Who is the practitioner (what is their name?) and when were they practicing?
The chosen practitioner for this week is Casey Neistat, an American based Youtuber, filmmaker, vlogger and entrepreneur. I’ve decided to focus on Neistat this week as he always goes against the grain and this is evidently shown through his videos. Neistat first gained widespread popularity in 2003 with this three minute film titled ‘Ipod’s Dirty Secret’; a video exposing Apple for not having a battery replacement program in place for their products. Since then, he is famously known as one of the rare few YouTube personalities that openly expresses how he feels about mainstream issues and brands and executes said thoughts in the most innovative ways.
What is the title of the video you have chosen to analyse?
The video is entitled ‘Make it Count’. The active-wear brand Nike approached Casey Neistat to promote their FuelBand fitness tracker and showcase what it means to #MakeitCount. Neistat took a completely unorthodox route in promoting the product by utilising the budget for this campaign to travel to as many places as possible until the given budget runs out.
With the video you are examining when was it produced (date)?
The video was first published onto his YouTube channel on 9 April 2012.
How was the video authored?
The video was shot with a Canon EOS 80D DSLR; a common choice of camera for vlogging. The video contained an array of sharp cut scenes of Neistat and his friend/editor Max Joseph trotting around the globe to reinforce the slogan of Making Things Count. At the beginning of the video, Neistat nonchalantly points at the Nike slogan branded on the FuelBand fitness tracker he was paid to promote (this being the only creative element Nike had control over) (Fast Company, 2018). He provides a brief written explanation to provide context to the video. To accompany the travel shots, Neistat weaves famous motivational quotes and embeds it within shots to add to the overall aesthetic. The video encompasses a mixture of traditional vlog footage with Neistat talking directly to the camera in addition with artistic shots of different locations around the world. Neistat deliberately cut scenes of him running across the screen in different countries and combined it to produce a seamless video like so:
“My vision for it was forget about what Nike is, forget about sneakers, forget everything; what does ‘make it count’ mean to me? And what it means to me is take a huge chance.” – Casey Neistat on his #MakeItCount video. (Fast Company, 2018)
How was the video published?
The video was first published to Neistat’s YouTube channel, where it has been viewed over 28 million times by individuals across the globe. It has sparked over 12 thousand comments with encourages the YouTube community to discuss and comment on the video.
How was the video distributed?
After the initial distribution on his YouTube channel, the video was then redistributed and promoted through news articles, social media shares and overall word of mouth referrals through the websphere.
This is a common trend with modern day videos as “Online video has been transformed from an expensive to distribute media-form to one which can be networked, shared, downloaded and re-used with ease” (Berry, 2018). In addition to this, Neistat often captures screen grabs of his YouTube videos to provide teasers for his Instagram platform. The affordances of Instagram allows him to reach a wider audience that he may not necessarily reach solely through his YouTube channel. It also allows fans of his work to keep up to date with his day to day life through his Instagram stories and updates. All in all, Neistat videos allows fans a personal look into his life as “video has become every person’s point of view” (Sherman).
References
- Berry, Trine Bjorkmann. ‘Situating Videoblogging’. Videoblogging before YouTube, Institute of Network Cultures, 2018, pp. 9–22, http://networkcultures.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/Videoblogging-Before-YouTube-web.pdf.
- Sherman, Tom. “Vernacular Video.” Video Vortex Reader: Responses to Youtube. Ed. Geert Lovink & Sabine Niederer. Amsterdam: XS4All. 161–68. Print.
- Fast Company. (2018). How Director Casey Neistat Went Rogue With Nike’s New Ad. [online] Available at: https://www.fastcompany.com/1680524/how-director-casey-neistat-went-rogue-with-nikes-new-ad [Accessed 10 Sep. 2018].