Results tagged “YouTube” from Life's a Pitch

My friend Joe sent this over yesterday:



As the proud owner of Emma, Sense and Sensibility, Mansfield Park and the BBC Pride and Prejudice mini-series, I can assure those of you whose DVD collections may not be as bumpin' that the way this preview is filmed is spot-on stylistically. I didn't think it was laugh-out-loud hilarious, but it does kind of make me want to read the book.

I've never actually seen a good trailer for an opera, have you? I've seen ads with performance clips that are nicely edited, but nothing produced and designed like this. Perhaps creating a movie-esque trailer for a play, musical or opera would be false advertising; people would show up and expect something closer to a film. Or maybe a professionally done YouTube clip would get the attention of potential audiences who are just more comfortable with the movie preview format, but would be willing to give live performance a try if it was creatively marketed to them.

When the planets align, it's a Friday and I have my act together, I interview someone far more knowledgeable than I am about specific marketing and publicity topics. Today we have Ben Chan, who I e-met when he interviewed Hilary via video Skype about the YouTube Symphony. In the spirit of Ben's extremely successful and time-consuming hobby, he has answered my questions on YouTube.

Ben Chan is a founder of ChamberHymns.com, a website dedicated to online instructional videos for violin, as well as the Music Chairman of WoogiWorld.com, a virtual world for kids that emphasizes Internet Safety and Education.  He has won numerous prizes on violin, including a spot in the 2009 YouTube Symphony Orchestra, and has a growing YouTube channel with 1.5 million video hits.

Just in case any artists or arts presenters out there were worried about YouTube being too low-brow for them/their organization, this just in from the Associated Press:

In recording a video message to the Iranian people marking the Iranian New Year, Nowruz, and distributing it online, Obama seized upon one of the Web tools which he used so effectively during his presidential campaign.

...The 3min 35sec video entitled "A New Year, A New Beginning" was posted on the White House website at whitehouse.gov/Nowruz with captions in Farsi and also on the White House YouTube channel at youtube.com/user/whitehouse.

It had rung up more than 100,000 views on YouTube some 16 hours after its release and generated a stream of more than 1,000 mostly favorable comments.

Andrew Rasiej, a co-founder of the blog TechPresident.com, which examines politics and technology, said using the Internet allowed Obama to deliver his words directly and unfiltered to the Iranian people.

"He's using the open platform of the Internet to ensure his message is heard in full and not shortened where it could be taken out of context or manipulated in a way that doesn't meet with his intent," Rasiej told AFP.

I was about to brag about Hilary recording a YouTube Symphony interview via video Skype, but the President has totally schooled us. Sigh. President Obama: 38908390090232, First Chair Promotion: like, 7?

I saw [title of show] on Saturday, and it exceeded all expectations by combining my two great loves: musical theatre and viral marketing.

SPOILER ALERT After finding out that their show is moving to Broad-way, writers/stars Hunter and Jeff are faced with the Sophie's Choice of changing their show to appease Broadway audiences, or sticking to the original, scrappy plan. There's a number, "Nine People's Favorite Thing", just before the finale that contains the lyrics,

I'd rather be nine people's favorite thing
Than a hundred people's ninth favorite thing
...
Those nine people will tell nine people
Then we'll have eighteen people loving the show
Then eighteen people could grow into
Five-hundred and twenty-five-thousand, six-hundred people
All loving our show

A song about viral marketing. I nearly died. And here I am, telling all nine people who read this blog to go see the show.

So there's that, which was fantastic. And there was the YouTube web series, which I've already plugged here. But most importantly, here is a musical about two guys writing a musical. It is the perfect example of that life-being-about-the-journey-not-the-destination expression. A Chorus Line achieves the same thing: you care so deeply about the characters by the end of the hour and a half (current Broadway revival...notwithstanding), that you can't help but apply The Audition to your own life. IBankers, lawyers, publicists: who hasn't thought who am I anyway, am I my resume? Additionally, both [title of show] and A Chorus Line do what I am convinced is the most important marketing technique of all: give the public a behind-the-scenes look at an industry they are unfamiliar with.

Why the success of Dancing with the Stars and American Idol? Because audiences aren't simply watching performances, they are watching performances juxtaposed with every step leading up to the performances. You care if D-list celebrity gives a good performance, because you watched her practice her lipo-sucked tail off. You know which parts are hard for her, you know that she "almost gave up". You know what her favorite parts are. You watch that performance and you can't help but care.

When was the last time you really cared how a string quartet played, beyond wanting to get your money's worth? I honestly don't think I ever have, except maybe when friends are on stage.  Get a camera and document the rehearsal of a new piece, from the first meetings with the composer to the day of the performance. Include "confessionals" from group members about their frustrations (the juicier the better, of course), their successes, what they're looking forward to in the performance, what they're dreading. Broadcast those videos in installments on YouTube leading up to the premiere, or talk to the venue about playing clips right before the live performance. Actual footage of the process will be more powerful than any pre-concert discussion. Not only would such a project increase ticket sales, but the quartet (or ensemble, or soloist) will be playing to an informed, engaged, excited audience, and what could be better than that.

The musical [title of show] opens on Broadway in about an hour. Props to show creators Hunter Bell and Jeff Bowen for that, but the team should also be congratulated on the completion of their web series - The [title of the show] Show.

The musical is about the creation of a musical about a musical - got that? - so putting together a web series about said musical/musical/musical going to Broadway is good marketing stuff. I read that there were five to twenty four thousand viewers per episode; not huge numbers in the grand scheme of "the internet", but a sizable fan base for a rookie show going into a Broadway run.  Also, because of the podcasts, [title of show] managed to generate buzz and garner press when they weren't even performing! In the interim, New York Magazine declared, "The funniest show of the season is now playing on the internet."

The [title of show] Show can be found on YouTube and the show's website.

Moral of the story: if Project Runway, American Idol and Dancing With the Stars weren't proof enough, here we have yet another example of how much people love behind-the-scenes video material.  My kingdom for a "Making of the Quartet" web series.