Videos
BBC Launches Expert Women YouTube Channel
The BBC has launched of a new resource for programme makers looking for female specialist contributors: the BBC Expert Women database and YouTube channel. The database contains details of the 60 women who have so far received training via BBC Academy Expert Women Days, a series of free events designed to address the lack of […]
Is this the hottest funeral director in the world?
RJ Williams is a funeral director and skate dude. And possibly the hottest funeral director in the world. Watch the video:
I Know What Drugs You Did Last Night: Ketamine Kid
Three Billion dug up this video of a guy at a party and suggest it could be the best anti-drugs video ever. Decide for yourself:
360-Degree Lens For Your iPhone
Kogeto, a NYC design company is about to launch a 360-degree lens attachment for the iPhone that can capture video in the round wherever you are. They crowdfunded it via Kickstarter raising more than $60,000 with 36 days still to run on the campaign (and a goal of just $20,000). Watch the video here:
Hey NYC, What Song Are You Listening to?
Ty Cullen went out on to the streets of NYC to ask random strangers what songs they were listening to and compiled them into a soundtrack of the city. Watch the video: via PSFK
The Power of the Right Words
If you want to know how to get people to do what you want to do, watch this video:
British Airways Interactive Ad
In March 2011, British Airways staged a competition at Westfiled shopping centre in West London in which shoppers were invited to ask holiday makers on a mystery Caribbean island questions about their location. The competition happened in real time via SMS. If the shoppers guessed where the holiday makers were they could win a luxury […]
Tourette’s Karaoke
Erasure’s A Little Respect as you’ve never heard it before – by a tourette’s sufferer who felt an attack coming on and decided to put it to good use:
Get Laddered
Another advert featuring parkour, this one with a rousing soundtrack and ladders:
Islam Idol
4Shbab is Egypt’s answer to MTV, with music videos about Palestine, family and delivering a message of values and morals. But it doesn’t stop them having an American Idol-esque talent competition Your Voice is Heard. Read more in the New York Times. Watch the video report:
Shane Dawson TV
Shane Dawson is a 22-yr-old comedian/entertainer who has the third most subscribed YouTube channel with 2.3 million subscribers. It grew out of videos he made for school assignments and has been running for three years, and has been nominated for several awards. A TV pilot is also in development. Check him out here.
Need to Make a Pitch Tape on a Shoestring?
Think you need to spend a load of cash making that pitch tape? Think again. This short film was made, edited and scored using an iPhone:
The Zimmers: My Generation
The Zimmers are a British rock group with a difference – it has 40+ members and a combined age of 3,000+. They were brought together for a documentary several years ago, but the band continues to tour. See them recording My Generation here.
The Zimmers: Firestarter
I had the pleasure of appearing on Danny Steele’s excellent radio show on JNET Radio with a couple of these guys. (NSFE – Not Safe For Epileptics)
Film Biz Recycling
Film Biz Recycling is a Brooklyn-based not-for-profit organization that aims to find temporary or permanent new home for movie set dressings and props. They’ve recently moved into a new 11,000 sq ft space so they can accommodate items large and small. To mark the move, the team put together a music video (which features rather […]
Parkour on a Bike
Watch and learn as Danny MacAskill travels by bicycle – the hard way – from Edinburgh to Skye. Hat tip: three billion
How to Make a Viral Pop Video
British band Hadouken decided that rather than shoot a video to promote their new song Mecha Love they would edit together clips of 50 of the biggest viral, mostly sports-releated YouTube videos. Watch it here (along with other 22.5 million views): Hat tip: three billion
Why We All Want to be Millenials
We All Want to Be Young is a film that is the result of several studies by Brazilian behavioural science and consumer research company BOX1824, and it does an excellent job of tracing the history, and future, of teens (and those who aspire to be like them). We All Want to Be Young from box1824 […]
Parkour at the Olympics
Shouldn’t parkour be an Olympic sport by now? I’m thinking freestyle and synchronized… And I’m not the only one who thinks so. Watch the 3Run showreel: Hat tip: three billion
Kenny Lao’s New Bathroom Project
Kenny Lao, founder of Rickshaw Dumplings, star of an MTV special, one of Inc Magazine’s 30 under 30, and Crain’s 40 under 40, has a problem: he doesn’t like the bathroom in his apartment. So Architizer, the social networking site for architects decided to help him out, by running a design competition to make over […]
Speed Yoga
Want to feel bad about yourself? Watch this:
What Does a Viral Video Look Like?
Rubber Republic has compiled a list of attributes of the most viral advertising videos of 2010. It shows that Facebook is increasingly driving the spread of viral videos, parodies are popular and series do keep people engaged with the ad (and the brand). Read more on Rubber Republic (actually presented in an attractive and easy […]
Little Magic Stories – Interactive Holograms
Chris O’Shea is an installation artist who has designed a holographic projection system with the aim of encouraging computer savvy kids to gain confidence in drawing and telling their own stories on stage. The kids draw props and characters which then float alongside them and react to their movements in real time. The system uses […]
The Streets: Computers and Blues Interactive Video
Mike Skinner of The Streets has released an interactive video – in which you choose what the protagonist does at certain junctures – to promote his latest album Computers and Blues. See it here.
A Short History of Wikipedia
2011 is the 10th birthday of Wikipedia, an online encyclopedia that is edited by an army of volunteers around the world and whose words often find their way, unedited, into TV proposals (tsk tsk). Here’s a short history of a global phenomenon you can’t imagine life without:
Zehnseiten – Authors Read Ten Pages
Zehnseiten (ten pages) show cases authors reading ten pages of their books so you don’t even have to leave the warmth of your home to trek to a bookshops reading. The videos are starkly simple, in black and white, and somehow (to the non-German speaker, at least) give the impression that they are reading the […]
Making a Pitch Tape? The Stakes Just Got a Little Higher…
As you set about making yet another pitch tape destined to gather dust on some commissioning editor’s shelf, take a look at the lengths the US networks go to in order to pitch their upcoming shows to their advertisers at a ritual known as the “Upfront”. At these annual events, the networks invite all their […]
The Composer – Rashaad Newsome
Think classical music and hip hop don’t mix? Not according to video artist Rashaad Newsome. He’s cut together footage from rap videos to Carl Orloff’s Carmina Burana (in the UK, you’ll know it as the music the X Factor judges come on stage to) and the result is mesmerizing (and jaw-droppingly awesome when seen on […]
A Brief History of Product Placement
A timely reminder to UK producers who are about to be allowed to place products in their TV shows (from 28th February) that it’s not a new thing…
Ideas Develop Asexually and Creativity Happens Sexually?
Are you developing ideas sexually or asexually? And which is better? That’s the question Mike Cardus discusses in this video:
iPad Reaches the Generations Other Computers Cannot
A 100-year-old woman misses her birthday party because she is engrossed in her new iPad (and her first computer):
Ocean Photography
National Geographic photographer Brian Skerry takes photographs of ocean life, in his own words: “both the horror and the magic of the ocean”. In this TED talk he explains why humans must be good custodians of the oceans. Watch the video:
Sliding to Work Courtesy of Volkswagen
Volkswagen have put some fun back into the daily commute by installing a giant slide at a Berlin subway station to provide an alternative to taking the escalator or stairs. Watch the video: Via PSFK
London Underground Live
Matthew Somerville created an API that tracked the location of London Underground trains in real time, but it was soon shut down due to overwhelming demand. You can see a video of how it worked here.
Ignite 5-Minute Talks
Ignite is a global network of events where people give five-minute talks within a rigid format: they must present twenty slides and each slide must automatically change to the next after fifteen seconds. Speakers can talk about any topic except their own business interests. Previous talks have included technology, travel, personal hobbies and passions and […]
Night of the Ad Eaters
The Night of the Ad Eaters is an international travelling show that screens five and a half hours of adverts from around the world, including Russia, Asia, Africa, and South America, Mongolia, Iraq and the Guarani region of India in “an enthusiastic fairground cum rock concert atmosphere”. The tour happens annually and visits 40 countries. […]
TED Talks: Long News
Ex-ad guy Kirk Citron’s “Long News” project aims to collate the news stories that will still matter centuries from today. He outlines the project in this TED Talk. Watch the video:
The Perfection of Pollen
Jonathan Drori, the first Head of Commissioning for BBC Online, has taken to waxing lyrical about the wonders of pollen. Watch the video or read the transcript to find out “why it’s not just something that gets up your nose”:
Disaster Communication Dog
Messenger Dog is a communication system that allows people caught up in disasters, such as earthquakes. to communicate with their loved ones to tell them they are OK. Messenger dogs wearing special high tech vests are equipped to record geo-tagged audio/video messages. The recording device is triggered by the dog sitting down; the dogs are […]
How to Build a Marshmallow Tower
On the marvellous TED Talks Tom Wujec reveals how a team-building problem involving dry spaghetti, a marshmallow and one yard of tape reveals that toddlers are more creative and collaborative (and successful at solving the problem of building a tall tower with the marshmallow at the top) than MBA students. Fortunately for us, architects and […]
FORA.tv
FORA.tv “helps intelligent, engaged audiences get smart”. It features videos from conferences, debates and university lectures around the world. It’s been compared with TED, but Fast Company have produced a handy comparison table so you can find out whether you are a TED or a FORA.
How To Write a Letter to Your MP
In this TED Talks video, Omar Ahmad, vice-mayor of the City of San Carlos (and ex-Discovery Channel online exec) explains why, if you need something doing, you should write your MP a handwritten letter once a month. For those of you who have forgotten how to write in more than 140 characters he also provides […]
5 Second Films
A little bit of nonsense to get you over the middle of the week: 5 Second Films, are exactly what they sound like. Some funny, some not so funny, but all tell a little story, which is pretty impressive. Overall, it’s not a bad way to waste a couple of minutes with a nice cup […]
Project Rant
Luis Caffesse and Cliff Wildman of PitchProductions have created Project: Rant which uses actors dramatize rants from the Rants and Raves section on Craigslist (from the approx. 30,000 published every week). If getting writing in to Craigslist makes you feel a little scuzzy, you can submit your rants directly to Project: Rant for their consideration. […]
Dreaming in Mono
McDonald’s has launched a novel new advertising campaign in Northern Europe, which looks more like a TV miniseries (McDonad’s doesn’t feature in the episodes). It consists of a series of seven episodes of a story about Nordic dreams and rivalries and stereotypes of the Danes, Finns, Swedes and Norwegians who are attempting to break the […]
Tokyo Sky Drive
Tokyo Sky Drive is a beautiful and hypnotic ride through the Tokyo night scape, set to a sound track of A Furrow Plant by Sugar Dub. It’s shot in HD on Sony XR500V, and there are also daytime versions. Read more and see the reaction on Kitsune Noir. Watch the video:
Real Good Experiment
Blu Dot’s Real Good Experiment aims to track what happens to unwanted furniture when it is left in the street. They left 25 GPS tagged chairs on the sidewalk in NYC and sat back and waited to see what would happen. Watch the video to see what did happen.
Maths Dance Girl
University applications used to involve filling in an application form; these days you have to submit a video too. Or at least that’s an option if you are applying to Tufts University. Three Billlion spotted this application from “the maths dance girl”:
How We Have All Become Richard Nixon by Adam Curtis
Here’s something to watch with a cup of tea and a biscuit. Here’s a short film by Adam Curtis, who in this short film explains “Why We Have All Become Richard Nixon”, or in other words, “paranoid weirdos”. Watch it here:
Panic Attack!
BBC News reports that Fede Alvarez, a Uruguayan film producer, struck YouTube gold when he uploaded short sci-fi film he made for $300. Four days later he was inundated with offers from Hollywood and has been offered a $30million dollar deal to produce a feature-length sci-fi film set in Argentina and Uruguay. Read the full […]
