Online Video

If you’re a video editor you know there’s a million different ways to put together the same video. OpenCut is a open-source film competition that gives all entrants the same footage and then see’s what they can do with it. Each entrant pays $25 and sends a 160GB hard drive to the company that will then be returned with 160GB of RED footage on it.

The winner of OpenCut 1.0 will receive a brand new AJA IO HD from Silverado. They will also be recognized as the "editor-of-record" at IMDB and will have their cut submitted to multiple film festivals.

Pretty interesting concept, and it could be a great way to get your hands on some RED footage and start working with it. Check out all the rules for the competition here.

If you’re just starting with online video, then WillVideoFor Food has an article up that’s for you. “Top 10 Ways to get Started on YouTube” is an article full of useful tips for new YouTube users. It’s full of some pretty decent tips that will get you up and running in no time. Check it out here.

You may see some familiar faces in Weezer’s latest music video. The band recently recorded a video for their newest single “Pork and Beans” and incorporated a variety of references to viral video hits of the past few years. There are a few cameo appearances in this video by YouTube video stars such as Chris Crocker from “Leave Britney Alone” and Tay Zonday from “Chocolate Rain”.

This is a fun one to watch if you’re a YouTube fanatic, if only for all the references. Is there anything that was left out you think should have been included in the video? Check it out here.

According to Silicon Alley Insider, the NBA was the big winner on YouTube last week as far as page views go. The National basketball Association scored 3.5 million views on their video channel. Two other big page view winners were two channels that are dedicated to American Idol content.

With the top spots going to network video content, one has to ask: isn’t YouTube for user generated content? Over the past year we’ve started to see channels show up for major networks and media organizations. Do you think that these big organizations are taking page views away from the little guy or adding to them? On one hand you have to think the content would have made it to the site somehow, so why not in high quality by the actual copyright owner? On the other hand YouTubes main purpose is to be an outlet for online content creators. The NBA and FOX have their own TV networks and websites to put their content. Are smaller content creators getting lost in the shadow of larger ones? Are the big guys taking over YouTube?

Videos get taken off of YouTube everyday due to copyright violations. The website YouTomb is a new service that is designed to keep track of what videos are being taken down and report how long the video stayed on the site before it was removed.

The site isn’t designed to let you watch removed videos, only to keep track of the ones that have been removed.  The service was started after YouTube started automatically scanning for copyrighted content and removing offending clips. In some cases YouTubes scanning process removes clips that are not in copyright violation at all. YouTomb hopes to educate people are real copyright laws, and help those who are victims of having their content taken down unjustly.

[via NewTeeVee]

Jaman has introduced ad-supported streaming. The new service adds another way for content creators to make money off their films. Currently users can make money off downloads and rentals of films they create and upload to the site.

The company was reportedly not doing very well selling downloads and rentals of films, the idea is that ad-supported videos (that will have no real cost to the viewer) can be a great way for content creators (and Jaman) to make some money without anyone having to hand over their credit card digits.

Do any of you have videos up on Jaman? Would you be more likely to watch an ad-supported streaming version of a film off the site rather than paying for a download?

MySpace video is starting to pull in some big names. According to a report in the Hollywood Reporter, Ian Zierling (from 90210 fame) is expected to star in a new original online series based on “Man vs. Monday” a short film he directed. Zeirling was quoted as saying “I believe the digital world presents tremendous opportunities for the producers who understand it, and I am launching a digital production company, iMan Productions, to take advantage of this opportunity."

Looking for sponsorship for your videos? Videorix is a site designed to help video creators find sponsorship for their online videos.  The site has a decent amount of advertising opportunities for video makers. You can browse through the advertising options on the site, pick an advertiser and submit a proposal. If approved you get the sponsors ad to put as a pre-roll at the beginning of your video, and you get paid.

The process is pretty easy, and could be a great way to earn some cash, and find some people willing to pay to advertise on your videos.  The site is still in beta right now, so you also may run into some kinks along the way.

Have any of you tried Videorix? How do you find advertisers for your videos?

According to Mediaweek, the Interactive Advertising Bureau has introduced a set of guidelines this week that are designed to standardize online-video advertising the guidelines cover three online video formats: interruptive video spots, non-linear ads, and companion ads.

The guidelines were created by the IAB’s Digital Video Committee, which has 145 leading media companies including big names like Yahoo and Google. The guidelines which are suggestions rather than rules, cover things like low long ads should be, what files size, color, and bit rate. You can read more about the guidelines in the Mediaweek article here.

For those of you that create online ads how do you feel about the new guidelines?

[via WillVideoForFood]

Always wanted to be in a music video? Now’s your chance.

Zach Braff (from Scrubs) is directing a music video for singer/songwriter Jay Clifford. The idea behind the video is to get fans to record themselves lip synching to Jay’s song “Know when to Walk Away” and then mix the fan submissions in with Jay's performance of the song. You can download the song for free off the site and check out the official rules.

This is a great way to try your hand at shooting a music video if you’ve never given it a whirl before, and could earn you a spot in a real music video. It's an interesting idea- to bring in user-generated content to make a video. What are your thoughts on the idea?

CinemaTech just took a look at three websites that are designed to help filmmakers raise money online. They only looked at sites that were open for anyone to use to get funding which narrowed the discussion down a bit. The three sites they talked about were IndieGoGo, ArtistShare, and IndieMaverick. You can check out the article here.

The internet is certainly changing the way filmmakers raise money for their films. On the positive side a lot of these sites take a lot of the legwork out of finding people to fund you, and allow the option of having lots of smaller investors rather than just a few big shots. It seems like it might be harder to convince the masses to give you a small amount of money rather than a few big shots to give you a substantial amount of it. Have any of you used an internet site to fund a film? What was your experience?

Nokia just signed a deal with Spike Lee to do a short film for cell phones. The idea behind the film is to have Lee use some user-generated content that has been shot on cell phones, and then to put together a film that has three 5-minute parts. In talking about the project Lee said “Within five years, new movies will be made with devices like these.”

Do you think that’s actually the case? Sure movies are starting to skew more digital than film. The release of the RED camera is adding a whole new level of quality to digital video and making it possible to shoot some pretty amazing stuff digitally….but cell phones in 5 years? Really? Truth be told I was shocked and amazed Spike Lee signed up for this project in the first place, much less made a comment like that about it.

While I can see mass online quality videos being shot with cell phones in 2013 (probably MUCH better than what we would classify as web quality now) I can’t imagine seeing a Blockbuster shot on a video camera from a cell phone. Can you?

It was only a matter of time before YouTube stars made their way onto Americas favorite encyclopedia, Wikipedia. Wikipedia now has a page dedicated to “YouTube Celebrities” the page currently lists around 60 YouTuber’s who have made a name for themselves on the site. The page is currently disabled for new entries by non-registered users until next year because of “persistent promotional spam of non-notable persons” which brings up the question: “What makes someone a notable person on YouTube?”

Check out the list for yourself here. What do you think makes this particular list of people stand out from everyone else. What would you need to do to make the list?

YouTube has definitely changed since it first hit the web. Viewership is up 32% from last year, and while there are definitely some serious filmmakers and video bloggers using the site there is also a steady influx of people who are posting “shocker” videos that are designed just to get a lot of attention.

After the story last week of several Flordia teens beating up another teen with the intention of gaining YouTube popularity one has to wonder whether the changes in YouTube are really for the better.

Those of you that have been on YouTube for a while, what has changed in your time there? Do you think YouTube is a better site now? One YouTuber bnessel1973 has posted his thoughts on the changes in YouTube and has currently gotten about 20 video responses from other users on the site and almost 300 comments. See what he has to say here.

According to data from Hitwise, YouTube took more than 73% of all US visits to online video sites during the month of March, 32% over it’s percentage last year. Coming in second place for the month was MySpace, immediately followed by Google Video, Yahoo Video, and Break.com.

WillVideoForFood has an interesting list up of “Top Secret YouTube Tricks and Hacks.” While nothing on the list is particularly top secret there are a few tips in there you may not know about. Some items on the list include how to find the best videos on YouTube, how to watch blocked videos, how to make your videos upload faster, and how to upload to YouTube and several other video sites at the same time. Check out the full list and tips here.