One the really interesting impacts of social media is how it's changing us as an audience. YouTube now has an incredible 500 hours of content uploaded every minute, which doesn't even count what goes on other platforms (Facebook, Vimeo and so on). This has worked as a distribution channel for media in shapes that we're used to: drama, comedy, news, documentaries, music videos and so on, but it has also created new genres and reshaped what we perceive as acceptable.
Like what Chris? Well, like jump cuts. When two successive clips have the same camera angle and shot, we usually see a sudden transition. In traditional video editing, jump cuts are usually avoided by switching camera angles and covering the transitions with other images - known as cutaways. Vlogging, on the other hand has embraced jump cuts, and it's become much more normal, building an audience tolerance and even expectation for something that used to be quite weird because we hardly ever saw it.
About a year ago I signed up to new social media platform Tik Tok, after deciding it was time to explore something new. I missed out on Vine, which also focused on short form videos, so it's been a real education. Tik Tok films are generally around 10 seconds or so, and can be shot and edited directly from the mobile app. There're a bunch of filters and special effects, and a host of existing audio tracks - earlier versions platform focused on lip syncing. The result is kind of nuts, and with plenty of song and dance and a bunch of memes that spread really easily because one the things that people on the platform do is make their own versions of each others films, as well as a really nice response feature which shows the original and a response together side by side.It's literally a young platform as most users are teenagers - though that's changing fast and there're definitely more adults visible than a year ago. Like any social media, there's content that makes me uncomfortable, but in general I like the spirit. There's a nice mix of popular stars and total beginners, with work ranging from totally professional to first tries.
All of which makes it a really good site to look at lots of films in a short time, and see how different film elements (action, photos, text, soundtrack etc) are used to tell stories and show off talents. It's like a very high speed film school. Here's a small selection from my favourite's list:
All of which makes it a really good site to look at lots of films in a short time, and see how different film elements (action, photos, text, soundtrack etc) are used to tell stories and show off talents. It's like a very high speed film school. Here's a small selection from my favourite's list:
Memes
Jokes
Dances
Advocacy
How to make..
Using text on screen
As for anything else, there's a bunch of YouTube videos that demonstrate how to do particular things. For example this tutorial on how to add text when making a Tik Tok video.
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