I really enjoy learning about new collaborative video production platforms, so today I want to mention one you may or may not have heard of before called Stroome. I had a fun and lengthy conversation with Stroome’s founder Tom Grasty last week, and was intrigued with what he’s building.
So what is Stroome? Stroome is where individuals go to upload video clips, collaborate on projects together by remixing, join groups of like-minded people, and share their originally remixed content with the world.
Tom spoke about interesting use cases, and one was for concerts where many people film the event from their prospective, each upload their clips, create a group, and remix the content together to provide a more complete video overall than anyone could possibly do via an individual effort.
Stroome provides an innovative platform, and has just scratched the surface of where they would ultimately like to take the product long-term. Go grab a Stroome account, upload some clips, remix other clips that interest you using their flash editor, and get a hands on feel for what you can do by leveraging the content and talent of others in their community.
If you have any questions or feedback you can contact the Stroome team and they will do everything to help make your experience the best it can be.
If you have an interesting collaborative video platform or service, and would like to have a conversation with me about it, then please email me at jeremy@spidvid.com, or connect with me on Twitter.
Today we have a guest blog article by our New York-based Spidvid community manager, Adam Klein. Adam will be writing an interesting article or two each month now going forward. Be sure to stay updated by subscribing to all our new Spidvid posts and articles, either by email or via RSS. Take it away Adam!
As a musician moving from mid-Missouri to Chicago back in 2001, there were several things I noticed right away about the local music scene and about how artists promoted their music. One in particular was that in every local bar and music venue I stumbled into, there were stacks of promo CDs and free mixes from Chicago-based bands, artists and DJs lining the walls along the exits. Promoters would also be crowding the doorway outside the club to greet you with more free CDs to take home, and in some cases, they were the exact same professionally recorded and packaged goods that were selling for $20 a pop in the chain-stores all across the country like Sam Goody, Tower Records, and Virgin Megastore, except with “For Promotional Use Only” stamped across the front. At the time, one of these local bands was OK Go, promoting the release of their 2002 self-titled debut album.
I’d never seen them live, let alone heard their music, but on countless occasions, saw the free promo CDs sitting amongst the piles at nearly every local music spot in Chicago. I picked up a copy or two at some point or another and perhaps listened to a few seconds of each song, but quickly dismissed them as nothing of interest. At the time, I didn’t really give them a chance because it wasn’t what I was into (perhaps it was closed-minded of me, but as a working DJ in several nightclubs around the city, I didn’t have the time or patience to listen to music that didn’t fit my musical agenda on the dancefloor). However, a little more than nine years later, I can honestly say that I’m a huge fan of theirs, and it’s a result from a different kind of promotional tool, their viral videos.
With almost 100 million video views on their YouTube channel, over half of those coming from 2006’s “Here It Goes Again”, this method of promotion has proven to be more effective (and likely less costly) as opposed to their 2001 promo CD-giveaway effort. Just last week they received over 1 million views in under 24 hours for their latest effort, “White Knuckles,” solidly placing them at the forefront of musicians using viral video to gain exposure and earn mainstream success.
Viral video is not only being used as a promotional tool, but also as a tool in musical creation and performance. The perfect example of this is the case of the Gregory Brothers, aka Schmoyoho aka Autotune The News. As a band, they’d been writing and performing long before the conception of Autotune the News. But it wasn’t until Autotune The News, that a larger audience was exposed to the unique quartet stylings of Michael, Andrew, Evan, and Sarah Gregory. Their following on YouTube has grown to over half a million subscribers, who then became the primary fan-base for their music, so when the “Bed Intruder Song” dropped, this community of loyal fans and followers across the Internet came together to help propel it into pop charts on iTunes and onto the Billboard Hot 100. The original video currently has over 27 million views on YouTube in less than 2 months time.
While the Gregory Brothers’ music utilizes original songs with remixed audio and video to create new songs and videos, the instrumentals often seem campy and quickly thrown together, almost sounding like a self-mockery in that they want us to believe that their music is all in the spirit of fun and goofiness (while they’re actually making serious statements on the true comedy of politics). However, there are some lesser-known, equally-exceptional musicians who’ve been using video for a while to create entire albums and perform live in front of thousands of people. Two such artists are Israeli-born Kutiman, and San Francisco’s DJ Mike Relm.
Kutiman is easily one of the most talented producers/remixers making music and videos today. Click play on the video below and you will begin to understand why.
His 2009 music video project, ThruYOU, was created by remixing online videos from dozens of instrumentalists into original audio and video compositions. As a musician myself, seeing it for the first time was an emotional experience, that someone could be so innovative, not only musically, but visually as well. The project was viewed over 1 million times in the first week, and has lead to this recent audio/video remix collaboration with Maroon 5.
Another viral video success story is that of DJ Mike Relm, who’s live shows use a mash-up of classic original productions, remixes, films and videos to create a one-of-a-kind audio and visual experience. Check out this performance from YouTube’s 2008 Live event.
Mike Relm’s innovative and captivating live shows have lead to a series of awesome tour opportunities and collaborations and music festival performances, as is documented in this hour-long video of Mike Relm’s Clown Alley, filmed in 2007-2008, featuring his groundbreaking video turntablist performance from his tour with Blue Man Group, as well as Coachella and Winter X-Games via radiofriedfilms.
By observing how these four artists, each in their own unique way have harnessed the power of online video to create innovative new art-forms and communication channels for increased exposure, we can only guess who the next great innovator will be or what their music will sound like. So, my friends, musicians and video creators of the Spidvid community, will you be next?Post up your music video project and get started on the next big success story today!
It used to be a big challenge using video equipment because most of the products were big, bulky, and of course expensive so the average person couldn’t even afford it let alone use it. Fast forward to 2010 and anyone can be a video creator, or filmmaker because quality tools are now available at reasonable prices. Yes, video production is certainly changing very rapidly thanks largely in part to inexpensive equipment and editing software.
Videos used to be only created for commercial purposes, like the movies, TV shows (and their 30 second commercials), and music videos of the media world. Now that many of us have video production resources at our disposal we are creating web shows, music videos (just like the big guys), vlogs, and film life long memories which we privately share with our friends and family. Video production will only get more and more mainstream as mobile phone cameras get to be of a higher resolution quality, with access to $4.99 video editing software.
Creating videos is now becoming a fun and popular hobby of many people, where five, ten or twenty years ago video production was a career choice. In the past the only way to break into the industry was to attend a top film school, and work your way up the ladder slowly over a period of many years. Today just get together with your friends or colleagues for a weekend, create an entertaining video that reaches millions of people online, and shortly after producers may be lining up to fund your next project. This scenario is rare of course, but it has happened, and will occur even more frequently down the road.
Of course we have to mention that collaboration is changing video production as there are opportunities to create content on a global level. You no longer have to sit in the same room as your team during pre-production and post-production, so there are all kinds of new media possibilities for the future. What an exciting time to be into video production, and online video.
