Viral Video– We all watched Charlie bite his finger. We’ve seen cute cats and dogs and squirrels doing cute things. We’ve watched, laughed and cried at what we’re seeing on the internet through youtube, vimeo and facebook. But what is the key to making a hit viral video? How can you make a video that will go viral? What we’ll talk about here is the viral video for corporate marketing– not just the everyday guy that wants his fifteen minutes. Viral Video Defined First off, let’s define what a viral video is. To be “viral,” a video must be passed around. Someone sees the video and then posts it on their page, or tweets it to their followers. And the numbers must be high. YouTube monetization doesn’t really make a difference until you’ve got over 25,000 followers or a million…
Working on corporate sets can be long and tiresome, however you can usually expect to experience some downtime. Every once in a while you’ll have some time on set where there’s nothing for you to do. Everything has been set up on your part and maybe you’re waiting for talent or props or, like what we faced the other day, literally watching paint dry. Just like with any other job or career you will want to converse with and get to know the people you are working along side. Now there are some topics that you want to stay away from. Of course, you’ll want to stay away from the usual controversial topics, such as religion and politics, but then which topics are safe? There are definitely some topics that you and others can comfortably discuss. Many of which are…
The corporate film and services has been changing as the technology evolves. Here at Serendipitous Films, we’re seeing a large increase in the short corporate video, mainly for the web. Viral videos– an unknown term in the 90’s– is fast becoming the highest demand video. In addition, we’ve seen a sharp increase in the “home page” video. Usually a short, two minute or so video about the company and it’s product or services. The Viral Video can be broken down into three types– Humorous, Touching, or Sensationalism. For the funny video– it needs to be incredibly humorous– the type of thing people instantly click to forward. to their friends. The Touching video pulls at heartstrings. The Sensationalism video is some jaw-dropping, I-can’t-believe-that-just happened type video. In Hollywood, the saying goes “Dying is easy, comedy is hard.” And it’s true. Comedy…
Caveat– all rules are made to be broken from time to time. But to break a rule in art, I believe you need to know what the rule is, versus it being an accident. So here are some random thoughts about corporate video: Easiest way to price a corporate video is by the “finished minute.” This means that if you want a five minute marketing piece for the web, the simplest way to quote it is $x times 5 minutes. Standards for simple video might be in the $1K range. I’ve had some videos in the $7K and $8K range. Usually the shorter the video is, the higher the price per finished minute will creep up. For example, if you price a video out at $2K per finished minute for a 5 minute video, and then decide to just cut…