Its Everybody's Business

We gotta Stick Together

Tag: rmit media (page 1 of 2)

Ch-ch-ch-changes

So, it turns out that the revisions to script 4 were not received too well – and I can understand why. Firstly, the final script is quite far removed from the original concept that we had penned in class. Although there is reason for most of the changes, it does seem that group members who had originally had quite a lot of their work in the script, were suddenly left wondering where it all went. Even though we thought we had concluded that we would be passing the script on to each other for edits, I don’t think anybody expected there to be such drastic changes.  Our group was hoping to consult in order to ensure that there would not be such drastic changes, however, because we were receiving feedback at such a fast pace, it made it very difficult for us to keep our groups views all aligned.

In terms of resolution to this issue, I think the best bet is to detach from the outcome and just allow whatever makes the most people happy to go ahead. I come to this conclusion based on the fact that this is the last script, once it is resolved there will be no need to discuss the issue further. That being said I do acknowledge that if this was a multiple season show, there would certainly need to be drastic adjustments made to the collaborative process.

Pohate-o for the Potato

As with every professional engagement, being a content creator on youtube comes with its workplace hazards – In this case. Trolls. Over the years I’ve become accustomed to receiving not-so-positive comments, and have started to enjoy the creativity and often hilariousity of them. Last week this gem popped up under one of my videos:


Screen Shot 2016-05-08 at 10.39.52 AM

Ouch, well, this leaves a bad taste in my mouth… In situations like this I cant help but laugh, In a way i feel complimented. Some person somewhere in the world has actually sat down, watched my video, logged in to youtube, thought about a comment, and responded to me, just to tell me how much they hated my video. I appreciate that.

Sometimes Ive felt so loved that I felt obliged to reply to the troll:
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Sadly, In these situations their initial creativity disappears and they often dont respond as viciously. Either way, its never a boring conversation.

I suppose what im trying to say is, people often ask me if the hate bothers me. I reply “not really, Ive gotten used to it, in fact I find it quite amusing”

Iv’e Been Thinking

Despite all the experimentation that has been happening on my youtube channel, one thing that ive always really wanted to maintain is uplifting content. I want to make people think and be entertained at the same time. Thats why I started the “Ive been thinking” series:

Here are the first four episodes:

It will be interesting to see how my audience reacts, considering they are used to comedy content from me.

Rockumentary

Disclaimer: the title has nothing to do with this post. But I was intrigued that my computers autocorrect did not have the word Mockumentary in it, however it did recognised rockumentary. Das messed up.

So there have been some interesting developments with Sketchy Students. Originally we intended for the show to be a mockumentary, however it seems that it has drifted more into the realm of sketch comedy. Originally when the idea was pitched it was going to be done with all of the major mockumentary tropes. Like crash zooms, looking at camera and talking heads (piece to Camera, Mark later corrected us). However, now that the trailer is released and we are moving at towards episode 1, it has become evident that we are going to need to move away from mockumentary. We decided therefore that we would do sketch comedy that uses mockumentary tropes. This allows us to use the piece to camera when it is appropriate and does not interrupt the flow, however we can also not use it if we feel its becoming distracting. This has made members of the writing team slightly uncomfortable, as most of us are quite familiar with the mockumentary format. However, win some loose some. Life goes on.

They See Me Role ing.

Today was the day that the writing team felt really professional, before class started we all met up and had a ‘writing meeting’. Before class started we started discussing our roles and the collaborative contract. We decided that each individual would have a specific role to play. For example, I am the ‘literary coordinator’ this means that I organise all of the material that is being shared online. For example script drafts, character profiles and ideas. When they get posted I round them up and save them into a central location.

After we finished the meeting we presented our group to the class, the presentation went well, however I did not hear the feedback as I had to run to work. It was probably the worst bail our from class that has ever been seen by any lecturer ever. I ran out from MY OWN groups presentation and got onto the train in about 4 minutes. Respect.

However, it felt like a successful presentation, as we were able to have the face to face meeting before hand and really organise ourselves. We now have a designated: story board generator, literary coordinator, editor, team leader and production consultant. The slide can be seen here:Screen Shot 2016-05-28 at 8.26.42 PM

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Having our very official looking meeting

Well that was Unexpected.

Lets start by taking a look at this classic clip from the 1992 film “Strictly Ballroom”, as it very much summaries my experience with my newfound writing team.

“That WAS unexpected” was what I thought when I found out that Dylan was not in the writing team, after pitching his idea to me last week, he had told me on Tuesday night that the class had quite liked the idea and that they were willing to go ahead with it. Thus, I had figured he would be in the writing team with me. Hes not… does that mean that I will be needing to uphold his vision? Well, i guess not really, its not exactly one persons vision anymore, now its teambiz.

During the class we got together and discussed writing, interestingly, there is a program called celtx, which is a free script writing program. Michael has used it before and will be willing to write the scripts with it this time around. Exciting. I personally am going to learn how to use the program for my own purposes, because I think its going to be a very useful skill. It seems to be a fairly solid and creative team, I reckon this is going to be fun.

Neyah, Whats up Doc.

Today was an interesting day, I went in for a medical test, but it turned out that I had not followed the necessary pre-test procedure, so I really only missed class.

Meanwhile, back in the halls of RMIT, our next project was being discussed, groups were being assigned and destiny was being decided.

I got onto the writing team – what? Usually I’m on production or something, but suddenly this time I’ve been assigned to writing, looks like I wont have to touch a single camera! or edit a single timeline. This could work. At first I was slightly put out by the situation, but then I decided it was better, because I have been hoping to get into writing a bit more, and now I basically get to write a mocko. Mockumentary (gettit?)

I guess it makes sense why i’m on the writing team, as Dylan had mentioned the idea of a show to me earlier this week, it makes sense that he pushed for me to be on the writing team, because i kinda knew what he was envisioning, i guess hes going to be on the writing team as well… this should be fun!

Finding My Voice – Audience of Jrnwfire

Over the past seven years I have been uploading videos to a youtube channel known as ‘Jordan Raj’ (formerly Jrnwfire). Throughout this time I have uploaded around 130 videos, with all sorts of random content and genres. This has been a sort of journScreen Shot 2016-05-08 at 2.24.05 PMey, not only of self discovery but also an endeavour to understand and taylor content to a specific audience. The following exploration aims to outline the learnings I have obtained but also reflect on the future of Jordan Raj and where I can take it from here.

 

Firstly, I would like to outline the limitations of my exploration. I will only be looking at my particular audience, this is because I have very detailed statistics specifically on my own audience. Furthermore, I am making assumptions based on very sporadic and inconsistent content, which is only really characteristic of my own individual case. However, in order to validate my claims i will be looking at the information gathered in the context of further research, such as what makes a video viral and what makes an audience engage.

Now that I have established what my limitations are, its time to begin, who is my audience. The best way to answer this question is to look at my youtube analytics:

Screen Shot 2016-05-08 at 2.25.45 PM

Here i’m choosing to look at the statistics for the lifetime of my channel, therefore im capturing the most general overview of the audience. From simply looking at this basic statistic it it is blaringly evident that the majority of my audience is male. This alone however is not enough information, luckily youtube offers me more:

Screen Shot 2016-05-08 at 2.26.41 PM

From this further information we can identify my audience as mainly male and located in the United States. However, there is a very important piece of information which needs to be considered; 41% of my views have come from a single video.

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The video titled “How to Money from Vending Machines” has received 140,000 views, and has mainly been found through the “Youtube Search” or “Direct sources”. This video is intended to be a light parody of our vending machine habits, however it is evident from some of the statistics that this is NOT what the audience expected from the title. It has quite a low audience retention and an overwhelming number of dislikes:

Screen Shot 2016-05-08 at 2.28.32 PMScreen Shot 2016-05-08 at 2.29.25 PM

It is quite clear that in this case I have attracted the wrong auience. Regardless, I have gained a valuable insight; title is important. This is an assumption which further proves to be true when we look at the second most viewed video, “BEST PUNS EVER – Vine Compilation”. This video is responsible for 16% of all my channel views and has arguably the best title, it is accurate to name and entices a click from the audience. Unlike the previous video it actually has a significantly higher retention rate and much more positive feedback:

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Screen Shot 2016-05-08 at 2.30.44 PM This video would have to be my most successful video, simply because the intent aligned with the results. Yes, I have other videos that people have found interesting, but this one seems to stand alone in terms of original intent to success ratio. By this I mean the video was made as a comedy, and the positive feedback suggests that is getting viewed by people who want to enjoy it as a comedy. Thus at this point I would like to discuss what makes a video go viral and what makes it popular, I’m looking at any possible correlation between the success of the puns video and the results from the following study:

 

Guadagno, Rosanna E. et al. ‘What Makes A Video Go Viral? An Analysis Of Emotional Contagion And Internet Memes’. Computers in Human Behavior 29.6 (2013): 2312-2319. Web.

 

The above is a published study that aimed to mathematically analyze the factors which determine a videos ‘shareability’ or what causes a video to go viral. The central hypothesis suggested that the video would be shared more if it created an emotional impact on the audience. Within the scope of emotional impact it also suggested that a video conveying positive emotions was more likely to be shared than one conveying anger or disgust. In order to conduct this study a number of videos were selected and then showed to a sample of undergraduate students. The students were then to give a quantitative answer on how likely they were to share the video. Not surprisingly the hypothesis was in fact proven, people tended to share videos that had a positive emotional response.

This hypothesis does agree with the idea that a comedy video would receive a positive response, however it does not directly address the idea of audience retention or engagement. Regardless i feel it is safe to assume that if a video is creating a positive emotional response people would be more likely to maintain interaction. Likewise, if their expectations, which they may have gained from the title, are being fulfilled they would not feel cheated and click out.

It is also worth noting that the audience for the study were undergraduate students, lets reffer to the audience age of the puns video:

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Unsurprisingly the majority of the audience is university age, between 18-24. This is also the age of the students being surveyed for the above study, allowing our assumptions to be more accurate. Certainly the emotional response is one very important factor in what makes a video have high response rate. However the actual personality and mindset of the viewer needs to be considered; their personal susceptibility etc.. Additionally conducting a study and presenting viewers with media is very different to the way that they would otherwise organically receive it. Overall, the idea that emotional connection with a video directly links to its shareability was a very valid and worthwhile investigation, however in order for this research to be applied there needs to be consideration of many different factors. For example, the expectation and means by which they are recieving content.

 

One way in which the youtube audience in specific responds to this phenomena is by creating subscribers. Subscribers are those that commit to receiving your content when you release more and are constantly kept up to date with your news. By employing this system one ensurees that the audience that they are delivering to has an expectation, based on previous content and familiarlity with a channels personality and style. Over time this has a two-fold effect; the audience becomes more loyal and consistent, with a relationship being formed, and secondly, the content creator starts to curate for the expected audience. The following study on predicting audience gender speaks to this idea:

 

Predicting audience gender in online content-sharing social networks

Xiao, Chunjing ; Zhou, Fan ; Xiao, Chunjing ; Zhou, Fan ; Wu, Yue

Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, June 2013, Vol.64(6), pp.1284-1297

 

The above article focused on a study that aimed to measure the accuracy of different prediction methods to determine the gender of an audience. The method involved comparing early audience and late audience as well as the trend of gender for a particular media content creator. It was found that the more content a creator had produced the more accurately gender could be predicted. The main use of this study would be to optimize searches and advertising. However, it is useful in the sense that it can provide content creators with confirmation that the gender of their fan base will maintain consistency as long as they deliver the same type of content.

 

In my particular case i find this intriguing because of my drastically skewed male audience. Im aware that my audience is 70% male and mostly between the ages of 18-24, therefore if I want my content to be more shared and appealing it only makes sense that I should start curating it to this audience. But, what if i dont WANT this to be my primary audience. What if I want to establish a male-female 50-50 split, and i want to deliver content that is appealing to both genders. It would be necessary in this case for me to embrace other elements of content curation, elements which regard consistency and expectation as important while at the same time trying to redefine my audience. The following essay discussing the work of Chis Lilley on youtube raises some interesting points:

 

Erhart, J. (2014). ‘Mr G is deffinately bringin’ Sexy back’: characterizing Chris Lilley’s YouTube audience. Continuum, 28(2), pp.176-187.

 

This essay looks at the impact of Chis Lilleys Youtube audience and how having content on both TV and the internet affect his audience response. It looks at numerous user comments and discusses how expectation and loyalty is being built up in the fan base. However i found the following quite interesting:

 

“Let me look closely at the example of the upload ‘Ja’mie Bloopers Summer Heights High’. The title of the YouTube is self-explanatory. The frequent motif that comes up in posts attached to this upload – as elsewhere on YouTube and indeed throughout critical responses to Lilley – concerns his acting prowess”

 

This brief excerpt from the study confirms what I have deduced up until this point; titling is very important. Throughout the study it’s clear that the audience always knows what to expect and they associate some familiarity with the titles and expect to see a particular type of content. The audience is drawn in by a reason to click and a desire to investigate the topic further. The key idea here is that expectation is transformed into delivery.

 

Therefore what I believe is that expectation is always going to be the key to creating audience retention. Expectation must always inform the entertainer and allow for them to curate the content, responding to the subliminal vulnerabilities and requisitions of the audience. This is even an idea which is explained at length by entertainers and writers such as Gene Perret, Bob Hope and Judy Carter, all of whom are expert comedians and writers. They understand that entertainment is essentially the process of allowing an audience to realize and experience what they truly desire.

 

In conclusion, the YouTube audience is not unlike any other audience. Their expectations must be met by the entertainer in order to receive positive response. Thus in order to reach them, a content creator, which in this case is me, must continue to deliver consistent content that establishes clear expectation and eventually delivers upon it. Over time this will create a fan-base which will continue to return and further build up expectation which will lead to my further curation and tailoring of content. This cycle is essential to any audience, and is what leads to success.

 

Sources:

 

Alphabet Inc. (2016). Youtube Analytics. Youtube.

 

Carter, J. (2001). The comedy bible. New York: Fireside.

 

Perret, G. (2007). The new comedy writing step by step. Sanger, CA: Quill Driver Books/Word Dancer Press.

 

Guadagno, Rosanna E. et al. ‘What Makes A Video Go Viral? An Analysis Of Emotional Contagion And Internet Memes’. Computers in Human Behavior 29.6 (2013): 2312-2319. Web.

 

Predicting audience gender in online content-sharing social networks

Xiao, Chunjing ; Zhou, Fan ; Xiao, Chunjing ; Zhou, Fan ; Wu, Yue

Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, June 2013, Vol.64(6), pp.1284-1297

 

Erhart, J. (2014). ‘Mr G is deffinately bringin’ Sexy back’: characterizing Chris Lilley’s YouTube audience. Continuum, 28(2), pp.176-187.

Pitchy Ideas

Today during our class, we were throwing around ideas for the final project. It looks like what we want to do is crowdfund a little video series. We have not really decided yet if they are going to be posted on instagram, facebook or youtube, but we are in the mode of brainstorming.

We are disucssing potentially utilizing the new 1.5minute videos on instagram, making the videos on that, we are also trying to make something that people would watch and follow. So in considering this we needed to look at the audience. I think we mainly want to target uni students, and people of our own age group.

Dylan, pitched an interesting idea to me in the final breaths of the class, he suggested a very student focused mockumentary, about uni lyfe. Like silly things that happen at uni that would be relatable, or example being late for the train and having it delayed, then using talking heads to camera to make it funny. I think this would be fun, also considering that I have a background making youtube videos, I know this will be achievable. Maybe like a 15 second video for instagram, every week. That would be ideal.

Sick of Citrus

This is a post that is almost BETTER out of context than in context.  So I’ll just drop this on you:

Original Song “Sick of Citrus” now on SoundCloud… @jrnwfire #SickOfCitrus #OriginalSong #Guitar

A video posted by Jordan Raj (@jrnwfire) on

Ok, now that you are sufficiently confused, I will explain. Arriving back in Brisbane after three from the Czech Republic I was eager to get down to business, take the Australia of opportunity by its throat and make it boogie. I was staying with my Aunt and Uncle at the time and was asked if I would be interested in working for their food stall at the Falls Music Festival. I agreed.

Long story short, I started getting sick during the festival, and quickly made sure to cure my sore throat with the lemonade from the stall next door to us. With the words lemon, citrus, sick and sugar-free floating around, suddenly the phrase “sick of citrus” popped up. My instant reaction was “that would make a great song title”, and so promptly upon return to Brisbane, Sick of Citrus was written – with the sole intent to use that phrase.

Here is the full song:

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