Steve Stockman's Blog, page 17
April 23, 2012
Whose Fault is it if the Talent Looks Bad? Yours.
Want to know a secret that professional directors know and don’t often share? Of course you do. Here it is:
85% of the director’s job is casting. If you get the right person in front of the camera, your film will be great. But get stuck with the wrong talent, and you are in deep trouble. (For those of you with math OCD issues: another 10% is helping talent to do their job, and the last 5% is staying out of the way.)
Having the wrong talent on screen is a lose-lose proposition for everyone. Your video will suck, and the poor business owner or spokesperson or actor will look awful and uncomfortable. Forever. On Youtube.
Even though it’s hard, even though you may be getting paid by someone to do it, even though you may be a close friend or an employee of the person who wants to be the star of the video– never do a video where the on-camera talent looks bad.
Yes, I’m talking to you, director of this awesome fail of a music video:
April 19, 2012
Getting Started in a Video Career
Hi Steve,
My Dad gave me a copy of your book to help my roommates (all of whom are filmmakers at NYU) make great films in their classes. It’s been a really helpful guide for them! I was just wondering, since I’m majoring in acting, if you have any tips for actors trying to get into these “videos that don’t suck”.
Do you have any advice on how to find projects to work on without being one of those desperate wannabe actor people who annoy every agent and production company in the city trying to get some kind of work?
Nicole
While this is not an acting blog, yours is a pretty common question from everyone who wants to get into a film or video career. If you’re not an actor, just insert your career goal wherever the word appears:
Entertainment is a portfolio business. The first thing an agent or casting director will want to know is “what have you done?” So the secret to an acting (or writing or directing or producing) career is to do stuff. There’s no magic other than that.
Better still, do stuff with people whose work you love. They don’t have to be established– just on your wavelength. If you know good student directors and writers at NYU, get to know them and get in their videos. If you write, produce or direct (or want to)– make your OWN videos and star in them. Look for talented people around you, and do your best to seem incredibly helpful and talented too so that they invite you into their projects, and vice-versa. Do stuff.
Same is true when you hit NY or LA to start a career. Do that experimental theater with friends in front of 10 people in a loft in Soho. Shoot your own movies on your iPhone. Do a student film at UCLA. Write your own one-woman show. Take classes with teachers whose approach you love. Hone your craft. Get experience, meet people.
Remember it’s not “production companies” that hire you to work as an actor. It’s not agents either. It’s a particular casting director who shows your latest work to a particular director. It’s another actor who likes and recommends you. It’s the guy who sees you off-off-off broadway and tells his sister the producer about your performance. If you’re not doing stuff, you’re never going to meet them.
Good luck!
April 7, 2012
The Secret to Compelling Video: Add Information
I talk a lot about how keeping your shots short makes your video more intriguing.
This video, from Walk Off the Earth is the exception that proves the rule. We can learn a lot by looking at why it works.
Most film consists of short shots because we process visual information fast– microseconds fast. Once we've processed all the visual information in front of us, we're hungry for more. That's why your eyes (unless you're staring at a screen) flit from one thing to another all the time: the rearview mirror, the wife, the road ahead, the speedometer, the road ahead…etc. We see, we understand, we seek more information.
The secret to compelling video? Always add information. Short shots constantly feed our brains new stuff, thus keeping us locked to the screen in (one hopes) rapt attention.
What Walk Off the Earth have done is figured out how to constantly add information– to hold our gaze, create suspense and anticipation– in one long shot.
Tough to do, but really fun when it works. Great song, too!
March 30, 2012
How to Make a Boring Interview Interesting
I am interested in shooting promotion videos for authors. My problem is how to get them to think about bites of their books in interesting ways. I find they are often well…a little boring even when their books may not be.
Do you have any suggestions for leading questions that diplomatically get them to start thinking about their material in an interesting way?
Jenn
I've been interviewed by great hosts and been shocked to discover afterward that 10 (or 20 or 30) minutes had gone by– and I've sat through interviews where 3 minutes was a painful is-this-over-yet eternity. A couple of times I was tempted to beat the interviewer senseless with a copy of my book, but it would have been redundant.
Given that I was the same person for every interview, pitching the same book with the same basic information, why were some interviews fascinating and others dull? Hmmm…what was that other variable again?
Oh, right! The interviewer. Bad interviewers do dull, stilted interviews. Most bad interviewers are bad because they don't connect with their subjects. They sit back waiting for the subject to do all the work. But to answer your question bluntly: It's not the interviewee's job to be interesting. It's your job to shoot an interesting interview.
Yes, there are some subjects who are just God-awful at talking on camera. But most of them know it and avoid it (usually because it terrifies them.) For most everyone else, it's your job to find an approach that will make them comfortable and, with judicious editing, look great on camera.
How do you do that? Easy: Find things that genuinely interest you about your subject.
By definition, most of us are like most other people (Think about it. I'll wait.) Which means that if you're asking about what truly interests you, it probably also interest most others. And vice versa– if you're bored, so is the audience.
If what's interesting about your subject isn't obvious, do some research. Spend time with the subject up front. Read the book. Watch/read their old interviews.
Once you get to the interview, don't get lost in your notes. Follow your conversational impulses– You're a real person talking to another real person. If you hear something that strikes you as odd, or you don't understand, or that excites you, ask about it! Anything goes– if it's not great, you can cut it later.
When I started doing 3 days of interviews for the Anchor Steam Beer video below (part of this 10-video series) I didn't know nearly as much about brewing as I do now. And it was fun learning. Since most people don't know much about brewing, following my own curiosity yielded simple, useful answers.
Practice letting your real curiosity out. Voila! Boring no more.
More: 10 Tips for Video Interviews that don't Suck
Got a question about video? Of course you do. Click here and ask!
March 24, 2012
Ten Things They Should Teach You About Video in High School but Probably Don’t.
I got back yesterday from the Student Television Network conference in Dallas. Two thousand teenagers (and their teachers) immersing themselves in four days of video production, workshops and speeches. Great group, great energy. And some really great videos.
Yeah, it got a little loud, but what do you expect?
This is for those of you who weren’t there:
Ten Things They Should Teach You About Video in High School but Probably Don’t
1. Video is a Language, and most of us are illiterate. Shots have meaning. Which is why, for example, you get tense in a horror movie just before the monster jumps out. Like any language, video requires practice to learn. Just because you understand it doesn’t mean you can speak it fluently.
2. It’s not your equipment. It’s your brain. You don’t need the latest gadgets. You can shoot a technically brilliant feature film on your iPhone. But whether anyone will watch it or not is a whole ‘nother question that has nothing to do with machines and everything to do with how you think.
3. Entertain or die. Nobody watches bad video. Nobody. Bad video is like the proverbial tree falling in the forest. The only sound it makes is its creator whining that nobody watched their video.
4. Learn the basics: There’s 100 years+ of thinking about film that others have done for you. Watch movies, read about it, and practice. If you don’t know the basics, then you can’t….
5. Break the rules. Picasso learned how to draw like a renaissance master before he invented cubism. You’ll do a better job breaking the “rules” if you learn them first. But don’t forget to break the rules—that’s how artists invent
6. “Viral” is not a kind of video. It’s a response to a video by an audience who so love it they want to share it with all their friends, right away. In other words, it’s a hit. And it’s just as hard to make as a hit movie, a hit song, or a hit TV show. Focus on doing great work, not views on Youtube.
7. Video is best at motion and emotion. Facts and figures have no place in video unless they are organically, sparingly, and excitingly incorporated into a moving, emotional ride for the audience.
8. Video is collaborative. Almost nobody makes video alone. To direct is to lead a team. To write is to communicate a vision to a team. To produce is to build a team. To act is to be part of a team. The better you are at finding your place in a team, the better your video production experience will be.
9. Be fierce about quality. If they can’t see someone clearly or hear what they’re saying, the audience will tune out of your video. If a shot sucks, do it again. If you can’t get it to not suck, cut it.
10. The best way to get good at video is to do it. Go shoot. No excuses. You have a phone or a digital still camera or the parents’ old VHS. They all shoot video just fine. Some kind of editing software came free on your computer (or your parents or the one at school.) Go play.
How to Shoot Video that Doesn’t Suck is being used as a textbook in High Schools and Colleges all over the country. Ordering in bulk? Click here.
Ten Things They Should Teach You About Video in High School but Probably Don't.
I got back yesterday from the Student Television Network conference in Dallas. Two thousand teenagers (and their teachers) immersing themselves in four days of video production, workshops and speeches. Great group, great energy. And some really great videos.
Yeah, it got a little loud, but what do you expect?
This is for those of you who weren't there:
Ten Things They Should Teach You About Video in High School but Probably Don't
1. Video is a Language, and most of us are illiterate. Shots have meaning. Which is why, for example, you get tense in a horror movie just before the monster jumps out. Like any language, it requires practice to learn. And just because you understand it doesn't mean you can speak it fluently.
2. It's not your equipment. It's your brain. You don't need the latest gadgets. You can shoot a technically brilliant feature film on your iPhone. But whether anyone will watch it or not is a whole 'nother question that has nothing to do with machines and everything to do with how you think
3. Entertain or die. Nobody watches bad video. Nobody. Bad video is like the proverbial tree falling in the forest. The only sound it makes is its creator whining that nobody watched their video.
4. Learn the basics: Film is a language, and a language has rules. Plus there's 100 years+ of work others have done for you. If you don't know the basics, then you can't….
5. Break the rules. Picasso learned how to draw like a renaissance master before he invented cubism. You'll do a better job breaking the "rules" if you learn them first. But don't forget to break the rules—that's how artists invent
6. "Viral" is not a kind of video. It's a response to a video by an audience who so love it they want to share it with all their friends, right away. In other words, it's a hit. And it's just as hard to make as a hit movie, a hit song, or a hit TV show. Focus on doing great work, not views on Youtube.
7. Video is best at motion and emotion. Facts and figures have no place in video unless they are organically, sparingly, and excitingly incorporated into a moving, emotional ride for the audience.
8. Video is collaborative. Almost nobody makes video alone. To direct is to lead a team. To write is to communicate a vision to a team. To produce is to build a team. To act is to be part of a team. The better you are at finding your place in a team, the better your video production experience will be.
9. Be fierce about quality. If they can't see someone clearly or hear what they're saying, the audience will tune out of your video. If a shot sucks, do it again. If you can't get it to not suck, cut it.
10. The best way to get good at video is to do it. Go shoot. No excuses. You have a phone or a digital still camera or the parents' old VHS. They all shoot video just fine. Some kind of editing software came free on your computer (or your parents or the one at school.) Go play.
How to Shoot Video that Doesn't Suck is being used as a textbook in High Schools and Colleges all over the country. Ordering in bulk? Click here.
March 19, 2012
The Truth About Viral Videos: You Can’t Shine Sh*&
LA Times reporters bought 62,000 “views” for this video for about $100. It’s 1:47 of paint drying.
Two weeks ago, LA City Attorney Carmen Trutanich was caught buying at least 650,000 views on YouTube for his upcoming campaign for District Attorney. How many views did he actually get for his videos? Only about 725,000.
The Trutanich Campaign did it, apparently, for bragging rights– “Look! 725,000 people want Carmen to be the DA!” That this was more views than the presidential videos were getting never occurred to them. Sure, there could be 725,000 people anxiously waiting by their computers in February for news about November’s Los Angeles DA race, but I’m thinking it’s probably more like 6.
This is kind of like a losing ball club that pays to have 62,000 inflatable dolls taped to the seats to fool 10,000 real people into showing up– for free. Not only is nobody fooled, the ball club wastes a fortune. And so it is with Carmen’s campaign.
In this case, the campaign victimized themselves. But this happens in varying degrees every day to unsuspecting clients.
At its most “innocent”, Web PR firms flood blogs and Facebook with promotions and ads to get people talking about a video, which then takes off or not on its own. At worst, clients pay view factories to gin up tens or hundreds of thousands of “views” and “comments” to make the video look like a viral sensation. Many cases are probably somewhere in between– a real PR effort, but with few thousand extra views slipped in here and there just to flesh things out for the client.
Client beware.
Here’s the truth about viral video: You can’t shine sh*&. Nobody watches bad video. Instead of paying for bots to spam YouTube, spend a little more time and money making a decent video. Impressing 25,000 passionate viewers will do your business a lot more good than ginning up 725,000 cyberphantoms.
The Truth About Viral Videos: You Can't Shine Sh*&
LA Times reporters bought 62,000 "views" for this video for about $100. It's 1:47 of paint drying.
Two weeks ago, LA City Attorney Carmen Trutanich was caught buying at least 650,000 views on YouTube for his upcoming campaign for District Attorney. How many views did he actually get for his videos? Only about 725,000.
The Trutanich Campaign did it, apparently, for bragging rights– "Look! 725,000 people want Carmen to be the DA!" That this was more views than the presidential videos were getting never occurred to them. Sure, there could be 725,000 people anxiously waiting by their computers in February for news about November's Los Angeles DA race, but I'm thinking it's probably more like 6.
This is kind of like a losing ball club that pays to have 62,000 inflatable dolls taped to the seats to fool 10,000 real people into showing up– for free. Not only is nobody fooled, the ball club wastes a fortune. And so it is with Carmen's campaign.
In this case, the campaign victimized themselves. But this happens in varying degrees every day to unsuspecting clients.
At its most "innocent", Web PR firms flood blogs and Facebook with promotions and ads to get people talking about a video, which then takes off or not on its own. At worst, clients pay view factories to gin up tens or hundreds of thousands of "views" and "comments" to make the video look like a viral sensation. Many cases are probably somewhere in between– a real PR effort, but with few thousand extra views slipped in here and there just to flesh things out for the client.
Client beware.
Here's the truth about viral video: You can't shine sh*&. Nobody watches bad video. Instead of paying for bots to spam YouTube, spend a little more time and money making a decent video. Impressing 25,000 passionate viewers will do your business a lot more good than ginning up 725,000 cyberphantoms.
March 17, 2012
Bruce Springsteen on Creativity
Bruce Springsteen keynoted SXSW last week.
Billed as a conversation about Music, it's really a conversation about Creativity. One man's journey– funny, exciting, profane, smart and inspiring. Brilliant.
Video is a craft, of course, just like guitar playing. But just like guitar playing, the key is finding your art. Bruce Springsteen can help you find yours.
March 5, 2012
Audience Focused Video
Hey Steve,
I'm a brand new Realtor in a small coastal town in Florida. Understanding that more and more people are viewing video as opposed to reading a bunch of stuff on line, and with a very limited budget, I bought a Kodak Playtouch camcorder to make videos that are entertaining (if not somewhat funny) to gain interest in my town and my inventory.
But from there I'm completely lost– Do you have a road map of what to do next?
–Herb
Good job realizing (a) that people like getting their information on video and (b) that if it isn't entertaining, they're not going to watch.
You are heading down the path to creating audience focused video—which is great, because it doesn't matter how much time or effort or money you put into your video if it sucks. If nobody watches, it was all a waste.
Your first step to creating audience focused video: figure out what the audience needs or wants or will get excited by. You might want to brainstorm a list. I'll do it now to show you what I mean. We'll call the list "audience needs":
Audience Needs: they want to see the house fast. They want to see it well. They want to get a feel for the place so they can decide if they want to look in person. Maybe some information about it in voiceover (opportunity for humor there.)
Highlight the important needs from this list and use them to trigger another list of what might make your video work. I'll take "seeing the house fast" and "seeing the house well" and brainstorm some more on "Look and Feel":
Look and Feel: NO long intro. Bring a few plug-in lights to keep things bright. More than one video per house so someone can click right to, say, the back yard if that's their passion. Nicely framed shots. Not much camera motion, but not holding for a long time either. Close-ups of cool details. SHORT videos so people don't feel like they have to spend a long time to get a look.
Now let's brainstorm what information we want to include. We'll call this "Content." Knowing the audience needs and look and feel, for each house consider questions like: What are its strongest features? What will look best on video? What do you want to avoid? You might end up with things like:
Content: The sunset view of the mountains, the two story entryway, the kitchen cooktop and vent. Avoid the guest bath. Get details on living room flooring and baseboards.
Putting it all together: You're going to shoot and edit your content in a way (look and feel) that satisfies your audience's needs. You may want to follow all the other rules of good video too!
Being a realtor– even a new one– you'll know a lot more about this stuff than I do. But the process is the important thing. Thinking about your audience first– before you shoot anything– is the key to creating a video the audience will want to watch.
Want to ask your own question about video? Don't be shy!
(photo by Stijn Bokhove via flikr.com)
