See What’s Out There

I went to a session on Friday at Yearly Kos about the impact of video through the 2008 election. I had meant to “live blog” the session, meaning, I was typing while sitting in it and could have published this, but live blogging doesn’t give you the chance to make sure things make sense for your readers and I was not breaking any news, so I waited until now to finish this.

The moderator of the panel was from the New Politics Institute, a progressive think tank that is tracking changes in politics from the progressive perspective.

The panel at this session included:

Dan Manatt from Politics TV

Julie Bergman Sender, who did a very funny parody George Bush ad staring Will Ferrell in 2004.

John Amato in LA patching through by cell phone.

Marcy Wheeler a blogger with FireDogLake who has moved to video blogging.

John Amato from Crooks and Liars who we are told was way ahead of his time with web video. The Vlog Father.

At the start of the session he showed the famous Johnson daisy ad.

This was really revolutionary when it ran. It is very powerful. I wonder about the “we must love each other” part. Not sure what he meant by that really.

Another point mentioned at the start of the session was that we have come along way from that ad, where everyone who saw it saw it on TV. Google’s revenue is approaching the total ad revenue from all network television.

We then saw the famous Macaca video. At one point someone asked what the real impact is of all this online video. The answer - we know a US Senate seat was lost because of it. If you haven’t seen that video, I pasted it below. The context is that an Indian-American is basically being called racial names from George Allen, who actually thought he would become the President of the United States.

Macaca video.

The campaigns are getting into the act of using web video. At the session we saw screen shots from Obama’s web video announcement, for example.

We are also seeing the parody. The best known one is probably Obama Girl.

Basically, there is a wave of video innovation going on now and it is changing politics.

There are categories of videos here. Viral Hollywood. Campaign video blogs. Event clips.

Not as much Flash animation these days. Will there be more? [I don’t think so.]

We also have TV clips that go viral.

And now we are starting to see web features — 5 to 10 minutes.

YouTube CNN Debates, for all the criticism will mark the coming of age of new media.

So here we are today. Lets go to the panel to talk about what’s next for web video.

John Amato on the phone:

“The power of video is truly amazing. With Crooks and Liars I was just getting into the blog world and when I actually saw Bill O’Reilly using right wing propaganda to frame every issue I realized the power of video through television was unique and I needed to get it online. Reading transcripts wasn’t enough. If you see them, see the spin, that would go viral and people needed to see this… ”

The most important things we will see with web video will come from individuals. People will watch the Obama Girl. It will be people at home with their video camera and an idea who can now take action on their ideas. The real power comes from us.

Julie Bergman Sender

Campaign for America’s Future wanted to kick off month long campaign around issue of obstructionist Republican Congress. She then showed us a video she said they did in one day. Staring Jason Alexander. Here it is:

[Love to hear what you think of it. Thought it had some good lines, but seemed too insider to me to have an impact on the masses.]

She also said… and these might not be exact quotes…

“In 2004 when I approached America Coming Together to do the Will Ferrell thing they looked at me like I was a Martian. It had three very clear policy points in it. The key is finding a popular culture conversation to tease out policy points.”

“I think we are in a transformational moment. As Wesley Clark said this morning, who are we? And how are we going to reinvent ourselves and return to the image of ourselves as Americans that we are not living up to.”

“[Speaking of the folks working on new media and web] there are a bunch of new thoroughbreds approaching the gate the if the old guard [of consultants] doesn’t get out of the way they will be trampled. There is a place for straightforward political messaging, biographical narrative treatments, etc. but there is also the person like Wesley Clark who talks about war… he is former Supreme Allied Commander of NATO and he is on our side. It’s about authenticity.
There is still a stranglehold from old guard. We have to throw them over. This new crew, the bloggers, the individuals, the spirit of Yearly Kos that is everywhere… I think this is the new way to look at this paradigm, it is not a vertical command center of messaging, it is horizontal and people can take leadership and then blend it all together and the ones that know this will be the ones that succeed.”

Marcy Wheeler

FireDoglake… they covered the Libby Trial and they matched and surpassed the the old media in that. “I wrote these long posts that had readership of 2,000 people or maybe 10,000 people is max readership. Too long, too detailed and too inside baseball to change the narrative or really take on AP or Washington Post. Then I would write shorter, punchier posts for outlets with higher traffic.”

The live blog from the Libby trial was getting up to 200,000 people a day. There is no way we are going to beat the speakers on Fox… so we thought we need video. After 8 hours of live blogging did 5-10 minutes of video. A lot of people got to us for the first time through video.
People who couldn’t read the live stuff — but they would start with the video then scan the live blog. It gave me an appreciation for telling the story quickly.”

“If I would do this again there should be a video component all along.”

Dan Mannat

Shows this video…

What’s going to happen in the next year? His predictions:
1. VideoRoots — tracking, archival work, the folks doing Crooks and Liars on a local level. Basically the netroots phenomenon that we see so influential moves to video.
2. Self funding videos… contribute money so we can get this on the air. Swift Boat Veterans for Truth was substantially on the web before it went to TV.
3. The Convention — how will they incorporate video? With inspiration of YouTube debate it will be interesting to see what happens with the convention.
4. Video Ad Watch - deconstructing attack ads with video. As soon as an ad goes up you will see video responses. Matter of hours before there will be video responses.
5. No candidate has done what Al Gore showed us.. the policy video. Integration of multimedia to explain policy — make it substantive - -we will see that in the next year.
6. Smear videos — honeymoon during primary, but for general gloves will be off.

Questions he has:

Will there be a YouTube general election debate? Will Commission on Presidential Debates incorporate it?

November Surprise videos.. last time we had Bin Laden…

In 2004 some effort to combat voter fraud with video. In 2008 we will see real time reporting of how long lines are on every precinct in the country. You can auto-post cell phone video to YouTube today.

The session ended with everyone agreeing that video is having and will continue to have a big impact and that the organizations that are able to teach video literacy will be the ones able to have a big impact. (Andrew Rasiej, who was in the audience called it “videacy” or something like that.)

Overall, an interesting couple hours.

I am here at the Yearly Kos Convention which is being held in Chicago, home of See3 Communications. For the uninitiated, Yearly Kos is a gathering of what’s called the Netroots - liberal/left bloggers who have changed the face of American politics. Kos comes from the website DailyKos, which is the top rated left/liberal blog and one of the most trafficked blogs online. Last year, the bloggers and community around the website DailyKos decided to meet in person. And because all the bloggers were coming, so came the politicians and the organizations wanting to get this community writing about these issues.

Right now I am in a session called Video for Change. Of course this is what we do here at See3. The people on the panel are all talking about hour-long or feature length documentaries. Interesting, but honestly not something that is really in the grasp of most organizations or individuals. Two of the panelists are from Robert Greenwald’s shop, Brave New Films. They do hard-hitting documentaries designed to make change - against Fox News or Wal-Mart.

I spoke at a conference with Robert Greenwald — the Make Your Documentary Matter conference from American University’s Center for Social Media. And one thing he said was that he does not believe you can make a film to be great — as in Oscar great — and make a film designed to make change. According to Greenwald, these things require different sets of choices that are not compatible.

In the session right now, Adam Chapnick from DocWorkers.com is speaking about talking to the organizations that are interested in the issue before you make the film — rather than simply making the film you want to make and then seeking an organization that can help you distribute it. In contrast, our focus at See3 is on empowering the organizations to make the films that advance their mission themselves.

Jim Gilliam is speaking now about the Wal-Mart film they did. He is saying that the research was a mix of what they got themselves and what the organizations — such as the unions — had done over time. They are talking about how the film was distributed in more than 7,000 screenings - school groups, unions, home screenings, church groups, etc.

Tracy Fleischman from Brave New Theaters is talking now about online marketing of the films. First, set up a website. She is saying that the site should be as much of a resource as possible, so people interested in the issue can use the site for research. Made short ads, had people vote on the title of the film, had people voting on different covers for the film — lots of ways to get people involved.

Adam is saying that you need to have people feel ownership — send us your videos or photos, vote on something, the more time people sign something or click the more likely they are to go the next step. He is also saying what we know from all internet marketing — create landing pages that are specific for specific types of groups and audiences.

Tracy now talking about how Brave New Films is focusing on short-form video and not the feature length pieces as they did in the past. For example, they have a site called FoxAttacks.com which is using short pieces to advocate for specific issues — for example trying to get the Nevada Democratic Party to not have a debate on Fox News.

More to come later.

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