If this isn’t SEO, I don’t know what is…
We’re pretty buried at www.nyvs.com with training sessions, ‘how to use Final Cut Pro’, ‘learn how to shoot video’, and now, our critique sessions.
But every once in a while it is helpful to step back and take a look at why we do this and where it is all leading.
The answer to that, ironically, is (at least in part) in Harry Potter.
Not in the ‘magic’, though sometimes the technology does seem a bit magical.. but rather in where Harry Potter came from, and what this bodes for us.
Today, the Harry Potter ‘franchise’ is valued at $15 billion, and still growing.
But the concept and the story were not the product of Hollywood or Disney or even an established writer.
The whole Harry Potter industry came out of the head of one woman- JKÂ Rowling.
She was not a ‘professional’ writer when she started. In fact, she had never written a book before in her life. Her story is well known, but if you don’t know it, you can read it here.
In short, by the time she was writing Harry Potter she was an unemployed single mother living on benefits having survived a bout of clinical depression.
And yet from that came this massive literary empire and world-changing series of books.
How is this possible?
It is possible because JK Rowling grew up in a world in which everyone was made ‘print literate’. That is, they were taught to read and write. The object of teaching everyone to write was not in the hopes that everyone in the world would become professional writers, but rather that in a print based world, literacy is essential not only for employment but to be able to express and share your ideas.
Today, we live in a world of video.
The average person spends 4.5 hours a day watching TV. They average person buys 1 book a year.
We are very much video driven, and as more and more screens come into play (iPhones, iPads), there is going to be more and more video
Hence, video literacy
And if you are a creative person, armed with video literacy, and you have an idea… any kind of idea.. even a school for wizards – then the next logical step is to ‘write it down’ (you see, we don’t even have a term for this yet).. in video.
Make it.
Go make the content
The way JK Rowling ‘made’ the content in print.
Just make something.
Even if it is not perfect… yet.
Get it out of you.
We have been screening a lot of your videos lately and in all honesty every once in a while we come across one that has the seeds of a great idea.
It will take time, and it will take work, but I am absolutely convinced that there are JK Rowlings out there – video’s JK Rowlings, just waiting to be discovered.
JK Rowling wrote the first Harry Potter book in a series of cafes in Edinburgh, Scotland.
With iPad2 (with video camera and iMovie), or laptops (I love the AIR), you can do the same.
If you flip through your cable channels you will see, as I do, that there is for the most part, nothing but endless hours of crap.
And there is no reason for this.
The world is filled with creative people.
And now we can educate them and unleash them to change the world.
Or at least make a few billion dollars along the way.
