Collection DVD

Collection DVD

Our short film Collection, produced in 2007, is now available for purchase online. Collection tells the story of Jason Burke, an introverted high school student whose world is shattered upon hearing the news of his older brother’s vicious and mysterious murder. The only lead authorities have to pursue is a series of numbers carved into the victim’s neck. Now Jason must cope with the loss while reconstructing the events of that fateful night.

In a post last summer I mentioned SnagFilms as a great place to find free documentary film content on the web. Recently, Hulu has gained popularity among online video watchers. On the site you can watch movies, current TV shows, classic films, and a host of other clips — all for free. And the quality of the videos on Hulu looks great.

Now the two sites have teamed up. A press release on the SnagFilms website announces that SnagFilm documentaries will now be made available on Hulu. Here’s an excerpt:

SnagFilms brings the best nonfiction films to the web audience, promotes viral web distribution through virtual movie theater widgets, and engages viewers to assist in charitable and community efforts. “SnagFilms was created to make more great films available to the broadest possible audience. Now with Hulu we can delight viewers on one of the Internet’s most-visited video sites with a growing set of documentaries from our large library, and deepen the already broad set of entertainment choices that Hulu offers,” said Rick Allen CEO of SnagFilms.

I look forward to perusing the site for solid documentary content. Now it’s just finding the time to watch the films.

Right now Social Media feels more like the Wild West — no solid rules and everyone is out for himself. Some are afraid to embrace this new generation of marketing, satisfied with the status quo of marketing and sales. However, there’s no ignoring the power of Social Media and Web 2.0. Someone shared this blog post with me a few days ago and the statistics are pretty amazing. The article is titled “20 Reasons Why You Can’t Ignore Social Media.” I want to share the number one reason with you, “394 million people watch video clips online.”

Let that one sink in for a moment. That’s a lot of people watching video, and those are people that you could be reaching with an online video campaign. And the wonderful thing about Social Media is that you can track who watches your videos and learn a lot more about them than traditional TV advertising. And if you can get them talking about your video, then the audience grows exponentially and you can turn that audience into buyers.

Consider the case of the “Will It Blend” video series where the owner of a blender company demonstrates the power of his product by shoving all kinds of objects into the blender. On this 9-minute video, one member of the marketing team discusses the genesis of this campaign and its impact on blender sales. It’s obvious that online video worked for them, and it can work for any business if they’re open to the new frontier of Social Media.