» Posts Tagged ‘youtube’
Does your video have a million views? Do you consistently draw large audiences? This past Thursday, YouTube announced it would throw out old criteria and let anyone with eligible content join the YouTube Partner Program, if they so wished (and are in the list of 20 approved countries). How does this make it more likely that you can make a few bucks off your short? And how does this announcement play into YouTube’s larger strategy? Read on: More »
On March 31st, 2012 the first ‘Your Film Festival’ will close its doors to submissions. But it’s not just the $500k grant money that’s on the line — it’s who and what comes attached with it. The winner will not only get to open the Venice Film Festival, but they’ll have Ridley Scott and his production team produce their $500k project. With that in mind, let’s listen to what Mr. Scott has to say as you prep your 15-minute narrative submission: More »
Why do videos go viral? The success of the Kony 2012 documentary has a lot of filmmakers and activists pondering this very question. Racking over 50 million views on YouTube since Monday (and over 14 million views on Vimeo) the documentary is the quintessential example of a viral phenomenon. Now, beyond the accuracy of the documentary, or controversies swirling about it, it’s interesting to consider just how and why this video went viral. In a recent TED talk called ‘Why Videos Go Viral’, YouTube’s trends manager, Kevin Allocca, boiled the answer down to three interacting factors — factors we can see at play in the ‘Kony 2012′ phenomenon: More »
YouTube’s crowdsourced, Ridley Scott-produced, Kevin Macdonald-directed Life in a Day was an excellent, globe-spanning, and touching film (watch it free in its entirety here). YouTube and Scott are not done, however: they’ve just announced a new contest calling for story-driven shorts, and the winner gets a $500k grant to make new work. More »
Along with director Kevin Macdonald and producer Ridley Scott, YouTube created the crowdsourced feature film Life in a Day from 80,000 user-submitted clips to give a flavor of what was happening all around the world on July 24, 2010. The resulting film played Sundance, Berlin, SXSW, and streamed live. Now it’s come to YouTube in its entirety for free. Watch the 90 minute feature right here: More »
This is simultaneously really impressive and seemingly obvious. The Tube of You has rolled out a new tab that allows you to trim your videos right on the site — in the cloud — instead of doing it locally and (re)uploading. This tab, aptly named “Edit video,” should already be live for all global users and allows for trimming, soundtrack-swapping, camera stabilization (!), and a number of basic post-production effects. As far as I can tell, at present there are no NLE features, but who knows where it’s headed next. Here’s the official word and a brief demo: More »
YouTube has released a 70-page Creator Playbook aimed at helping video creators build their audiences online. This is exactly the kind of thing that would come in handy for actors looking to build their own career, in addition to filmmakers. The digital download, which YouTube says will be updated regularly, looks to be an excellent resource on building an audience (not just with YouTube, but by using Facebook and Twitter as well). Here’s the release: More »
There’s a growing number of video producers that enjoy creative and financial freedoms today whose job description didn’t exist a few years ago. I’m talking about YouTube channel producers, who employ a skill set that is often very different from what they teach in film schools. We’ve covered some audience-building tactics in the past, but here’s some advice on building a successful YouTube channel directly from YouTube exec Bing Chen, via Daisy Whitney’s interview on New Media Minute: More »
Which Video Sharing Service is Best for You?
The NoFilmSchool newsletter includes a lot of exclusive content that doesn’t appear on this site; this post is a sample of one such email that used to go out. In it, we’ll look at why you should use a video sharing service, and which services might work best for you. I mistakenly removed this email from the list thinking it was causing folks to unsubscribe, but it turns out I was reading the analytics wrong (and I can’t reinstitute the email without sending it a second time). So here’s a sample of the newsletter — subscribe free for more exclusive content! More »
As part of its Nonprofit Program, YouTube will be awarding grants to nonprofit organizations that have produced videos in the past year. Grants will be awarded for the Best Small, Medium, and Large Organization Videos, and there is a grant for the Best Thrifty Video as well (a video made for less than $500). The winning videos will also be featured on the YouTube homepage (a privilege for which for-profit corporations pay a lot more than $10k). Here’s the video announcement: More »
As promised, the Ridley Scott-produced and Kevin MacDonald-directed collaborative YouTube film (26 co-directors are named) will be premiering at the Sundance Film Festival tonight. Because it’s a YouTube production, however, it will also be streaming live online at 8PM EST. Life in a Day was culled from 80,000 user-submitted clips to give a flavor of what was happening all around the world on July 24, 2010. Here’s a teaser: More »
We last heard about YouTube’s Life in a Day project — wherein producer Ridley Scott and director Kevin MacDonald combed through 80,000 video submissions (totaling 4,500 hours) to piece together one day in the life of, well, humanity — in August. Now comes word that the filmmakers have chosen 26 co-directors from the submissions, and will be premiering the film live at Sundance, complete with a concurrent live stream on YouTube. Here’s a look at one segment of the film: More »
How to Cheat at the YouTube Game and Get Millions of Views
This is a guest post by filmmaker Robin Schmidt, who today courts controversy with his ongoing series Choosing an Online Video Platform. Next time you see a view count in the millions, you might wonder where some of those views came from! This is not to say that I’m suggesting filmmakers cheat, but NoFilmSchool is devoted to sharing the tools that might help a filmmaker succeed, and the ability to hack YouTube is certainly worth filing under “good to know” — even if you never employ such tactics. Without further ado, here’s Robin: More »
Choosing an Online Video Platform: Playing the YouTube Game
This is a guest post by filmmaker Robin Schmidt a.k.a. El Skid.
In Part 1 I talked about picking YouTube as the correct platform for our project Super Massive Raver, for the plain and simple reason that it had the greatest access to an audience of any of the current options. When looking to monetize video online I think you have to be pretty circumspect and accept that the general public are highly unlikely to pay for video content unless you give them a compelling reason to do so. More »
Choosing an Online Video Platform: YouTube Pt. 1
This is a guest post by filmmaker Robin Schmidt a.k.a. El Skid.
If you receive Koo’s regular newsletter (and you should by the way) you’ll have recently read a short appraisal of the various video sharing sites currently around. I’ve been developing a weekly comedy show called Super Massive Raver which we’re looking to monetize online and, believe me, once you start digging into this area the reading gets pretty grim pretty quickly. More »
Time Warner Cable and IFC have been running a short film contest, which wraps up on Halloween (yes, in a few days — I’m a bit late with this). Four grand prize winners will be given tickets for two (including airfare) to this year’s Sundance Film Festival in late January, a $500 travel stipend, and “a Sponsor-selected video camera.” The contest closes at midnight on October 31st, so either get shooting or search your hard drives for shorts between 2-5 minutes; no particular subject or theme required. Here’s the official video: More »
Yesterday I checked out the YouTube Play exhibit at the Guggenheim here in New York, which is showing for three days (simultaneously with the Bilbao, Berlin, and Venice Guggenheim museums) “the ultimate YouTube playlist: a selection of the most unique, innovative, groundbreaking video work being created and distributed online during the past two years.” In the spirit of YouTube, however, these videos are not restricted to expensive museum installations; anyone can watch them online, for free. More »
When Google announced Google TV, I called it “a device/spec that obliterates the line between ‘TV’ and ‘computer.’ Suddenly it’s going to be a lot easier to get content from around the web onto your TV.” At the time, however, I was only able to find the official Google launch video and a few blurry screen grabs to demonstrate the forthcoming device. Thanks to StuffWeLike, however, we now have a video of the device in action — and while the blurriness is still a problem and the camera work is awful, there are some interesting hints at potential game-changers contained in the clip: More »
I poked fun at YouTube in the previous post, but this announcement is much more significant. YouTube, it seems, is no longer content in its role as indiscriminate distributor, and has announced a Partner Grant program to fund the production of original content. The program is fairly unique in its structure, however, as it’s not really a traditional grant nor a bona fide production fund. In their own words: More »
I adapted this headline from a piece I remember The Onion running thirteen years ago. The Onion’s excoriating 1997 article, entitled “High-Definition Television Promises Sharper Crap,” lambasted the increase in TV resolution for doing nothing to raise the quality of the actual content itself. YouTube’s recent announcement that they now support 4K resolution is easy to poke fun at for the same reason, given no one was complaining that the thing missing from YouTube (which already offers 1080p) is more resolution. More »
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