video 2 zero

Best documentaries of 2008

peter — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 16:29:12 +0000

Third Place - Man on Wire. In 1974 Philippe Petit defies police, gravity and all concerns of self-preservation to spend 45 minutes dancing on a wire suspended between the twin towers of the WTC. All accomplished with the unstinting support of his childhood sweetheart and a coterie of devoted friends. Task accomplished Philippe promptly abandons the amis who have supported him through the years and years of preparations. Rather than celebrating with his collaborateurs Phillippe slinks off to party in the boudoir of a NY socialte/groupie. “It was bee-yoo-ti-ful” he explains.

Standout character was the NY City insurance commissioner who provided the team with fake IDs to enter the WTC. A truly strange character, who calls to mind an image of what Frank Zappa might have looked like if he’d chosen to be a pimp rather than a musician. (more…)

Who let the big dogs out?

peter — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 15:15:29 +0000

While US newspaper industry continues it’s foolish game of footsie matching 4th rate video content with the “people previously known as the audience”, the people previously known as the newsmakers are joining the people previously known as the advertisers in taking matters into their own hands.

Corporate marketers now spend over 2 thirds of their online ad budgets on their own websites. 2008 will go down as the year that everyone from high school sports teams, ski areas, police departments, airports learned that they could distribute content without middlemen.

Now the Israeli Defence force has jumped on the bandwagon, they have launched a channel on YouTube to show their side of the attacks on the Gaza strip, no middleman needed.

2009 is going top be a landmark year for savvy video producers and in house media mavens. If current trends continue over 90% of corporations will be producing video by the end of the year.

[UPDATE] Media consultant Terry Heaton picks up on the theme “that advertisers don’t need media companies anymore“, noting that Walmart’s website has more traffic than the two largest US newspapers combined, concluding:

The point is that Wal-Mart is a media site in that it sells its reach to advertisers, a reach that vastly exceeds two of the top newspaper sites in the world. This is why I keep harping on everybody that the future for local media companies lies beyond their own walled garden websites, and those who refuse to hear that (like, everybody) are sprinting to the tar pits.

Ideal length for web video

peter — Sat, 13 Dec 2008 23:02:40 +0000

“For a two-week period, we measured viewed-seconds for a sample of 188,055 videos, totaling 22,724,606 streams, on six top video sites (due to partnership limitations, we cannot disclose which sites). Limitations of this approach include the fact that we are only studying short-form content….YouTube was not included (although many of the videos in the sample mirror identical videos on YouTube).“ tubemogul

Nothing too surprising about the numbers. They seem to support the notion that “shorter videos work better on the web”. But that conclusion depends on us using a metric that is based upon “complete views”. If we count only viewers who watch the entire video then a shorter video will always have “more viewers”. To retain even half the viewers the video has to be under a minute - 30 seconds would be even better.

But supposing we add another metric - say “minutes watched”.

Going from the chart:

1000 people watch a one minute video, 464 are likely to finish - minutes watched 464

1000 people watch a two minute video, 237 are likely to finish - minutes watched 474

for a 3 minute video - 484 minutes

for a 5 minute video - 471 minutes watched

for a 30 second video - only 330 minutes

Ideal run-time for web video 2.5 - 4 minutes.

Passionate productions - video that works

peter — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 17:26:45 +0000

A few month’s back I mentioned that a low budget documentary from Passionate Productions seemed set to transform the world of dog-breeding.

Today the cause received a major boost: The BBC announced it will not be showing the Crufts dog show next year, for the first time in 40 years. Despite regularly drawing 12 million viewers, the Kennel Club has so far been unable to interest any other major UK network. (more…)

Bad week for user-generated video

peter — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 04:10:30 +0000

AOL, current.tv. Brightcove and Youtube jump ship.

[UPDATE 12/2] Expect the stampede away from user-generated video to accelerate: According to he IAB’s Randall Rothenberg in this week’s Economist user-generated content is a major obstacle to monetization:

The lesson appears to be that the problem was not the format but the fact that so much of the footage online, especially on YouTube, is “user-generated”. Brands are wary of putting their ads next to amateur clips because they may be boring or offensive.” via onlinevideowatch (more…)

DSLR video - underwhelmed

peter — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 21:55:16 +0000

A month ago I seemed to be almost alone in expressing a distinct lack of excitement over the video capabilities of the new DSLRs from Canon and Sony. Stu Maschwitz nails it: (more…)

YouTube: committed to quality

peter — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 17:52:18 +0000

David Eun VP of Google/YouTube talking yesterday at the VideoNuze breakfast panel in NYC

“…about the “head” and the “tail” of Chris Anderson’s “long tail” model. He said that in between the two (basically, between big hits and narrowly-focused content that appeals to a tiny audience), there’s a “torso”: high-quality specialty niche programming. “That’s what drove cable TV,” Eun said, “and that will be a sweet spot for Internet video.”

- Eun urged the audience to try not to define what “good” is. Viewers don’t care what professional programmers and cable execs think is good; sometimes they’re happy to watch dogs on skateboards. Thinking narrowly about what “good” programming is can be limiting.” cinematech

Context is King Week

peter — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 18:01:50 +0000

Following up on the Context is King follow-up:

Further proof that with 25c and killer content, you’re only $3 short of the price of a tall latte. This time from the Digital Publishing and Advertising Conference: (more…)

ABC news to PR: you write it, we’ll run it

peter — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 16:38:52 +0000

Jessica Guff, executive producer of ABC News Now and a veteran of ABC News, explains the new paradigm to PR honcho Richard Edelman:

PR people must pitch stories differently. Specifically, she said we need to offer fully formed four minute segments, with visuals, spokespeople and news hook all conceived. “Don’t just send me a pitch letter or a book which requires me to put together the piece. Economic pressures mean we are short staffed so we will respond better to something that is fully formed.” 6 a.m

Great news for commercial video producers.

Context is King revisited - 3 more rules

peter — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 00:49:56 +0000

Following up on Context is King below - this from Philip Trippenbach’s Three Rules for Online Video:

The 3 rules: Simplicity, Authenticity, Currency.

And the greatest of these is Authenticity: The BBC know this, but it certainly doesn’t hurt to be reminded.

(more…)