Sidewinding Down: The Great Gleaming Zeppelin

Previous

Pain filled his heart as he spoke to her, but this was the only way to know, and the last true test, “No. You must go and never return. Good day, Catherine.”

“But…” Catherine stuttered.

“I said ‘good day’!” Sidewinder spoke firmly, that military vigor in his eyes. Catherine began moving across the great lawn, hurt and confused. Suddenly she paused right in her tracks, turned tail and ran quickly back in his direction and deposited a small, withered envelope at his feet. Within it was the blueprint to the magnificent time-traveling zeppelin he had entrusted to her all those years ago.

“Oh, you wonderful creature! So pure in heart and conscience! You won, Catherine! You did it!” he exclaimed, “I knew you would.”

Stratton Brownsmith strolled out of the shade of the barn, looking as alive as ever.

“Stratton! I thought you were dead!” Catherine gasped.

“No, no Catherine. Stratton is immortal. We belong to an elite league of humans entrusted with supernatural powers. Since the decline in health of our dear friend, von Zeppelin, we have needed another companion of noble character to fight evil throughout time. The blueprint was the final test and you passed, never having opened it, you magnificent thing. I entrusted one to five women throughout the countryside and all but you fell victim to Stratton’s seduction and relinquished the blueprint, Mildred being the last,” The Captain explained excitedly.

“But… what have I won?” Catherine spoke, overwhelmed.

“Why, you’ve won it all, my dear! Immortality, my expansive brandy collection, and the zeppelin, by God, the zeppelin!” the Captain exclaimed.

He grabbed her by the hand and lead her inside, Stratton quick at their heels.

“Where are we going?” Catherine asked incredulously.

“Anywhere, everywhere! Back in time, forward in time, diagonally through time!” Inside the aircraft were scores of levers, switches, and knobs. “I’ve tried every one of them. Except this one,” he said, gesturing to a large chrome switch mounted on the rear wall. “Go ahead.”

Catherine moved nervously toward the switch and the three grinned excitedly, simply happy to be in the company of one another, as they sped into the 5th dimension.

The End

Final Project

Viral Marketing: Self-defeating or Well-played?

Artist’s Statement

So, here’s the culmination of my entire semester in Participatory Cultures. If I may be frank, I hate it. At first, I had no idea what I was going to do this project on. After speculating for awhile on what weird corner of internet culture I might enjoy basing my project around, I remembered the “iamamiwhoami” viral marketing campaign I had been following.

I decided to do a video essay on viral marketing campaigns and the collaborative effort of internet users in unveiling their mysteries, mainly following the progression of the iamamwhoami reveals using blogs and youtube as a platform blogs rather than a more traditional media outlet. Though not an emergent culture, the people across the net became sleuths in identify key information as to the identity of the videos’ star and clues and riddles hidden in the campaign. This information worked it up through more notable blogs in an emergent fashion, with no true leader. One of the most notable things I noticed in the community surrounding this campaign was how negative viewers became once the identity of the woman in the videos (Jonna Lee) was revealed. This was similar to how I had felt while watching The Fourth Kind after discovering that none of it was based around true events. This particular eerie and mystery-centered kind of viral marketing seemed to become ineffective once the puzzles were solved.

I really enjoyed writing the script and tried not to make it too dry, but since I was really interested in the subject it became 4.5 pages long. I figured that would mean the video would be about 4.5 minutes long. That was my first mistake. Upon considering what to use for the actual visuals, I figured I would just speak straight into the camera and incorporate a few photos from the internet. I had seen many movie reviews done in that fashion, but was advised against it. I then decided to do a screencast to demonstrate all of the various blogs, social networking sites, and other internet resources I had used in following this story.

In order to do a screencast I had to find some software. I had tested ScreenToaster in the pass during class, but the video was really low quality and had a watermark. I found a program with a 30-day trial called Camtasia and downloaded it. It worked really well and had a built-in video editor that was superior to Windows Movie Maker. I tried at first to simultaneously screencast and record audio, but the multitasking proved nearly impossible for me. In addition, I just figured it would be easier to edit the audio and video separately. I recorded my entire audio track. This had to be done in small bits. I constantly flubbed the words and sounded awful on recording– not to mention the fact that there was an awful ringing noise on the recording. I tried a few methods in the editing software and saw little to no improvement. Lacking the cash for the microphone or any friends owning one, I continued with the audio the way it was.

The audio was over 7 minutes in length– this came as a surprise (that I perhaps should have foreseen.) Adding screencast clips into the editing track soon proved difficult as the timer on the recording device goes hidden during the recording. It made recording the video the proper length to match the audio. After getting about 3min of screencasts from the various websites I used to follow this campaign, I ran out of material. I considered wiping the entire screencast idea and just using still images, but there was not enough material for that either. I eventually decided to just show clips of the viral campaigns as I continued my narrative. It was too late to start all the way over and my product was extraordinarily boring. Screencasts are probably best used for instructional videos. My script, perhaps, would have been put to better use in a podcast for a marketing group or something. Perhaps the most rewarding part of my endeavors with this project was getting to use to cool Camtasia software and learning not to abuse screencasting.

Three Other Pieces

The Machine is Us/ing Us

This video was created by Michael Wesch, an assistant Anthropology professor at KSU. He created the video to show the evolution of communication through the internet and the development of Web 2.0. Upon typing the exact title in quotes into Google search there are over 474,000 hits. It’s on urlesque’s list of the 100 most iconic internet videos and has over 10 million views on Youtube. My piece is similar to this one in that it uses screencasting and contains reflection on the significance of anonymous internet users. Mine is specifically about people using the faculties of the internet to gain information and solve clues, collaboratively. Wesch focuses more on internet users as gatherers and organizers of data. Ours are unlike in that mine uses voiceover rather than text. In addition, mine is a combination of narrative and argument, whereas his more of an artistic argument. My piece is certainly more specific and about a subset of the internet. Though there are several videos on specific viral marketing campaigns and their solutions, I have not seen any others that focus on the way these campaigns are sometimes defeated by the same group they market to.

Viral Marketing – Wooshii – Viral Facts

This video was created by group Wooshii TV which is, according to their Youtube page, a “community of creatives working together to produce viral advertising and marketing.” This particular video by far has the most hits. It was created to show the impact of viral marketing in today’s culture. My piece is similar to this in that it discusses the success of viral marketing. However, mine is based upon specific examples of viral marketing and individual comments and sentiments. Wooshii’s is based on general, mostly numeric, facts. This piece also seems like it might be advertising for the company that produced it. I believe that while Wooshii’s presentation of facts is simple and effective, there is some value in personal narrative and opinions.

The big reveal: iamamiwhoami is Jonna Lee (100% proof)

This video is created by an anonymous internet user to expose Jonna Lee as the face behind the iamamiwhoami campaign. This video was posted on the original ONTD blog post that broke the story of Lee’s involvement. An insane amount of music blogs (including MTV’s) link back to this post. The subject matter is the main similarity between this video and mine. While this video focuses on the various facts that lead to this conclusion (there is a similar reveal video for The Fourth Kind, resembling the techniques used in my video), mine focuses significantly on the aftermath of the reveal. In addition, this video uses static images and text as opposed to the screencast and audio in mine. As I said before, my video offers a more personal account. It also mentions details on the more intentional puzzles located in the videos.