Go to current.com/common to get the song and some video assets you can use. Then, get creative and make a music video that really stands out. Make animation, shoot live action, or work with the video assets we provide you.  All styles are welcome. Just be sure to upload your final work by September 28th at midnight, and be sure you’re using footage that you own – or that we provided.

Common will hand pick his favorite video and we will feature it on current.com and on Common’s website: thinkcommon.com. If Current decides to air your submission on TV, we’ll pay you a cool $2,500 to acquire the rights to do so, and air it in on November 4th in a special program right before Common’s Embedded episode premiere. Also, we’ll possibly air your submission on Virgin America flights.

A helluva bullet point for your resume, dontcha think?

Check out current.com/common for more information and details.

DIY DAYS A ROVING CONFERENCE FOR THOSE WHO CREATE COMES TO PHILADELPHIA: A FREE DAY OF SPEAKERS & NETWORKING.

The WorkBook Project and PIFVA present DIY DAYS Philadelphia on Saturday August 1st  at UArts on the 17th floor of the Terra Building.  DIY DAYS is a FREE day of talks and networking centered on how to fund, create, distribute and sustain from your creative work. After a successful first year that included stops in LA, San Francisco, Boston, NYC and London, DIY DAYS returns with a series of day long conferences for creatives that enable the sharing of work and ideas while providing an important networking outlet with industry innovators.

Many of those working in film, music, design, gaming and tech are wondering how to sustain themselves in challenging economic times. How does one monetize their creative work and get the word out? DIY DAYS aims to answer these questions with a day of – speakers, panels, case studies, roundtable discussions and workshops presented by an impressive list of innovative thinkers and doers.

Acclaimed author and filmmaker, Douglas Rushkoff  (Life Inc., Get back in the box: innovation from the inside out) will open the conference with a keynote on storytelling. Other speakers include Scott Kirsner (Friends, Fans and Followers), Lance Weiler (Head Trauma, The Last Broadcast),  Michael Monello (co-founder of Campfire Media & Blair Witch Project producer), Ana Domb (MIT), Arin Crumley (Four Eyed Monsters), Scott Macaulay (Producer Gumo, Raising Victor Vargas, editor Filmmaker Mag), Don Argott (Rock School), Anita Ondine (STM) Brian McTear (record producer Miner Street Studios), Mark Schoneveld (the Poverty Jetset), Saskia Wilson-Brown (Current TV) and Geoff DiMasi (founder of P’unk Avenue)… And more.

Lance Weiler, a resident of the greater Philadelphia area, and founder of the WorkBook Project and DIY DAYS explains the genesis for the project.  “DIY DAYS is an attempt to pull back the curtain on a once closed industry – to share the process of what it takes to make work and sustain from one’s creative efforts.  Philadelphia has so many talented people working in different areas, and our hope is that DIY DAYS can help to bring some of them together and, maybe in the process, spark some new collaborations.”   The conference runs from 8:30am to 6:30pm on Saturday August 1st, followed by an after party/ mixer to be held at the Brandywine Workshop located at 730 S. Broad Street.

Registration is now open http://diydaysphilly.eventbrite.com but space is limited.

For more information and a full program visit http://www.diydays.com  for more on the WorkBook Project visit http://workbookproject.com

Here’s episode 1: http://www.indiegogo.com/blog/2009/05/the-beginners-guide-to-viral-marketing-episode-1-of-5.html

Tip: Best one yet is her post about how to explain what a producer does, exactly. Send it to your mom so she’ll shut up already with her ‘I don’t know how to explain what you do to my friends’ whining.

Written for Current TV, adapted for IndieGoGo.com: Episode 1 of 5.

As published on Indiegogo.com: http://www.indiegogo.com/blog/2009/05/the-beginners-guide-to-viral-marketing-episode-1-of-5.html

Congratulations! You have succeeded in making a video, and have successfully uploaded it to one of many fine online video hosting sites. That, for some of us, may feel like an achievement in itself. But let’s get real for a second: So what? It only counts if people see it.

Be it a short documentary, an indie animation, a video blog or even a slide show of your niece’s 3rd birthday party (and we sincerely hope it’s not the latter), there are tons of ways that you can maximize your audience and help turn your video into a viral hit.

This is a 5-part weekly blog series that will provide an introduction on how to best get eyeballs to your content. Simple.

EPISODE 1 – An orientation to your video online.

I. Allow us to state the obvious.

Once you’ve uploaded it, your video lives on what is often called an item page, or a video page.

Item page functionality varies from site to site, but always houses the video file in the video player. It also houses embed code, a direct link url, a description of your video and the video’s tags. The item page is also the place where your friends or haters will come to leave snarky comments, rate your video, leave webcam feedback, post mash-ups, post fan art, and post links to relevant websites.

Video pages are also often organized into topics, playlists, channels or other grouping systems. The tags that you add when you upload the video file can in some cases become topic subjects, but in most instances, you can also manually add tags later. In some cases, on Vimeo, for instance, in addition to adding tags, you can search their channels and add your video. By adding your video to channels, people interested in a given topic will have a higher chance of seeing your video when browsing the site.

II. Explaining basic video page functionality

• Rating buttons: The rating buttons are the buttons your viewers can click on that will get your video higher or lower ratings. Pretty simple. They also often affect your placement on playlists, and can allow for greater potential for visibility.
• ‘Embed’ codes: The embed code is what allows you to post your video to your profile on social networking sites like Facebook, Myspace, etc. They can usually be found near or on the video player, or in a ‘menu’ section right beneath the video player.

• Tags: The more tags you add to your video, the higher the chances people will find it. Be  creative. A video about cats can be tagged, for instance, to many more words than just  ‘cat’ (to wit: furry, pets, housepets, tabby, felines, tomcat, purring, meowing, allergy, woman’s best friend). These tags also help you with SEO (search engine optimization), allowing your video to pop up when someone does a web search for a given term. The temptation might be to tag the video to such hot-button topics as Britney Spears or whatnot, but resist. Dishonesty gives your content a bad rap, and it will make you look unprofessional.
• Share button: When you click a share button, it will take you to a series of links that you can use to help your friends to find the video, or – oftentimes – ways to post it right away to Facebook, Digg, Bebo, Myspace and other sites.
• Favorite Button: This allows viewers to favorite your video, in other words to bookmark it for future viewing. The more favorites you have, the better your video is doing.

Easy, right? Consider yourself oriented to your video’s online home.

Next week: The first steps towards becoming a viral superstar

From Arin Crumley’s description:

Filmmakers and digital exhibitors both need each other. They both expect a lot out of each other. Sometimes it hasn’t been communicated what the expectations are. Sometimes it’s good in relationships to just step back and spell out the needs. What are the exhibitors needs? What are the filmmakers needs? In this video a panel of new media digital exhibitors are asked that question and a room full of filmmakers then tell the exhibitors what their needs are. With that dialog out of the way we begin to design an ideal reality together. A future of universal meta data, transparent stats, healthy compensation and a frictionless discovery experience for the audience. So now with the beautiful plan designed the only way we’re going to get there is if we work together. Guys, don’t forget that it’s okay that we need each other. It might be called DIY, but we don’t mean literally. Christ! We have to undo some of our american engrained independence sometimes and just bond, join forces, become a greater sum then our parts and together we can move mountains. APPEARANCES IN THIS VIDEO BY: Scilla Andreen (indieFlix), Alex Afterman (Formerly at Heretic Films), Sara Pollack (youTube), Tom Hicks (Caachi), Saskia Wilson-Brown (Current TV), Mark Rotblat (TubeMogul). Discussion Leader: Arin Crumley

Read this PDF download!