Surreal animation/video that would make Monty Python proud.

If you liked this cyriak has a lot more where that came from.

Oh those crazy Internet videos and the people behind them. Don’t you just love them? Just think about how dull your life would be without Numa Numa Kid, the Lazy Sunday Video, and Chocolate Rain.

To honor all of those vidz that have penetrated our online culture, Channel Frederator put together a montage of clips featuring the biggest viral videos that have ever passed through our pipes. To top it off, they have all been rotoscoped so it looks like one big animated short which has a catchy song to boot. How many references do you remember?

DIYLife.com has a great feature all about film rigs for scrappy independent filmmakers. DIY Film School consists of links to instructions on building tons of great film tools for a fraction of the price of buying things new. I have made some of these and of course they take a lot of time and the quality is a little low. But hey, you get what you paid for but just don’t expect Hollywood results from this stuff.
The list of things you can build includes:

• $14 Steadycam
• Body Brace Steadycam
• $60 Camera Jib
• Backseat View Car Mount
• Exterior Car Mount
• Bike Mount
• PVC Pipe Fig Rig
• and an Underwater Camera Housing

If you’re itching for more of this kind of stuff then check out Home Built Stabilizers for tons of homemade movie-tool goodness. So much for your free time this weekend 🙂

Getting started with making videos can be a tough proposition. First, you need some equipment mainly a video camera and editing software. Second, you need other people around to help either in production or as actors. There is only so much you can do by yourself.

Brian Shaler from CrappyGraphs.com feels the same way and decided to illustrate it with a crappy graph.

Some other notable crappy graphs include Aethetic vs. Utility, Make the Logo Bigger, and Productivity vs. Time Spent In Meetings.

Sony Media Software put up a teaser for their upcoming release of Vegas 8. One of the first changes right off the bat is the name which is now Vegas Pro 8. This helps differentiate between the Vegas professional users have known to come and love and the more consumer oriented Vegas Movie Studio. New software features include a 32-bit floating point video engine, Multicamera editing built right in, Blu-ray disc burning straight from the timeline, and a ProType titler (one of the most requested features for a long time.) With the new title tool you can…

Create animated text effects with splined paths, per-character animation, and advanced curves. Add shadows, glows, blurs, and gradients for unique text treatments. Supports Unicode and TrueType fonts, as well as OpenType fonts with kerning pairs, alternate styles, bidirectional text, ligatures, custom kerning, and more.

The 32-bit video capability will allow for more presice color with less gradient banding. Most other video editing suites support up to 10-bits and if you wanted more control over your color you would have to jump over to Adobe After Effects or Apple’s new program Color. Now you can stay right in Vegas for a speedier workflow while you color correct without losing quality.

Earlier this year at the National Association of Broadcasters conference Sony was showing off a preview of 64-bit Vegas which would take advantage of the new processing power in modern chips. Video is the sort of application that would really benefit from 64-bit processors as it is extremely data intensive. There has been no word if there is 64-bit support, but Vegas is multi-threaded aware meaning it can utilize the multi-core chips that are becoming mainstream to process video faster.

Vegas 8 doesn’t come with a few dissapointments. Corporate politics seem to have limited support for some formats as it will only back Sony’s own Blu-ray DVD burning (from the timeline i.e. no menu’s) and only Sony’s flavor of AVCHD from it’s own camcorders. The lack of HD-DVD burning is a bummer especially since the proclaimed winner of the format war seems to flip-flop every week. There are other camcorders out there that record to the AVCHD format including Panasonic and Canon. While Vegas could have been the first editor to support native tapeless AVCHD editing, they have instead dropped the ball choosing to support only their own devices.

One of the more head scratcher features announced will the support for digital signage. This makes it easier to produce and edit video that will be displayed on tall, rotated video displays. The software makes it easy to switch between a taller format and a regular widescreen horizontal format.

Sony will demo the new software at the IBC tradeshow on September 7th – 11th. Vegas 8 will go on sale September 10th for $699 which includes DVD-Architecht 4.5. I anticipate getting my hands on Vegas 8 to try out the new goodies and report back with a full review in the near future.

I have previously discussed how the current InVideo ads on YouTube will ultimately fail. What can Google do to turn the most popular video distribution hub on the net into a money maker like text ads? Here are a few of my own ideas.

Related Video Clicks

Create a cost per click model on the recommended videos users face at the end of a clip and right side viewer. Mixing in a few relevant videos from sponsors ensures YouTube has the viewers full attention since they initiated the action rather than having the ad forced upon them. By charging advertisers for every click that comes off of other videos, similar to links from sponsored ads on AdSense, Google can leverage what they know best: connecting people with the content they are looking for. While any advertiser can post their own clip now, Google could offer more specific statistics and demographics such as how long people watched the video, age and gender breakdown of viewers, and even what keywords or actions brought the user to the video. All of this information will help advertisers hone their message for their specific audience.

Video Owner Controls Ads

The overlay ads currently in use by YouTube would be more effective if it wasn’t competing with the content. If publishers who wanted to monetize their content had more control over the ad insertion, than everyone would be a winner. For example, someone who does a weekly video blog might design their show to have a commercial break in the middle. The vlogger would mark where the commercial break is and Youtube could automatically splice in a dynamic ad on playback to fit the desired duration of their inventory. The content of the ad can be determined by a multitude of different information on the page including the title and description of the clip, user comments, tags, and even an audio to text conversion. Google would already be interested in transcribing audio in order to add to their huge search database so they can better index video contnet (Remember they did this with Google Video when it first launched). Different positions could be awarded different impression and click through rates. A quick ad in front, say less than 5 seconds, might be worth the least amount. An ad inserted at the end would be worth slightly more while the most coveted ad space would be in the middle of the clip where the user is the most engaged. Google limits the number of ad units that appear on a web page which could be applied to video based on length.

The YouTube AdSense model could go beyond click throughs and instead focus more on actions. For instance, clicking an ad would take the user to the advertisers web page. If the user clicked on another targeted area of that web page, the video owner who reffered the viewer to the advertiser could earn a little bit more money. These actions could be more than just clicking through to a web page, including subscribing to a channel, watching another video, or even leaving a comment! There are many interactions that occur on YouTube that Google can track and profit on.

Who Says It Has To Be Ads?

Content creators go to YouTube because that is where all the people are. Offering premium services is another route YouTube could take, appealing to the more serious video producers. Such perks to being a paid member might include offering your content in a higher quality, download options, highlighted attention in search results/related videos, or click through ads at the tail end of a video. People are desperate to stand out in the massive video community, so much so they would be willing to pay for special benefits similiar to Pro accounts on Flickr. Imagine a small movie maker is trying to sell his movie by soliciting the trailer on YouTube. At the end of a trailer could be a special interactive insert that would take the viewer to the movie makers store to buy the DVD or subscribe to the RSS feed for further updates. Google would then take a small fee for connecting a publisher with an audience member via an action.

In conclusion, there are many ways YouTube could be transformed from a money bleeder to a money maker. The online video site isn’t a colossal hit because it mimics television, but because it offers something different to the viewer. The InVideo ads are just a copy-cat idea from a current trend currently being exploited on regular TV channels. By focusing more on the unique strengths of online video, (interactivity, more precise feedback, and greater control of the user experience), YouTube could begin roping the advertisers in and paving the way for another high-flying success like AdSense.

Google announced what everyone expected with the addition of video advertisements to YouTube appropriately called InVideo ads earlier this week. The blogosphere has mixed results about the new feature; publishers are eager to make money off of their video offerings and users want a clean, uninterrupted experience.

Fortunately YouTube has decided against pre or post-roll ads citing evidence that viewers just don’t respond. Instead, as the name implies, the ads pop up in-video and only take up the bottom 20% of the player screen. Clicking on the ad will pause the video and open another mini video player inside the one you are watching. Ad metrics are based on the percentage of the ad you get through and if you should leave within the first 15 seconds that doesn’t count as an impression.

Many think video ads will be another big business for Google but video ads are a far different beast compared to text ads. For one, InVideo ads are only shown on the content of trusted partners for obvious legal reasons. Unlike text ads that require no screening process, video owners must have all of the legal clearances to engage in commercial activity. This bottleneck greatly reduces the potential pool of advertisers unlike the ubiquity and ease of AdSense.

Second, in order to prevent “saturation” or dampening the user experience, video ads will have to be deliberately limited. Text ad units are splattered across the web on millions of blogs taking advantage of the Long Tail of niche content. While this means higher costs per click and per thousand impressions the amount of ad inventory is inherently limited.

Finally, ads that pop up in the middle of video, even if for a brief 10 seconds, are distracting. Text ads are successful because they blend in with the content; obvious to the reader when they need them and not a distraction when they are uninterested. Watching video is a concentrative task. Anything that intrudes on the message, stealing the users attention, takes them away from the story and lowers the experience. Think about how annoying it is at a public theater when someone is talking next to you or a cell phone goes off. TBS has been running ads like YouTube’s in the middle of shows like Everybody Loves Raymond however Youtube has a leg up by giving the viewer the freedom to close the ad display right away. See an InVideo ad in action.

Ads in the middle of YouTube videos may be all the buzz now but I feel those enthusiastic of the new feature will eventually grow tired of it like the rest of us. YouTube user fardousha sums it up best with the following comment…

If ads invade youtube, i will desert it.
What attracted me in the first place is ads free quality time. Long story short, it ain’t a good idea.

There is already a Firefox extension called TubeStop to stop YouTube ads from even showing up, protecting the users patience as they take in all that YouTube has to offer. There is only a certain amount of aggravation one can take in regards to advertising and InVideo ads certainly cross that threshold. This is why the YouTube ad experiment will ultimately be a failure.

While we are still on the topic of the power in YouTube, one of my favorite video mash-ups has catapulted its creator to success. The Skeletor Show is a simple remix of old He-Man episodes redubbed and edited in a comedic way (as if the original He-Man cartoons weren’t funny enough). Take a look at the trailer for a better idea…

The Skeletor Show was created by Daniel Geduld, originally from Indiana but he later moved to Los Angeles in hopes of some kind of acting career. As you might imagine, he didn’t get hired for very much and used his free time and voice-over talent to remix Skeletor. Apparently it was time well spent as CNN recently ran an article about him where he is now making a living doing other voice over work. In the credits of each show Daniel added his e-mail address along with the line “Please hire me” and as the show took off, via several popular blogging mentions, sites like Heavy.com came a knocking.

I was shocked to see The Skeletor Show mentioned on CNN. I don’t recall how I stumbled onto it but it was one of the only YouTube series I actually subscribed to and checked for updates. There hasn’t been a new episode in nearly four months, a bittersweet triumph of Daniel’s new found lack of free time. But this is just another example of how a new medium is creating opportunities for up and coming amateurs to be seen by the world. I wonder where we will see Mr. Geduld next.

Incase you didn’t know, this YouTube clip has been viewed just under 9 million times. It appears the Internet is a great tool for sharing your own imitation of what you see on TV. Oh, the power of the Long Tail.

I find the SpongeBob SquarePants remix highly amusing!

Lots of people on the Internet seem to think the new kid show that appeared on Nick Jr earlier this week looks a little creepy. I think it looks like fun and unlike Dora The Explorer or Blues Clues I would actual sit down and watch it. Clearly this is the Sesame Street for the new generation of toddlers featuring monsters, robots, and electronic music. The guests have also been modernized and include Elijah Wood teaching kids how to dance and Tony Hawk showing off skateboarding. It’s like Fraggle Rock but indie!