We here at Word Wizards, Inc. love social media because it provides us with a great way to reach out to our customers besides the traditional e-mails and phone—which is so 20th century.  One of its strengths is the ability to reach out to so many by giving professionals of all types, and especially video professionals, multiple outlets to show their work and even make some money. The question then becomes, how do we effectively monetize our work and videos and build a successful video network? These exact questions were the focus of a recent TIVA meeting, where Richard Harrington guided us through the many layers of the web, and laid out the best steps to follow when building a prominent presence in the world of Facebook, Youtube and Twitter (among others).

Hypersyndication

Richard calls his method “hypersyndication.” It is his way of getting videos to the most people on the web, using a varied number of social media outlets to reach different audiences. The main steps he follows to hypersyndicate his work are listen, follow, curate, become known, and create original content. You start by listening and seeing what’s out there and seeing what kind of programming or content is being offered on the web. The next step is to follow other people who are doing the type of videos or programming that you’re doing, so you can see what he or she is contributing. As Richard pointed out, don’t necessarily think of these people as competition, since you may end up actually working with them in some way in the future. The next step is to curate where one goes through his or her range of work and really narrows down what he or she would like to share. For example, Richard collected several stories that he wanted to share on his blog. An important step is to become known and gain a reputation as an expert on a subject because if no one knows you, why would they care if you put out a bunch of videos? You then create the original content and start to put it out on the web.

Getting You Work Out There

So now you may be thinking, great so I just have to put it out on a bunch of channels like Youtube, Facebook and Twitter at once and I’m set. Not so fast, there’s a very important strategy that you’ll want to follow when getting your work out there. Its important not to oversaturate or send your work out to all the same places at the same time. If you do this, you really are limiting the amount of people you’ll hit since people are on social media at different times. The best way to reach these different audiences is to send out messages or posts about your work at different times. This is where Hootsuite, a fantastic social media manager, comes into play. Not only does it help you manage all your social media feeds in one place, it also allows you to schedule when your posts go out.

Metrics, Analytics and RSS Feeds

Twitterfeed is another useful site that lets you send posts and your work to a variety of different channels like hootsuite. Another incredibly useful feature that both of these sites share, is the ability to use metrics and actually track how many people are seeing your feeds. Using analytics and a variety of graphs you can see such things such as what devices people are using to view your content, where they are viewing from, how many times he is clicking on your work and what key word she is typing that lead them to your work. Another important thing most people should know about is RSS Feeds which are a type of web syndication used to publish frequently updated works such as blogs and websites. Readers can subscribe to these feeds and keep getting updated on new stories and content through software known as an RSS reader which is usually offered on most rss pages. Some well know web sites that use RSS include Apple and The New York Times.

Power of Mobile and Good Places For Your Work

As Richard pointed out the majority of online video content is now viewed on smart phones, tablets or e-readers so its good to make sure your work can be viewed on all platforms especially mobile ones. Richard’s follows these simple steps to delivering mobile video: plan, produce, distribute, promote and then try to monetize which is an optional step. As far as producing original content and getting it out there, you don’t need high production values but you do need good, engaging content that people will want to keep coming back to. The optimal schedule to follow is to get a video out at least once a week. Some people put videos out as much as three times a week, which can be a lot for a viewers to keep up with. Two sites that are particularly good for video include Blip.tv and Vimeo Pro. Blip.tv is an especially great site for web series as it really makes an effort to work with you and push your series to help it get attention. Vimeo Pro is also very good because they make sure your videos can be viewed in a variety of formats and devices, especially mobile ones that so many people use today.

Podcasting and More Info.

Podcasting, where you create digital media than you can then send out to be viewed on mobile video players, is another useful way to get yourself out there. Listeners and viewers can subscribe to your podcasts via an RSS feed and watch them whenever and where they’d like. Two sites that are great for launching podcasts are Podhoster and  Libsyn. Podcasting is great way to easily get your content out to an audience that probably wouldn’t see it and is very much on the cutting edge. I’ve only scratched about half of all the great advice from Richard, so please to feel free to check out his blog at richardharringtonblog.com and his hypersyndication video, which goes into even greater detail about the topics that are covered here.

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The Beauty Of Social Media

As I’ve said quite a few times in this blog, one of the best things about social media and the way it’s changed the nature of business is the relationships that it sets up. Gone are the days where customers could only get messages to their favorite brands via old snail mail or by telephone. Today people just have to pick up a smart phone and an endless number of social media channels become available for a message. They can go right onto a brand’s own Facebook, Twitter or Youtube page and get their voices heard. With this new freedom of expression however, brands and businesses now must be wary, since their fans can just as easily use these channels to complain or spew something negative. This is the importance of how relationships, and more specifically, two-way relationships, come into play and how social media can sometimes backfire no matter what business you’re in. While perusing Mahsable, I came upon this article that showed some great examples.

The Good, The Bad and The Ugly

Some shining examples of a good two-way conversation include  a person who went on a JetBlue flight and then tweeted how much he enjoyed it, to which JetBlue tweeted back, “Great, does this mean we’ll see you again?” Another great example includes someone who tweeted that there was only one Oreo left in her bag and she didn’t want to be the one to eat it. Nabisco’s @Oreo tweeted back and just told her, “Go for it!!!”

While these might seem like silly examples, they underscore an extremely important point. Everyone who has an online brand, whether a big business, local production house, or even a freelancer, wants to build that human touch. Of course there have been a few ways that social media relationships have backfired on bigger companies. McDonald’s used a new hashtag on Twitter to promote positive stories customers had the at the famous chain. Instead, people used it to share their horror stories from the restaurant. One other example comes from England, where Snickers paid celebrities to tweet pictures of themselves eating the candy bar. The UK’s Office of Fair Trading investigated the ads, since companies are required to specifically spell out when a product is being endorsed.

Laying A Foundation For That Two-Way Conversation

Corporations today try use social media to build a personal relationship with their audience, which is what they should be doing—and so should you. Personification is truly the name of the game here. Your customers should always feel like you have their back and that there is genuine give and take in the relationship. While you may not be a huge corporation with millions or billions of dollars to throw around, you still want to make sure you have a positive presence online. If you put something out there and someone comments on it, you should respond even if it’s a negative comment. Your aim should be to make these interactions as natural as possible and show that you care.

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Just A Weekend

As most of us know creating a film, even a short film, weather it’s a documentary or something more fictional, takes a lot of time. First you have come up with a concept, get funding somehow, get a crew, shoot the production and then edit and do the rest of post-production. This whole process usually takes a minimum of several months, if not years, for some of the most basic films. Now, imagine trying to do an entire short film, from conception to post-production all in one 48-hour span of time. That is the challenge of the 48 Hour Film Project, where teams have just two days to create an entire story using just a prop, theme and line of dialogue. DC’s annual 48-hour film project was the weekend of May 5th and with other 48-hour film projects taking place across the globe on various other dates.

A Humble Beginning

The Project got its start in May, 2001 when local filmmaker Mark Ruppert came up with the idea to have an experimental competition where teams would have to make a complete short film in 48 hours. He enlisted his film-making partner Liz Langston and several small teams who thought  the idea sounded fun and challenging. Today the project takes place in more than 120 cities around the world, such as Las Vegas, Chicago, Rome and Beijing, and involves many teams, who altogether make up more than 60,000 thousand people. The smallest team was one man who set up a camera and then was in the film, and the largest group was a team from Albuquerque with 116 people and 30 horses.

It’s All About Action

The mission of the Project is refreshingly simple: don’t think, just do!!! The very short time limit encourages creativity and teamwork skills and spurs people to give it their all. It’s through this intense process that the creators of the project hope to promote filmmakers and advance filmmaking. Personally, as someone who worked on a team for DC 48 hour film project on May 5th, I can attest just how challenging and chaotic the process can be. It takes a lot of patience and nerve to make it through one of these films—and a true passion for film—to consistently come back to the project year after year.

The Process and Prizes

There are a few guidelines that filmmakers have to follow when making their short film. At the Friday party that kicks off the project, each team is randomly assigned a theme, a line and prop that must appear in their short film. Apart from those specifications, they make whatever type of piece they want. The finished pieces need to be complete two days later, that Sunday by 7 pm at a drop off party. The following weekend, the films are screened at AFI Silver Theater in Silver Spring over the course of four nights. There are prizes for films that are voted the best and these prizes include best writing, best director and best editing among others. There’s a also an international grand prize which nets the winner $5,000. Ten of the best films of the 2013 tour are going to be screened at the Cannes Film Festival’s Short Film Corner in 2014.

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The Fab Five

Since Word Wizards, Inc. often deals with new technology, we definitely know how it changes quickly, especially in the realm of video production. While the video production community in DC is incredibly talented and forms an amazingly supportive community, we are also dependent on the equipment we use. It’s not easy to keep track of the latest cameras and camera technology  with so many different camera models to choose from at a variety of prices. Recently, TIVA held a panel at Henninger Media to give people an inside look at some of the different models on the market, and some advice from five very experienced cameramen and DPs who use them every day. This fab five consisted of Jim Ball, Nate Clapp, Alex Ibrahim, Don Lampasone , and Alex Guckert.

Lens is Main Priority

They brought a wide variety of models with them for display. These included models like the Canon 7D DSLR, a basic model that retails for $1,500 all the way up to the Sony F3 35mm digital camera, shown at the top of the article, that costs $14,000. While the panelists said you should look at camera models depending on your needs, they all agreed the lens should be the main investment with the actual camera more of an afterthought. If possible you should try to get a lens that will last and is flexible enough to work with a variety of different camera models. While new camera models come out every couple of years because of new tech, lens tend to stay the same. Sanyo and Rokinon are companies that make cheap and mildly reliable lenses. Another option is Zeiss, who sell very nice but more expensive lenses.

DSLR vs. Cinema Cameras

The conversation then moved onto a debate between digital single-lens reflex cameras, a.k.a. DSLRs, and movie cameras. DSLRs are able to take both still photography as well as video with the cinema very comparable to more dedicated video. Many in the video industry like SLRs because they have these dual capabilities and are often able to pay for themselves quickly  because they’re so versatile. One concern about DSLRs is that you often have to shoot and then darken the image yourself because of the exposure. However, if your shooting in low light, then DSLRs excel because of their low light sensors. In fact another reason DSLRs are so well liked is because they tend to have larger, more powerful light sensors that give a narrower depth of field, making it easier to isolate the subject and give it a more “filmatic” look. The bottom line is that you should get a camera that suits your needs and fits your work, whether you’re shooting documentaries and “talking heads” footage, or something more action oriented.

Standout cameras

There were four cameras that were standouts to the panelists and were especially liked for their capabilities. One was the Canon C100, a cinema camera that at $5,500 is moderately priced and is well liked for its compatibility and powerful super-35mm sensor. As far as DSLRs go, one of the top picks was the Black Magic 2.5K, shown above, that goes for about $3,000—although it should be noted that you need a .5-millimeter lens to really make the camera shine.

The Sony FS-700, is a very well liked and versatile camera that may be a bit on the pricier side at $7,500, but has some great qualities, like beautiful slow-motion capture, does action scenes well, and will record it so the footage is ready to edit immediately after you’re done shooting. The fourth and final pick was the Sony F3, which at $14,000 is not a small investment. But the camera is considered to be very versatile and comes with a PL-mount adaptor that makes it compatible with any PL-mount cinematic lense.

Try Before You Buy

Of course, you really should get the one that can best handle the type of work you do, and its good to keep in mind that accessories will often outlast the camera, so go for quality. A good way to test out a camera before you make that big splurge is to rent one and use it on a production to really get a feel for the model. This not only saves you the frustration of buying a model and finding out you hate it, it allows you to try out several different models in a cost-effective way. Camera Rental places, like DC Camera. are great places from which to rent and ask questions. Most cameras are good for renting and shouldn’t be too complicated to someone with at least a little camera experience. There are some cameras, such as the Red Epic Cameras, which cost upwards of $50,000 and is not the kind of model you should just rent unless you have experience with it. When you finally are ready to pluck down your hard-earned cash for the big buy, a used camera can be a smart way to go, since people may be eager to unload the “three” model if the “five” just came out.

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Talent on Hand

Recently at Resolution Post, TIVA held an informative and interesting panel about 3D graphics and animation. The panel’s main speakers were Scott Stewart, owner and creative director at Resolution Post, Robert Cloutier from Digital History Studios,  and Christian Flores from Beatmap Animation. Some of the topics that were discussed included what types of software they utilized for work, how much painstaking effort goes into creating these animations, the budgets that many people don’t think about as well as what type of plugins they liked using. They also discussed the important relationship between 3D artist and producers, among other topics.

Tools of the Trade

One of the main points stressed was that if people are interested in animation, there are a number of online tutorials available. Some of the places to look for these include Animation Arena which has free articles, as well as Web Reference. Two other good options are Lynda.com, and Digital Tutors, although it should be noted that both of these require a monthly subscription to access their content. Visiting these sites should help the curious see the insane amount of work and talent that goes into creating this eye-popping art form. For example, in some renderings, it takes 20–40 hours to do a frame with most renderings, usually having dozens of frames. Some of the software that the presenters use include Panorama Studio Pro, and Cinema 4D.

Ins and Outs of 3D Animation

Also stressed was just how vital and important collaboration is between the animators and producers. While this may sound like simple advice, it’s still one worth mentioning, since the producer should know what the animator is capable of so expectations are reasonable. Animation is an incredibly expensive art form and all the presenters agreed that many people don’t realize just how much money it can cost.

Another topic was animation teams, the size of which can sometimes include a dozen—or dozens—of people with junior and senior positions, depending on the scale of the project.  There are also some artists like Robert Cloutier who work entirely by themselves and very much prefer it that way. The way most animators begin a project is to create story boards, pre-visualization models and different camera passes that they show to clients before they actually start working, to make sure everyone is on the same page.

How is Animation Utilized?

The presenters also showed how their work showed up in a variety of places. Adrian Flores showed how his company, Beatmap Animation, uses 3D Animation to create 3D walkthroughs for architecture companies of buildings on which the firms working. They created the concept for the video, used location photos in the animation and had an actress ”walk through” the animated tour by using a green screen in studio.

Robert Cloutier has had a very illustrious career in the field of animation and video games which includes working on well-known PC titles such as Civilization 4. He also has been working on creating 3D virtual history tours, which give viewers incredibly immersive looks at historical places like a World War 1 trench using 3D Animation.

Finally, Scott Stewart and Resolution Post have worked on a number of commercials that utilize animation as well as very impressive spots for the US Navy, and other government agencies.

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