YouTube has now decided that in order to survive, they’re going to need to offer premium content like Hulu. This isn’t a surprise considering that YouTube has struggled to monetize videos on their site, but what is surprising is the manner in which YouTube is changing their fundamental design – by featuring more premium, commercial content. UGC content, which is the backbone of YouTube, is now relegated to a secondary role on the site. Sure 99.5% of the community videos on YouTube are barely watchable crap but it’s OUR barely watchable crap. How will the new HuluTube community respond? Most likely, they’ll move on to another platform or community where they feel their voice can be heard and aren’t reduced to second fiddle.
So what other video networks might this ostracized flock migrate to? My guess is there will be an uptick in members on some of the other UGC based online video sites like Veoh and Vimeo. However, I think the real winners out there will be the interactive online video sites like Justin.TV and Ustream. Ustream is already one of the top 5 most visited online video sites globally after YouTube and its recent announcement of its iPhone app has it poised to be the next gen heir to HuluTube’s crown.
IMO, the same shift and explosive growth we saw with real time interaction like Twitter is a similar shift that’s already occurring with interactive real-time video like Ustream.
Midgets and Mexican Wrestlers, oh my. Recently I stumbled across an interactive video advergame execution by Tribal DDB Paris for Airwaves, a Wrigley chewing gum. In the game you are El Invencible Chlorophyllo, a Mexican wrestler who gets his power form the secret ingredients in Airwaves. The evil Dr. Negra and his pack of marauding maniac midget wrestlers are out to steal the ingredient and once and for all bring Chlorophyllo to his knees.
Complete with a story mode, arcade mode and leader board, the adver-game repurposes footage from the 1971 Mexican film, “Los Campeones Justicieros – The Champions of Justice” to drive its interactive narrative path. Check out the original films climax, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b1GI1XxbFf4, apparently the film served as the inspiration for Nacho Libre, starring Jack Black.
In the game the user simply has to smash on one side of the keyboard or the other at the appropriate time to deliver a body blow, climb up the side of a mountain, avoid from falling off the roof of a car and even toss midgets. Although midgets and Mexican wrestlers is not necessarily an original idea, the interactive execution is well done.
As the plot of the original film is ridiculously hilarious, complete with lucha action, a mad scientist, scantly clad women, cheesy effects and super strong midgets the B-Film classic lowers the users expectations for shot continuity. This creates a forgiving audience and provides a great comedic stage for creative interactive editing. Who cares if one minute you’re a hundred feet from the top of the mountain struggling to make it to the next branch and the next your crawling onto the edge of the road? Chloromenthol Power!
Nice abs my fellow French men and ladies. Time for me to go kick some ass; I am as strong as 16 bulls, 4 chilies and 7 tractors. See if you can top that. Check the game out at http://www.chlorophyllo.fr/en/index.html.
If you are at all like me you’re always looking to see how “big brands” are engaging consumers in the social space. With that in mind I wanted to point you in the direction of what I’m 99.9999999999999999999% sure is a brand spanking new Converse campaign.
The campaign centers around an alleged titan of industry, Charles Charles Magall, who is challenging one Dwayne Wade (who when he’s not too busy selling Lincolns, T-mobile, Gatorade, or Topps Cards, is actively pitching Converse shoes) to a game of one on one (“to 10 by 1. Gotta win by 2. Mr. Wade”). As you will see, Mr. Magall looks auspiciously like your stereotypical agency creative, so, um… he doesn’t exactly look like what one would describe as an “athlete” – no offense. To date, D Wade has ignored Mr. Magall’s advances, so I’m sure tons of hi-jinx and hilarity will ensue over the coming months as the story builds (e.g. Mr. Magall has already bought billboards outside of the Heat’s stadium down in Miami challenging D Wade to the game).
For now, I’ll reserve judgment (I have several questions and reservations, not the least of which is regarding this particular storyline, and who it would appeal to versus who Converse’s primary basketball shoe buying consumer is), as I want to give them the chance to let their strategy play out.
At any rate, check out the links below, I’d love to hear your thoughts, either here, or over on twitter @jack2point0.
Recently I became aware that YouTube updated their annotations feature via an article on TechCrunch by Jason Kincaid. I was excited at first, however I was soon to be let down. Being an interactive director my mind went straight into the potential creative uses. Talk bubbles, notes, pause, linking, sharing, all these features are great when used appropriately with a strategic or creative purpose, annoying when they aren’t.
What I really wanted to find out is would YouTube fix the linking feature to incorporate Flash interactive cue points or something similar. Having used YouTube annotations in the past to create choose your own adventures I have been disappointed by the fact that the page has to refresh in order to continue an interactive narrative path. Hoping the TechCrunch article missed the feature, I decided to upload a test and give it a spin myself.
After testing all the features in the latest update I found myself at a loss. Cool, it’s easier. Cool, new creative tools. However, by not incorporating que points YouTube stains the true interactive experience. Throwing an unwanted, uncontrolled and unnecessary black slate, a digital hiccup, in the users fantasy. Breaking the perceived reality that content creators strive to create, disengaging them, and creating confusion. Until YouTube incorporates cue points interactive content creators will struggle to define the cognitive and affective process by which perceived reality is built. The interactive experience will not be true until the stain is wiped clean.
Sure I will continue to use annotations when warranted. There are some great interactive uses for annotations, and I will continue to explore new ways to use them. I am thankful for the feature. I can even imagine a few creative uses for the hiccup. Just give me the choice. Let creative freedom reign.
Each Holiday season we see a plethora of interactive cards hit the web, advertising agencies, marketing firms, design shops reaching out to their clients and vendors expressing Yuletide cheer. At the top of it, it is about saying “Thanks.” Sure, each agency hopes their creative attempts at a holiday card will gain some traction in the trades; a little PR is always a nice stocking stuffer.
With that said, I’m not reserving this post to praise, discuss or criticize the efforts made by creative teams. After sharing the Zugara Holiday card with our clients on YouTube several people responded with “How did you do that?!!?”
Here goes…
The idea was to use YouTube’s annotations to create an interactive video execution that revolved around Santa and what he does to those on his naughty list. Thus, the viewer would choose whom Santa would take to task on his naughty list. Using five famous scenes from Hollywood films we laid out a narrative path of teacher, enforcer, to rightfully proclaiming him as “the one.” After all, he is, isn’t he?
Identifying five scenes that were recognizable and didn’t present too much compositing work while keeping in line with our narrative was a task in itself.
With only a week to shoot, edit and composite five scenes from five different films we had to put planning front and center of our green screen shot. After reviewing camera angles, camera movement and lighting from the original scenes we prepped Santa. Before each shot we would bring him into our studio, review the original shot, run over any deviations from the original, rehearse blocking, rehearse camera movement and match lighting. Rehearsing blocking, camera movement and matching lighting was imperative to avoiding too many takes and eliminating unnecessary compositing work while having Santa’s emotions and movements translate well with the original scene. We wrapped five scenes in eight hours, time for post.
Being that we shot HD footage with the Panasonic HVX 200, we used Final Cut Pro to log and transfer all the footage.
One thing to note when shooting green screen footage is that it is best to shoot HD over SD if you have the option. HD has more pixels to work with and a wider color space. When it comes to getting a clean key, color information is vital. This is not to say you can’t get a good key with SD, especially if you have Ultimatte’s real-time keyer. However, HD will not only look good, but it will eliminate a lot of your post heartaches. If your only option is SD, make sure to light your green screen evenly and pull your subject as far away from the screen as your shot will allow.
Using Adobe After Effects we brought in the native footage and keyed out the green using Keylight 1.2. With the footage keyed it was time to bring in the original edited scenes and overlay Santa. In some cases we were able to simply cover the subject Santa would be taking the place of, color treat to match the scene and add shadows when necessary. For those shots that Santa did not cover the original actors’ movement we had to composite out the original actor. By exporting a still frame from the original footage we used Adobe Photoshop to remove the actor and create a clean background matte. We imported the matte into After Effects and dropped it behind Santa. In the cases where we had camera movement we either extended the matte size and/or limited our matte to the area that needed to be removed. After applying motion tracking to the matte and or Santa in After Effects we were in business.
The scenes that required interaction with the original actors, such as Chuck Norris and Agent Smith, we used animated masks on the matte and/or Santa to composite Santa into the shot. In the case of Santa stopping the bullets in “The Matrix” scene, we reanimated the bullets in After Effects and applied displacement maps to simulate the original motion stopping effect. After Effects puppet tool or masking a leg from a different shot came in handy for those times when we needed to give Santa’s kicks an extra boost.
With everything in place we did our final color correction and added sound effects. After compressing the footage for YouTube we uploaded the footage and applied annotations.
So, did anyone else notice the missing “P” in the new Jack in the Box spot? You know, the one where he’s riding along in Air Force One talking to the President Of The United States about value meals (as is his way). For some reason both the outside of the plane and the presidential seal itself, are missing an all important “P”, subsequently turning “President Of The United States” into “Resident Of The United States”. What do you think, is Jack in the Box getting in one last jab as Bush does his curtain call?
For some reason, the ad itself was removed from YouTube (and seemingly from the entire internets). But I did find at least one screenshot that seemed to be cached…
We Are Organized Chaos (WAOC) is Zugara’s (www.zugara.com) interactive marketing and advertising blog where we’ll be featuring some great projects and discussing upcoming trends in the digital world. Work — good and bad — will be critiqued. Hope you’ll enjoy reading our insights and thoughts on interactive.
