Think Tall Films

YouTube marketing powered by a network of vetted professional video-makers

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Now THAT looks like spring

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Great day to be in the garden! (at Finchely Road)

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Practical + Branding = smart, memorable packaging from Pret!

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Misty pier (at Brighton Pier)

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You can't buy everything

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Create GIFs with your webcam!

Here’s how:

Create a photo post.

Click “Take a photo” on the bottom right corner.

Allow Tumblr to use your webcam. 

Click the GIF button.

Smile and move your face an/or body around. (Optional.)

Your camera will take four shots in a row and then turn them into an animated GIF. Happy giffing!

(Chrome and Firefox v20+ only, for now)

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Definitely trying this soon

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Shake by Variable

How to make an awesome video: Rent a Phantom, add dogs, rinse and repeat.

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September is all about comebacks paired with beginnings, making it a time of year I relish, from its crisp return to cool, new campaigns galore, client budget planning and an almost audible hum in the air as the creative industry settles back into work mode after the dog days of summer. The...

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A couple of weeks ago, I was scheduled to take a trip from New York (JFK) to Los Angeles on JetBlue. Every year, my family goes on a one-week pilgrimage, where we put our work on hold and spend time visiting temples, praying, and spending time with family and friends. To my Jewish friends, I often…

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Never Wet!

Akward name, awsome product

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Perfect product demonstration! The funny name just adds a bit of sprinkle on top

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These are the top comments on "Browser Airbag" video.

An attempt from Microsoft at  doing social "viral" video but in a disingenuous way. Although the marketing message is not prominent it is hardly hidden and the whole thing feels wrong.

Judging by the top comments the viewers are not impressed.

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Make your app videos popular on YouTube

Looking back at the videos for app and software developers we made recently it is really nice to see that they have all proved fairly popular, not "viral" but steady growth.

Our most recent Zoho Pulse video has reached 75,000 views in less than 2 months.

Our Magicsolver "Valentine's Day" reached nearly 100,000.

And the "Advent calendar" one reached about the same number

They all have a similar success on YouTube but each app is very different and so is the style of the videos. So what do they have in common?

Here are just a few elements: - They don't show the product, just its effects - They tell a story - They are aimed at entertaining first of all - They are less than 2min long and fast-paced - They use real people instead of animations

These elements by themselves are not a guarantee for success but we sure aim to use them out again for our next app video.

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First corporate comedy series on Youtube

Today was our first venture in branded entertainment with the creation of a corporate comedy series on YouTube. The goal? Start with 5 or 6 humorous episodes related to the industry of our American client, a software company. Without hesitation I turned to the actors used on a previous shoot for  bobble: Paula Gilbert and Simon Thompson with the notable addition of Emily Hartridge (Emily Hart) who belongs to a small but growing YouTube elite who can boast over a million views per month on her channel.

Working with such experienced performers along with DoP Mihai Andrei made the process easy as they were able to make the script alive effortlessly AND with an American accent (although we are in London). The project is a fully collaborative process where each actor has the possibility to contribute, remove or add to the script (written by Simon based on ideas from the client). We use Google Docs so that everyone can overwrite anonymously and that there is no feeling of "ownership" and no hierarchy. I actually loved the fact that as the producer my ideas were easily dismissed, showing that 1) the process works and 2) my contribution was useful as the early stage of the process demands quantity of ideas, whilst quality comes later.

The goal of this series is to attract viewers and goodwill to a business that is generally not seen as entertaining, the success will be easily measured: by the number of views and engagement (likes, comments) generated. We can't guarantee to achieve that at this stage but by combining the fun content that we created today with a well-thought YouTube plan and channel optimisation I am confident this will be a success… no pressure!

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Migrating to the new YouTube layout

With the 5th June deadline to migrate on the "One Channel" design looming I decided to make the changes and share the experience. The 2 biggest changes are: you need to have Channel Art which will is a branded picture appearing on top of your channel and you can create a channel trailer but you don't have to. Having checked a blog and many vlogs on the subject it seemed that the new layout was fairly simple to implement and a rather welcomed change. Mind you I was mostly reading what professional YouTubers had to say. My personal experience was a bit different.

  How painful was it to make the changes?

There is a convenient checklist provided by YouTube, and luckily most of the boxes were already ticked for me as the Think Tall channel was organised and curated: in fact there are no uploaded videos there only links to client work. The web links, annotations, icon and playlists were already there and only required minor adjustments if any.

As we are in the process of rebranding I have decided not to put any channel trailer but it seems a very interesting feature to explore. Rather painless so far, but here comes the "Channel Art". What seemed as simple as uploading a picture at first glance turned out to be much more complicated than that. You soon realize why it is called "art" and not just "upload a picture".

  Beware the Channel Art

I started by picking a picture that looked good and seemed representative of what we do (behind the scene on a big shoot). First problem: the maximum size is 2MB, I had to re-export the picture in lower quality Second problem: the lower quality picture was too small in size. It took a few attempts just to find a picture that I was allowed to upload, only to realise that it did not fit at all into the framework. The picture needs to be adaptable to all the formats, from mobile phone to large TV screen. Because desktop and mobile is still the focus you need to have an image where the centre looks good if isolated, allows for text, logo and links but where the surroundings still work in a bigger screen.

Conclusion: You are unlikely to just "find" the perfect picture for your brand, so you have two options: a) go for a bland uniform background (my choice) or b) get your designer hat on or hire one that can tailor made it for you.

  What is the impact of the new layout for brands?

The new layout is designed to boost subscriptions and views, and offers new opportunities to do so. For small businesses the changes will clearly widen the gap between the creators who are into YouTube and spend time optimising the channels and the others. Getting some proper Channel Art alone will already distinguish you from the YouTube crowd, once mastered Channel Art can offer new possibilities, see for example how The Staff Canteen uses it to feature a new chef every month. Curating the content will also become more important so make sure you create playlists especially if you have more than just a few videos. The new layout makes it almost compulsory and it is a great opportunity to organize your content in a more user-friendly way way.  For the Think Tall channel where there are no videos, only curated client videos "One Channel" is a very good fit... but I still need to work on that Channel Art.

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Methodologies from the official website of all things Lean Startup presented by Eric Ries.

I am very inspired by the lean methodology:

a) as a way to create a business

b) as a methodology for other things: in a way "Think Tall" is about a lean way to create videos

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Key facts about online video

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When a client tells me "we want to make a viral video" I always start by showing them this Ted Talk from Kevin Allocca, YouTube Trends Manager.