I love reading a book or two per month! This month I’m reading The Lean Startup by Eric Ries. The book’s core premise is that startups should build a minimal viable product (MVP), release it, get feedback, learn, iterate, and rapidly shape the product towards establishing a solid product-market fit.

How this methodology applies to video project development is that perhaps you shouldn’t create a long-form video, or develop a full web series until you know it will work and get traction. A minimal viable video (MVV) if you will. So maybe instead of writing a script for an 8 episode web series, you should write pilots for 4 potential shows, create those, see which one of them resonates best with viewers, and then develop that particular series fully. Pilots are a good way to learn about how your viewers would like to see the story develop (and if the story is strong enough to move forward in the first place), and which characters are liked and which ones aren’t.

This is something to think about, always try to do extraordinary things but minimize the risks associated with developing original content. Create something fast, release it, learn, and you should have a better idea of what can work longer term.

And of course by all means, if you’re passionate about a story and want to see it all the way through then go for it because nothing feels better than creating something you love. If a topic or subject makes you feel good inside, then go for it no matter what others may say to you.

Always be listening, always be learning, and stay foolish and hungry.

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Jeremy Campbell Production Tool, Rant, Visionary, community book, content, Eric Ries, Lean Startup, learning, methodology, minimal viable product, minimal viable video, MVP, MVV, new media, online video, project development, video development, video production, video projects

Some video creators and filmmakers who post projects on Spidvid wonder why after a week or two only have a couple bids from our community of talent, or none at all. Sometimes it’s not how many bids are received, but the quality of the bid and the individual offering to partner up with you. Just like anything else in life you get out what you put in, so if you don’t invest much time or effort, then in all honesty you shouldn’t expect much in return either. I offer some Spidvid team building tips below.

4 ways to get more and better quality bids on your Spidvid projects

1. Hustle – We offer a built in feature when posting a Spidvid project, where an email gets sent to every relevant individual that may be interested in your project. For example if you need actors for your project, then every Spidvid member with an acting profile gets notified. This has proved to be a fast and effective way to get the word out on new projects, but it’s sometimes not enough. You can easily search for targeted talent on Spidvid, and then reach out to those members or automatically invite them to bid on your project. Do your research and start engaging in conversations and making valuable connections for active, and future Spidvid projects.

2. See Who’s Active – Look at other Spidvid projects to discover who’s bidding, what they are offering towards the project, and what they want in return for their efforts. If you see someone who fits your criteria then send them a message to gauge their interest on your project.

3. Use Social Media – You likely have a few: friends on Facebook, followers on Twitter, and contacts on LinkedIn. Our community loves to collaborate with video creators and filmmakers, but sometimes your personal network of connections may be better suited as team members. Tap into your “social graph” and gauge interest from those individuals, in addition to our community to maximize overall results.

4. Ask For Referrals – OK so you’re reaching out directly to the amazing members on Spidvid, but are perhaps having little luck finding ideal fits for your team. If this happens then politely ask for referrals, because someone may very well have the ideal contact in mind for you. It never hurts to ask, don’t be shy, as we have a very friendly community to engage with!

These are just 4 easy ways to improve your team building efforts on Spidvid, both short and long term.

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Jeremy Campbell Lists, community, resources active members, attracting talent, film collaboration, film projects, filmmakers, finding talent, new media, production projects, project bidding, project bids, referrals, social media, Spidvid community, Spidvid projects, Spidvid talent, team building, video collaboration, video creators, video projects

I recently connected with Mike Gentilini, Jr. who’s the founder of VidMuze. VidMuze is a video community where tutorials and stock footage content is shared for video editors and visual effects artists to learn and grow from. Empowering storytellers to take their video productions to a higher professional level is the core mission of VidMuze.

There are many great tutorials which you can watch on VidMuze, but in the mean time I have hand selected a couple below to get you started. To watch the others simply visit their tutorial page, or their Vimeo channel page.

Below is some pretty cool video stock footage provided by VidMuze

If you like what you’ve seen here, then be sure to head over to VidMuze to get even more valuable content to benefit your current and future video productions.

Have something to add? The comments are yours below!

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Jeremy Campbell Production Tool, community, resources adobe tutorials, after effects tutorials, editing, editing software, encore tutorials, Facebook, film editing, film editors, premiere tutorials, stock footage, twitter, VFX, video editor, video projects, video stock footage, video tutorials, VidMuze, Vimeo, visual effects artist, YouTube

For those of us who don’t live in beautiful climates year round such as Los Angeles or Miami residents do, July is a month we truly treasure up here in Toronto aka Hollywood North. It’s the perfect month to gather a crew, get outside into the sun, and shoot video entertainment. Perhaps not the type of content that Spencer and Heidi (Speidi) were filming above, but rather, content that people actually want to watch!

If you have a video entertainment project that you want to develop but need to build a team to accomplish that goal, then why not post your project on Spidvid and find partners and collaborators who can add their unique value to take the project to successful completion. If you don’t yet have a Spidvid profile then get one now so you can either lead a project, or join video creators to be part of their teams.

Enjoy your weekend everyone, and cheers to your summer video production success!

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Jeremy Campbell community building a team, collaborative video, collaborators, film production, film projects, global production, new media, new media model, new media production, open video production, partners, social media, team building, video collaboration, video production, video projects

A few talented filmmakers from our community have posted new projects over the last few days on Spidvid. See them below, and be sure to bid on any that interest you to collaborate on.

1. Hello Future, Music Video Challenge by Richard Boehmcke is looking for a videographer with equipment capable of filming a three and a half minute video for this contest http://vimeo.com/saatchiandsaatchi. The basic storyline revolves around a couple having a fight soundlessly as the only sound heard is the song. Looking for a videographer to shoot the entire thing in HD and possibly an editor capable of adding in some after effects to give this project a very polished feel. Shooting can be accomplished in a day as it will be 4 or 5 locations including a cab, an apartment, a restaurant, a bar, and a train. 1 videographer, and 1 editor needed, and just 4 days left to bid!

2. Hot on the Red Carpet : Backstage at Showtime’s The GreenRoom with Paul Provenza by Erin Brown needs a talented editor. Erin has hours of footage on Vegas 10 that need to be cut into Hot on the Red Carpet episodes. Can be broken up into a few 3 minute pieces or more smaller ones. Here is a 1 minute sizzle reel of the series. It’s a spoofy red carpet that’s been featured on Funny or Die homepage. This is low budget but there are major comedic celebs in this like Lewis Black, Kathy Griffin, Ron White, & John Corbett to name a few.

3. Poker Girls Season 2 by Jewelle Cowel needs a promoter/marketer who can sell product placements within each episode. Poker Girls is about: Winners and Losers can Still be Friends … Right? Undercover cop, Summer, uses Poker to get close to unsuspecting criminals. Friendships happen and relationships become intertwined on the journey to Healing and Redemption. What happens when Kathryn’s boyfriend is behind bars due to Summer’s current case? Can Summer’s need for a judge on her side be satisfied by the alcoholic Teresa? Summer’s best friend, Vicki, returns to an abusive relationship. Pain killers are leaned on, characters face their dark sides. A Character Driven Series, positioned between “Desperate Housewives” and “Criminal Minds”.

4. Person to Person Message Transfer needs a writer, composer, editor, and a marketing person. What it’s about: Heard of this game before…. where you have a group of people and you start with a simple one line sentence. The sentence is whispered from person to person until the last person hears the message, when he or she then announces the message aloud. The message ends up nothing like how it started, and a huge group laugh usually ensues! Will have a group of sexy friends (not actors) sit around a circle and play this game to see where things go.

Need someone who can edit this video to visually show what’s happening to the viewing audience, so someone who’s good with effects and fast cuts would be ideal. Someone who can write funny and short sentences that could turn out really funny when announced by the group’s last person in line. Someone who can create ear gripping audio for background sound. And someone who can promote this video so that it finds a big audience. Blogging about it, using social media to spread the story, and anything else possible to maximize views and attention is needed!

If you have a short film or web series project that you need help with, then get a Spidvid profile and post your project for our community to have a look at, and bid on!

Jeremy Campbell New Project, community actors, collaboration production, collaborative community, composers, film community, film production, film projects, filmmakers, filmmaking, new media, new media production, open film production, open video production, production projects, video community, video creation, video creators, video production, video projects, writers