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Monday, October 29, 2007

Right Recipe, Portion Size a Little Too Big.




Right now we are in an online video snack world and longer videos are a little too hard to digest. I’m certainly guilty of creating videos that are too long but I have to do what the client wants and I don’t have a creative director or executive producer looking over my shoulder to make those hard cuts because I am the executive producer.

Anyways, when making your videos you should make sure the production values are as high as possible without breaking your bank. Average Betty does a great job. Take a look at the attention to detail that went in to this Halloween episode about butternut squash soup. The orange background behind the witch, the night vision camera mode ala The Blair Witch Project, the scary music and sound FXs as well as the lighting of the food and the step by step instructions.

I think the Betty Witch Project is great except it may be just a little too long. I know from experience that when you are having this much fun creating something it’s hard to make those decisions and cut your babies.

Beyond the serving size Average Betty has done a great job building out their advertising inventory both in their video and on their website including text on the website that people will find when searching for Butternut Squash Soup. But most importantly they have a sexy witch with cleavage for the photo on their video thumbnail. This will get them more clicks than a photo of Butternut Squash Soup. Although, these clicks might bail when they don’t get to see a naked witch. But such is life on the Internet and Average Betty is off to a better than average start.

If you are looking for an example of what you should do to get started in online video take a close look at all the Average Betty episodes and make a list of what you like about each and every one. Then make sure you use those concepts when developing your own show. There’s no film school for online cooking shows yet so you’ll have to teach yourself by studying those who are already producing online viral video show.

1 comment:

averagebetty said...

Hi Tim,

Thanks for blogging about Average Betty and all of the props!

Yup, we knew we were breaking at least *our* time limit rule when we did The Betty Witch Project. Do you find all of our videos too long or just The Betty Witch in particular? I do wonder... what would you have cut out?

I find that many of the how-to videos (cooking, sewing or gadgetry) are somewhere in the 5 minute range. And in that time they accomplish a how-to demonstration. Average Betty combines sketch comedy and cooking and we average a 3 minute episode.

So far the response to this video has been positive, both in the comedy aspect and in the recipe. Oh, and the witch costume has had good reviews too. Hopefully I haven't "cursed" it's good run ;)

Cheers,
Betty