Reading a newspaper, I saw a picture of birds on the electric wires. I cut out the photo and decided to make a song, using the exact location of the birds as notes (no Photoshop edit). I knew it wasn't the most original idea in the universe. I was just curious to hear what melody the birds were creating.
I sent the music to the photographer, Paulo Pinto, who I Googled on the internet. He told his editor, who told a reporter and the story ended up as an interview in the very same newspaper.
Here I've posted a short video made with the photo, the music and the score (composed by the birds).
Music made with Logic.
Video made with After Effects.
The newspaper story about my work (O Estado de São Paulo): tinyurl.com/l4qdbg
Things have changes dramatically in the online video world since we started back in 2004. That was a year before YouTube, before the Flip camera and 5 years before the iPhone 3GS. In those 5 years we saw huge changes in creating video content. We used to create less expensive videos when we started out but our goal was always to do more sophisticated, creative and, therefore, more expensive productions. We reached that goal pretty quickly and enjoyed the creative opportunities that a little bit of budget affords. But what we didn't do very well is anticipate the huge shift in client expectations that came with the rise of YouTube. Soon webcam quality video was OK. Small businesses thought that they could make their own videos with the camcorders they had at home. Larger companies wanted lower budgets and more guerrilla-style productions. Everything changed but IMA. We kept our eye on the bigger budgets and turned up our nose at the YouTube auteurs springing up everywhere around us. When the recession hit, all that was left were the auteurs.
Since day one IMA has always done more than video. We were never just a production company. That never made sense to us. We worked on strategy, websites, SEM, etc. It made more sense to us to help create a whole interactive model than to just focus on one element. In 2008 and 2009 and we saw fewer and fewer video production jobs coming through the door. The video projects we did do were tied to other interactive efforts. The larger budgets were evaporating.
Late this summer we decided to reverse that trend. IMA is now looking at ways to produce more video content at a variety of budget levels. We are still doing large productions, and we always will, but our doors are also open to smaller projects, especially if they are for Video Search Engine Optimization.
Which brings me to the point of this post. In order to put this new, lower budget concept to a true test, I asked one of our longterm clients if I could create a free video for them. The video would be used for their Video SEO campaign. The client agreed. When I showed up for the shoot he looked at me like I forgot something. There was no crew, no camera, no lights. I pulled my iPhone out of my pocket and said, "Let's shoot it".
The resulting video is below. As I said, we did this for Video SEO only, but it works. The quality isn't great, the sound is pretty bad and the graphics were done quickly. But at the end of the day, this video ranks on the first page organically and it doesn't hurt their brand. And it cost less than a cup of coffee.
I know most of you have seen this commercial. It's actually a little annoying in my opinion (but that may be because it is an AT&T commercial and my iPhone has terrible cell reception). I digress.
Toms Shoes is a pretty amazing company. Started by "Blake" from the TV spot a few years back, the company gives away a pair of their shoes to someone in the developing world each time a customer in the developed world buys a pair. It's capitalism as charity. Or charity as capitalism. Either way it's impressive. Most companies, IMA included, do very little to give back or share our expertise with those who cannot afford our services. Toms takes the whole thing a step further and folds the philanthropy right into the business plan. I'm impressed and motivated. If any non-profits out there are looking for online video help IMA would like to talk to you. You can contact me directly at jeff@imainteractive.com. I'm looking forward to talking to you.
