2011 was a year when online video took another big step forward. Just a couple years ago you couldn’t talk about online video without hearing the word “user generated content.” That term seems to be on the way out as more and more quality video entertainment is getting created for distribution.

Video production value is starting to matter more and more to viewers online, which bodes well for our collaborative video production community who create and produce “mid-tail” video entertainment.

Some videos are shot on a mobile phone, uploaded, and go on to find large audiences, but unless you have a talented cat or capture a remarkably random life moment then chances are your unedited videos won’t get many views. If a video creator and his or her team don’t spend a decent amount of time on their content it really shows through, and audiences don’t spend much time watching their content as a result.

It’s now 2012, a new year, and an opportunity for a fresh start to explore new and interesting video projects. I got an email from a video creator on January 1st stating that his new years resolution was to create videos that viewers love and are proud to share with their friends and family. This guy has a perfect mindset heading into 2012! Don’t waste your valuable time developing video projects that you aren’t proud of, and aren’t passionate about as you will create a video that even you don’t want to watch. Delete your worst project ideas and stories, and leave them behind in 2011 where they belong!

If you have a killer video or film project you want to launch then get a Spidvid profile and post your Spidvid project, or you can join teams who are collaborating on Spidvid projects by bidding on them. 2012 holds tons of potential for developing new and original video content as audiences are exploding and eager to consume it. If you need to build a team of partners and collaborators then keep our Spidvid platform and community in mind, and don’t be shy to tap into their super powers.

We wish you and your video projects a very prosperous 2012!

The incredible folks over at crowdsourcing.org recently reached out to me out of fascination for Spidvid, with regards to how we are applying crowdsourcing as a concept to collaborative video production. I was asked to write a guest blog article, which I graciously accepted, and the result is below.

When we set out to launch Spidvid, a decision had to be made–whether to form a small traditional entertainment studio which could develop original content, or do something original to challenge the status quo.

In late 2008 Seth Godin was writing about connecting people together, collaboration, openness, new media, going to the fringes, and other cutting edge concepts. Connecting the dots between wanting to do something different and what Seth was saying, it made sense to see if these elements were being applied to the video or film production model, and from our research the answer was no.

Video remixing and mashing was big around this time–where someone could upload a clip, and then others could download that clip with the purpose of adding value to the clip, and then sharing that improved clip with the hopes that yet someone else can add value to it too, and so on. While this was a cool phenomena to see the crowdsourcing power of video production on a large scale, the results were often mediocre because videos often didn’t have a compelling story, value wasn’t always added as it morphed along, and there was always someone who had to use a popular song for background music with no copyright clearances.

The goal for Spidvid was to always have an open video production ecosystem, but remixing was too open and chaotic. So the big idea was to crowdsource talent to create video entertainment where each individual on the team was responsible for something, and allow the members to set how the compensation split will work. For example, if a team has a video creator, 2 actors, 2 videographers, and an editor, the creator and team decide on each member getting 15% except for the creator getting 25%. If the video makes $1,000 in ad/sponsorship revenue then each member would get their pre-determined fair share.

So Spidvid fits into the crowdsourcing landscape as the site that aims to connect and empower individuals to create original video entertainment together, either locally, nationally, globally, or a combination of all three.

The concept came together over many months. “The back of the napkin” happened to be in the notes section on an iPod Touch leading to those concepts getting coded out as features over the next 8 months. On beta launch day in January 2010, 187 users signed up to get profiles thanks to our marketing efforts leading up to the launch day–including press releases, blog posts, getting small niche sites to write reviews, and most importantly–word of mouth and mouse.

Spidvid has grown up a ton–going from a concept with no users, to a public beta with 187, to now in late 2011 with 3,000 members, over 1,000 video projects launched, 250 projects completed, and over 1.2 million views.

Spidvid 2.0 is now being designed and developed to feature a simple and elegant user interface (UI), make video project work flow easier, add more social tools and location features. Spidvid 2.0 should launch in early 2012, and by 2015 full feature films will be produced by Spidvid’s collaborative community.

Here’s the lessons we’ve learned about crowdsourcing so far:

#1 — Projects need to be compelling, otherwise people won’t be inspired and motivated to jump in.

#2 — The collaborative objectives and goals must be clearly articulated before starting a project.

#3 — The benefits and value must be laid out so each individual understands what they are getting for their time and talent investment.

The most surprising thing to date is how fast the crowdsourcing model has taken shape over the years. It used to be that we had to educate people on our new media concept, but now the majority of users understand what’s going on as soon as they jump in to our community.

The majority of our users come from connections on Twitter, which makes scaling our community up fast challenging, but users coming in tend to be more active since they’ve had personal interaction with us before joining.

I wasn’t much of a video creator before starting Spidvid, but now I am since I have a platform to attract talent cost-effectively and quickly. I’ve been creating many entertaining “how to” cooking videos and really enjoy the connections and partnerships I’ve built up over the past couple years.

It’s exciting to think there have been many videos and films created that wouldn’t have otherwise existed without Spidvid’s crowdsourcing product to leverage. What keeps us going is knowing that the next big hit video or film may come from our community, making an impact on that production team, along with the thousands or millions of viewers that consume the content. There’s a lot to be excited about in the crowdsourcing space, especially for video production, and we hope you’ll be watching it all unfold with us.

Guest author: Jeremy Campbell is founder of Spidvid, which describes itself as “a social platform that empowers video creators/filmmakers and other like-minded individuals to connect, form production teams, collaborate on projects, create and distribute content, and automatically give credit and compensation back to each team member involved.”

Note: Here’s the original posting “Spidvid’s Lessons Learned About the Crowd and Video Production” on crowdsourcing’s remarkable site, which you should definately check out!

We’ve been getting lots of positive and a couple negative pieces of feedback over the last couple months for collaborating with talent on Spidvid. For the most part video creators, filmmakers, actors, and other talent are having excellent experiences on our collaborative platform which is great to hear, but a couple of issues have come up including payment to talent who didn’t complete the work, and lack of communication and involvement.

Below are 3 tips to get the most out of talent on Spidvid

1. Talk to them – The most effective way to build solid relationships with users on our site is to speak to them directly. Whether that’s in person (which is ideal), over the phone, or on Skype, make sure that you establish verbal communication before any formal collaboration begins.

2. Outline objectives and goals – Before doing anything be sure that everyone on the team is on the same page. If an editor is to edit a video then the elements which need to be completed should be clearly laid out on the table up front. If the editor can’t do everything needed, then an alternative individual should be attracted. Establish milestones, which lead up to the end goal of getting the video or film completed and ready for distribution.

3. Be careful with financial compensation – If you intend on paying someone who you’ve connected with on Spidvid, first be sure that a firm deal is in place. We don’t yet have a payment solution in place inside of Spidvid, so if you are paying someone via PayPal or on another third party payment site, you may want to have signed papers in place to protect yourself. So when the work gets done, you pay. Or maybe you pay 50% up front, and the other 50% when it gets completed. We will eventually be accountable for financial transactions between our community members when our internal payment solution is implemented, but right now we can’t be as all deals are externally happening outside our site.

These are 3 simple things to keep in mind when collaborating on video projects via Spidvid, and elsewhere on the Internet for that matter. Understanding them will ensure a smoother Spidvid experience, and ultimately projects getting completed safer and more quickly.

Keep updated on tips for getting more out of Spidvid, have our posts delivered to your email inbox. And join the other 11,338 people by following us on Twitter, or like us on Facebook.

This article is sponsored by the project management degree program at SMMU.

If you are interested in learning about project management, many universities offer a project management degree online for individuals with a busy schedule.

Many indie video creators and filmmakers who attempt to produce entertaining horror videos and films often make many common mistakes, leaving their content looking very amateurish and cheesy. There are a few things to keep in mind before even sitting down to write a script. I offer 3 tips for creating non-cheesy horror videos below, if you have a 4th tip please add it in the comments.

1. Scary music is key – Have you ever watched a horror film without sound? If you have, then you know that what you are seeing doesn’t have the same emotional impact that the composed music element provides. A good film score builds suspense, and unleashes a climax that can scare even the most manliest man you’ve ever met. Look extensively for a quality sound designer if you are creating a horror video, because if the sound doesn’t match the video, or the score is poorly executed then it will come off as cheesy and have viewers laughing instead of screaming. There are many amazingly talented composers and sound designers in our Spidvid community.

2. Go easy on the makeup – Fake blood on victims, and caked on makeup can leave your lead antagonist actor looking more like a clown, rather than the scary “bad guy” you’re striving to create. Makeup artists are so important when on set for horror projects, so be sure to get ones who have related experience and can successfully pull off the unique look you envision in your mind.

3. The bad guy is critical – A horror story always centers around the bad guy who’s purpose is to cause havoc on people’s lives. The audience has to fear this character, understand their power, and must side with the story’s hero to defeat the bad guy and save the day. Try to create an original bad guy, because all too often this character is overly cliche, and as the story builds it’s just too predictable for viewers to guess how it will all end. Have at least 2 or 3 twists and turns to keep the audience guessing what the bad guy will do next, and how he or she will make it tougher for the hero to ultimately prevail.

Have a 4th tip to add? The comments are yours below!

Don’t miss any future articles posted here, have them delivered to your email inbox.

Every once in awhile I’m presented with a great opportunity to help fund a very worthwhile film by a talented filmmaker. Today I take a look at a feature film with loads of potential named “Man-Child” by filmmaker Ryan Koo (pictured above) of NoFilmSchool.

Ryan has opted to use Kickstarter as his platform for raising money to create the film. His stats to date are most impressive as he has 1,200 funders, and has raised $71,010 to date out with his end goal being $115,000. Among the funders is 11-time NBA champion coach, Phil Jackson!

But there’s just 7 days left, so please check out the Man-Child Kickstarter page now to watch Koo’s brilliant pitch video (also embedded below), learn more about the intriguing film, how the money will be spent, and perhaps most importantly what you receive as rewards for donating.

More about the Man-Child film project below from Ryan

Man-child is an independent fiction film (not a documentary) that takes place in the surprisingly high-stakes world of youth basketball. I hope to shoot it independently in North Carolina (where I grew up playing basketball) next summer. My entire life has been leading up to this point, and so I’m asking for your help!

In 2009, the NCAA lowered the age limit on who can be considered an official basketball “prospect” to include 7th graders. While there have been a number of basketball films made about high school, college, or pro athletes, today’s recruiting — legal and illegal — begins much earlier. It’s a fascinating and treacherous world which often leaves big decisions in the hands of little kids.

The film explores sports, education, religion, and sex in America through the eyes of a talented 13 year-old basketball player (sexuality, I should note, is not presented in any sort of exploitative manner, and factors organically into the “learning personal responsibility” storyline). While it is narrative fiction, it explores a very real world.

HERE’S A SYNOPSIS OF THE PLOT:

An amateur video of 13 year-old Terran “TJ” Jackson playing basketball hits the internet and turns his life upside down. TJ is soon nationally ranked among other 7th graders and declared to be “the next Dwayne Wade” despite being in middle school.

As a result of this exposure, free athletic gear and various hangers-on find their way to the doorstep of his small, predominantly-black Christian school. While TJ navigates the religious curriculum — and simultaneously a sexually active relationship with his girlfriend — he learns about the youth basketball world and the recruiting machine that powers it. With his newfound fame, he must choose between educational institutes, father figures, and belief systems.

A few years from now TJ could be a millionaire, but right now all he has is basketball. It’s a lot for anyone to handle — much less a 13 year-old.

Is it going to be good?

It’s totally going to be good! I’m very happy to share that the script for “Man-child” was just accepted to IFP’s Emerging Narrative Program, which provides mentorship and access to producers. Around 350 scripts applied and only 20 were accepted, so I would like to think this is a solid step toward Not Sucking (percentage wise, that’s harder than getting into Harvard. Just saying!). I’m also honored to have been selected as one of 25 filmmakers invited to participate in the inaugural Emerging Visions program at the Film Society of Lincoln Center this October — also because of this script.

For the IFP event, an oft-requested supplement is a “lookbook,” wherein writers pull still images from existing sources in order to convey what they want the movie to look like. Instead of using still images, however, I decided to make a multimedia look book: a collage of film and TV clips to demonstrate the aesthetic of Man-child. Because it’s intended for producers, it gets a bit technical, but I hope you’ll find it interesting. At the very least, I hope you like the 1970s basketball clip — short shorts are always funny:

If this fundraising campaign is successful, with the help of the IFP and Lincoln Center programs I hope to be able to bring the right personnel on board to make this film as good as it can possibly be, and to reach a wide audience with the film as well.

I talk about myself plenty in the video, but if you’d like a bio of what I’ve done film-wise so far in my life, here’s a third-person bio.

How can I help produce the film?

• The goal of this campaign is to raise $115,000. See the FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) at the bottom of this page for exactly where all this money will go — it’s NOT going to me, it’s going to the production of the film. As far as movies go — especially sports movies — this is a very small amount of money with which to make a feature film.
• The campaign has a hard deadline of 11:59pm on September 23rd.
• If you decide to help, you pledge whatever you want in exchange for cool rewards (for example, a DVD of the film when it’s done, an HD download, your name in the credits, a blog post on my web site NoFilmSchool… the list goes on!).
• The more you pledge, the better the rewards! Take a look at the column on the right to see what’s available.
• If I make the goal by the deadline, your credit card is charged what you pledged (but not until then). I get to make the movie, you get your rewards, and everyone’s happy. I’d be more than happy, obviously — I’ll be more ecstatic than I’ve ever been in my life, and hopefully you’ll feel good too.
• If I don’t make the goal by the deadline (falling even a penny short), your credit card is not charged, I get nothing, you don’t get any reward(s), and the world doesn’t find out what it’s like to be 13 year-old, basketball-playing Terran “TJ” Jackson.

What is this 1 frame per dollar thing?

• An 80 minute film is 115,000 frames [24 frames per second X 60 seconds a minute X 80 minutes = 115,200].
• If the movie is longer than 80 minutes — which it’s 99.9999% certain to be — each dollar will actually equal MORE than 1 frame. I’m estimating a short 80 minute runtime to ensure you’re sponsoring at least one unique frame for every dollar pledged.
• No matter what amount you pledge, you will be sent the UNIQUE frames of the movie that you made happen. 5 bucks = 5 frames, 24 bucks = one second of the film (and the full DVD with special features!).

Another way you can participate (other than backing the project) is to SPREAD THE WORD about the project! E-mail a friend, share it on facebook, post it to an online forum, make smoke signals… any way you can get the word out is a HUGE help.

Again, please help make this film a reality by donating on the Kickstarter page.

We love to sponsor video content that resonates with our members of web series creators and producers, filmmakers, actors, screenwriters, directors, and other talent who can gain value from our Spidvid platform and community. If you don’t yet have one, grab a free Spidvid profile now.

I recently had a conversation with Travis Gordon who is the host of This Week In Web Series, and instantly knew that sponsoring his show would be a fantastic idea! This week features Tom Konkle, who’s very well known in the web series world for Safety Geeks. Along with Travis and Tom is Chris Greenaway who’s the creator of the male favorite Venus Spa web series. Their conversation is all about web series, the IAWTV awards, YouTube vs traditional television, and a discussion about Spidvid.

Watch This Week In Web Series – Episode 4, below

The 3 gentlemen had a discussion about Spidvid, and you can hear what they had to say below

Next week’s show features Rich Mbariket, who’s the founder of Web Series Network and Web Series Today.

Have a comment about the new show, the guests, or something else? The comment section is all yours below, don’t be shy

Don’t miss any of the upcoming This Week in Web Series shows going forward, subscribe to this YouTube channel to stay updated!

I asked a question to our Twitter followers and Facebook fans a couple weeks ago; As a filmmaker, would you sooner create a web series or short film? 13 people said they would sooner create a web series, whereas 7 people insisted they would rather create a short film.

What I know is that I watch many more web series episodes vs short films during a typical week of online viewing. I’m obsessed with watching web series creators and producers increasingly improve the production and entertainment value of their content as we push forward in the rapidly evolving media creation space.

When I first started tracking and covering online video news and production “norms” back in 2006 it’s like night and day compared to just 5 years later, now in 2011. The quality gap between TV series and web series is certainly getting smaller and smaller, as the economics are constantly improving for the semi-pro filmmakers and video creators to show off their creativity, passion, and storytelling.

There are advantages and disadvantages of creating a web series vs a short film (see links below for more reading in this area), and I believe that filmmakers and video creators should do both over time. Create as much quality entertainment as you can, promote it like crazy, see which videos find large audiences and engagement, and create more similar content by doubling down on what actually breaks through the noise. Don’t spend too much money or time in the beginning, if your story resonates with viewers then leverage that when reaching out to producers to help take things to the next level.

The number of entertaining web shows is blowing up, and to me it’s extremely exciting because I see progress every week and believe in the potential going forward. I’m bullish on web series, and it will be interesting to see what big hits emerge out of this space next.

Perhaps now is your time to shine?! If you need to build a team and/or collaborate on your video or film projects, then be sure to join our Spidvid community, and post a project for our talented members to check out!

What do you think of web series vs short film in terms of creation and viewing? The comments are yours below! Here are some opinions from other bloggers on this subject: The Short Film Is Dead, TV vs Web Series vs Indie Film, Indie Filmmaking Death Match: Short Film vs Web Series.

Don’t miss another Spidvid blog post or article! Get our content delivered to your email inbox, or to your favorite RSS reader.

Announcing the 2nd annual Buttered Corn on the Cob Film Festival which we are proud to sponsor again this year!

What is this film festival all about? The Buttered Corn on the Cob Film Festival is a young film festival that will highlight independent films from around the corn fields of the Midwest. The film festival is to honor the independent drive Film Makers of the Midwest have to create films without the support of the Hollywood machine. All the films shown will have no funding from Hollywood and will have a completely independent voice. The Buttered Corn on the Cob Film Festival will also be a chance for film makers of the Midwest to come together and network together, thus improving their ability to make impressionable films.

The 2012 event is on April 15th in Urbana, IL, submissions are free and will be accepted until February 20th, 2012. If you have a web series, a short film, or a feature length film, you can submit your content here. There are some great prizes to be won including a feature across our entire network for all winners! Here are the winners from last year, and below is our personal favorite entitled “Bedtime For Timmy” which is a very cute short animated film by Thomas Nicol.

Bedtime For Timmy from Thomas Nicol on UnleashVideo

We are proud to be a sponsor of this fun, new, and exciting film festival, not just because of the event itself but because of the wonderful people behind it too. Cheers to the filmmakers, viewers, organizers, and everyone else involved with Buttered Corn on the Cob Film Festival, 2012.

Because we are an influencer, innovator, and evangelist in the filmmaking industry we were sent a copy of the new book “Mastering Celtx” by Writers Guild of America member Terry Borst. Celtx is the top product for managing your film and video pre-production, and also any kind of other professional writings you may do.

This fantastic book includes: The Evolution of Pre-Production, Getting Familiar With Celtx, Project Navigation, Creating and Editing Production Film Scripts, Script Breakdowns, Reinventing Project Scripting, Storyboards, Sketches, Calendaring and Scheduling, Sample Projects, Creation and Admin, User Interaction, Sketch Images, Celtx Community, and other related topics. The book is also very visual with lots of great Celtx screen shots, which was a good idea so readers can learn very easily.

We have read it over, gotten value from its contents, and now want to give the book away as a gift to one of our Spidvid members. If you want to win this book, be sure to get a Spidvid account, and then let us know why you deserve this book more than anybody else. You can tweet us, post on our Facebook page, email us, or comment below to enter. Tell us a story and emotionally engage us to maximize your chances of winning! We will announce the winner tomorrow on July 26th so enter NOW!

P.S. We will throw in a few Spidvid stickers (as modeled below by this little guy) inside the book as well!

If you are a Spidvid member you should be using Celtx for your collaborative projects. Celtx is the perfect pre-production tool to complement your Spidvid projects, and any other film project you want to successfully bring to fruition.

We are back with another exciting Spidcast episode this month (listen in below and subscribe on iTunes) with a focus on collaborative filmmaking. For July’s show we feature two filmmakers and actors who have both created original web series. These two individuals are doing interesting things within the new media space, and it was our pleasure to have Gavin Leighton and Mike Lawson (both featured below) on the show.

Enjoy July’s Spidcast show, click play below to listen in

Our Guests

Gavin Leighton is a co-creator behind the web series Hitting the Fan, he also works in the creative and business aspects of acting, writing, music, producing, and collaborating.

Mike Lawson is also a co-creator of the Hitting the Fan web series, is behind Idiotscreen, and has appeared in a few feature films including “Friends With Money, Fast Track, and American Pie Presents Band Camp.

If you’re interested in sponsoring next month’s Spidcast show with a product or service you sell that’s filmmaking related, then please get in touch. If you have something to say with regards to what Gavin or Mike talked about, then please post a comment below to continue the conversation. Thanks for listening, and be sure to share this show with anyone in your network who can get value from its content!

Full Show Transcript Below

INTRO

Michael: Hi. I’m Michael London and welcome to Spidcast, the future of collaborative video production brought to you by Spidvid.com. On this episode, we’re visiting with Gavin Leighton and Mike Lawson, both actors living in Los Angeles and both now blazing their trail to non-traditional video production and delivery and worldwide collaboration as well. They have, in fact, worked together but also separately both with great success. I’m certain you’ll enjoy their similar but quite unique stories as well.

First up is Gavin Leighton. Gavin, welcome to Spidcast.

Gavin Leighton: Thank you. I’m really excited to be here and thank you for the opportunity to get to speak with others that are like-minded who want to do what they want to do.

Michael: Gavin, tell us a little bit about your story?

Gavin Leighton: I live in Los Angeles. I moved to Los Angeles about 7-and-a-half years ago. I moved out here specifically for acting, music and writing. During that time, I’ve worked some as an actor and booked things which have been exciting, but I’ve also have, most excitingly, been able to work on projects where I helped to create or I was just a part of the process with a group of friends and getting to wear lots of little hats on various projects over the course of time that I’ve been out here, which for me, have been really fulfilling. It’s a different experience that just booking something and moving on. You actually create something which is pretty exciting.

Michael: Well, it sounds great. Now, tell us a little bit about how you broke into the business.

Gavin Leighton: I’ve had the honor and the good fortune to work with some really great people out here in Los Angeles. I’ll name a few as I go along, but just name some, I’ve had the good fortune of working with Peter Atencio, working with Jen Ci, and Elisia Skye and these are all people that have made some really incredible video content and had gotten some attention with their work for numerous reasons specially with the quality of their work.

One of the things kind of most notably for me was I produced something called “Barackula: The Musical.” We did this several years ago, long time towards the end of ’07, long before it was cool to jump on the Barack Obama bandwagon and making videos about him. We created this 12 minutes—I call it a short political-horror-rock musical and basically Barack Obama fighting vampires at Harvard Law School. It’s totally fun and two musical numbers and dancing which I composed for, I helped produce, I also starred in.

That was kind of my first experience with collaborating with others in creating video content and it got a lot of attention. We were featured on CNN, Fox, MSNBC. We were discussed with VH1 and MTV. We’re in newspapers. It was really cool. We got a lot of great publicity and it was all kind of unintentional. We were not aiming to get that kind of publicity. It just kind of fell into our laps because we released it at the beginning of February of 2008 like around Super Tuesday, just for fun, and it just kind of took off from there for awhile which was cool.

Michael: Now, I’m going to guess on that production that you took advantage of collaboration?

Gavin Leighton: Absolutely. So, what had happened was, some friends of mine, Mike Lawson who I work with quite a bit, Brooke Shirey, Justin Sherman—they were just making a short film and they wanted to know if I wanted to produce it along with them. It was just really a story about Barack Obama being at Harvard and that’s all it kind of was. I like the idea of collaborating because you get to spend time with friends in a really special way, in a way that you get to do something that you love to do. You get to create something. But then somebody came up with the idea of making it a musical and that really got my attention. I was really on board from that point on and then they decided to make it a vampire musical.

We just had a great time. The four of us working very closely together and we created a great script and we made some really great music and the script and music and the idea that inspired and rolled others to kind of be a part of the project.

We kind of enlisted a guy named Mark Mannschreck who had a RED Camera and it was the first time that any of us got to use or even see a RED Camera in the beginning of ’08 when it was really just kind of coming out. This guy Mark allowed us to just use his camera. He was just being a part of it just because he enjoyed the idea of it and so he got himself inspired to be a part of it. That’s kind of how it happened.

And something very, very small an idea that we had that we didn’t have these big, high hopes for, it was just something we just wanted to do for fun, turned out to be something much bigger than any of us expected and I think that got me really into the idea of collaborating with others.

Michael: Well, you’ve certainly whetted my appetite. Where can we see that?

Gavin Leighton: Thank you. It’s Barackula.com. People tend to misspell it but it’s just like the President’s last name. It’s B-A-R-A-C-K-U-L-A. Like Dracula but Barackula. Just Baracula.com and you’ll be able to see how press and all that but you can also watch the full 12-minute video in HD on there. Again, everything there, just so the listeners can know, it looks really good, but we shot it I think for about 2,000 or less and a lot of it was just from favors that we got from friends. We got food donated to us. It was really just one of those things where we know the right people.

We’re in that community of making video content and by knowing others and by being a part of that group, they come in and they help you with the thinking that at some point, you’ll return the favor and it’s kind of like a family that produces these projects and we have. Barackula.com. I hope people go and check it out.

Michael: I’m sure they will as will I. Now, you mentioned limited budgets, tell us how to get the most from a limited or even sometimes a no-budget production?

Gavin Leighton: Sure. I’ll speak to it with some experience. Most recently, we’ve produced a new comedy series called “Hitting the Fan”. It’s very, very small budget. The first place to start when you want to create something like a web series or just a show or just a single thing, the first place to go is have that clear idea of what you want.

Before you start calling friends over, before you maybe even start writing, you really want to think what is it that I want to create? How can I do this cheaply? Who do I know that can help me on this? People sometimes think that when you hear the word resources, you think in financial terms, but in this kind of world, in this kind of arena, with making video content, your resources are the people around you. If you associate with people that make video content or know people that do, they have a great wealth of resources for you that you may not even be able to imagine. At least start sending out emails or making phone calls and starting from there to see what people can do.

We had asked a friend of ours that the sound—our friend, Josh Bissett, he joined us on “Hitting the Fan”. It was all just a favor to us. We didn’t pay him pretty much at all. He should’ve take more, but he did it simply because he’s a part of that group and at some point, I assumed that will help him with something as well. That’s one way to begin.

Michael: Okay so you got the project done and now you’ve posted it. How do you get people to find it?

Gavin Leighton: Okay, once you’re past the production aspects and you’re now on post-production, maybe editing or even past that, what do you do now? Once again, I would say, look around at the world around you. Follow the right people on things like Twitter. That’s certainly an amazing resource because if you follow the right people on Twitter, you can learn information that you really wouldn’t get unless you spend hours digging up online. These people are doing it for you already and you can do it and kind of live streaming in action.

Other ways to figure out how do you benefit others? Where does your content belong? For instance, you made a series, would a company like Netflix or Xbox, would they have any interest in having some original content? Is the quality of the audio and the video quality up to par with what they want if you’ve done some good planning on your end in pre-production and production? Maybe you have some really phenomenal quality of writing, of performances, video/audio. If you have all the four magic things all in place together, there’s a lot of places where you can go. Right now what we’re doing is we’ve shot two episodes of our show and we’re kind of on that same place, we’re reaching out to places where it might belong.

Another example, maybe check in with a website or a product or something—I’m just going to Target, I don’t know, for some reason, it comes to me. You contact Target and maybe for some reason, (pay) their own show on their website. Who knows the reason why, but they just might. Maybe your show has that original content that they’re looking for which they can also advertise on as well. All of the sudden, out of nowhere, you have some great financing that you never would’ve expected. It’s simply, once again, a matter of collaboration, but this time with a company.

Michael: Well, you’ve given us some wonderful insights into the whole process from idea to completion. What do you foresee now in the next say, five to ten years?

Gavin Leighton: It’s funny when that has had a hand in making video content. Now, people know that it’s an exciting time to be doing this because look at where things were five years ago? You never would’ve imagined the kind of advantage that we see with video equipment and all your equipment that we have access to now. Not only do we have access too, but also really cheaply. There was never anything like HD cameras. It would’ve cost a fortune five years ago, but right now, and there’s no excuse for anybody to not be able to make something that is worthy for a big screen, with lots of people watching it or worthy of having 10, 20,000, 30,000 people following it.

It’s just a really phenomenal, exciting time to be doing this because cameras are going to be getting better. Sound equipments are going to be getting better. They’re also going to get more affordable. Even this month, I think, final cutbacks with Apple (has got) software coming out, I believe, this month if I got that right. Even advances in just software can really take people’s production to a new level that they would not have imagined five years ago.

The exciting thing is in five years from now, it’s just going to be the same thing, but it’s going to be exponential. I see in five years now, everyone having cameras like the RED camera or better. Being able to make something that looks beautiful for under a thousand dollars or whatever it might be.

Once you have these resources available to you, the first place to begin is a good, proper planning. What do you want to write? What kind of script do you want? Get out there and speak. I suggest people to give their scripts to others and let them do a table read because technology can get better and you can have access to really phenomenal equipment that’ll make you look good. But you want to make sure that the content is good too. It’s all equal in form.

Michael: Well, there you make an excellent point. The accessibility, the ease of use, the quality of the equipment, but it still comes down to the writing.

Gavin Leighton: Absolutely. Every single time. Again, another example with our show right now, “Hitting the Fan”, we did a table read with a group of friends that we were not asking to help us. We just wanted to hear how it sounded out loud with me and Mike Lawson and Ron Fallica, kind of production he might have out here. And we liked having this table read but once people read the script, there are actors with great credit, people with great talent, people that their time is valuable. They said to us, how do we be a part of this? We just want to be a part of it. We’ll help any way that we can. This is a great script. It’s very funny. It starts with that. From that point forward, because we had a good product before the cameras are turned on, more resources became available to us and also for free. We got free location and things like that in nature.

Michael: Gavin, tell us a bit about how Spidvid has impacted collaboration and production for you?

Gavin Leighton: Absolutely, when I first learned about Spidvid, not too long ago, is impressed with the idea. It’s essentially just a place where people like myself and others, the same who’ll be listening to this, can really connect with others and it’s another great resource out there. That’s what it’s all about. You go online and you put out a video idea and before you know it, the world brings you something that you would not have expected yesterday. And now, all of the sudden, your project is jumping to new great heights which built the excitement and built the, I think, the production value as well.

I think it’s a great form for people to connect and learn things about themselves as video creators and also learn things about others and to produce even better content in the future. Jeremy’s is also just a pretty nice guy.

Michael: He is that indeed. If you could just wrap this up with a few easily digestible nuggets, what would they be?

Gavin Leighton: The four things that I think that are most valuable is that they’re your four pillars for a great project and that is great writing, great performances, great video, and great audio. If one of those pillars is missing, I feel like the foundation of what you’re trying to accomplish will fall apart if you’re trying to go for something grand. If you’re just wanting to make something just to make it and show friends on Facebook or YouTube or whatever, then you have a lot more freedom but if you’re trying to take it to a next level, you are getting financing or want to place it on a network, you really need to take under consideration, I think, these four very essential aspects to video creating.

Michael: Excellent. Now, Gavin, one more time, where do we see your stuff?

Gavin Leighton: You can see my new show, which I’m the star, the writer and composer of this as well, Hittingthefanshow.com. You can watch Barackula at Barackula.com and I can be emailed from any of these sites. The best one out is Gavin@hittingthefanshow.com.

Michael: Thank you so much, Gavin Leighton for joining us today.

Gavin Leighton: Michael, thank you so much. I appreciate it.

BREAK

Michael: Next up is an actor, writer and editor of Idiotscreen.com. He’s Mike Lawson. So tell us a bit about yourself and what’s your story?

Mike Lawson: Well, I grew up in Dayton, Ohio, in a small town right outside of Dayton. I always knew that I wanted to be a part of films. I started making films when I was around four or five and my parents played different roles and I would direct them and write them and make remakes of movies that I really like, like “Red Dawn” and a movie called “Daryl”, which is a cheesy movie about a boy robot.

I write and I just continue to do that through my childhood and I moved out to L.A. like so many other people primarily to be an actor and a writer, but I really focused on writing first and (I was) in the acting first. I started working at casting offices just to intern and learn the other side and worked in script development in a couple of production companies also to learn that side. Slowly, I booked like kind of bit parts on TV shows and then the parts started to go a little bit bigger and did some independent films and started to write more and I started to produce my own stuff because I got tired of waiting around like so many people do.

I produced a couple of short films and web series and then I thought of the idea to kind of create my own site like a blog featuring interviews and panel discussions in our own content that my friends and I would do and have a hub for it. I created Idiotscreen.com and now it brings me to greater than right about now. That’s basically my story in a nutshell there.

Michael: So take us to the process from your idea to script to the finish product?

Mike Lawson: Well, my friends and I, we thought of an idea originally for like a half-hour comedy show and we wrote a pilot and we were like where do we take this? We didn’t have many connections with inside the big network studio system so we said let’s do this on our own. At that time, the people were, of course, creating their own content for the web, and we thought we can do this. We have the script and then we have to add the outline for the rest of the series. The show is called “Hitting the Fan” and we basically kind of pooled our friends together. We had a sound guy friend of ours that we said can we get work (cheaper too.)

We started creating the website just this WordPress site, found this WordPress theme and started learning that so you’d have the color scheme and then we just called all our friends and Facebooked them. Between the three of us, my friends Gavin and Ron, and we basically put in money we had into it, which was very little and created a test pilot shot on a HV20 camera this little mini DV camera.

We used China lanterns because they were super cheap. We used other kinds of light fixtures from Home Depot and when our sound guy couldn’t be there, we had the other actors kind of boom that first episode. We shot it and it took several months to edit it. We had a guy editing it, a friend of ours in New York. We were editing out here between our computers. Had a lot of bad luck as far as like computers crashing and there’s probably like five different computers that was on. Then we had a friend do the sound mix.

We created it. We had a screening and then we decided let’s do a second episode before we air anything. We went out and we put a little bit more money but not much but we have learned a lot from that from that first one way shot on the T2i Rebel and the Canon 70 DSLR HD cameras and we got our other friends involved and we used again, mostly China lanterns, not really any traditional film lights but we went out and we shot it and same thing, it was a lot quicker because we didn’t shoot as much footage. We improved a lot more that first one. We were a lot more efficient with our time and our schedule and the second episode and we kind of put it out there.

That’s kind of how that happened for that show, “Hitting the Fan”. And then another series that I did was a lot different. That panel show for Idiotscreen. Basically, I just contacted various people that I’d want to interview and schedule a day at a friend’s house and had the basic China lanterns and borrowed a couple of lights from friends and set up three cameras, two T2i Rebels and the one 70, had some friends come. We just shot interviews all day and then had another friend edit and put it out on the web and try to send it out to the influencers out there, the people that who’s opinion seem to matter, which I believe is everyone, but we send out to everyone and also those who have even more influence as far as views on their site whatever.

Michael: Now, through what you just said, there was a continuing thread—friends, friends, friends. Tell us about how friends and Spidcast and others have helped you?

Mike Lawson: Well, Spidvid and Facebook and them together are basically—for us, I can speak at least for how we do it. They need resources to find talent because like a lot of the people that I work with, I come mostly again from the acting background and at the time, I didn’t have a lot of friends that were—I have one sound guy friend, which was a blessing, but the other people, I didn’t have many DP friends or editor friends or grips.

In certain cases for acting’s sake, one of my friends are kind of playing the similar age to me, kind mid to late 20’s, but there’s not always, maybe like someone in their 40’s or a teenager. It was very helpful to find people who I didn’t have in my inner circle then and who wanted to do the same thing. Of course, by them helping us out, in turn, we owe them our help on their passion projects. It’s just a way to find people because very often, in our case, we didn’t have the funds and even so, even if we did, we would want to have a place to find them that we could trust, that we would have like obviously, if we have people who’ll vouch for other people in person and online, we can trust them more than if we just got a resume through Craigslist.

Seeing someone’s profile page and their example work all in one page, I think, is very helpful and on Spidvid and Facebook and Twitter in a completely different way, but for as far as connecting, Facebook, Spidvid and some of the other places out there are huge resource to filmmakers and they definitely were for us.

Michael: Well, you feel your collaborators have certainly helped to bring the future to reality. What do you now see in the near and distant future?

Mike Lawson: Well, I see it going on the direction that it is. It’s becoming, of course, more digital and that gatekeepers once were at these networks and studios. They, of course, fight on to it to keep their place but it’s slowly slipping away. If you think that when it comes to collaboration, there’s going to be more and more content and more and more avenues to watch it and it’s already happening the way everyone is watching on different devices, mobile and of course, on internet, on television and vice versa. We’re just going to see more of that.

What I don’t think is going to change too much or I hope not is the medium itself. I’m a huge fan of collaboration. I think that that’s an incredibly important thing, but I also think that having a specific vision, it was the one creator or a couple creators and of course listening to input is very important but what I hope that it doesn’t change is that personally, I’m not a big fan of interactive content. When I’m watching a story or reading a book, I want the writer or director to take me into certain place. I don’t think that’s going to change except for a couple of gimmicks here and there, but where will change and get better, I think. There’s more and more sites and keeps growing. We can find more people and we can monetize the content online.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt has that hitRECord site which I believe just sold a first book from someone coming up with an idea of that site and they have a book deal, I believe, I just saw. I could be wrong. We’ll see more and more of that where the gatekeepers are going away and the gatekeepers are just you and me and everyone else who are have an internet account. That’s just going to continue to grow and get better. Unlike where the actual storytelling itself despite a couple of gimmicks and niches here and there, I hope that doesn’t change too much because I think there’s something to be said for classic storytelling. Pushing boundaries is one thing but that’s basically kind of what I feel about.

Michael: Mike, you’ve mentioned the phrase “gatekeepers” several times and is it that a wonderful thing that the process of those “gatekeepers” that their influence has changed.

Mike Lawson: Yes, it’s a great thing. It doesn’t cost as much to create something now that you used to. The gatekeepers are not as important they once were. We now have the ability to go out there and create what we want to create at a cheaper rate. That’s inspiring. You can also use that with the cost going down and more content out there, it’s harder to monetize, but I believe that the ones that really stand out—the films, short films, the web series, whatever it may be—the ones that are truly great will find a home and will make money and we’re going to make some money on their next one. I think that the good ones will eventually be found.

Michael: Now that we’ve had a chance to visit with you Mike and folks have gotten to know you, I’m sure they’re going to want to see your stuff. Where do we go find some of your work?

Mike Lawson: You can go to Idiotscreen.com or Hittingthefanshow.com and you can watch the panel shows and interviews that we’ve done and also the original series “Hitting the Fan” and then we’ve got a feature film called “The Deadbeat”. We’ll be shooting later this fall and there’ll be more information about that as well. Idiotscreen.com and Hittingthefanshow.com as well.

Michael: Excellent. And do you have a parting shot for all listeners?

Mike Lawson: No, I mean, other than I guess the typical, just set a due date and go out and do something, I think you’ll find it be the best thing. As Seth Goden says, “Ship it.” Just go out there and ship something out into the world and then keep and go out and ship something else and constantly we’ll better each time, but the important thing is to “ship it”.

Michael: Mike Lawson, thank you so much for taking the time to visit today.

Mike Lawson: Thank you, Michael. I appreciate it.

Michael: Thanks for listening to our Spidcast show. We appreciate your time and attention. You can now join the conversation at Spidcast.com or on our Spidvid blog. And you can join our collaborative filmmaking community at Spidvid.com. Tune in next month for another entertaining and informative episode of Spidcast.