While out in the midwest shooting the documentary "Finding My Bellybutton", we took a side strip to visit the legendary fast food restaurant, White Castle.
A few years ago I posted this video on youtube about my experience at White Castle:
Today I found this message in my inbox on youtube, I don't think they actually watched the video:
Greetings Craver! We couldnt help but notice that youre a fan of White Castle. Weve actually been star searching for just the right stuff to help us launch our new web site. And your stuff is star quality!
The tricky part is we want to make sure youre cool with us posting your star stuff on our site. All you need to do is look over (okay, actually you have to read) the legal stuff below, email us back saying you will let us post your star stuff and that you agree with the terms and conditions, and your awesomely personally created White Castle ode, pix, vid or tweet will become part of the debut of the all new whitecastle.com!
Please copy and paste one of the options below and simply reply back to this thread to let us know if youre cool with us using your video, "Trip to White Castle":
1. Yes, Ive read and agree to all terms and I allow White Castle to use my content on whitecastle.com. 2. No, I do not consent for White Castle to use my content on whitecastle.com.
Thank you for your creative talent. Thank you for saying yes. Thank you for being a craver! Please let us know if you have any concerns, well get back with you right away. Blah, blah, blah a bunch of legal jargon, etc.etc... the contents thereof.
The other day I got a call from someone needing help compressing a video for the Internet.
Apparently he had borrowed a video camera from someone, shot himself talking for ten minutes, cut it in Imovie and wanted to put this up on the Internet as a marketing tool.
This is an aspect of creative fields in general that greatly frustrates me. I've never heard someone say "Well, I've borrowed my friend's drill and I got a copy of this x-ray program, so I'm going to do my own root canal." Yet I've heard more times than I can count people say things like "I got a copy of Dreamweaver so I'm going to build my own website."
When people pay dentists, plumbers, electricians and the like to perform a service, they don't question what they are paying for. If they want the job done right they hire someone with good references and appropriate credentials. Most people don't ask what kind of tools are being used, and they generally don't consider hiring an amateur or going out and buying the tools themselves unless they are really wanting to learn a new skill themselves or they just don't really care that much about the outcome.
I am often approached by people who have already attempted to produce their own video either on their own or with the help of someone inexperienced. Generally this means that I am given hours of poorly shot video and asked to put it together into some sort of cohesive final product. This is an incredibly frustrating, tedious process. It usually means that I will have to begin the pre-production process in post-production. The final product will never be as good as if it had been properly produced to begin with, and the client will end up spending at least as much, if not more, than they would have if they just came to me in the beginning.
In speaking with friends of mine who work in creative fields, this seems to be the same across the board. Ordinarily sensible business people try to cut costs by doing things themselves or hiring someone for cheap that has very little experience, and in the end, giving up and taking a poorly done logo, ad, website, etc. to a professional to fix.
While good equipment and software are necessary tools in creating a website, video, photo, brochure, or advertisement, it is the talent and skill of the individual or team that makes the difference between something that is professional and effective, and total crap that should never be seen.
I cannot empahasize this enough. The human mind behind creating a piece of art or a promotional material is the most important component to the final effect, and it is the same process whether it is art or advertisement. An artist begins their work by thinking of the desired impact on their audience, and implements it using the tools that will best represent this. This process is vital to the effectiveness of the piece, and the thinking behind it cannot be outsourced or implemented properly by someone without the creativity, experience and education behind the process.
If you are in need of creative services for your business, please don't try to cut corners by thinking that you can buy or borrow some equipment and software and do it yourself. And please don't try to find a student or volunteer or your nephew who is taking a class at community college, and expect something professional for free or cheap.
It is important to realize that the image that you are putting out in the world through media is the image that your audience will percieve you as. You may be a hobby filmmaker, and that's great, but leave your home-movies for your friends on youtube, and hire a professional for videos that are going to reflect on your business.
It wasn't until recently when I was in a small town about to go on a river trip, and I couldn't get an Internet signal strong enough to check my email let alone upload video that I realized how much I depend on the Internet. Without Internet access I felt isolated from the rest of society. This was what I was looking for in a way, I was on vacation, about to spend days rafting in a wilderness void of all electronic communication, but I wasn't quite ready to be shut out so soon.
I still had a one minute video ad to upload for a contest.
I don't typically take part in these type of contests. The idea of spending a lot of time and energy on something on the offchance that there might be some type of reward at the end doesn't really appeal to me. (Which is probably why I don't gamble either.) But this contest had a big reward that made it seem worth shooting for.
So, I roped Laura and Seth into working on the script. I had to leave in two days to take a train to Arizona for my river trip, but I had confidence we could do it. Our concept was a reality show parady called "Small World: Revisited". To illustrate the point that the product we were advertising allows users to easily make international phone calls I asked several of my friends who are originally from other countries if they would say a few words in their native tongue. They all agreed, and the next day we set out filming around Santa Barbara, doing our best to make things look foreign.
With the short amount of time we had to plan, Seth, Laura and I all ended up acting in the video, while taking turns shooting and running sound. We only had two girls, Laura and I, and five guys, so Laura played two parts to even out the gender balance. This turned out to be very successful as most people who have watched it said that they didn't even realize that two of the girls were the same person.
Since we only had 24 hours to complete all shooting, we took very few breaks. We completed shooting in the afternoon the next day, only moments before I grabbed the tape, my laptop and my deck, and got on a train to start my trip.
Since my internet access was so bad we ended up having to finish up post and upload after I got off the river, the day that the competition was closed. This set us back substantially compared to videos that had been up for days or weeks, but I am still glad that we did it. We had a lot of fun working on it, and I was so impressed with the motion graphics Travis Holliday did, and the music Scott Robinson sent. Take a look by clicking here.
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