Big Projects: Good Riddance!?

I always love/hate big projects. I have been working on a large video project for the past six weeks and it is coming to an end. It entailed all of my production skills: writing, scheduling, shooting, editing, recording, mixing, and nearly endless tweaking. This project is the kind that has many management types contributing their opinions, and only little old me to carry them out. The piece is quite good and I am happy with it.

So now, I am moving on to another project that I have to have to manage from start to end. What this next project will hopefully lack is the layers of approval the previous project required. What I have been learning about video production lately is not how to make an effective three-point edit or how to trim a clip by three frames but how to get the client to tell you what they want. The client needs to understand that what they want is not the finished product, but the intended consequence. That is a major difference.

If your client walks in and wants a seven minute video, you will have a hard time pleasing them no matter what you give them. If what they want is clearly defined such as a marketing video that will appeal to an 18 - 24 year old male that will increase direct traffic to a website promoting a sports drink you have a definite strategy that is measurable and attainable.

The hardest part is still having your client understand your vision. There is no way around it. Non-creative people just don't get it. Their brains are not wired to understand creative people or creative things. They may nod their heads in agreement, but you might as well be speaking a foreign language. They just don't get it.

Twitter a Passing Fad?

I have recently become bored with Twitter, the social networking site that gives you only 140 characters to tell your story. Although forcing one to 140 characters has added succinctness to web correspondence, it limits you to speaking in "teasers". In news terms, a teaser is a when you set up a problem for the viewer right before a commercial break in the hopes of the viewer returning to the program after 2 minutes of mind-numbing marketing. An example of this would be "Stayed tuned to see if this tornado wipes out a school bus filled with second graders..."

You can see that if you set up an expectation in your audience then fail to meet that expectation you disappoint them and they will move on to another channel. The same thing happens with Twitter. Who really cares what you are doing at the moment? Why should I care that you found something cool on StumbleUpon and want to reTweet it?

I guess that I really don't care what you are doing. If you have created something interesting then tweet it. If you have nothing to say that is interesting or personal to you then don't.

I think this is the reason that so many tweeters are giving up on the process. Check out this article for more details.


http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/business/story/0,,25406742-36418,00.html