Archive for » July, 2010 «
KICKPICS Website - Professional Martial Arts Photography,(Video), found at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rjpI6u4Komo is an example of a photography website video. A photography website video needs two essential ingredients to work, both of which are well illustrated by this video. The video needs a set of quality photographs to show off in the video, and it needs to enhance the display by setting the video gallery to appealing music. A third important factor is the spacing between photograph to photograph. This video uses a gap of about 5 seconds. This is enough time to see each photograph, but not too much time so that the viewer will get bored.
While many of the photographs in this web video are of amateur kick boxing, the video as a whole is immensely popular on You Tube, having racked up over 100,000. The essential ingredient that makes this video so appealing, is the effect generated by the interaction of the background music with the photographs. The background music consists of a male and female rap song. And the repartee between the male and female rapper contrasts very effectively with the martial arts photographs. As we view a photograph of a man with his foot pressed against the face of his fellow combatant, we hear the male and female rapper engaged in an even more primal warfare, the combat between the sexes.
As we see photograph after photograph of martial combatants who are constantly seeking to find an opening in the guard of their opponent, we hear the male rapper trying to find an opening in the female rapper’s defense, as she puts up her guard. “I want you on my team,” he says, “So does everyone else,” she replies.
The photographic images enhance our appreciation of the rappers. As we examine a photo of a male boxer viciously kicking his opponent in the face, it reminds us of the vicious combat between the male rapper and the other men competing for the attention of the female rapper.
“Just let your guard down,” the male rapper says, “Don’t get mad, don’t be mean,” “Don’t get mad, don’t be mean,” she repeats. The musical combat reminds us that in this ultimate primal realm of combat there is a positive not a negative end. While kick boxing is me against you, the musical combat ultimately shifts from me against you to me with you. Once the male rapper can break through the female rapper’s defense, he can get to something soft and nice. And the female rapper who starts out as his combatant can become his friend.
Although the video is not meant as an advertisement for martial arts, it does awaken an interest in the field, as it shows us that the principles of martial arts apply to other struggles in life, including love. A viewer might decide he should take some martial arts training, as well, as that will sharpen up his ability to be successful with women. At the same time, the video is definitely liable to interest viewers in seeing the photography website. There is a link at the bottom of the video and the webmaster reports getting an overall 7,000 hits per month to his website.
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Beauty is one of the important elements, which needs to be incorporated into a corporate video. People are naturally attracted to look at something which is beautiful, whether it be a beautiful object or a beautiful segment of a video. A video with beautiful content, like a video with unique content, is more appealing to viewers. Finding beautiful content to present to the public is a unique challenge for every industry, because each industry has beauty in a different form. Locating the beauty and presenting it, will greatly enhance the appeal of a corporate video to the public.
Finding that which is beautiful in a given industry is a unique challenge for every company making a corporate video. The source of the beauty is not always so obvious.In a company, which provides large above ground containers for volatile fuel, for example, a photo of the production plant with row after row of these large steely containers sitting in a lot waiting to be delivered has beauty in symmetry. A video made for an environmental group, has a much more obvious source of beauty, and it will serve to prove my point.
The environmental corporate video by Edward Wallace can be found at http://vimeo.com/3217927 . The Canadian environmental protection organization that produced this video has a very conspicuous source of beauty. It is important to point out, this corporate video has not merely thrown beautiful scenes into the video, to attract attention. The beauty of untrammeled nature relates directly to the purpose of their organization, which is to preserve these wild pristine places. This is essential. The video is not merely throwing in beautiful images to attract views so that it can then deliver the message. Rather, in a very real sense, the beauty is the message. In that sense, and in this usage the video illustrates the famous poetic adage that “Beauty is Truth and Truth is Beauty.”
The incorporation of beauty into a corporate video, may not always be done so appropriately. For example, if a mountain climber reaches the summit of a tall mountain, and a video captures exquisite footage of a snow capped mountain summit, a breath-taking panorama and the perilous drop below, there is certainly beauty within the segment. However, that beauty is not intrinsically related to the wrist watch which has continued to tick despite the rugged trek to the mountain peak. The sturdiness of the watch, in fact, is one of its minor feature compared to the beautiful intricacy of its dials, wheels and or digital circuitry, which never miss a beat and keep accurate time for years.
In the wrist watch video, we see that the primary beauty of the mountain summit has been transferred to the primary object of the video, the watch, even though it is not beauty that intrinsically belongs to the watch. Such a tactic can work at times, but it can also backfire as the viewer is secretly thinking, “You mean you have nothing intrinsically beautiful about your product to show me?”
When, as in the environmental video, on the other hand, the beauty directly relates to the message of the video, a resonance is created, because the increased attractively directly touches on the heart of the matter. The beautiful imagery, furthermore, imbues the video with a certain degree of sincerity and even passion. People watching the images of the environmental are moved to want to save the environment as they see the morning sunlight glistening through the trees, and here birds singing their morning songs and watch as a herd of elks standing shyly in a broad shallow creek, turn to look, with mild concern, at the humans filming them from a distance.
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4Ward is a Canadian company specializing in branding, web video production and photography. Their 2008 corporate video is posted on the web. Their corporate video is striking in that they have chosen as background music, the popular song “Here it Goes Again,” by OK.
The song is an exciting song, which won real prominence because of the incredible viral video made to the tune of that song. The video features the band members performing an incredible walk dance on a series of treadmills in a gymnasium. The treadmills are lined up in two rows and set to run in alternating directions. As the band members walk/dance from treadmill to treadmill, to the tune of the music, they create some incredible visual effects. The visual effects illustrate the theme of the song as well. In the song, the protagonist is always getting in the groove and in the mood, with a girl, apparently, when something outside of his control occurs. The treadmills which constantly are in motion, and never allow the user to stand still, reflect that out of control and need to go with the flow type of daily living pattern.
The choice of Here it Goes Again, as background music for their corporate video apparently reflects the company’s esprit de corp. Videography manufacturing is a fast paced business. Just when one project is under control, the phone rings and another project comes along. The pace never stops and people working in videography on online marketing are constantly busy, but constantly loving it.
Both of these themes are expressed by the video song selection. While the song laments the fact that
something always goes out of control, just when things are going great, the song response is an dutiful and upbeat accpetance, “Oh well, here we go again.”
The visual display is collage style, with lots of images, many related to computers and communication, coming and going in multiple simultaneous frames. The work held together stylistically and is loosely held together by occasional captions. The captions tell us the company has 40 branches throughout Canada.
The video addresses the fast paced world of computer video and visual advertising. As a corporate video the work shows off the ability of the company to create motion graphics. The captions note that the company makes flash, 3D animation, print design, package design and web design.
Eveyone will be able to relate to the background song of this video, and people who work in a related industry will be able to relate with the imagery Much of the material presents products of desktop publishing, including photographs, text designs and online arragnements. Other segments present clips of videos made for important clients such as Yamaha.
As a viewer, if asked how the company could better the production of their corporate video for future years, I would suggest using a song that is slightly less domineering. It is a tune that is so popular on You Tube, that anyone hearing it immediately wants to see the viral video that goes with it. The meaning of the song appears to express the pace of life of the industry, and that is captivating and amusing. I personally would relate a little better to a visual storyline which presents a more unified visual theme. I would want to see a bit more coherence and correspondence between the images and the script. However, it is worthy of note that the video has been popular, as corporate videos on You Tube go, with over 25,000 views. And that’s a lot more views than many very coherent looking corporate branding videos get.
One must concede that this video has presented a successful branding image of the company, based on the song and the content of the video collage. This helps to defend the company’s assertion that they are specialists in branding.These are people who know how to live and breathe in the fast paced Internet video and web marketing environment. And in the computer world, we tend to trust faced paced people. People who can make it have fun from 4 until 10, as the song describes, and then shrug off a sudden unexpected event, which ends the good time, and then go with the flow, are the kind of people we know we can trust with a marketing project.
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The University of Kibangsaan Malaysia produced their latest corporate video, which is published on You Tube. Presumably, the video targets people such as Malaysians living in the West, whom the university would like to contribute money to their endowment, and or send their children back to Malaysia for their education.
Based on the video content, the University apparently decided to feature important discoveries and breakthroughs made at the University, which have lead to social, technological and economical advances for humanity. The approach is certainly meritorious, and as the corporate video describes the list of advances, one can appreciate that many of these contributions are exciting cutting edge scientific developments. The discoveries presented include computerized monitoring of the eye movements of a driver to look for evidence he is too tired to drive and a computerized robot with the capability of detecting even minute smells.
Having plotted out the content of the corporate video the university and videographers next had to decide how they wanted to organize their material. They chose a format not unlike the dialogue in the famous John Lennon song, Imagine. In Imagine, the late John Lennon presented his ideas as a series of parallel sentences each starting with the word imagine. The song was set to softe melodious music composed by Lennon.
This video presents its material about academic discoveries in form of a parallel series of captioned questions and responses. Each question is followed by a response and the whole interplay is set to soft background music. For example, the first caption starts with a question, “What if a computer could see what your eyes cannot?” Another caption responds: “Driver drowsiness detection system developed by the faculty of engineering.” Question: “What if we could invent a machine with a sense of smell? Response: “The optical e-nose detects smells up to a millionth of a micron.”
The entire 9 minute video consists of additional segments organized just like these, up until the very end. In the background we watch imagery related to the discovery begin touted, and or the people who developed it. In the final segment, the video poses a series of questions without answers. Who is driving the nation forward with a strong sense of national identity?” “Who has the will to advance humanity? Finally, “What if it is a National University? Then the video flashes the name University of Kibangsaan Malaysia.
While the video is long and repetitive, I think it would be a mistake to call it boring. The question response format calls attention to the amazing breakthrough each discovery has brought to ongoing human progress. However, with respect to the visual presentation I do believe the video missed presenting enough clips of the discoveries in action and therefore may not have reached to the level of excitement it could have.
To illustrate my point, the video starts by posing the question “What if a computer created by man could see things your human eye can’t see?” The question makes you think and then the next caption introduces the driver drowsiness detection system. The question and response arouses interest. However, the video fails to show a depiction of the produc being used in real life. A visual presentation of a driver driving down the road at night and almost falling asleep and being aroused by the computer and then pulling over, would have, in my opinion, added more excitement. This type of vidual segment would have been comparable to contemporary videos of androids, which feature the androids performing a variety of feats on screen and talking to people. The question and answer format wins for consistency, yet by the end everyone knows what to expect, and so it loses some effectiveness. Furthermore, after a while viewers probably would like to know the name of the university presenting this research. While this might make some of the watchers stay to the end, it could also cause some of them to lose focus on each individual discovery. Finally, the one short appearance of the name of the University, which is the subject of the video is probably not enough to create powerful image branding. I would recommend that the name should have come out at the beginning, so viewers can associate all the advancements with the University.
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What do people want to see when they look at an airline carrier corporate video . They want to know that the airline is modern and up to date. They want to see images of sleek attractive airports and planes gliding effortlessly through the air. They want to know about awards the airlines has won, their record of safety. And they want to hear about the cities and countries serviced by the airlines. The Malaysia Airlines Corporate Video does this, and more.
The video begins by emphasizing the experience and importance of Malyasian Royal airlines. Not only has it been in operation for more than 50 years, it was also the official airlines of the Malaysian Royal family. It changed to become the official carrier of the newly proclaimed state of Malaysia. We are assured to hear this is the finest airlines in Malaysia.
Having emphasized the experience and importance of the air carrier, the video now presents important corporate images it wishes to convey to the public. The airlines is an international carrier, has one of the largest Asian air fleets, and can be considered a premier world airlines.Lest we worry that conditions in Malaysia might be a bit primitive, we are informed that the home airport base, KL International airport is one of the largest and most complex international airports in the world. This statement is backed up by clips of the airport, and the sophisticated subway system, which takes passengers to the nearby modern city Kuala Lumpur.
Additional assurance that we are dealing with a first rate airlines comes in the form of awards, which the airlines has won for excellent food, lounges and aircraft staff. Having convinced us that the airline is up to date reliable and reputable, we now are presented with images of the plush comfortable interior, current and future airplane upgrades, and the redesigned cabin, along with seats that recline into a bed.
Next the safety and security of the airline is stressed and we learn of a recent Boeing pride of excellence award, the airlines won. The video also presents the Maskargo, division of the air carrier, which provides award winning air shipping service.
The video chooses to close with on screen presentation of testimonials of some of the passengers. What we read from the passengers is consistent with what we have seen on the screen.
The task of a corporate video about an airline from a third world country is to convince viewers that their airline is reliable, up to date and even more has all the features of any of the world’s great airlines. This the video does admirably. From the start which emphasizes the political stability of the country as well as the continuance of the airline despite a recent change form Monarchy to democracy, to the middle, which presents the airline corcorporation as a modern up to date air carrier, to the awards and testimonials, the video presents all the material necessary to convince viewers that it is a totally first class world airlines. The carefully crafted video narration is backed up with illustrative clips of the sleek airline in action, the modern cabin interior, the modern international airport and modern city surrounding the Malaysian airport.
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A corporate video is defined as a video that is made for a company to be used by the company. Within the encompassment of that definition, there are many sub-types of corporate videos. An investor relations video is one type. As the name suggests, the task of this video is to report to the investors about progress in the corporation. Since every corporation wants investors, the obvious task is to convince investors that the company is strong, and thriving, and worth investing in.
There are many approaches to creation of a successful corporate investor relations video. One type is exemplified by the Tupperware Brand Investor Relations 2008, which can be seen at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LKvPHMtUJfY . This video features, Rick Goings the Tupperware CEO. The first part of the video builds on a trend, which has been increasingly popular in the corporate video genre. The first two segments are presented in a broadcasting style rather than video style. So the first two segments present clips from recent TV interviews of company CEO.
Segment one is a clip taken from an interview in the Swiss Alps, with Rick as he heads to a morning session of the World Economic Forum. He tells the audience that he feels good about 2008. He directly addresses concerns about unemployment. The company is “counter-cyclical.” If there is more unemployment there are more people to recruit from.
In the second segment, Rick is being interviewed by the host of the television show mad money. The commentator asks him if he is concerned about Fanny Mai, credit spreads, mortgages, and what Ben Bernanke is going to do. He responds that a bull is hidden in every situation. After four quarters of unemployment, recruitment of Tupperware sellers will rise, he notes.
The last two segments present televised anecdotes of stars that have some connection to Tupperware. Star Ice Tea testifies on screen that he loves Tupperware. And mega star Brooks Shields is filmed at the opening of Camp Confidence, a combined Tuperware and Brook Shields project to open quality girl’s clubs.
This video successfully awakens excitement about and confidence in the company, without the use of graphs, charts, piles of boring statistics.
At the very beginning, the video did address, what are likely to be major economic concerns by investors. How will the company fare in this economy? The CEO said, it will take advantage of the circumstances. They will find ways to take advantage of the weakness, and thus triumph.
After allaying investor concerns, the video presents positive reasons for being excited about Tupperware.
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Elocal has invented the genre of short, (10-20 second), generic website videos which can be used by any business in the profession for which they are made. Because this is a new marketing approach, it is important to examine videos in the eLocal collection to try and determine what types of content are most likely to successfully attract customers to companies using this type of web video on their website or landing page.
The eLocal health insurance landing page video, consists of three short family vignettes. The vignettes are backed up by a wistful electronic synthesizer generated melody. The vignettes tell a story, but it takes a while to put the pieces together.
In the first segment, a young mother is holding her baby, in a well lighted domestic environment. Instead of the joy a mother usually feels when holding her young child, this mother is anxious, distant a bit distracted, and even bites her lip. There is a sad look in her eye. What could be the reason?
The second segment takes place as the sun is setting. A father plays with his two daughters on a hill top. One sister tries to touch the other sister, being held by the father. The father twists this way and that to prevent the one daughter from touching her sister. The whole scene is viewed from a distance, and the three players are silhouetted against the setting sun. In the third scene, the father, perhaps the same father is pushing his young daughter on a swing. If this is the same child as we saw in the first scene than she has grown up a bit.
The 20 second video displays three captions, which fit together to make two sentences.Putting them together they read: ” Can you measure the value of your family?” “Find out about your health options today.”
I had to watch the video four or five times before the captions and sequences all came together and began to suggest a story. The mother may have been anxious in the first scene because she had a medical condition and knew she wouldn’t live to see her child grow up. In the second and third scenes the mother is conspicuously absent and the father is playing with the children. The setting sun against which the father and children are silhouetted in the second scene might symbolize the waning life of the mother. In the third scene, the mother the father, is playing with his daughter, the absence of the mother suggests that the scenario actually occurred.
This interpretation of the video is supported by the somber, almost dirge like synthesizer music, which plays in the background. The suggestive plot line seen together with the captions suggests that the family did not have enough health insurance to pay for the mother’s catastrophic health needs. Perhaps if they had, the mother would still be living.
Other people might interpret the video differently. Like rorschach diagrams, the three scenes together suggest various interpretations to individual viewers. However, most of the interpretations are likely to be somber.
Because elocal’s 20 second generic videos are made to be placed on the website of anyone in a chosen profession, they often avoid using real shots of one particular company, perhaps so the videos won’t be considered to be misleading, when used by two different companies in the same profession. In this web video, however, the film depicts a scenario portraying people who need health insurance, and not portraying the insurance company itself. eLocal apparently felt comfortable using real people to portray members of a family with inadequate health insurance to cover their needs.
The question one puzzles about is how people will interpret the story, and if this will motivate them to buy health insurance. I don’t believe too many people will interpret the storyline in the way I did. The video emphasizes family relationships. People viewing the short video might be inspired to contact the insurance company because they believe they must have insurance for their children’s sake. Or else they must have health insurance for themselves so they will be healthy to take care of their children. These lines of thought might be aroused by seeing the video, and subsequently inspire the viewers to contact an insurance company.