[Foundation-l] Three short films about Wikipedia

[Lennart Guldbrandsson]

Hello Bodnotbod,

Thank you for your input. They are not late at all. I have worked with
writing and films for about ten years now, so I do not take your comments
personally. The only comment that is new is that I should leave the
director's chair to someone else. If you could be more specific about that,
I would be grateful. Do you think the camera angles are wrong, the cutting
is bad, the acting is hammy (it didn't appear so, but I include it for
completeness sake), the interpretation of the script is shallow, the
atmosphere is that the filming was rushed, the tempo is too slow or too
fast, the stories are too bad, the characters are too uninteresting, the
actors are too similar, the places are badly chosen, the "rooms" of the film
are disturbed, or something else? Precision would certainly help. Thanks in
advance.

Just a clarification when it comes to the other point: the films were really
too long for the average passerby, who passed the stand in about one to
three second (there were around 900 stands there). What we were after were
not only that people would stand and watch the entire films - it was to make
the stand more lively than with only text, or worse, with computer code.
Human movement on screens at the back of the stand were very effective at
getting people to stop, but we tried to get them to start editing, not to
get them to watch the films. The films are not *that* effective that we
could rely on them to make the argument for us. But they were one of the
ways "in". Another method that worked well was to give people stickers with
the Wikipedia globe and ask them how often they used Wikipedia.

That does not, of course, negate your comments. I assure you that I take
them seriously. But I need more information.

Thanks.

Best wishes,

Lennart



2011/9/27 Bod Notbod <bodnotbod at gmail.com>

> 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
>
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-- 
Lennart Guldbrandsson
Wikimedia Sverige