This week’s inspirational video is chosen not for its production value, but for its introduction (to me) of a concept called “Augmented Reality.” As I plan to do a project for this class related to the Project Dayshoot that I have been involved in, I have been watching Kickstarter promotional videos. They range widely in sophistication and quality, but this one caught my eye.
Edward Robinson III is a landscape photographer raising money for a coffee table-style book. All well and good, but his Kickstarter promotional video really gets interesting at the 1:58 mark, when he introduces the “augmented reality” feature of his photo book, by which a viewer can hold his smartphone or tablet over a still image in the book, and a timelapse version of the still image comes to life on the screen of the device. Wow. (More on the broad concept of Augmented Reality here.)
This video is also proof that the quality of the material offered may be enough to make up for lower production values. It’s the return of the “watchability curve” concept. However, the fact that he has only achieved 25% of his funding goal with 24 days left is an indication that Kickstarter and its ilk are not always the soundest when it comes to investment strategy.
That augmented reality app looks soooo awesome! With videos like this that have real potential, I wonder if it would have helped his campaign effort at all by starting with a teaser shot of that really cool app in order to hook people in the first few seconds to stick with the entire piece. It does make me wonder, in your experience browsing through Kickstarter videos, is it obvious why some projects get donations and others don’t? Have you noticed that accounts with really badass video promos get the most funding, or do you think it’s based more on the projects? Great thing to think about if any of us want to try Kickstarter.
I think that’s an excellent question to ponder. I think it may tie in with the ‘watchability curve’; that is, if the idea is absolutely terrific but the production values are so-so, the project may still get its funds, especially if the folks doing the asking are engaging and connect with the viewer. On the other hand, high production values and a mediocre idea may also get funds just because the video is done well. I could see a slick video actually backfiring unless you had an absolutely killer idea because folks might think you didn’t really need the money. Sometimes it helps to look poor.
Augmented reality is a great tool when you can use it. Being actively developed now is something called perceptual computing which utilized hand gestures, feature recognition, gps, other sensors that will take user and viewer experience to new levels of interactivity that we haven’t seen before.
Knowing how to integrate these types of technologies or tools into your stories is a great thing to learn, and while they don’t need to be used for every story you can certainly find ways to add new dimensions to your works by using them appropriately.