The Way We Watch

YouTube Interviews With Film Directors You Should Know

If you're a follower of this blog, you know my taste in movies. I've searched YouTube for some interesting interviews on film makers and how they think. Here's the best of them:

Stanley Kubrick

This short six minute clip of a longer piece focuses on Kubrick's early years as a bad school student (except for science). Instead he became a student of photography from taking pictures to selling them. I like his explanation of coming up with a generalized approach to "problem solving" as a way to help you in any thing.

Orson Welles

It would be great to see the entire interview of this. "Friendship is more important than art," remember that the great Orson said that.

Here's another Orson clip where I can't tell if he really believes what he's saying. Love that extreme close up.

Hitchcock - Form vs. Content

"What is in a film that makes an audience go through these various emotions," asks Hitchcock in this clip. It's not the content of the story. It's his technique of the subjective camera.

Francis Ford Coppola on The Conversation

Coppola considers The Conversation to be his best. Rent it if you haven't seen it. It's a million miles away from The Godfather.

The Late Bob Fosse

Rare interview of this theater film double threat. Any frame from any one of his movies is more inspiring than this interview, but it is good to see him in the flesh. You wanna say, "Put out the cigarette, Mr. Fosse." Unintentional funny: that last musical out-tro.

Charlie Kaufman

Writer of Being John Malkovich and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and now director with his latest movie Synecdoche, New York. He's got to have one of the most creative minds out there. I like what he says about our culture only accepting one kind of narrative arc. He ends with, "Be diligent and some what courageous."

Woody Allen May 2008 Interview

In this interview from Time.com, Allen gives a great performance. Answer #2 is a home run.

Otto Preminger From 1972

"It would be wrong for me to tell you what to think." That's the essence of his film making style in a handful of words.

Ridley Scott On Creating A Convincing Universe

Sounds simple to say but what separates a dull genre picture into something more: good choices.

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Using YouTube Annotations

Using Annotations in YouTube an easy way to highlight important points in your video.

It's great for underlining takeaways and to do's.  Or, have fun with them and undercut what is being said on screen like when Woody Allen used subtitles in Annie Hall.

You create the annotations after you have uploaded your video to YouTube.  There's a really simple editor that you can use to make thought bubbles, text in boxes, or links to share other URLs in YouTube.

Check out this simple one that I made. Title: A Blogger At Work:

Music: Kevin Macleod

Another example that I wrote about a few weeks ago is here.

A short how to video about Annotations is here.

Happy annotating!

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4 Mistakes Video Bloggers Make and How You Can Avoid Them

Here are four Video Blogging mistakes I see all the time and what you can do to avoid them.

1. Mistake: your background isn't doing anything for you.  Don't set up in front of a grey wall. Or a brick wall. Or any kind of blank wall.
   
   Of course you can use white, grey, or black wall as an advantage. But you need good lighting to do that. Most V Bloggers don't use lighting so I counsel to just stay away from this:
   
   
   
   
   This looks better. Hey, who is this guy?  Note, I'm not using my laptop camera.
   
   Instead I have a mini DV camera (Canon HV30) perched slightly above me.  You'll see that the walls are creating interesting angles. The chair to the left breaks up the white wall and that the splash of blue on the wall helps enormously:
   
   
   
   
   
2. Mistake: your shots have you centered up in the frame.  Think about negative space. You will look stronger in the frame if you don't appear bullseye in the center of the frame all the time.
   
   This guy is centered up. We get bored of even 2 minutes of this.
   
    
   
   This person is against a black background but he's lit well so it's OK.
   
    
                     
   
   
   This video can be seen here: http://www.viddler.com/explore/AdventCreative/videos/2/
   
   
3. Mistake: you stick to a medium shot. In the following example, two of my social media gods, David Meerman Scott shoots a video of Chris Brogan with his Flip Mino.
   
   David chooses to let the camera hang on a medium shot.  Two problems with this.  In video, only the face is expressive.  While Brogan has a nice chest and cool Sopranos-like shirt on. It doesn't provide the viewer with any information. 
   
   The eyes, the mouth... focus on that.  Also, note all the head room above Chris' head.  Close that up.
   
   Uploaded with plasq's Skitch!
4. Mistake: No Editing.  It's easier to hit record spew out what you're going to say in a medium shot and then post.  But that would be like writing a rant and not putting in paragraph marks or punctuation. 
   
   Editing takes time to master.  iMovie has made their program pretty much worthless.  So try ScreenFlow, Final Cut Express or Adobe Premiere. Lynda.com has some great tutorials on Final Cut.
   
   I haven't checked out the editing capabilities of the iPhone yet but it looks (just from the ad) like they are basing it on their iMovie platform. Yuck. 
   
   Look what a little editing does here (and a mix of settings):

   

How are you making your Vlogging videos better?

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19 Social Media To-Do's

If you are a new reader or an old one, thanks for stopping by.  What I do here is help readers with video, social networks, vlogging, and converse about the changing nature of marketing/PR and communications within the social web.

Let me know if what you see and read is helpful with a comment or tweet. Click @chrismingryan.

Today is a great day to:

• Start using RSS to make yourself an editor-in-chief of the social web.
• Send a Tweet.
• Be in the social networking game because Obama did it and look where he is now.
• Become an expert.
• Make a subtle change that makes something more truthful.
• Recharge your batteries with a classic film and tell someone about it.
• Interview your kids or a friend on what they reading, watching, and playing (you will learn something).
  
  

• Spice up your blog.
• Write a rant and share it in an email or post.
• Produce video - it's easier than ever before.
• Publicize others (hint: it's the secret of the social web) and help your tribe at the same time.
• Get the person who works for you a promotion by doing this.
• Make something beautiful. 
• Direct a video classified
   

• Surprise your audience.
• Develop an analogy.
• Create a Wordle and share it (they are fun).
• Introduce yourself with a joke.
• Encourage a blogger by subscribing to their blog.

photo credit: robinn.

YouTube Annotation: Who Needs A Website Or a DVD For That Matter?

There's so much you can now do in YouTube.  Even though Annotation ability has existed for over a year, creative video makers are just now starting to work with it in brilliant ways. They are making websites obsolete as a storytelling device.

Flash forward a bit. DVD Menus and Extras...why not load it all up on YouTube and charge half the price.

Many thanks to Richard Pentin for pointing me to this video.

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