video
Now that’s punctuation
Could this clip from James Burke’s Connections be any more virtuoso? The language… the delivery… the long smooth dolly… and of course, the timing at the end:
Via BERG’s weeknote 366.
The new skate video
Love how this video from Oxelo Skateboards totally subverts the form. Instead of a gray suburb full of annoyed non-skaters, the backdrop is Bangalore, Jaipur, Agra—all over India—where everybody seems just like, really into it. P.S. It’s also beautifully shot.
Snark by Snarkwest: Unexpected Non-Fiction Storytelling
Update: Dropped in the wrong embed code. I wondered why it was so quiet! Fixed.
Must not sleep. Must liveblog Ze Frank.
Red/blue stutter
Via Fake TV.
The other master class
Can I get a slow clap for Tim’s run over on Kottke this week? To my eye, it’s been totally true to the spirit of Jason’s site, but also very different from the kind of thing he usually does. Which is perfect! Why have guest-bloggers otherwise?
Also, like I said on Twitter:
Wow @tcarmody’s stint over at @kottke is turning into a Borgesian spectacle in which he connects everything to everything else in five days.
Unexpected: The thread of Islamic history. Also, videos! Lots of ‘em! (I spent a few minutes trying to make a BYO remix with this Koko the clown cartoon but discovered nothing beats the native soundtrack.)
Anyway: here, I’ll get it started
The coolest thing in the world right NOW
Alas, that last video didn’t get to enjoy the throne for long. A new champion, also from Kasia, of course—
It’s all about 0:20 to 0:50 or so. The lazy drifting camera and the soggy street-corner are so unexpected, and so great.
Actually, you know what, I’m missing the point here. What we need is for Luke and Remi and these guys to collaborate.
The coolest thing in the world right now
Kasia is right: these videos are terrific. “Lo-fi video experiments” from Luke White and Remi Weekes in London. Behold:
Why Old Spice matters
So the Old Spice campaign was funny, surprising, and perfectly-calibrated. These would be reasons enough to like it. But I’m not going to let you stop there. Here’s how I think the campaign establishes an important new precedent—not for online advertising, but for online storytelling across the board.
Here’s where I think it could take us.
Start here: as it became apparent that this wasn’t just a one-time media drop, but instead an ongoing live performance—a spectacle in progress—I was reminded of something that I heard Rex Sorgatz say years ago. I’ll paraphrase, broadly: blogs are actually more related to live theater than they are to, say, newspapers. The things that make a blog good are almost exactly the things that make a live performance good—and the most important, the magic catalyst, is the interplay with the audience.
So extend that beyond blogs, to Twitter feeds and Kickstarter projects and ARGs and whatever it is that Old Spice just did. I really believe in the analogy.
Video that scales (on a horse, backwards)
How do you square the appeal of super-high production values with the reality that, on the internet, what tends to work is lots and lots of content? (See: Demand Media, Huffington Post, YouTube, etc.)
Is it crazy to say that this ad campaign from Old Spice suggests a possible solution?
Wieden+Kennedy is producing super-short, snappy videos—all in basically the same format—in response to @replies on Twitter and comments on YouTube. You can click through to watch a bunch of them here. They’re funny, and I like the length; they’re video popcorn. (Er. I just watched five.)
Why isn’t there more video like this? Imagine a tumblr that posted three or four new videos every day, of about this length, at about this quality. Always the same characters, always the same background—easy to set up! Maybe it’s fictional; maybe it’s not. Maybe the videos respond directly to The Internet the way this Old Spice campaign does; maybe they don’t. Over time, it builds up a blog-like archive of hundreds, eventually thousands, of super-consumable little snippets. It also builds up a voice, tone, and style—a familiar, comfortable universe—in exactly the way a good blog (or webcomic) does.
What do you think? Plausible? Has it been tried before? (Don’t say The Show with Ze Frank; though sublime, it was a very different format. Each episode was a multi-minute, highly-edited bespoke daily creation. Too much work for not enough content!)
Is this related to what’s next for TV?
No magnets were harmed in the making of this video
It’s not what you think. And then it’s not the other thing you think, either:
(Via BERG.)