Neighbourhood Ghostbuster

That's it man. We're ghost for 08. It's been real. Let's do it again in 09. We may no longer have jobs, but nobody can ever take away our blogs.

Playing us out for the last time this year is ODB, drunk on Yo MTV Raps.

Peace.

Raggo

I found this link on the Palace Waywards site the other day. Could this section represent the pinnacle of raggo steez? As it says on their blog: 'Darren Harper - he can definitely link a draw in his ends'.

Speaking of raggo, last week In Your Face conducted some detailed research into YouTube tagging. As we all know, in this day and age YouTube 'hits' talk. And in order to wring out every last precious 'hit' from a video your tagging needs to be on point. Otherwise how's anyone gonna find your shit when they search?

We started by studying one of our own videos. Here are the tags for Alesha Dixon's new jam 'Breathe Slow'.

Alesha, Dixon, Alicia, Breathe, Slow, New, Video, Single, Brand, The, Show, Tracks, Album, Boy, Does, Nothing, Strictly, Pop

Average. Nice inclusion of 'Alicia' - a really common misspelling of her name. But why tag the word 'The'? Definite and indefinite articles aren't gonna improve your search-ability.

We were then curious to see how one of the biggest videos of the year was tagged. So obviously we looked at Blackout Crew's 'Put A Donk On It'.

The, Blackout, Crew, Black, Out, Put, Donk, On, It, AATW, Clubland, TV, Itunes, Download, MP3, Now

Disappointing. Really disappointing. I would have expected more from All Around The World. If this tagging was graffiti it would be the equivalent of Alex Funtzi lining a DIET throw-up in Gunnersbury Park when I was 14, and then having to hide in the toilets everyday after school for 6 months because he was so scared of getting beats. Toy.

Finally we wanted to know how a powerhouse like universal do it, so we analyzed James Morrison's 'Broken Strings' video.

James, Morrison, Ft, Nelly, Furtado, Broken, Strings, Official, Video, Rihanna, Rehab, Justin, Timberlake, Timbaland, T.I, Katy, Perry, Pink, So, What, The, Killers, Katharine, Idol, Xfactor, Lady, Gaga, Britney, Spears, Womanizer, Xtina, Christina, Aguilera, Keeps, Getting, Better, Kanye, West, Simple, Plan, Canada, Ottawa, Hot, Cold, Polydor, Girls, Aloud, Sugababes, Kaiser, Madonna, Alternative, Pop, Blues, Rock, Soul, Indie, Folk, Acoustic, Guitar

R to the A to the G to the G to the O. Universal win hands down for the most ghetto, opportunistic, thugged out tagging around. If this was graffiti it'd be TOX going all city, running amok, battering trains with a need to vandalize like a crackhead needs rocks. Ugly. Beautiful. Relentless.


As a matter of interest why has no one released a song called 'Porn'? Even if you tagged it like a retard, you'd still get bare hits.

Next week, In Your Face will be taking an in depth look at Fizz TV.

Truth Tube

Next week Theo from YouTube is coming into our office to do a presentation. They have developed some new reporting tools that will help us further understand the behavioural patterns of YouTube users. The most significant of these will be able to tell us at what point viewers switch off our videos. Or to put it more bluntly, exactly at what point our videos get boring. The initial findings are interesting. Imagine that the horizontal flatline of an electrocardiogram represents viewer interest.


Then imagine that this flatline runs alongside your video from the start. The line stays nice and flat for the first 30 seconds. No electrical activity. Viewer interest is steady and high. You hit 52 seconds. Oh shit. The line plummets into a deep dark trough. What the fuck happened? Everyone switched off your boring video, that's what happened. According to YouTube statistics, 52 seconds into a video is the average point at which viewers are liable to turn off if their interest starts to wane. That's the 'Danger Time' (DT).

Back to our electrocardiogram. At 2 minutes 38 seconds the line triumphantly shoots back up; that is apparently the average point that viewers skip forward to. And if they like what they're seeing, they'll wind back to 1 minute 43 seconds on average and watch until the end.

So what have we learnt?

Basically make sure that something 'good' happens in your video at 52 seconds and at 2 minutes 38 seconds. Write it into your treatments. Tell your editor. Tell the fucking DOP. And no one cares about your visual poem in homage to Tarkovsky. They want boobies. And dancing robots. And fighting. And Ketamine trips. Viewer interest is key. We want a nice flatline throughout the video. No drop off. Every video has to be a 'Flatline Banger' (FB).

Statistically Geo Da Silva's 'Do It Like A Truck' is the least boring video ever made. It is a paradigm for how videos should be in this new era of 'Flatline Bangers'.



Atlantic is currently developing 'Flatline Banger' software to replace the now obsolete Harding Test. Moving foward all videos will have to pass a rigorous FB analysis before they are finally delivered. We don't care if someone has an epileptic fit while watching - we just don't want them to turn off.

Said It's Too Late To Apologize

Some of you may recall that a few weeks ago we ran a post about Gordon Kenney, the actor who had a cameo role as a TV presenter in the James Blunt 'Love Love Love' video.


Well Gordon found the blog. And posted a comment.

It turns out that we may have been a bit too hasty to judge. Unbeknownst to us, Gordon actually went all 'My Left Foot' for the role and stayed in character even when the cameras weren't rolling.

I have transcribed his comment in full:

Hi!

I'm the actor who appeared as the Disc Jockey/Presenter in James latest video! ('Love, Love, Love')

I would like you to know that as an actor I prepared myself in the Green Room and decided that my character (The Presenter) was an egomaniac, bordering on megalomania with the self delusion that he was some kind of a lothario!

As an actor I sustained this character throughout the shoot!

My mischievous use of the word "Darkie", which is now I think a redundant word, comes from the fact that I have spent the last two years researching, writing & composing a Musical - profumothemusical.co.uk

This as you know was a global political scandal in 1963 that eventually brought down the Tory "MacMillan" government & still resonates today having changed the public perception of our political landscape forever!

You will also know that this was a derogatory term used to describe the West-Indian "economic slaves" of this period for whom I have great sympathy! I never intended to cause any offence by what I thought was a harmless reference that my character would have said in the 60's on what I mistakenly thought was a private & secluded film set!

Oh! the irony here is that I did actually appear in the T.V. Series "In Sickness & In Health" (This series written by the great Johnny Speight who helped to break down the racist barriers of the time by making the viewers question their own prejudice!) And to add another footnote, I played a porno-shop manager! I hope you can share this response with Tim Nash for whom I have nothing but the utmost respect!

And finally, here's DJ Ironik wishing you all a happy christmas exclusively on In Your Face TV.


Real Christmas from inyourfaceTV on Vimeo.