Wednesday 28 April 2010

Topical Thunder

So you're an amateur film-maker eh? You're making your videos, which aren't too bad, but nobody is watching apart from your mum, and even she doesn't understand all the themes behind your Zombie 5 Minute Epic. The verisimilitude is wasted on her...

It's the problem with the path of recognition. You make your film, put it online and... wait. Wait for the views, the word of mouth, the minor celebrity and finally the love! God the love! People see me! Watch me! LOVE ME!

*Ahem*

As I was saying, the more views, the more your video is likely to "catch fire" and the rest of your Filmic endeavors shalt be seen and you will finally make that bigger budget film you wish to make (Zombie Epic, one day you shall be mine...)

Now there are many ways you can do that. Pimp it via social network sites, other video sites, mutual interest sites with a dedicated community and handsome users who are absolutely lovely in every way (yeah I mean you sweet cheeks...) but sometimes the exposure will either dry up once it leaves your more immediate circle and you will float around a number. So what to do?

You get totally topical baby...

My latest vid, Tory Blue, was something I came up with when I did what I usually do when listening to music, change the lyrics to something a bit funnier. Luckily, Only You by Yazoo seemed to go with David Cameron, and there was an election on it's way over here in the jolly ol' United Kingdom.

So far, so good. The ingredients were there and I worked away at making another Zero Budget Music Skit. However, the usual hurdles (time, money, location, people) were there to over-come.

First: Time. With the election approaching this video would be void in a few weeks (potentially anyway) so the pressure was on to make something before then, which in turn affected the Second thing: Money. As a dirt poor individual (with but £2 to my name currently!) I had to work with what I had (something I will blog about at a later date). Therefore, I turned to my housemate and her skills (aka, printer), and we got the cut out masks. It looked cheap, it looked Zero Budget, it looked like a Filmic Type thing!

Location was summed up easily by some creative thinking. My house, which I now dub Queen Street Studios, was pranced about so not all shots took place in my living room (and if they did, from different angles to suggest other rooms!) With some musing around, I came up with enough scenes to take place using the space I had.

Finally, and this was the hard part, was people. As I said I already had me and my housemate (and even I was an umming participant, for fear of being seen as a One Man Show) and needed people for a crowd shot. Despite trying all and sundry before the weekend and then desperately texting around the day, few were keen. However, two friends lured two friends with them and from there, we had a small crowd. Again very cheap looking, but keeping the spirit of a Zero Budget Film-Maker...

So what then? The piece was edited together, the song was (painfully) created and it went up onto the Filmic Type Place. Then... then we needed the pitch.

Like I said, you can go so far with some vids, but with topical stuff you open up a little bit. Tagging the video with current topics and words, posting the videos on a few similarly themed websites and emailing them to a few similarly minded people would hopefully boost the returns. By tapping into the mind of the public, there was a chance of a more noticeable position.

And? Well... the vid is slowly climbing views wise, but already beats my most recent Mini Oli videos. The problem is that the views haven't translated across the rest of the vids or the website, but... they are still views. And that can't be sniffed at completely.

So the message in todays Blog? Try tapping into the nations vein, and become their heroin.

Wait... that's a terrible message! Ah bugger it, just read the paper and come up with something funny about goings on and piggyback it. Bleed pop culture for all its worth!

PLDM

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