With the success of the CommunitiTheme collaboration and ongoing discussions of new sound theme, I thought it was time to dust off the idea of a short promotional video. Please read the whole post before replying
I had this idea for a short promotional video for Ubuntu some years ago. The goal was to convey in 30 seconds that âUbuntu (is) for Everyoneâ. I saw it having a series of very short snippets of people doing things with their computer - running Ubuntu - of course. These would be tastefully edited together by someone proficient with a video editor.
So for example you might see a woman on a train typing an article, a guy in an office creating a presentation, a kid on the sofa playing a game with a controller on their TV, someone watching a film, someone developing code, kids playing with robots, a farmer planning animal feeding. You get the idea.
Essentially a diverse set of people doing a range of plausible real-world tasks that we all do on Ubuntu. The screen isnât directly shown, but itâs clear enough that itâs Ubuntu if a glancing shot of the screen is shown.
We could hire a professional agency to make a video, but whereâs the fun (and community) in that?! I think if we work together we could make something amazing.
So Iâd really like to do this as a shared community project, with video clips submitted by Ubuntu users from around the world, perhaps even taking in a landmark or two here and there. Iâd expect the video to represent the diversity of users, and variety of activities people are able to do with Ubuntu.
There are of course a lot of questions likely swirling in your heads. So letâs do this Q&A style!
Q1. Who is this video for?
A1. Anyone who wants to have a quick video to promote Ubuntu. A community team running an event might have it playing on a laptop screen, or you could share it with your friends on a social network.
Q2. Where is the storyboard?
A2. Not done yet. I didnât want to commit too much time to this if everyone says âThatâs a terrible idea popey, it will never workâ.
Q3. Who is going to actually make the video?
A3. I envisaged people from around the world submitting short clips which we curate and collate into a video. If we get tons of clips and can make a longer version, great, but thatâs not the initial goal. We have had offers from kind skilled video editors to pull the clips together.
Q4. What license will it be released under?
A4. Iâd expect some kind of creative commons license which allows modifications would be appropriate.
Q5. I want to send you video clips, where do I send them?
A5. Please donât, not yet. This is just a discussion for now, to see if we think itâs possible / feasible to do. In addition, weâll likely only use very small snippets of each submitted video.
Q6. Will the video only be in one language?
A6. I think the video would not having any discernible verbal dialog, but a music bed and perhaps some captions added later. I would like the master source for the video (minus captions) to be available for people to add text in their own language.
Q7. How will the video be distributed?
A7. We can likely put a copy of the finished video on the Ubuntu YouTube channel, and the raw materials can be hosted somewhere yet to be decided. Perhaps even a torrent containing the source, so we can collectively share the load.
Q8. How will we maintain video quality?
A8. We will have to set a some minimum requirements on the video, and set expectations that not every clip will be used. If we ended up getting shaky, blurry videos recorded at 320x200 then theyâre going to be rejected.
Q9. What video editor / software will be used to make the video?
A9. I donât know yet. These are details we can work out later.
Q10. What are the next steps
A10. As I see it, next we need to make sure this is something we think can be done. If so, we should storyboard it to figure out the story we want to tell, and the scenes we need recording. We will need to define the submission process and expectations. Later weâd do a call for people to join and submit videos. Perhaps we could create a separate sub-category on the hub for more focused discussion.
Note: None of this is set in stone, itâs just whatâs been floating in my head. I asked some other Ubuntu users to review this before I posted, so some of this might be from them too
So, what do we think? Honest and respectful feedback welcome below