Author: jennifer

Hillary Clinton’s campaign is about to get a million dollar boost thanks to the power of video.

A super-PAC “Correct the Record” led by communication strategist David Brock is undertaking a project envisioned by an American history scholar and Clinton-supporter Allida Black entitled, “Let’s Talk Hillary.”

The project will feature hundreds of video interviews of people who know Hillary. A memo explaining the project and shared with The Washington Post described the interviews as “authentic grassroots stories presented in an authentic grassroots style” and said they would be unscripted and filmed “professionally but simply, devoid of glitz or fanfare.”

The first video, which can be seen here, features Arkansonians speaking of the great work Hillary has done in their state, dating back to the 70s. The message is overt, direct: Hillary made a positive difference in these people’s lives, and they believe she’d make a great President. But at Digital-11, we find more significance in the medium by which this message is delivered. Why video?

There is an immediacy delivered to video delivered directly to consumers via the internet that has yet to be trumped by any other readily-accessible medium. It’s easier and less costly to produce than the traditional TV ad, much less expensive to place, and always available at the brush of a search-bar induced keystroke. And it features simple, plain, “grassroots” storytelling, mixing interviews with photos. The 40 year top-ten reign of “60 Minutes” proves that well-produced stories are the reason that film/video production is such a powerful marketing tool.

If we believe that the human being is finely tuned to read faces and judge inflection, we start to see why video has its effective grip. The fixated gaze of the camera on a talking subject in an interview format allows the viewer to search the face, and draw conclusions about personality, personal history, emotional honesty, and intention. The unmediated voice’s inflection can instantly speak to enthusiasm or hesitation, authenticity or inauthenticity, truth or lies– we can hear and instantly judge intuitively what the deeper sentiment is behind the content of words and their semantics.

For Clinton’s campaign, these “testimonials,” if you will, use video simply because all the complexity contained in a face talking about Hillary Clinton speaks more to her character than pages of written biographical proof. We trust in another person’s face and inflection more than we trust text that has been heavily curated to persuade.

In considering putting a face to the name, the brand, or whatever you are trying to enlist support for, consider using Digital-11’s video production team to help foster that communication. Trust the sound of a voice over the words on the page. Put a face to the story. Use video to draw a moving portrait of the real people behind your message.

Hillary Clinton hasn’t been talking to the press much; instead, she has made a video and that gets us excited here at Digital-11. And yes, some have noted that the video skirts around any real plan, others point to an attempt to identify with a racially diverse cross-section of working class people, and still more admit that it’s an improvement to her 2008 video, which uses the talking head format for a true snooze-fest.

Regardless of content, one cannot help but appreciate Hillary’s ability to circumnavigate traditional press in favor of controlling her image through a video that is tailored to her image and message. This level of control over her communication avoids leaving oneself open as fodder to the press.

Enough has been said of its content, and we’re not political commentators here at Digital-11, so let’s talk film style and how it’s working to reinforce Hillary’s message.

Look:

The video uses the low-contrast, “flat” look popular among advertisements now, a look that renders colors less saturated, with shadows that don’t have deep blacks and highlights that don’t pop as much. This flat style appears in ads that are bohemian and domestic, unthreatening and neutral, a bit homely and unpolished– definitely not for selling a shiny car or bubbly alcohol, but perfect for covering the “Everyday American” going about their daily routine walking amongst small business shops and moving furniture through doorways. And we’ve seen this format many times, from Walmart to Tide commercials. It feels real, candid, and unobtrusive. It honors the moments without artistic pretension.

Feel:

The camera remains handheld during mundane moments to convey a documentary-like intimacy with subjects who speak over these shots. At other moments, the shot will be locked down on a tripod with a subject centered in the frame, speaking or doing some joyful gesture. Hillary appears in the video this way too, centered in front of a suburban neighborhood, where Hillary equates herself with the other subjects, saying, “I’m getting ready to do something too.” And sure, she’s running for President (a bit more ambitious than the “Everyday Americans” she wishes to champion) , but because the shot of her echoes those of the previous subjects, her message of “we’re all getting ready to do something” aligns with the video’s style. The video doesn’t show Hillary on a podium, or front-and-center working a crowd, which would elevate what she’s doing, contradicting her message (for that elevated stance, look no further than Rand Paul‘s video against Hillary, which, unsurprisingly, stands diametrically opposed to Hillary’s video in every way– the gauzy, tinted graphics, spooky sound design, and cheesy music accompanying Paul’s half-time-locker-room rhetoric make for an odd blend of aggression and patriotism, subtlety not included.)

Structure:

The video wants to be about “the Everyday American” and “your time” but it cannot help but require for the real focus to be on Hillary and then her summation at the end. It is a campaign kickoff video, after all.  This creates a paradox of the likes which Hillary can never reconcile by the nature of it being a video ultimately about electing her, not about the lives of voters, no matter how one edits it to give precedence to the melting pot of American people living out their version of the American dream for 3/5 of the video.

The Need for Conflict:

In an effort to avoid politics, all we can say here is that the video needs Hillary at the end to work regardless of intent– otherwise we have a cushy advertisement for the American people, with no foreseeable, immediate conflict, and no need for that “champion” politician to come in and makes things better. Hillary comes in to frame these vignettes for us, saying (paraphrased) yeah yeah, things are getting better, but there is still an imbalance of wealth and I want the middle-class (presented as archetypes in this video) to “get ahead” if I’m elected. The off-screen space becomes just as important as what we are presented on screen- these middle class folks filled with so much hope–  the immigrants opening a business, the gay couple looking to get married, the Asian soon-to-be-graduate job hunting. (is it forgivable trying to cover the demographic-bases so transparently? We are not quite ready to have that discussion here at Digital-11. Maybe another post on fair portrayal in media.)

Exposition and Evocation: Those Snippets of Life

The videographers are smart here. They use shots of people doing things that ultimately make no sense in the larger narrative, but are impressionistic images of an optimistic stance towards the world and of course, the future. The exposition within those shots are astounding if we begin to assume smaller narratives– a girl against a car she probably just bought because she got a good job, lesbians on a couch suggesting a polite nod toward liberal sexual politics, a boy living out a happy childhood of fishes–Stories within stories, the bottomlessness of the image, of the human face, of a hand interacting with the world. This video takes full advantage of that. The only issue is that the realness of these gestures actually makes Hillary look a bit more forced or false in front of the camera. Her little fist pump at 2:06 looks like canned politico-gesture in comparison to the real candidness of the “Everyday Americans,” and we notice it subconsciously against the other shots that ease into the genuine.

Here at Digital-11, we cannot help but stand in awe of video’s power to tap into that wellspring of emotion and empathy deep within its viewers to create reality and influence outcomes.

As if to affirm this idea, a recent NY Times article, found here, covers the budding practice of lawyers who produce videos to augment their defense in court. As one participant puts it: “judges ‘never know the totality of the defendant.’”

Therefore, these videos attempt to humanize a defendant by interviewing people who know them (generally supportive people in that person’s life) as well as the defendants themselves. B-roll of the defendants, portrayed in their everyday environments, further paints the defense lawyer’s picture for a judge.

To take the many disparate elements of a person’s life (his or her job, family, friends, hobbies, past, hopes for the future) and streamline them into a coherent visual and succinct aural package seems almost like a magic trick when put on such terms. But this is exactly what video achieves– bringing a distant person and story right into our hearts and minds, and awakening that wellspring.

Fernando Perez recording a video of Anthony Quijada, of Gilroy, Calif., for Mr. Quijada’s sentencing on a gun charge. CreditJim Wilson/The New York Times

For these defendants, the stakes are indeed high (a prison sentence reverberates throughout the course of one’s life) and the time for a defense limited.

Yet lawyers are trusting the medium of video to alleviate their client’s sentence, and, if nothing else, to reaffirm that client’s humanity in the face of a justice system that maybe only sees the worst side of a what will always be a multifaceted individual.

We at Digital-11 believe that this is perhaps the pinnacle of what a video can achieve, no matter what the subject.

Links to article: http://nyti.ms/1FxnS2p

or

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/25/nyregion/defendants-using-biographical-videos-to-show-judges-another-side-at-sentencing.html?_r=0

Millions of people spend their entire day with Facebook running in the background, whether it be by phone or by monitor. The Washington Post even published an article saying that Facebook’s patronage rivals the population of China. It has been a critical component in human interaction since the start of the millennium. The reason, I would say, for it’s vast popularity lay in the fact that– unlike Twitter or Instagram– Facebook harnesses the human relationships we hold dear in a digital format. I find myself Facebook friends with family, college friends, elementary school friends, colleagues, mentors, etc… but they are people who I have actually met, people I have personal connections to and have built relationships with. Those connections are critical when life moves at such a rapid pace. Facebook allows for those relationships to be maintained without spreading yourself too thin in the flesh.

For those reasons, people stay logged in throughout the day despite the other responsibilities. And for that reason, it is critical for any business or organization trying to mobilize interest. Each of those 1.5 million check their feed on a daily, sometimes hourly basis. If individuals choose to follow you there, you have the potential to use that bully pulpit daily to interact. The more you interact, the more credibility you build.

No matter the mission, Facebook allows for you to converse with individuals and gain important feedback and analytics that many pay research companies large amounts of money to produce. If you advertise, you are able to maximize your reach through specific target marketing, and Facebook allows this to happen for short money. These tools are invaluable and should not be circumvented. Facebook is not a social space for kids anymore. It is a powerful tool that launched the Arab Spring and generated over $100 million in donations to ALS research through the “Ice Bucket Challenge”.  Alexa ranks Facebook as the second highest rated site on the internet only behind Google. It is also where videos go viral. We can start thinking about how to build up your page and keep it interactive, because people will always want to personalize the organization they’re getting behind. Get to know them… and bring them to you.

On Tuesday, Gov. Deval Patrick and Bentley’s Center for Women and Business announced they had surpassed their goal of bringing on 100 companies into their “Getting to More” Corporate Challenge.

As of Tuesday morning, 106 Massachusetts companies had committed to the challenge of recruiting and maintaining more women in leadership and managerial positions.

The 100 company goal articulated by the Governor and Bentley was set at the launch of the Challenge in October of this year. On Tuesday, with over 100 companies under their belt, the Challenge set a new goal: the recruitment of 200 companies to the Challenge.

The Digital-11 team was there at Tuesday’s event to document the continuation of the Corporate Challenge.

1) Corporate Fitness Culture

This video is pretty ineffective for me because it lacks the obvious creativity needed to hook an audience and explain a mission. I don’t feel the need to look this company up nor do I even feel the need to exercise at work after watching this clip. The straight shots of men and women in suits exercising becomes repetitive and boring after awhile.

What does this company stand for? Why is ‘corporate fitness’ important? Why should YOU be invested and engaged in fitness in the workplace, especially in possibly using this company?

More video and better use of text, transitions and music would greatly improve this entire presentation.

However, do I feel for the creators of this video. Even though it lacks creativity and becomes boring after awhile, the repetitive nature of the videos paired with the music (despite being horrendous) shows that a substantial amount of thought went into the design and concept of the clip… I picture of group of people from this company brainstorming around a table for hours of this video’s concept. A lack of video clips could also be a sign of limited budget.

In any case, despite the limitations and time that went into making this video a reality, the end product doesn’t do it’s job – which is to entice new clients and play up all the great things this company does and believes in.

2) Google Chrome

On Friday Oct. 10, Gov. Deval Patrick and Bentley University’s Center for Women and Business officially launched its highly anticipated ‘Corporate Challenge’ and the Digital-11 team was there to document it all.

The Challenge, which was a recommendation by the Governor’s Successful Women, Successful Families Task Force, is an initiative that will encourage and help participating companies increase the number of women in their ranks, particularly in the C-suite positions, as well as update and maintain company related gender inclusion policies. Fourteen companies have signed on so far, but the Governor has said he would like to get to 100 participating companies in the initiative by the end of the year.

Bentley University’s Center for Women and Business will provide resources and guidance to the participating companies. Massachusetts Secretary of Labor and Workforce Development Rachel Kaprielian and Founding Director of the Center for Women and Business Betsy Myers spoke at the event.

The following 14 companies are participating in this multi-year Challenge: Raytheon, Liberty Mutual Insurance, National Grid, Suffolk Construction, Eastern Bank, Vertex Pharmaceuticals, Rockland Trust, Santander Bank, Citizens Financial Group, Biogen Idec, State Street, Dassault Systemes, Pearson and The Bullfinch Group / Guardian Life Insurance.

Interested to hear Jeff McCormick’s view on casinos in Massachusetts? Check out our latest video on the political page. In the meantime, here’s a peek at our shoot with Jeff at the new Assembly Square T stop in Somerville.

Last week, Digital-11’s Jennifer Donaldson and trusty cameraman, Brandon Vincent, hit the streets of Newton with gubernatorial candidate, Jeff McCormick. Here they are in front of some shops in Newton Centre, and along a side street, filming for one of Jeff’s upcoming videos. Are you all looking forward to the upcoming election?