[Foundation-l] Three short films about Wikipedia

[Bod Notbod]

On Tue, Sep 20, 2011 at 11:38 PM, Lennart Guldbrandsson
<wikihannibal at gmail.com> wrote:

> This year, we have prepared three short films about why the visitors should
> contribute to Wikipedia (roughly a minute each) that we will show
> continuously over the four days of the fair. But before we show them for the
> public, I'd like to show them to you.

I'm a bit late replying and, even worse, I'm going to commit a
cardinal sin. But here goes.

Positives: I thought the videos looked very professional. And I can
see that you went to some effort to make the videos make sense without
sound, as you have people pointing at things in a very direct manner.

Unfortunately, though (and I know it's frowned upon to be critical of
others hard work) I still don't think they quite work as non-sound
videos.

I put myself in the position of the intended audience: someone at a
busy fair. I will see on the videos lips moving without sound. I will
assume there *should be* sound. Lips are moving = "where is the
sound?" for me. With us on this mailing list you have told us not to
expect it, but you surely aren't telling everyone at the fair that
there isn't any to be heard. I would merely glance at the screen, see
people talking and think "oh, no sound" and walk away or look
elsewhere.

Nevertheless, the first two would work on me if I had someone telling
me "just watch". The third one (with the grandchildren) failed for me.
With the first two I could understand what they were trying to convey
to a large degree. The third one I found totally obscure. Again, I
know what was intended because you told us and the sign at the end
seals the deal, but with the third one I didn't think the images
really added anything to the end message.

Again, sorry to be largely negative about them. They look professional
in image quality and there's no hammy performances or stuff to make
you go "ugh!" and I would certainly be glad to see you make more
films... although I might suggest someone else had directorial
control...

With best intentions,

Bodnotbod