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viral video Archives - Steve Stockman

Steve Stockman
In Video Marketing

How Viral Videos REALLY Work

From How to Shoot Video that Doesn’t Suck, Page 189:

Viral videos can be total luck or part of an intentional, well orchestrated push.  What you don’t want is to have neither.

One kind of viral video happens when people accidentally stumble on “lightning in a bottle.”  For that, you’ll need the luck to have captured Charlie Bit My Finger–Again! and the luck that others find it as funny as you do.  Like lightning, you can’t make it strike when and where you want it to.

The pros do things differently– they put together a top creative team,

… Read the rest
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Steve Stockman
In Video Marketing

How to Create a Viral Video, Guaranteed!

How to create a viral video, guaranteed?  Two words:  Naked Celebrity.

If you have one, you’ve got a viral video.  If not, there’s no guarantee, and anyone who says different can’t be trusted.

“Viral” is not a kind of video—it’s a response by an audience.   To take a video viral, the audience has to be so excited by it that they urgently and quickly share it with everyone they know.

A Viral Video is, in other words, a hit.  And it’s no easier to make than it is to make a hit song, a hit television show, or a hit … Read the rest

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Steve Stockman
In Video Marketing

The Opposite of Viral Video

I wanted some bad video.

Not to watch, at least not all the way through, but to use as an example of how not to do things for my book.  Some inspiration from a video that was truly awful.

Turns out it’s very, very difficult to find bad video on YouTube.  I scrolled through 40 pages of “recitals” and none had less than 1600 view– still way too good for my purposes.  I searched for “dance recital”, then ranked by views.  YouTube cut me off on page 50– 1000 videos down out of 8,560– and the view count was … Read the rest

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Steve Stockman
In Examples from the Book

What in the Hell is Unity? (p. 114)

From How to Shoot Video that Doesn’t Suck, Page 114:

Aristotle was the first to note that great drama has three unities—of time, of place, or of action. Unity is another way to suggest a pure focus on one thing. A play might take place over one day (unity of time), or in single house (unity of place), or around a single event (unity of action). Unities keep the audience (and the writer/director) clear on what story they’re telling, making those stories more focused and powerful.

You may think we’re getting a little highbrow in our analysis here, … Read the rest

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Steve Stockman
In Examples from the Book

Set the Shot and Hold It: Beyonce (p. 111)

From How to Shoot Video that Doesn’t Suck, Page 111:

If you watch professionally shot film, you’ll be surprised how often the camera stays still. Practice keeping the camera locked.  That way the action in the frame becomes the most important thing.

A static camera doesn’t mean a boring video.  Most of this recent Beyonce video consists of static camera shots of Beyoncé and two other women dancing. What camera moves there are are infrequent and deliberate– and lead to another static framing.  Most simply keep the women in frame as they dance. Yet the video, like the … Read the rest

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Steve Stockman
In For Pros

Obsession = Great Video

I often wonder if an idea I have for a film or video will be interesting to people.  The answer always seems to be the same:  If I find an idea that I’m willing to really commit to, to go all out to get it done in a way that really interests ME, then invariably others will also find it interesting.

Case in point:  Pogo, an Australian artists who remixes popular films into techno song and video—both of which are spectacular.  You may not like techno, (or like me, you may not be able to even imagine the kind of … Read the rest

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