The big share today seems to be the Jimmy Kimmel tricking people at Coachella video “Lie Witness News- Coachella 2013” 

 The hipsters attending are asked about a fake band and we get to see their moronic reaction. But is that really what we are seeing? 

Anyone with any sort of production background immediately sees and hears some hints that the trick is on us, not on the people being interviewed. 

Jimmy begins by explaining that “We asked them about a bunch of bands whose names we made up.”

We then cut to 2 girls who are asked about “Dr Schlomo and the GI Clinic” The girls nod there heads “They’re amazing”

But what got my attention isn’t their answer- it’s that clearly they are not actually being asked about this band. The interviewers questions are all done in post. 

Listen to the interviewer again, it is very clear, she doesn’t sound at all like she is there in the moment.

How can I tell - a few simple ways:

- Her voice is very clear, it doesn’t sound like she is even in the same place.

- Her mic never moves. She could have had a lav on but the sound would still not be that clear. Man on the street is always back and forth mic. 

- The way her hand is when she talks doesn’t move. We all move our hands in someway or another. This is oddly static asking questions or not. 

- The angle of the camera is the big give away. It’s an odd angle for a man in the street interview and the first thing that struck me. We never see the interviewer and we always have this hand there, that doesn’t really move when the girl talks. 

- The people being interviewed never repeat the name of the band. 

I would like to give Kimmel’s producers credit for turning the trick on us “Aren’t they dumb” becomes “Aren’t we dumb” when we all realize we were duped- but it doesn’t seem like this is what they were going for based on Jimmy’s intro. 

While Coachella has turned from a premiere music festival into a big VIP party for brands, you still should understand, it’s not the people being interviewed that are the dumb ones here. 

Now, they certainly could have had to do ADR in post after since she didn’t move her mic and sound wasn’t picking her up- so in that case I’m the dumb one. 

Think before you share. Production knowledge will always be your friend. (or something corny like that) 

Notice anything odd about this photo? Look closely.

The subscriber count is gone. Granted I have not updated to the newest YouTube look of the moment yet, but even there,  it’s fairly tiny. 

For years we have been told that the only thing that mattered on YouTube was subscriber count. But those who worked closely with  YouTube as our primary source of business realized that subscribers over the past year were starting to lose their effectiveness.  If we were lucky 10-15% of a sub base actually watched a video. 

Tay Zonday had a great article about this recently: http://newmediarockstars.com/2013/02/lies-my-youtube-subscriber-count-told-me-op-ed/ (Lies My YouTube Subscriber Count Told Me (Op-Ed) 

I have been wondering out loud and on panels over the past few years, “When will YouTube get rid of subscribers? It’s obvious that YouTube wants to grow, and they need to grow.” 

And people thought I was nuts. 

Why would they possibly get rid of subscribers that have been the backbone of YouTube since 2006?

Let’s take a very quick look at how I see YouTube. (Your thoughts may vary) 

YouTube’s biggest returning fan base seems to be young kids from 8-13 who love and idolize their favorite Youtubers. (Just go to VidCon and you’ll understand)  It’s a huge base that gives each YouTube star millions of views per video, sometimes rivaling that of network and cable TV shows. 

But, is it a good business model? Will 8yr olds who love Machinima videogame walk thrus or 13 year olds who want to see more Smosh videos use Google TV? Will they buy a product that is advertised on YouTube? Can a product like Lexus successfully advertise to the Top subscribed YouTube channels? 

Probably not. 

And will the coveted 18-49 yr olds who have money, want to watch vloggers like Jenna Marbles on their 52” TV?

Probably not. 

But they will watch high quality long form programming like House of Cards. 

And YouTube knows this, and knows they had to do something about it. 

First they gave money to celebrities and production companies. The celebs BTW had no idea how to use YouTube or how to make content for $300 a minute- so that essentially failed. (Sorry Shaq) 

Then they changed the analytics so it no longer favored some of the top YouTube channels in terms of recommended videos

And then they began purging those YouTube celebrity subscriber bases. 

And now this.

Simple little changes this are pointing to a bigger picture.

YouTube is growing up and they need their viewers to grow up as well.

Getting rid of subscribers would level the entire playing field back to square one.

Is this what YouTube is doing? 

If it is- how do they get retention? Google event calendar integration? Maybe, top featured channels like a DirecTV and everyone else is just sort of hoping to get shared? 

What are your thoughts? 

Very interesting article showing true reach to subscriber bases on YouTube.

http://newmediarockstars.com/2013/02/nmr-channelmeter-exclusive-the-top-10-most-subscribed-youtube-channels-actual-reach-percentages/

Many companies, brands and even casting agents now look at social media numbers to make decisions on who to work with. These numbers are fairly easy to “fake”/ buy/ whatever you want to call the unethical practice of pumping up your popularity. 

With Streamin’ Garage I myself have fallen into the trap of hiring / working with based on social media numbers. “If we can get them on the show- we’ll get huge numbers on YouTube!” It rarely happens. And all too many times we had on a guest or band with 6 figure followers that didn’t come close to delivering 6 figure video views- or even 6 re-tweets. 

How can you tell if numbers are real? Well on Facebook if you see a company or brand has 100,000 “likes” yet when they post they only get a handful of comments, you can bet these likes were bought. 

Same goes for Twitter. An easy way to tell, search @(Username) If that user has 100,000 followers yet no one ever tweets back to them- then they may as well have 100 followers. 

Why do companies do this? For the same reason record labels focused on 1 hit wonder pop boy bands. It’s a quick hit that makes it look like your company is successful, and look how well it worked for the record companies. (cough) 

If all kids there days are winners and get trophies and no one is ever a loser, where will the next generation of comedy writers come from?

You know Romney’s thinking it..  Thanks to Elaine Ewing for quickly mocking this up for me. :) 

I’m always asked how to get the best sound on videos and for live streams. Here is a great video we put together on Bammo to answer those questions. Subscribe to youtube.com/bammo for more great production tips and tricks! 

I came home and this was on my Facebook page. Turns out, it’s essentially an ad for Subway. I never clicked on a poll or went to Subways page in fact I wasn’t even home. Is this a new way for Facebook to do ads? Companies can post under your name? 

Oh and hey Subway, I’m a vegetarian for the past 22 year you morons!

Social Media Fail 

Glad I can finally let you all know about this. I am Executive Producing thru my company Streamin’ Garage all the behind the scenes episodes- so was hard not to let people know all about this!

Nathan Fillion and Zachary Levi kiss at Comic Con! Streamin Garage (my company) was hired by Break.com to live stream all the panels at Zachary Levi’s (Chuck) NerdHQ. The panel was over- but I kept the live stream going as you can never tell what will happen. And then this! A woman donated $1,000 to kiss Zachary Levi. Nathan Fillion and Adam Baldwin then ran on stage and proceeded to kiss Zac as well. And it was all streamed live on ustream because I decided to not turn off the NewTek Inc Tricaster til everyone left the stage. Lesson to all you live streamers!