I was at a friend’s place today, looking as he scrolled through Facebook. As he was doing so, he told me about how he hated the way Facebook’s videos would kick off in the background, even if you don’t intend for them to play. He disliked the way it did that due to its tendency to eat up his data allowance.
This got me thinking, especially since I am in the ‘Online Video Experiments’ studio. Could it be that Facebook is trying to promote their video capabilities? I find it quite smart, really, but also a bit of a nuisance, as can be seen from how my friend isn’t a fan of it.
But with that, I have managed to discover many more videos as compared to previously, when I would have to click on a video just to watch it. It reduces the effort, all the while giving Facebook users a short preview of the video. It’s definitely more effective, because usually people would voluntarily play a video only if the thumbnail looked attractive or if it had an interesting title. Or at least, that’s how it goes with me.
What a way to push the boundaries of online video in the social media sphere. It’s effective in its own way, not so much in the content of the video, but in the way it puts itself out there, straight into the user’s hands without having them to ask for it.
I was with a friend today when he asked if I had watched Hillsong’s teaser for their upcoming conference in Sydney. He told me that it was really good, so I decided to have a look at it when I got home.
It was a rather attractive promo video, with stunning visuals, montage-like editing and a theme that followed the title, “Speak, We’re Listening”. According to a write-up by Hillsong Film on the making of the video, they briefly wrote about the idea behind it, and why they chose certain visuals and specific voices.
The idea was to contrast the reality of the noisy/chaotic world we live in with the silent sanctuary of the presence of God that we actually do live in … We start the journey with a calm landscape – slowly but surely building in intensity – building toward a crescendo, building towards a climax. These nature-scapes were also inter-spliced with modern/graphical imagery to give the sense of modern distractions/noise … We also used a voice to lead us through the narrative aspects of the film promo. We wanted to use the voice of a younger man, slightly weathered – large beard and an overcoat.
It was an interesting read, for the fact that I was able to know a little more about how it was made, and some of the ideas that guided the entire video. I watched it a second time after reading the write-up, and felt even more drawn towards it than I was before. Not only did it play its part as a promo video, but it was also a film well made.
Putting this into practice, it is really important to come up with ideas that will lead your video through, to an end product that portrays the message you want to deliver. That is what we have been doing in the studio, and by presenting our ideas to our classmates, we get to share our experiences and give one another different insights.
After altering our scrapbook sketch by replacing the background music with ambient audio from the café – as can be seen in this post – Jia Jia and I proceeded with thinking of more ways in which we could improve our prototype for Project Four.
We had some ideas to change the still images to moving visuals, as in having them in the form of a video instead of pictures. However, after talking to Seth, he reminded us that there is already a lot of potential in our current idea with the still images. We realised that we may be taking too big steps in trying to change it up, and that we should slow down.
Jia Jia and I then came up with a couple of different iterations, still following the same concept but making a slow move towards progress, one which would eventually be our final prototype. We find that this is important, because it gives us the opportunity to see things step-by-step, and not to rush into something that we are unsure of. Some of our ideas would play around with the visual quality of the images, the background audio, the stylistic techniques, and so on.
We plan to think of some ideas as to which cafés we could visit over the weekend, then get some sketches done on Monday. Thinking about it, we would need to find a café that allows us to film with ease; one that has decent lighting, and also sufficient space to do what we have planned out.
We had recorded some ambient sounds from some of the cafes while doing Project Three, and so we decided to edit them in our scrapbook idea, just to see what it would be like. Previously, we only used some royalty free music found online. The idea to capture sound from the places we visited was a good suggestion by one of the members of the panel in our last presentation.
As Arif and Elaine were talking about how they wanted to do car reviews in class, I was reminded of a channel I’ve been following for the past two years or so.
It’s funny, because Regular Car Reviews isn’t actually just regular car reviews. This YouTube channel that tests out and reviews cars – mostly older cars – with dry humour and a whole lot of fun. It’s engaging, how they take something so serious and supposedly masculine, and make a car review that is funny and makes great entertainment. I don’t know much about cars, but watching Regular Car Reviews is always a good way to take my mind off things because of how funny it is.
There isn’t a narrative structure to their videos, but the way each car is reviewed can be quite consistent. They often give an overview of the physical attributes of the car, followed by its internal specifications and a test drive. I believe that the most attractive part about their channel is their use of humour – that is what makes it all so entertaining to watch. I mean, I’m not somebody who likes cars all that much, but their humour is what keeps me interested.
This led me to thinking about my other classmates’ project, and how they have been focusing on comedy reviews. It makes such a good angle, reviewing things with a sense of humour. You can take something that is usually so serious or boring, and give it a twist.
I think that is what makes a good online video – one that is worth watching and talking about. In order to have that sort of impact, people have to put a lot of thought in both the content and overall structure, to make a video that has a lasting impression on those who watch it. It should be both doable and memorable. It should go against conventional methods and have something that is unique and stands out amongst what it already out there.
By reflecting on this, I have a better idea as to what I want to achieve in the weeks to come. I quite like how progress is with what Jia Jia and I have been working on, and with all that has been done and will be done, I hope that we would be able to impact viewers with what we have to present, in a way that is both different and memorable.
We had a studio discussion today, in which we were all seated in a circle and told Seth and our classmates our ideas for Project Four. It was nice to hear everyone’s ideas and I look forward to what each group will present in the weeks to come.
As Seth helped us find a clearer direction for our sketches that would eventually lead to a prototype, we came up with a revised probe for Project Four:
How can we use stylistic techniques to create a hybrid form of travel review?
I like how it has become more focused as compared to the diverse amount of sketches from the previous project. Seeing as how we would be focusing on the idea of scrapbooks, Jia Jia and I came up with three ideas (so far) that played around with different stylistic techniques to produce different results:
1. Video of the place + Holding up cue cards 2. Instagram scrapbook: Mini videos + Text in the caption
3. Still images + Sounds from the place (Cowbird)
Hopefully Jia Jia and I will be able to come up with more ideas, and also take some time to explore a bit of the above sketches later this week.
The past eight weeks in the studio have been exciting. We have had the opportunity to work with online video practices that interested us, and have proceeded to deconstructing them as well as worked on many sketches to help us better understand it. We’ve received the brief for Project Four, and that is to create a prototype from one of our sketches in our previous project.
Before proceeding with all that, however, Seth decided to give a mini lecture on several key terms that we have been using in the studio. Some of the words included narrative, non-narrative and interactive. I remember not fully understanding these words back in the first few weeks of the studio, and the way I comprehended it was rather vague.
In the studio today, Seth gave us a couple of readings and also showed us some clips and videos to help us understand these terms. With today’s class doubled up with all the previous studio sessions, I can say that I am beginning to truly understand what this is all about and why we are doing this. My classmates are also great inspirations, and it’s never dull to hear what each group is doing because all our ideas and proposals are always so different.
After all that, we also went to a nearby café just to have a chat about what has been going on in the studio. It was a good change from sitting in our usual spots, and I got to talk to have several casual conversations with a few of my classmates. It was a nice breather, and Jia Jia and I also came up with some ideas that we might want to pursue in Project Four.
