FilmmakerIQ.com » Internet

Happy Birthday YouTube!

John P. Hess — Mon, 21 May 2012 19:39:52 +0000

YouTube turns 7 today. And now the statistic is 72 hours of video uploaded every ~~hour~~ minute.

I think this calls for one of those clip reels that we get at award shows.

Vampire Mob’s Joe Wilson: “No one can make a Viral Video”

John P. Hess — Wed, 04 Apr 2012 23:50:01 +0000

Filmmaker / Web Series Creator Joe Wilson (VAMPIRE MOB) shares his thoughts on the issues facing Web Series creators while encouraging us all to go out and tell our stories.

Vampire Mob is audience-funded. There is no network, no production company and no web site paying for us to make this story, we make it for our audience, “The VMob.”

Via FilmCourage

Viral Videos Vs. Evergreen Videos

John P. Hess — Thu, 08 Mar 2012 18:52:03 +0000

Creating viral videos is something a lot of people try to do, but creating evergreen videos that have on-going views instead of a flash-in-the-pan spike is perhaps more beneficial in the long-term.

Tim Schmoyer of ReelSEO talks with Kevin Nalty, affectionately known on YouTube as Nalts, about some of the differences between viral videos and evergreen videos.

How New Platforms, Streaming Media Change the Equation for Indie Filmmakers

John P. Hess — Fri, 24 Feb 2012 18:41:17 +0000

Amanda Lin Costa explores the new methods of distributing films and the myriad of strategies that filmmakers use to get their product to the masses.

Traditionally, there were three main types of distribution for the work of independent filmmakers: theatrical, broadcast and straight to DVD. Most filmmakers hoped for a combination of all three.

But everything has changed. The digital online world has opened up new avenues of distribution including video on demand, live streaming, and mobile and tablet applications.

Indie filmmakers are harnessing these digital forms of distribution to increase their audience and maintain control of their film, but the “how and where” their film is viewed, the financial recovery of production costs, and their eligibility for awards all factor into their choices.

“Every film has its own path,” said director Tiffany Shlain, remembering something she once heard that stuck.

Today, choosing that path is more complicated then ever.

PBS.org | Read the Full Article

The Internet Goes on Strike over SOPA, Productivity Skyrockets

Dennis — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 05:00:50 +0000

Now that it’s too cold to go camping on Wall Street, interwebs are abuzz with a new protest meme denouncing SOPA. This should not be confused with their decades long protest against soap.

If you’re reading this on Wednesday January 18, 2012 and you decide to head over to Wikipedia for a quick read up on the history of Gilligan’s Island you’ll be greeted with a black screen of protest. Or maybe you want to spend some quality time on Reddit or BoingBoing… nope, they’re black. Oh well, at least there’s always LOLcats at ICanHasCheezburgers…. wait… NO! In this world gone mad not even the Thai Food Blog is safe!!!!!

All these sites and others have pledged to conduct a one day internet shutdown as a symbolic protest over two bills that are making their way through the United States Congress. Apparently with complete disregard for the fact once you go black, you don’t go back.

As a way of joining in, all of our links within this article will go to the “dark sites” participating in the protest. After all, who needs to check facts during an internet protest. Just take our word that everything you read here is the gospel truth…

So what the hell is SOPA?

It is a winner take all fight to the death between Media Giants (MPAA, RIAA) vs Tech Giants (Google, Facebook). These bills, SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act) and PIPA (Protect IP Act) were designed to put a check to online piracy – a move that is very popular with organizations like the MPAA and RIAA who see people enjoying and sharing entertainment freely as the first sign of the apocalypse. But the bill, in its current state, grants to the government the power to block websites that not only host, but link to sites that illegally use copyright infringed work.

How the hell does it work?

Because it’s difficult for U.S. companies to take legal action against “rogue” foreign sites (like The Pirate Bay) SOPA’s aim is to cut off pirates ability to do business by requiring U.S. search engines, video hosts, advertising networks and other providers to not allow them to use their services. That would mean sites like Google couldn’t show flagged sites in their search results, and sites like PayPal couldn’t process payments for them. It would also mean sites like YouTube would go dark because user uploaded material that may violate copyright law.

These tactics where used to some degree to try and kill Wikileaks when Paypal, Visa, MasterCard, Amazon and others blocked them from using their services. That in turn lead to the group Anonymous to launch Operation Payback that snowballed into a wave of hacking attacks. The big deference being those where voluntary actions by service providers and they where not under any legal obligation to do so.

“Over the line!!!” – watch more funny videos

Why the hell should I care?

The bills are controversial because they would change the digital landscape if they became law and murder millions of kittens. It could mean the shut down of many user generated content sites and force them to enact dictatorial policing actions.

Google and Facebook, are known for never selling their user information to third parties (ahem!), are weighing in on this obtrusive action of the government calling it censorship. Yes, there is no shortage of irony:

But I digress….

You may be asking yourself, isn’t copyright infringement already illegal? Why yes it is. The way copyright enforcement currently works now is if a copyright holder sees an act of infringement, let’s say on Youtube, they can issue a DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act) Warning. The other side can protest this warning and use many of the legal copyright defenses (like fair use or parody). If they can’t come to terms, the matter can be taken to the courts. But this is only effective in sites based in the United States.

SOPA steps up the action by giving the government the power to shut down access to sites that infringe on copyright material. And the shut down is being done at the point of accusation, which means just the whiff of infringement could lead to a shut down.

SOPA’s critics say the bill’s backers just don’t understand the interwebs’ series of tubes, and therefore don’t appreciate the implications of the legislation.

When the hell does this go into effect?

In its current form most likely never. It was expected to fly through committee then on to approval in the House. But now after the interwebs went batshit, it’s being extensively “reworked.”

The White House said the original legislation’s technical provisions “suggests that they pose a real risk to cybersecurity,” and that it wouldn’t support legislation that mandates manipulating the Internet’s technical architecture.

House Majority Leader Eric Cantor has said SOPA won’t come up for a committee vote as-is.

They plan to resume revision of the bill in February and it likely is to last for months. That means the bill could change a lot from day to day. One thing is for sure, these giants will continue to fight it out for years to come, crushing us all in their wake.

Perhaps this time the Tech Firms have a valid points, but make no mistake neither side really cares about your freedoms. Especially when they conflict with profits.

How To Set Up Your Channel For The New YouTube Design

John P. Hess — Thu, 08 Dec 2011 09:10:52 +0000

The folks at ReelSEO share the backend of the new YouTube site including how they organized it to maximize social interaction and drive viewers.

10 Tips for Getting More Views on YouTube

John P. Hess — Tue, 04 Oct 2011 09:10:40 +0000

ReelSEO takes a look at the 10 best tips from the recently released YouTube Creator’s Playbook including regular posting and full use of tags.

To get the full YouTube Creator’s Playbook, click here.

Netflix spins off DVD division under new brand: Qwickster

John P. Hess — Mon, 19 Sep 2011 06:46:26 +0000

CEO Reed Hastings has had a public change of heart. Coming on the heels of a rather controversial price increase, Netflix is spinning off the DVD-by-mail division into a separate entity called “Qwickster” and adding video game options.

From the Netflix blog:

I messed up. I owe everyone an explanation.

It is clear from the feedback over the past two months that many members felt we lacked respect and humility in the way we announced the separation of DVD and streaming, and the price changes. That was certainly not our intent, and I offer my sincere apology. I’ll try to explain how this happened.

For the past five years, my greatest fear at Netflix has been that we wouldn’t make the leap from success in DVDs to success in streaming. Most companies that are great at something – like AOL dialup or Borders bookstores – do not become great at new things people want (streaming for us) because they are afraid to hurt their initial business. Eventually these companies realize their error of not focusing enough on the new thing, and then the company fights desperately and hopelessly to recover. Companies rarely die from moving too fast, and they frequently die from moving too slowly.

** Editorial Correction – the spelling of Netflix’s new company is Qwikster (no “c”). We apologize for the mispelling.

How to Reach a Million Views on YouTube

John P. Hess — Tue, 26 Jul 2011 09:00:36 +0000

In this five part series from Nino Film, screenwriter and director Gregor Schmidinger discusses how he got his YouTube film, “The Boy Next Door” to top 1 million views.

Part 1: The Set Up

During my third year at Salzburg University of Applied Sciences I had the chance to go to the US studying with the Department of Theatre and Film at Bowling Green State University, Ohio. The Boy Next Door was an in-class project for my Sync-Sound Production class. The assignment was to write five pages of script over Christmas brake, shooting them in spring semester of 2008.

Part 2: The Art of Filmmaking

Art is a bit like meditation. It has an atmosphere of mystery to it – but in the end, neither art nor meditation have to be mysterious. As a matter of fact, art and meditation seem to use similar concepts to achieve their effects – but one step at a time.

Part 3: Ancient Heritage

First of all, we‘ll have a look at the grand concept of compelling stories that Joseph Campbell, author of the famous book The Hero with a Thousand Faces, calls the monomyth. After that we have a look at Aristotle‘s three act structure and how I mapped The Boy Next Door onto it. So, let‘s dive into the ancient heritage of great drama and myths, that is not so ancient after all.

Part 4: Emotions and Meaning

Today I want to finish our excursion on story with a scientific look at the two core elements of a compelling stories – emotions and meaning. When we think of movies we usually think of an emotional experience. This seems pretty obvious. Usually we don‘t think so much about meaning but meaning is as equally important, propelling a story into new heights. If we combine both we get something that is even greater than its sum and it‘s called aesthetic emotion. But let‘s start with an evolutionary explanation of emotion and meaning in order do understand why emotional stories with meaning work so well in the first place.

Part 5: Talking Business

After a very artsy perspective on the topic of filmmaking, we jump right into the nuts and bolts of the business. My opinion is that the business aspects are as important as the story. There are a lot of great movies out there that most people won‘t hear about simply because they don‘t know how to reach their audience. And what use does an unseen movie have? Just to be clear, all the best business measures won’t turn a bad movie into a great one. We can experience that with a lot of Hollywood movies: Great trailer but disappointing movie. We are clearly not aiming for that.

The Future of Story

Dennis — Wed, 06 Jul 2011 09:10:55 +0000

Jeff Parkin, filmmaker and Associate Professor in the Department of Theatre and Media Arts, Brigham Young University, discusses the power of transmedia stories in reaching wide audiences and his experiences in creating the Webby Award honored webseries, The Book of Jer3miah.