Viral Videos

Today I had the pleasure to work with the great team at In-Focus Digital Video. They are the video production sponsors for our museum's fundraiser, the Buffalo Chip Classic. They do top-notch video production and did a great job producing the 2009 short (online) video and a nice longer DVD with footage of all of the teams.

We got into a disussion about editing to make videos more "viral" or faster, shorter, punchier etc. The event was really fun and they captured great footage so we think it has potential to be somewhat viral. I asked for the video to be limited to three minutes. That seems really short at first but if edited with a standard television commercial format it is actually six 30-second ads.

That made me think about the great 30-second ads aired during the Super Bowl each year. Many of them use narrative story-telling as the format and take you through an entire "plot" in 30 seconds. I watched about a dozen, and most of the 2010 Doritos ads, and counted an average of 15 cuts (segments of footage) per 30-second spot. They move fast but are able to carry a narrative, and make you laugh. This one is my favorite video of the bunch.

While I was jogging this morning I thought more about an idea I had back in 2004 that keeps coming up in my mind. The idea was about creating a business that brings high-quality video/film production to a mass-market. It was creating the next Kinkos, for video and digital services. It was really prompted by the death of my mother, Carolyn Cooper Salmon. I wanted to create a documentary tribute to her wonderful life. But now, six year later it still hasn't happened. I keep seeing new/better ways to distribute video online and it makes me wonder who is going to capitalize on this. Today I thought about the year 1932 when my mother was born. I thought about the events of that year. I thought about what might have been happening in Nocona, Texas where she was born. I thought about how a business like I've envisioned could create the templates for each of these years that could be added to someone's life story. Then, as usual, my thoughts fell into the many details of copyright law and competing interests...and I finished my run and went to work. Only today while working on my "real job" I decided to write this down here, where nobody will likely see it, but it is recorded. Life goes on. History is made...

Life Online on in 2010 - Is it real?

2010. A new decade has arrived. I'm sitting in my office working on several projects including updates to the Frontier Texas! website: www.frontiertexas.com. That reminded me that I have this blog space that I don't actually use and that nobody knows about. So here I am writing to you, or myself as it seems. It reminds me of the question "If a tree falls in a forest...?"

I am an active Facebook user and keep posts for Frontier Texas! on www.facebook.com/frontiertexas but I am still avoiding Twitter at this point - but it might be in my near future - I keep hoping it fades away.

Just for the record, it's really cold in Abilene, Texas today. Well, cold for us Texans - about 25 degrees. We're planning an event for Texas Independence Day on March 2, 2010 - it should be a good event. We're also working on a new exhibit: "Gunfighters: The Law and the Lawless on the Texas Frontier" that should open in March.

If anyone reads this please email me (jeff@frontiertexas.com) and let me know so I can actually give some thoughts to future posts. Happy trails!