Woke up this morning to find that after 2 full days online, "Hope Art" has 1000 views! More than all three other episodes of CHS-V combined. So thanks to Slog, Seattlest, O'Reilly Radar, Obama Art Report, and all the other blogs that linked to the video!
Here's the blip.tv graph of total viewers, the first two little bumps are the release days of the first two episodes "The Blog," and "Snowstorm '08," And the huge spike on the right is "Hope Art."
From around October '08, up until about a week ago, I was working as a full time editor for Morgan Howard Productions in Kirkland. Morgans family owns the Cornelia Marie, one of the fishing boats featured on The Deadliest Catch, so he runs the website for the Cornelia Marie kind of on the side of his main business, video production for Native Americans and Native Alaskans. Here's a video I edited a week or so ago for the Captains Blog on the Cornelia Marie website.
Cornelia Marie Video from Morgan Howard on Vimeo.
Also, just to point out how much YouTube sucks... I'm including (after the jump) the exact same video that we uploaded to YouTube, so you can see how much better the vimeo version looks.
About an hour after I sat down to edit this video, I decided that I had a good enough story here for it to be more just a web video, and that if I spent some serious time editing I could probably submit this to some film festivals as a documentary short. What is the different between a web video and documentary short? I’m not sure exactly. (I’ve also been thinking lately about whether there is a difference between a “citizen journalism video” and documentary but that’s a whole ‘nother topic.)
The main difference for me was that when I decided it was a doc short instead of a web video, I stopped assuming the viewer had ADD. It’s pretty well established that online video viewers have short attention spans... I know I do. When I watch web videos I often fast forwarding to find more interesting sections, or just get distracted by something else on the page and click away from the video. (I hate that I do this, and I’ve been making a conscious effort lately to extend my web attention span.) When I edit web videos, I don’t add typically use very much nat sound unless it’s needed to tell the story, or long establishing shots, which slow down the pacing and give people a chance to get distracted, but I did use those things here. As a result I think “Hope Art,” is a better doc short, but probably doesn’t play as well as it could as a web video.
Editing this video has reminded me a little about the limitations of web video. It’s hard to tell a good story when you’re constantly worried about holding the viewers attention. I’ve been focusing pretty exclusively on web video for a while now, but having a story that takes a little more time to tell is making me appreciate the idea of sitting someone down and making them focus on my film.
So what you do you think? Is this video too slow paced for the internet? Did you sit through the whole thing?
Also make sure to visit this video at it's CHS page, and add a couple of pennies to my earnings (I get $$$ per page view)
... and I'm not just talking about Obama. As of today I am freelancing full time, or I'm unemployed, whichever way you want to look at it. The plan is to just make the kinds of videos that I actually like to make, and hope that somewhere down the line someone might decide to pay me for it. So expect to see a lot of videos of mine on CHS, SeattleIAM, Current TV, and maybe even a film festival or two.
Wish me luck. Or better yet, hire me for a job!
My CHS Video was featured on hyperlocalblogger.com today...
Tomorrow is the last shoot for my next episode of CHS-V, I'll be shooting the installation of "Abraham Obama" by Ron English, right after I watch the inauguration, probably at Moe Bar. The video should be up by the end of the week.
Hope Doughnut
Interviewed Spike Mafford yesterday about his Hope Doughnut posters. I've been seeing the Hope Doughnut pretty much every day for the past six months since his photography studio is right near my apartment. Long story short, I bought one and it's hanging up in my living room now. Carmela and I decided it pretty much sums up our whole year since we've moved to Capitol Hill, with all the Obama-mania and then us living right next to Top Pot. Below is a sample of the interview I shot with Spike. I have two more interviews to shoot for this video, I'm hoping to have it done by the end of next week.
Shot an interview with Shelly Farnham today about the Obama mural she painted on her garage. This footage will eventually be part of the next installment of CHS-V, which will be about Obama Art on Capitol Hill. I also shot an interview with Jen Graves of the Stranger yesterday, based on a really good article she wrote in the Stranger. Here's a little preview.
When it snowed on Sunday night, I decided to test out my new Flip Mino HD. I stuck it in the cell pouch on my backpack while I walked from my apartment on Capitol HIll down to South Lake Union, to meet my girlfriend. The plan was to speed up the video and make a time lapse. Turns out I'm not a very graceful walker, so it's way too jerky to speed up. I've put together the "highlights," if you can call them that, below (in normal speed so as to not induce any seizures). It's not at all what I was expecting to get, but a couple of times cars' headlights made some cool effects that I'd probably never be able to make on purpose (@ :32 & 1:41).
I might try this again when it's not so snowy to see if I walk any smoother on solid ground, but if that doesn't work I'm going all the way...
A is for Apple.
I was starting to get a little down on Apple after a customer service rep butchered my mailing address, almost sending my laptop to Tacoma. And then when it got here it was having trouble reading my Office 2008 install DVDs (I'll just blame that on Microsoft). But then yesterday I got a call from an Apple Customer Rep and he apologized for the error, and then offered to send me an 8GB ipod touch for free. OK fine Apple, you're forgiven.
Now my problem is deciding whether or not to actually use it, since I already have a blackberry. The ipod touch is obviously better for internet browsing, and it'll be better for calendar and contacts since I can sync it easier with my mac, but how many gadgets can I really carry around with me at all times? I guess there's worse problems to have...
Happy New Year!
Current TV
I posted Episode 1 of CHS-V on Current.com about a week ago. Out of 9,000+ viewer submitted videos on the site, it started at #25, and has VERY slowly been moving up since then, it's now sitting at #20. If it does well enough online and the Current people like it, it could play on Current TV (comcast channel 125 in Seattle) and I'll make some money from it, which would be a good thing. Here's the link to the video on Current, "vote it up" and leave a comment if you like it. Hopefully you can also find the video on the top 20 videos page.
UPDATE (1/4/09) - Well the video made it as high as #16 last week, but now it's dropping.
Hope Doughnut
Interviewed Spike Mafford yesterday about his Hope Doughnut posters. I've been seeing the Hope Doughnut pretty much every day for the past six months since his photography studio is right near my apartment. Long story short, I bought one and it's hanging up in my living room now. Carmela and I decided it pretty much sums up our whole year since we've moved to Capitol Hill, with all the Obama-mania and then us living right next to Top Pot. Below is a sample of the interview I shot with Spike. I have two more interviews to shoot for this video, I'm hoping to have it done by the end of next week.
A is for Apple.
I was starting to get a little down on Apple after a customer service rep butchered my mailing address, almost sending my laptop to Tacoma. And then when it got here it was having trouble reading my Office 2008 install DVDs (I'll just blame that on Microsoft). But then yesterday I got a call from an Apple Customer Rep and he apologized for the error, and then offered to send me an 8GB ipod touch for free. OK fine Apple, you're forgiven.
Now my problem is deciding whether or not to actually use it, since I already have a blackberry. The ipod touch is obviously better for internet browsing, and it'll be better for calendar and contacts since I can sync it easier with my mac, but how many gadgets can I really carry around with me at all times? I guess there's worse problems to have...
Happy New Year!
Current TV
I posted Episode 1 of CHS-V on Current.com about a week ago. Out of 9,000+ viewer submitted videos on the site, it started at #25, and has VERY slowly been moving up since then, it's now sitting at #20. If it does well enough online and the Current people like it, it could play on Current TV (comcast channel 125 in Seattle) and I'll make some money from it, which would be a good thing. Here's the link to the video on Current, "vote it up" and leave a comment if you like it. Hopefully you can also find the video on the top 20 videos page.
UPDATE (1/4/09) - Well the video made it as high as #16 last week, but now it's dropping.