, and the true picture is much more nuanced or complex. While Facebook is having a banner year, MySpace is not losing as much ground as the mainstream media would have you believe; and MySpace actually is “stickier” (people stay on the site longer), something that advertisers are very aware of.
This Honda Insight commercial takes both in-camera and post/FX effects, and creates a very organic, dynamic spot that mirrors the ethos of the car.
Eric Treml, a cinematographer from Austria, accomplished this wonderful mini-film. In Studio Daily, Treml talks about film, lenses, and 20+ takes to accomplish what he wanted:
“The big challenge was how detailed each shot needed to be,” he continues. “Lining everything up was painstaking and time-consuming. We were chasing the light and there was only so much we could do considering that we often needed 30 takes. But the finished spot unfolds in a witty and delightful way.”
In a 30-second spot, every shot counts. And this little piece did a nice job of communicating the dynamic, communal, and fun aspects of this car. Nicely done!
I wish I could just copy this whole article, because I think it is so wise to learn and listen to others who have tried and failed. I once read that the definition of an entrepreneur is someone who tries and fails and keeps trying until something works. But here’s a gem of an excerpt:
9. The key to negotiating is having options. The single most useful piece of advice I got was from Bill Trenchard, founder of LiveOps: “Always have options.”
Almost everything you do as a founder/CEO involves negotiation: closing investors, hiring employees, signing partners, paying vendors, even advocating features internally. The best way to persuade your counter-parties is signaling — implicitly or explicitly — that you have viable options (also called BATNAs). Just two can be enough. Being at the mercy of a lone option is a recipe for getting screwed.
I’m going to have to read this whole list several times, and let it sink in for all of the ventures that I am working on, including film/corporate video, graphic design, web design, and audio for music/film/post-production.
Options. I need to be looking for options…always.
If you haven’t seen this viral video (that actually is an advertisement for Samsung), take a look at it above. Then, go here and see how director James Rouse swears up and down that there are no virtual sheep on that hill.
Really fun spot. It’s definitely not a “hard-sell,” but I think it is effective, because I remember that Samsung is the one with the cool LED-lit sheep now…
So, we’re getting our first month sales figures back from the November 18 release of The Fair Trade movie, which is very exciting, especially since the preliminary numbers look really good, at least for a production of our size. But how do you keep the momentum going? I’m spending time checking conversion metrics on Google (absolutely none), Yahoo (none), and Facebook (a few sales that I know of), and trying to think up new ways to make the movie into a truly viral success. And then I read a post by Joe Marchese, where, in the same article, he quote a fellow panelist (Henry Jenkins) who says “When it comes to social media, if it doesn’t spread, it’s dead,” (i.e., viral is good!) but then goes on to say
But before you try to say the word v…v…vi…viral (had trouble spitting that one out), there is a key difference that Jenkins pointed out between viral and social spreading. People spread viruses by accident. It is not intentional to give someone a cold — at least I sure hope not — but when people pass things to each other by way of social interaction, there most certainly is intent. This means that people are rational about spreading something through their social connections.
And he’s right. I realize that I don’t want The Fair Trade to have a “viral” spread. I want people to intentionally tell other people about it, and then spread from person to person to group to group. So how do I do that?
Well, sales help, because the more people that see it, the more people who want to talk about it. But I would love to help that process along, and I’m still brainstorming how to go about encouraging people to “intentionally” spread the word about the movie.
I’ll keep you posted.
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