Tag Archives: film

They’re Afraid of Your Slush

This WSJ post claims it’s the death of the “slush pile.” It seems publishers like Random House once reviewed unsolicited books for consideration. Not anymore.

“Getting plucked from the slush pile was always a long shot—in large part, editors and Hollywood development executives say, because most unsolicited material has gone unsolicited for good reason.”

Now there’s a new fear. “Film and television producers won’t read anything not certified by an agent because producers are afraid of being accused of stealing ideas and material. Most book publishers have stopped accepting book proposals that are not submitted by agents.”

“The Web was supposed to be a great democratizer of media,” writes Katherine Rosman. “Anyone with a Flip and Final Cut Pro could be a filmmaker; anyone with a blog a memoirist. But rather than empowering unknown artists, the Web is often considered by talent-seeking executives to be an unnavigable morass.”

Rosman suggests you find an agent or enter contests. I’d argue that the web is still a vibrant place for talent to find an audience, and would look no farther than the top YouTubers. Are they moving to television and films? No. Are they gaining audiences and making money? Yes. Dozens and hundreds.

So maybe being at the top of the slush pile is better than being “plucked” from it?

Viral Video Film School’s 2009 Picks

I’m not a regular CurrentTV checker, so thanks to Mark for alerting me to “Viral Video Film School” in the comments of my last post. He also recommended SuperNews on Current, and I was not disappointed with “The Christmas Bailout.”

Below is a Brett Erlich video capturing 2009’s finest moments in the form of a quiz.

You’ve heard of the omni-present Susan Boyle and the Chris Brown Wedding Song, but he’s tossed in a few other gems… like a little Asian kid singing Jason Mraz’s “I’m Yours,” which prompts Brett to say “I want to eat him up.” And he informs us that keyboard cat, Fatso, is RIP.

My only criticism of Current is that it doesn’t, ironically, seem to have current content… a lot of dated material in my modest surf session.

YouTube’s “Yahoo-Like” Homepage Makeover: More Ads, Professional Content

I’ve often said that you need to logout of your account to see what YouTube really looks like, since that’s what the majority of viewers are seeing. Let’s look at one of last year’s last Archive.org homepage screen shots of YouTube, and compare it to today’s.

Some differences:

  • 2008 has lots of white space and simplicity like Google. Today’s homepage features a film ad that dominates almost the entire “above the fold” region.
  • The content featured on 2008’s page is mostly consumer-generated or amateur. Today it’s Crackle content and yesterday was FunnyorDie.
  • Last year’s page featured new functionality. Today’s features a “house-ad” for YouTube/Google’s store (watch out for those Lava lamps… they sometimes forget the logo).
  • The featured videos, like on Break.com, were new each day and remained constant. Today we see a variety of videos rotating, and many are popular amateur videos (mixed with some advertised content). We’ve shifted from homepage featuring to “mini-featuring” via “spotlight tagging.”
  • The biggest change is not evident on the homepage. Now the power-engine behind YouTube views is “related videos,” which can account for a significant portion of views.

Again, YouTube is behaving less like parent Google and more like Yahoo.com or a media company. Perhaps the price it can fetch for a homepage takeover is too tempting to resist. It’s a great way to get a film “top of mind” awareness to jump-start a weekend box offices, or a television debut (and I was especially impressed with V’s custom YouTube ad unit). And who can fault YouTube, which bears the bandwidth cost of so much unprofitable consumer-generated content to lure mainstream users with semi or pro content that can be better monetized?

Still, it’s remarkable what a difference a year can make. From where I sit, the biggest flaw in the user-interface is that it’s not entire inviting to visit the most-popular or genre-specific videos. One tends to use the homepage as a search engine, or be drawn to whatever thumbnail or title that happens to appear below the ad-du-jour.

I’ve suggested before that the day of the YouTube editor is behind us, because the sub-page featured videos don’t seem to garner significant views. However I’d suspect “spotlight” videos are driven not just by algorithms (most-viewed, longest average viewer duration, highest rated, related) but by editor preferences. If I’m right, the editors still have an active hand in deciding what YouTube amateurs find audiences. Interestingly we tend to see a few dozen of the same Partners with the most active rotation, which suggests editorial favor-ability or content favored by “crowdsourcing” as defined by the engineers.

YouTube 2008

youtube homepage 11/09

Hitler is Pissed About Oasis Breakup (parody video)

This is funny even if you know nothing about Oasis or its breakup.

Hitler’s reaction to the fact the band won’t tour Germany… One of the most viral videos according to Viral Video Chart.

“I simply could not go on working with Liam a day longer,’ posted Noel Gallagher on Oasis’ website a few hours after walking out on the band straight after the last of many violent clashes.” Bummer. This generation’s version of The Beatles… I can see why someone might think they wrote “The Walrus,” but don’t let Hitler know you’re confused.

Are You Directing Your Own Life?

Last night I had the pleasure of dining with Filmmaker Chris Barrett, actor Efron Ramirez (best known for his role as Pedro in Napoleon Dynamite), YouTube Comic EdBassmaster, and Barret’s Publicist partner. Barrett and Ramirez had spoken to a group of underprivileged highschool students in Camden, NJ yesterday afternoon, and were doing a media circuit for their new book “Direct Your Own Life.” (We shot this short comedic-like video after dinner that shows me dressing like Pedro and getting “caught” by Efron).

It was a motley crew, which is typical when online-video pulls together characters who wouldn’t likely meet otherwise. And Barrett’s publicist partner asked me where I was heading with the online-video gig. “Do you want to have your own television show?” she asked.

That question made me realize that we often act in our lives, but fail to direct them. The book’s jacket cover states that “too many people are losing faith in their dreams… (the book) helps you write your own life script,  assemble your team, and ultimately debut your dream.”

This got me reflecting on what motivates me in my atypical role as marketer by day and YouTube guy by night. I awakened thinking about some of the formative moments that led to where I am now… and whether I’m directing my life or a b-grade actor in someone else’s production.

  • I worked for 7 summers at PBS television station in New Orleans, and paid for my growing audio and video obsession by disk jockeying parties and videotaping weddings.
  • I attended Georgetown University, and was asked to be Marketing Director for the Georgetown Program Board. I got a taste of marketing and liked it. Meanwhile I watched Michael Eisner’s son (Breck) making films on campus, and I had the pleasure of doing a voiceover for “Alex of the Underground” (an allegory based loosely on Alice in Wonderland). I marveled at the energy of film making but didn’t see it as a safe bet… too many people chasing too few opportunities.
  • My first job after graduating from Georgetown was a short-lived internship at advertising agency Earl Palmer Brown, which forever burst my dream of being a traditional advertising executive. Over beers these agency veterans would urge me to find a different path than theirs. They found artistic passions at night, and suffered through thankless, mechanical work during the day.
  • Later I’d work for 9 months at a newspaper startup that produced excellent editorial at negative profit. Warren Rogers, who covered Kennedy as a journalist and wrote a book about Robert Kennedy, was the editor in chief of The Georgetown Courier, and he hired me for $16K a year. Rogers erected a symbolic white-picked fence that separated the editorial team from the advertisers. There would be no “advertorial” under Rogers’ guard. I eagerly covered any films being shot in Georgetown, and once got to interview Pierce Brosnan. The paper, of course, went belly-up because it couldn’t sell ads.
  • I was crushed. I had worked around the clock as an aspiring journalist, but the economics weren’t solid. So I decided to take fate into my own hands by applying to the best MBA school for entrepreneurship — Babson. Either I’d get in, or bag business school and roll the dice in filmmaking.  I got in.
  • Years later as I maried and my family grew, I chose the safer career of a marketer — working at interactive agencies, big-5 consulting, and for five years at Johnson & Johnson. Now two-plus years as a Product Director for a Fortune 100 firm. Marketing is interesting, but what keeps me energized is this online-video space, and how it’s inviting me to apply both my creative passion and my experience as a marketer.
  • Playwriter John Guare said at my graduation, “never get a job.” But then you find yourself with children to support and a mortgage. So you take the job, and seek whatever passion you can milk from your job and look after hours to keep the fire burning. Hey- it beats coming home and watching TV.

Now, of course, my passion for film and video are converging with my profession of marketing. Online video have lowered the “cost of entry” and blurred the lines between advertising and content. So while it’s still hard to answer the question, “where are you heading with this, Nalts?” I am having the time of my life. But am I directing, or am I a hired actor in someone else’s film? Worth some reflection for me, and probably all of us.

Zombies are Coming. Stay Inside or Go for the Car?

interactive zombie movieIf you’ve watched a few horror movies, and screamed “don’t go outside to check things out, you idiot!” then you might find this short interactive zombie film worth some time. It’s got some gore, though. So I warned you.

It’s called Survive the Outbreak, and you’ll make choices almost every minute — each leaving you dead or alive. So it’s hard to watch passively, and you find yourself feeling far more stressed than watching Dawn of the Dead after 8 Miller Lights.

I find several things interesting about it:

  • It’s well produced. If you live long enough, you’ll see some cinematic beauties– like overturned cars lit with eerie lighting effects.
  • It truly branches constantly. Typically these things branch briefly, and then the paths return so the creators don’t have hundreds of options to shoot. This is why I tried to stay in the house, assuming that budget would require us indoors (not to mention that I liked my odds inside).
  • While some of the acting was B grade at best, the effects, music and cinematography was unexpectedly professional.
  • I’d like to see more of these, and especially appreciate that the plot was brief (at least the way I survived, which took only about 5 deaths and do-overs.