Are Audiences Stupid? Why Dumbing Down is a Dumb Thing to Do

In my decades-long video and meeting production career, there was one phrase that sent chills down my spine:

“Close enough for government work.”

This was another way of saying, “Good enough for those stupid people”, or “This audience doesn’t deserve my best work, or “I want to go home.”

What it said to me about that employee or colleague was that he or she didn’t care– about the audience or their own integrity. And that shortsightedness came from a stereotype of the average viewing audience: They’re impatient, stupid, and need everything spoon-fed.

Wow.

I mean, wow.

Is there any chance that these producers were right? Simply, are audiences stupid?

Look in the mirror. Are you?

The answer is no. Just because an audience doesn’t know the difference between a Red camera and a DVcam; Klieg lights vs. Kino-flo’s, or iambic pentameter from Mother Goose doesn’t mean they don’t know what is good. They are the audience. They are the biggest group of critics around, and they know what they like.

They like stories.

In Hollywood, they approve with their dollars. In business, they approve with action, commitment, or a bit of both.

They are us; we are they– if it’s too complicated for us, its too complicated for them. If it’s intriguing to us, it’s intriguing to them.

Examples? Christopher Nolan; Orson Welles; M. Night Shyamalan. Their work challenges the audience and keeps them intrigued.

Corporate examples? Videos that don”t preach, meetings that don’t pander, speeches that reduce the PowerPoint to clear, illustrative, intriguing pictorial elements.

Why simply say “We need better customer service” in a video, when kids in a Lemonade Stand can better or more arrestingly tell “the story?”

Why preach about miscalibrated machining equipment and the resultant costs when you can produce a film-noir-like mystery?

Why have the CEO of a corporation sit at his or her desk and lecture on building brand loyalty when interviews with real customers can make that case more convincingly and more humanly?

It’s the story, stupid.

Even the stupid audience knows that.

NBC’s On-Demand Multi-Cam is Awesome!

Really, you just have to experience it. Pick the angle you want. The best part is the pre-game, where you can see the camerapeople searching for shots, seeking out the stars, and grabbing quick looks at cheerleaders. You can watch all the pre-game lat minute hub-bub and rehearsals and warmups. Just watching the cable-cam is a unique experience. And the stuff that goes on during commercials shows what a… show… this all is. (Okay, I’ve never been to an NFL game live, so excuse me!)

Go to http://player.snfextra.nbcsports.com/player.htm

Just Because You Don’t Get It, Doesn’t Mean You Shouldn’t Get It.

I admit it. Despite being an early adopter of the web (I’ve had the same url’s since the mid-90′s) I misread a couple of things.

I didn’t think information could come in spurts as short as a tweet. I forgot about something called telegrams.

I didn’t think about the web as a social place. Yet I’m as old as Walt Mossberg and used to hang out in the same “forums” on Compuserve and The Source.

And I didn’t see it as the ultimate distribution tool for video…. well, I did, but I didn’t expect it to kill off DVD’s and cd-roms. Now we urge our clients to create video just for the web– video that doesn’t even have to go “viral” to do the job. Just find your niche.

A lot of potential users of video on the web don’t get it, so they don’t use it.  They can’t understand the technology, or can’t envision a world beyond cable TV, DVD, or even giant sales meetings. And a good video might cost the same as a basic website, so they put the horse before the cart. These days, you need both– they are synergistic beyond belief.

So you’ve got to believe in the potential of what you don’t know– even if you can’t see what’s in front of your nose.

You can’t be aware of everything. But you can rely on the expertise and experience of good consultants to help point you in the right direction.

Brien Lee (that’s Brien with an “e”, in case you want to call or write. Really, we can see the future– we think.)

Thoughts on What’s Under New Media’s Hood

I’m about to deliver a presentation in two hours or so. Every Tuesday morning, a group of local business people gather for something called a “BNI” meeting– Business Network International. BNI is a structured networking referral group.

We have about 20 members in our group, which means that each individual gets to make a ten minute “pitch” three times a year on what kinds of referrals would be good for their own business. It’s hyperlocal, which is good in general, but probably not perfect for me since my goods (custom meetings, videos, DVDs, Web Video and Web Sites) tend to be somewhat higher ticket.

We meet at Cafe Verde in Phillipsburg, NJ, which is a very nice place, and also happens to be a client. We started working on a video / web marketing package for them about a month ago. And this is NOT a high ticket relationship, but it is an important one. It is a proof of concept relationship. The web+video marketing combo relies on a lot of things, all of which are defined by the fact that the web is somewhat measurable, search rankings are somewhat controllable, and video is turning out to be a key component to succeeding in defining success in measurement and ranking.

I’ve been through a lot of media in my career: slide-shows, multi-image extravaganzas, filmstrips, industrial theater, video for meetings, multi-screen video, electronic presentations, visual databases, “Instant” a-v’s for meetings with early electronic recordable still cameras, panoramic video through anamorphic shooting and playback, PowerPoint, interactive cd-roms and DVDs, and even custom video-on-demand,  e-learning and content management systems.

Always about a year too early. So we’ve got some arrows in our back, but we broke a lot of ground and can claim we were among the first in many of these areas.

My company has done web sites before– plenty. But my company was bigger back then. It was a different time. The bandwidth wasn’t there for video, there was no such thing as WordPress, FrontPage was the “mature” web development software, and Dreamweaver was on V1.0.

That meant that web sites were expensive, and not very creative. They took a lot of programming, and if you weren’t careful you could lose your shirt. The emphasis was on the back end, and it’s endless pursuit of perfection, and I was a front end kind of guy. Content, Creative, Design… then execute.

It seemed we sold  something, then almost immediately started to program. The programming applications had some flowcharting visualization built in, but all of it was in the hands of one person– approvals were therefore difficult, changes were plenty, and projects seemed endless. It was all in one person;s head.

Doing a DVD was a bit different for me. Being, in fact mostly video, and being a pretty straightforward (IF GRUELING) programming process, we were better able to visualize how the DVD (or cd-rom) would work. We used flowcharts, and those flowcharts were created by our writers, who had to build the sales and persuasion logic that drove the whole process to begin with.

Besides, we had been down this road before, so we knew what to do.

Writer always made us different. That we didn’t realize the important role writers could play in the architecture of the web was understandable. The web was links, clicks, pictures, some copy blocks, or a lot of fill in the blanks surveys or grabbing data from here and showing it there. I know. We even built our own e-commerce system.

Years have passed, the web has matured, there’s tools for everything, and advertising and Google’s role in the web have brought standards and measurements to the field very reminiscent of magazine and newspaper readership studies. There has also emerged a standard language for building websites, and the bandwidth is now such that, thanks to YouTube and other video hosting sites, video is the big gorilla carrying viewership and search optimization on its back.

Welcome home.

The video web combo offers bang for the buck unlike we’ve seen in the past 20 or so years. One way of controlling costs of course is to plan. That we have always done, and it’s not surprising that our tool-set for this is very familiar:

• Strategize
• Outline
• Propose
• Quote
• Wireframe
• Site-map
• Copy Blocks
• Art Direction
• (APPROVAL)
• Refine art & copy
• Create graphics and videos
• Webisize.

Okay, “webisize” gives the work done by the web designers and programmers short shrift.

But what good local sight needs today is efficiency, gravity, personality, and constant change. And all the Flash in the world can’t provide the juice to pump up the search engines.

Content can. Video Can. Change can.

That’s the Video Trojan horse. Used to be, to sell big videos we had to sell big meetings. Now, to sell video, we sell web sites. A well produced video on the web is gold. it is sticky, has personality, gets the communications job dome quickly in site and sound, and can be parceled out at the right place on the site at the right time.

We have a very well developed “wireframing” process for our web sites and interactive projects. But, being around for a while, we didn’t just learned the logic of interactivity yesterday.

Many years ago, we produced some of the first interactive laserdiscs in the world in conjunction with AT&T and Bell Labs. They provided the hardware and the operating system for their hardware, we provided the finished laserdiscs, all carefully branched out interactively, just like one of today’s DVD’s or websites.

Here is the end result:

One of the First Interactive Video Projects, by Brien Lee & Company for AT&T

We didn’t have flowcharting software; heck Microsoft Word didn’t even exist and we were just a year or two beyond typewriters. So, here is what it took to get it there:

Tim Dodge and Brien Lee review their "living" flowchart

A flowchart. made of masking tape and a large empty room.

And it worked.

Proving once again, content is king.

There were something like 150 videos produce for those laserdiscs– all small segments like you might see today on YouTube. It was the beginning of short attention spans.

Without a detailed written guidepost plan, I don ‘t see how we could have done it. We used three different facilities in New York City, two writers, two producers, and dozens of support personnel. That’s what video was like in those days, plus laserdisc production was a very tightly controlled process– high quality, clean rooms, test pressings, on and on.

Once the laserdiscs were done, the AT&T engineers had to program their secret code into their secret computers to make the discs work with their secret playback systems. We didn’t have much contact with them, because they were protecting their proprietary code,  but they had our flowcharts, and they told us that the flowcharts and script segments were detailed enough that they could handle it on their own. Saving, I’m sure, hundreds of hours of miscommunication had we not had all the documentation.

Lesson learned. And not the hard way.

Today, outside of some of the more sophisticated shooting or 3d animations, the whole job could be done by two people and a couple of powerful enough laptops. Naturally, we’d use DVD, or hard disc, or even solid state drive. The intelligence could be programmed into the DVD, or the whole thing could be put on the web with a combination of flash, video, html and perhaps php. And the code is no longer proprietary, or at least a secret. You just have to buy off-the-shelf software.

But you have to be proud of the fact that our people– Linda Duczman, Lora Keller, Tim Dodge– went into the project with a plan we all developed. (And came out of it alive!)

It guaranteed success, and we do like to guarantee success.

Bad Idea #2: Not Budgeting for the Video

If you are a corporate marketing services buyer, you might already be budgeting for video. But if you are a marketing manager, or sales manager, or fund raiser, perhaps you aren’t. Meeting planner? Sometimes. Training Department. Yes, probably. Really, every situation is different.

Throughout my career, I’ve heard time and time again, “We didn’t budget for this…”, as if that was sufficient justification for me to cut prices.

But of course, as the exception, you know it doesn’t work that way. When there’s a line item foer the kind of thing we do in your approved budget, things move along a lot faster, and without additional justification to upper management. So you’re good to go, the minute you’re ready and the demand is there. (Your bosses like to see action, after all… how does that go– “Look busy”?)

Budgeting a video is a tricky process, because it’s all based on the amount of footage you shoot, and the kind of footage you shoot. Controlled, short (one or two days) shoots make for controlled, reasonably fast edits… perhaps this is a new product video and it’s mostly close-up tabletop work.

A history of the company, or a plant tour, or an overview of the entire operation may be a different story. Multiple shooting days, or weeks, combined with a desire to tell the best story ever about OUR GREAT COMPANY, Inc., will conspire to drive the price up. Not unreasonably, mind you– it’s all about the time it takes to do the job.

I’m convinced that professional buyers know what professional video producers and agencies need financially to do a job that meets the buyers’ expectations. I’m also convinced that when the project has not been budgeted for, they will find it necessary to “negotiate”. The problem is that this may eliminate the most credible and accomplished vendors. The  buyer is willing to make that sacrifice because they don’t want to go to the boss with an unbudgeted expenditure, and the lower the expenditure, the less the job impact. But what is sacrificed?

What about the positive impacts on your career? When you hire the right creative video producer, you’re often on your way to having a major message impact on your company (really, call and I’ll give you examples.)  And that can mean big things for you. Budget shouldn’t get in the way. And it won’t, if you’ve thought ahead.

The smartest buyers I’ve worked with investigate the cost of various kinds of projects before budgets are submitted. Granted, for the production company, that might be frustrating because it can mean a 4 or 6 month wait before anything gets going. But when it gets going, you won’t be playing a game of sticker shock driven ” I didn’t budget for that”, “well, maybe we can cut out some graphics”, “can you do this cheaper and we’re pay you more on the next job”, et. al.

You can do the job that will accomplish your goals, get you applause and recognition, impact the company’s bottom line, and impact yours as well.

That’s why we do no obligation creative proposals. We scope out the video or multimedia project or website or meeting, define as much as we can, and quote a turnkey “put it in the budget” figure.

You have to start somewhere. It might as well be ahead of the curve. That puts you a couple of major step closer to success.

Video in Emails ups Click-Through Rates 2-3X

Here’s some research published on MarketingVox that states that using a video in your email will up clickthroughs by 2 to 3x. Yes, many isp’s and corporate nets block videos in email, but there are plenty of ways to get around that without upsetting the IT department masters. Read more here, and call us at 908-213-8705 if you’d like to try it out for yourself. It’s an inexpensive investment that can triple your direct email effectiveness.

Bad Ideas #1: Defining an Open Creative Position by the Equipment that Should be Used

I was sent a help wanted listing by a business associate recently. They thought I’d get a kick out of it because it was for a listing for a video producer position at a business that makes products that I love (I can’t go into any more detail than that out of fairness for all parties involved.)

No, I’m not looking– but since I have done my share of hiring in the past few decades I am always curious as to the expectations set by help wanted ads for creatives.

Let’s forget for a second the impossible expectations and laughable language used in such ads (“Must eat, breath and live advertising”; “You don’t think outside the box, you are the box”, etc.

What interests me is that in a video and web driven world, creativity is often defined not by writing, design or storytelling capability, but instead by the software and hardware employed.

This ad said (paraphrased), “Video producer wanted to produce web videos for our catalog pages and web site. Knowledge of Adobe Premiere, Photoshop, and After Effects required.”

Uh… why? Does a knowledge of these particular programs guarantee that you know the basics of design, writing, creative direction, photography, photo touch-up, shooting and editing?

This was followed by “Windows platform preferred.”

I can see the Windows platform (or Mac platform) preference as perhaps reasonable, since the company may have standardized on and invested in plenty of hardware that is single platform centric. That’s a business decision.

But eliminating perhaps 70% of your creative applicants because they use some other software than what you like or know is like a curator at the Met, MOMA, or Guggenheim who only hangs paintings that use a #12 Kolinsky Red Sable Art Brush.

The talented and driven can and will adapt to almost any software or hardware. That’s easily learned. What can’t easily be learned is what is done with the tools, whether they are using typewriters, yellow legal pad, or Final Cut Pro or Microsoft Word or Final Draft.

It’s the story, stupid. And that’s the basis on which you should hire.

How to Produce a Video on the Cheap. And, Yes, a “Good” Video.

Video is one of those rare fields that has had a total reboot. It has not been supplanted, replaced, superseded, obsoleted, or died.

It flailed for a bit, while the doctors tried to find what about the web made its parents think it was going to die.

But then Dr. House entered, and declared, “Ahah! It isn’t dying. It is being reborn!”

And it was reborn, in short pants. Younger, leaner, easier to maintain (not as fussy about it’s baby food) and requiring far fewer oil changes.

Have I mixed enough metaphors?

The new video was born of a demand caused by the Internet, and it wasn’t always called video. Sometimes it was “Powerpoints,” or “Decks”, or “Flash shows”, or “Streaming” video. But those were just designer labels.

Wrangler or Dior, it just doesn’t cost as much to make a video, if you do it right.

You will always pay for brains. The theme. The premise. The strategy. the script. (Uh, that’s what I sell, folks.)

But when you can get a high-def camera for 250 bucks, and a a damn good editing program for 100 bucks, and a powerhouse computer off-lease at some corporate slag-heap for practically free—- well now all that matters is that you know what to do with all this firepower.

My advice is go to the best video writer / director in town and yell him you know the secret handshake and get him to work on the cheap. He may just be glad to have the business.

But barring that, and assuming your ego wants to be a part of the wonderful world of video, here’s a few ways to produce a perfectly acceptable video on the cheap.

Start by making a slide show (for more on this, go to my other website, slideshowsecrets.com.) A good slideshow has compelling still images, the occasional graphic sequence, and a great soundtrack. The secret sauce is the soundtrack. There are terrific slide show programs available like ProShow Gold from Photodex for Windows and FotoMagico for the Mac that create incredible moving still image shows that sync precisely to pre-existing soundtracks that output to video and thus create, well, video. They can upload to YouTube, your own hosted site, to a DVD, flash drive, etc.

If you’d like to be working with full motion (more precisely, if you NEED to work with full motion– to show a motion process, to use interviews that MUST be on-camera) there are terrific low-rent video editing programs on both the MAC and PC sides.

For Windows, you can’t go wrong with any of the Sony Vegas family. These allow you to mix stills, motion, graphics, and create a fully sophisticiated soundtrack all within one program. We at VideoStory have used the pro version for years.

On the MAC side, Try combining the iLife and iWork products to create a hell of an arsenal. iMovie 9 allows for simple, intuitive editing. By using the presentation program Keynote for graphcs and effects and outputting to Quicktime for inclusion in your video edit, you’ve just upped the quality quotient by 10. (Please, please, do not tell any professionals I told this to you.)

A lot of these secrets can be found in my new book. “Tribute Videos for Love & Money”, which explores ways talented people with limited knowledge and resources can make great videos. If you’d like a free pre-release copy, just email me at brienlee@slideshowsecrets.com and I will send you a free complete PDF of the book in exchange for your email address for my newsletter. It’s worth it. It’s free.

How to Make Your OnLine Video Go Viral

Ad Age Digital has an insightful article on making your video viral, especially in terms of big campaigns.

24 Hour Demo Station? Meet Mogulus

To the right of this entry (at least until I write another entry) is something I call my “24 Hour Demo Station.”

If you click on it, you’ll join (in progress) a continuing loop of my company’s greatest hits, plus the occasional live break or pre-recorded commentary thrown in for good measure (starring, well, me.) It’s a service called Mogulus.

I’ve been playing with Mogulus for about a year. It has had its quirks, but seems pretty solid now. You essentially upload the various clips you want, then either “DJ” them live (with a camcorder pointed at your head), or simply set them up to play continuously, or on demand.

You can have as many play-lists as you want.

There are so many paradigms for web video these days– live, YouTube, Vlog, streaming, play on demand, and now this, that you have to wonder if there’s room for them all. So far, the answer is yes.

There are variations (or perhaps Mogulus is the variation): Stickam, Ubroadcast, MeTV, TV.com, and many others. I’ve played with them all, but Mogulus, despite its steeper learning curve, seems to offer a more permanent ongoing presence.

I’m not sure of its SEO value… I’m going to check into that. After all, what good is a tree broadcasting in the woods if nobody tunes in?

More on this story as it develops.

Back to you, Keith, or Rachel, or Brian, or Bill, or….