zerogstudios

Most important lesson I learned at SXSW: never agree to be interviewed by CNN.

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DSLR Filmmaking, Gearing Up For Success
A session on gear and workflow requirements (for both post and acquisition). Lenses (including image stabilization vs. non stabilized), lights, rigs, audio, a sample post path, how much memory, etc. were discussed. Below is a sample of what can be done.

After doing a little research I was stunned to find out Robert Rodriguez, a big fan of digital cinematography, is shooting music video and feature length projects with DSLR’s, proving a long-format production pipeline is quickly coming into its own as an efficient, streamlined production system. For more info click here.

PS This was the best seminar I attended at SXSW. Special thanks to The BUI Brothers.

How to Create a Viral Video
If there were one message from today’s SXSW panel How To Create A Viral Video, it would be that it’s all about the content.

Jonathan Wells from Flux moderated the discussion and was joined by Margaret Gould Stewart of YouTube, Jason Wishnow of Ted, and Damian Kulash of the band OK Go.

The panel began by breaking down viral video into two groups. One is where the video is viral by accident. The creator was in the right place at the right time and caught something extraordinary. These folks aren’t likely to go “viral” again. The second category is much broader and the creators are people who made the viral video on purpose and will make more.

The question is what can you do to make sure your content is seen by lots of people over and over. The answer is it’s all about the content. It’s also about creating content for your audience and making sure the production value is where it needs to be. For Wishnow’s Ted audience, it’s important for the videos to look amazing, which explains their multiple camera angles, hi-def shooting and tight camera angles. For Kulash and OK Go, the production quality should be on the lower end. “If my videos looked good, people wouldn’t watch them,” Kulash said.

Kulash of course can prove that this type of content and production is effective. The first video OK Go posted was their Backyard Dance Video, which obtained more than 300,000 views in its first month–more records than the band had sold at the time.

Fast forward from that first video to their many others, including the well known Treadmill Dancing video and their most recent, which was sponsored by State Farm.

The State Farm sponsorship of the video is an interesting story from the band as well. Kulash explained that State Farm initially wanted to run the video exclusively on their website, something the band didn’t agree to. “Exclusivity online just doesn’t work,” Kulash said. That can work in the real world but online, “the point of something spreading is that it’s supposed to spread. You can’t just drive traffic to one place. Only our diehard fans would have gone to State Farm’s site.”

The band did agree to put State Farm in the video but made sure the brand was part of the story. A State Farm branded truck gets the action started in the video, which works since State Farm’s dollars made the video happen. The band also gives them a thanks at the very end of the video. Was it worth it for State Farm? I’d imagine so. Kulash said people tend to watch the video four to five times as opposed to just once.

So then, what about video content for non-music videos? Positive content works well. Negative or depressing content doesn’t get spread, according to Gould Stewart. Content that has an element of surprise also tends to be successful, like this Rammstein vs. Cookie Monster video:

Other tactics include focusing on your audience and interacting with them, allowing your videos to be embedded, distributing them on multiple platforms and tweaking your metadata. “It’s so frustrating when you see great content with crappy metadata,” Gould Stewart said.

If all else fails, include kittens in your video to make it go viral.

Presenters: Jonathan Wells (Flux), Margaret Gould Stewart (YouTube), Jason Wishnow (TED.com’s Director of Film + Video) & Damian Kulash (from OKGO)

Augmenting Maps with Reality
In the first location-based discussion of the day, the focus was on the evolution of the map. The panel discussed challenges to mapping indoor spaces, how user data might inform maps and the value in documenting user location history.

In Foursquare there isn’t a map representing where people are. However, they have just recently added the “trending places” section, which allows people to have a mental picture of where everyone is. By adding number of people at a given area Foursquare has caused people to travel and stay out longer.

One interesting aspect of this discussion was all the talk of history—rolling back in time, seeing a heat map where people clustered a year or two ago and how that relates to current trends. It seems the next big step is integrating this data into maps but not just flat maps with pins but a more humanistic view.

Presenters: Chris Pendleton (Bing Maps Technical Evangelist at Microsoft), Dennis Crowley (CEO & co-founder of foursquare), Ryan Sarver (Product/BD, Platform Team at Twitter ), Laura Diaz (Partner Manager, NN4D) & Kellen Elliott-McCrea (Flickr Architect at Yahoo)

Add Some XBOX to Your UX
Tricks and techniques from the game design world can be applied to non-games — social apps, creative tools, etc. — to improve user experience, user enjoyment, and results. We’ll look at traditional UX in a new light: from the perspective of games and gamers.

I’m Interested Tell me More
http://auscillate.com/writing/xbox_ux

Takeaways
The Sixty One: The site allows users to “heart” favorite tracks and gain reputation points for certain activities. For example, if I favorite a track that’s playing that I really like, I will gain reputation points down the line for each time someone else favorites that track. The idea being, if I’m consistently ahead-of-the-curve in pointing out the best tracks on the site, then I deserve a good reputation for my good taste in music. Reputation points help quantify that. Users are also given only a handful of hearts to favorite things with when first joining the site. If you want to favorite more tracks, you have to earn more hearts. TheSixtyOne also offers “quests” as ways to get more reputation and hearts. These are both introductory and achievement-oriented. For example, one quest for me is simply to listen to seven songs from my personal stream that the site creates for me based on my tastes. Clearly, TheSixtyOne is hoping that adding these elements of game design to the music listening experience will make the activity much more interesting and enticing to their users. We shall see!
http://www.thesixtyone.com/

Presenter: Josh Knowles

Beauty in Webdesign
Great web design is all around us, but can we go beyond ‘cool’, ‘usable’ and ‘fun’ to create something truly beautiful? This session examines our changing attitudes to beauty, art and meaning, and why the web is ideally suited to become a vehicle for true beauty in the Information Age.

I’m Interested, Tell me More
http://www.cennydd.co.uk/2010/beauty-in-web-design-part-1/
http://www.cennydd.co.uk/2010/beauty-in-web-design-part-2/
http://www.cennydd.co.uk/2010/beauty-in-web-design-part-3/

Takeaways
Reflective Design

Consider the Nextime Word Clock. It’s made from two cylinders that rotate so that the time can be read from the face: “Five minutes to ten” or “It’s about four”. It’s less accurate than a cheap digital watch and hence less usable – and, while it looks good, it’s not as elegant as an analogue clock. But, to me, this clock is an excellent example of reflective design. Its accuracy is appropriate for the living room (do you really need to know the difference between 2:57 and 2:58?) and its unconventional design is a conversation starter. I see beauty in the concept, and the product says something about me. It’s for these reasons, rather than usability or attraction, that I count this clock as one of my favorite possessions.

Where usability focuses on behavioral design, reflective design is more the domain of user experience. It involves truly understanding what makes people tick and what makes them excited. It involves creating something meaningful that changes perceptions. Reflective design is a relatively recent focus on the web, which is perhaps why we’ve not yet created beautiful websites. But with sufficient focus on experience, I believe we will.

Presenter: Cennydd Bowles

Keep Austin Weird
Austin reflects a culture of artistic and individual expression that maintains the city as a vibrant and eclectic creative center. In a mostly conservative Texas, Austin is “Weird” because it continues to be progressive in the arts and music. “Keep Austin Weird”, moves beyond a mere slogan, to reflect the dynamics that encompass Austin. –Wikipedia

So, is Austin Weird? Yes, but the good kind often found at carnivals.

The new Gorillaz album dropped yesterday and I’ve fallen in love with track 7, Empire Ants (Feat. Little Dragon). Have a listen and let me know what you think of the track and the new media player from LALA.

LALA is an online service that allows members to legally create online shareable “playlists”.

For two years I’ve managed to lose 40lbs. with the help of my favorite iPhone app.

Weightbot is a simple weight tracking app that makes weight management fun! Just enter your weight daily and see your trends get plotted on a beautiful graph. Set weight goals, watch your progress, and view interesting analytical data about your weight changes.

What should have been one badass animated feature has turned out to be nothing more than a dull movie for kids. I just don’t understand how they could make Batman vs Darcula boring. Skip this shit and pick up the comic book version.