Viral Secrets from the Ancient Transmedia Masters of MuMu I
I recently went to see a panel discussion at the Encounters short film festive, entitled ‘Pimp Your Story: Amplifying Your Film Online’, which featured my friend Hazel Grian who is a writer, performer and ARG creator, who works on very large scale commercial projects, as well as other more publicly orientated projects such as the British Red Cross ‘Traces of Hope‘. Alongside her on the panel was Matt Golding from viral agency Rubberduction and Ben Dowden who is a filmmaker with real experience of what works and why out there in the real world – more of that later. The audience was predominantly short filmmakers looking for insights into how to make the internet work for them as a means of distributing their films, reaching an audience, breaking through and doubtless making some money. It was a useful panel that made me want to capture the thoughts of the contributors as well as some of my own conclusions – so here goes…
The big question for traditional media outlets with public service at their heart, bottom line on the mind or earnest art movie makers is what is the magic formula to make the internet work to your benefit? Is there a lotion that when applied to a product acts like a viral pheromone to arouse and attract an online audience? In other words – what are the ‘Viral Secrets from the Ancient Transmedia Masters of MuMu’?
The discussion at Encounters started off with the observation that the traditional filmmaking industry is still a bit scared of the internet. Distributors of short films might demand exclusive rights and there’s the old chestnut of certain competitions also insisting that submissions are exclusive to their site. I’ve talked on panels at documentary conferences in the past and a few years ago there was a type of xenophobic fear radiating from some of the old media outlets. The filmmakers themselves often felt that they would end up signing rights away, and the already very tight margins would shrink as they inevitably ended up being squeezed out. The truce between old media and filmmakers signed in the no mans land of multiplatform led to the creation of a number of publicly and privately funded initiatives that tried to persuade an online audience to pay for factual content. The view was that these freakish on-demand TV hybrids would satisfy distributors, filmmakers, advertisers and audience. In the real world it didn’t work, and the search for the formula continued.
The big shift in those few years has been from a ‘bums on seats’ approach to an ‘eyeballs on screen’ one. Now the instinct to engage with the internet often comes from within the marketing department, where there is a realisation of the power of the web to reach distributed audiences, and through the social aspect of the web also to engage with the audience on an intimate level. This potent understanding of the audience is great for filmmakers in helping to make their work better, but is also clearly intelligence and access that is worth its weight in gold to advertisers.
At Encounters Matt screened some movies putting forward Black Hole as an example of one of those breakthrough films that sets the internet alight. Sitting within the Futureshorts YouTube channel this film runs at around two and a half minutes and has had to date enjoyed an eye watering five and a half million views. It’s clever, elegant, (probably) low budget and well acted. It has no dialogue which gives it an international transferable appeal. I watched it, liked it and immediately thought about people who I know who would also like it. It is – and here is the first ‘Viral Secret from the Ancient Transmedia Masters of MuMu’ – authentic. It is it’s authenticity that makes it work so well. As a viewer you have a relationship with the film that is genuine. It does what it does very well, and invites you to read it for what it is. It’s not selling you anything, pretending to be something bigger or more clever than what it is. Most audiences and in particular young, engaged digital natives can spot a pup when they’re being sold one.
Ben talked about his art and films – he uses a single locked off camera – and he lets the performers that he films speak for themselves. He’s uncompromising on the image and sound quality – watch Dub FX on Ben’s YouTube channel.
‘Love Someone‘ has been viewed two and a half million times. Structurally the films are shortish in length without complicated edits and because they are reasonably locked off they work well on the small screen. Because of the number of views that he gets YouTube phoned and offered him a share of the advertising revenue and a funkier microsite. He’s stripped most of the ads off his films, because compromising his art isn’t what he’s about. He has a partnership with the artists that he works with – and the work that they produce together is a quality product – and quality is the second ‘Viral Secret from the Ancient Transmedia Masters of MuMu’. Make something good, and people will want to see it – simples…
Hazel’s approach to ARGs is to regard them as another way to tell great stories – she’s a writer and a filmmaker – and she screened You Suck at Photoshop as an example of a weird hybrid that works and works very well. What is there not to like about seeing a fragmenting marriage through the lens of the instructional video – genius. Hazel made the point that new artistic forms are emerging all the time now, as new technology and mediums bang up against one another. New platforms can link across the web, allow performance, improvisation, role playing and engagement outside of the window of viewing. But to do that well, you need to take secrets one and two of the ‘Ancient Transmedia Masters of MuMu’, and merge them seamlessly with an insightful understanding of the most important of all of the secrets – the audience. Knowing your audience, anticipating their reactions, and now more than ever entering into a dialogue with then through the medium of your authentic, quality product is the recipe for viral nirvana.