'What is Marxism?' - The latest video from yours truly

[Unclebananahead]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WV3QHZc2m1s

[ExUnoDisceOmnes]

As much as I like it... the computerized voice just bugs the hell out of me... :thumbup:

[Q]

Just got to the first three minutes before I quit it again. It has a silly cliché beginning, the computer voice is annoying and it doesn't explain much what Marxism is, it just talks about how great it is. But while that is just the first three minutes, that'll scare off 99% of people interested in the subject.

tl;dr It's a crap video.

[Catmatic Leftist]

The speaker sounds like a female Stephen Hawking. You might want to replace that with your own voice or a narrator. :)

[Unclebananahead]

Just got to the first three minutes before I quit it again. It has a silly cliché beginning, the computer voice is annoying and it doesn't explain much what Marxism is, it just talks about how great it is. But while that is just the first three minutes, that'll scare off 99% of people interested in the subject.

tl;dr It's a crap video.

Well thanks a lot, I spent the whole night making it! I don't think that I agree that I don't explain Marx's ideas. You know, I think you just ruined my day. :(

Seriously though, how about some constructive criticism? 1) You only watched three minutes of it. 2) This voice is *vastly* better than the one preceding it. 3) I'm sort of new at the whole 'video making thing.' 4) Don't expect encouragement on the internet right? tEh Trolling rulez! 5) Thanks for the things you *did* give me to work on (silly intro, annoying voice, ideas not conveyed clearly -- at least these are your take on it)

[Catmatic Leftist]

An informational video needs to be informative, yet speak to the common, everyday man. You used a lot of technical jargon that most people would not understand. Also, to embed a youtube video, you copy the last code where it says "v=". For example, if you wanted to embed the one you posted, you would copy WV3QHZc2m1s and embed it in the youtube tag.

I have embedded the video here for you. :)

WV3QHZc2m1s

[Jimmie Higgins]

Wow, good job. I agree on the computer voice though. Compounding that IMO is that the narration and images don't really complement each-other until a few minutes in. Maybe it would just be too labor-intensive, but it would be nice if there were less images of Marx and more images of what the narration is describing. When the narration is describing that history is the history of class struggle, for example, images of slaves building the Pyramids or serfs in the fields and modern industrial strikes would help reinforce the argument.

[La Comédie Noire]

Woah! Way to crap on his heart guys. (Barring Jimmie whose post I didn't see.)

The video was a good start and had a lot of information, that is both a strength and a weakness. You should go back to your script and do some slash and burn editing. Get it down to a tidy five minutes. Then you should find some graphics that are more relevant to the material, i saw you had some charts, that's good! use more of those.

Also you might want to find someone to narrate the video for you, the computer generated voice usually turns people off immediately because it's usually a sign the video is a joke.

Keeping that in mind, I don't see why this can't turn out to be an informative video for newbies. :)

[Catmatic Leftist]

Although what Q wrote was kind of harsh, he does bring up a point that the most important part of a video is the first few minutes. Nowadays people's attention spans are much shorter than they were in the past due to technology and the like. (Q, I'm not saying that you have a short attention span so don't take this as an insult :() Add some humor to it, and have an eye-popping attention getter.

[Q]

Although what Q wrote was kind of harsh, he does bring up a point that the most important part of a video is the first few minutes. Nowadays people's attention spans are much shorter than they were in the past due to technology and the like. (Q, I'm not saying that you have a short attention span so don't take this as an insult :() Add some humor to it, and have an eye-popping attention getter.

As an addition: 90+% of the visitors of our groups' website is shorter than 30 seconds. It's just what the internet is about: click, click, click.

Unclebananahead: I didn't want to sound overly harsh, I just like to be direct and honest in my feedback.

[Kotze]

1. Intro takes 36 seconds to display text you can easily read in one tenth of the time (don't worry about being a bit quick with displaying text, people know how to stop videos).
2. The first graphic after the title should be an overview and during the talk you should occasionally revert to it to show where we are.
3. Don't you have another voice available somewhere, hmmmm?
4. If for some insane reason you want to continue with using computer voices, alternate more between fembot and manbot and alternate between voicing and displaying text to make it less grating, fiddle a bit with spelling and add expletives to make it more lively.
5. How is it important for the topic at hand which year exactly Karl Marx was born/became compost or how much he wrote?
6. All the pictures of drawings of this or that noggin and noggin sculptures are uninformative.
7. I would also say that about almost anything else displayed.
8. The graphics should focus on the diagrams instead.
9. That dialectics played a big role in Karl's outlook is hotly contested by some (http://www.revleft.com/vb/member.php?u=11128) (Engels was apparently a big fan of that though). If there are dialectics of Marx though very different from other dialectics and behind the shared jargon is different meaning, using these words will only make a very confusing introduction to Marxism. I would leave it out.
10. Too long (especially with that voice).

[Unclebananahead]

I want to thank everyone for their thoughts and constructive criticism, but particularly Jimmy Higgins, and Comrade Floyd for their encouraging words. The impression from your comments leads me to think what I need to improve upon is the following:

1) Use my own voice. The 'robot voice' (TTS) apparently seems to creep people out, bore them, or irritate them -- all potentially compromising the objective of educating people about Marxism, and raising class consciousness. Part of my hesitation about using my own voice,believe it or not, is just plain old stage fright, LOL. Though, I think I can manage to overcome this possibly. What I would like to do, is to create an mp3 recording of my voice, and then edit out all of the 'verbal pauses.' Any leads as to how to accomplish this would be greatly appreciated.

2) Keeping it concise. People's attention spans these days -- like it or not -- are crap, particularly on the internet. I readily recognize this. The challenge is to create a balance between providing information, and maintaining brevity, so as to keep one's audience, but without compromising one's message. I'm still trying to figure out the best way to do this.

3) Take time to ensure that the images correspond to the narrative. I recognize that I rushed this a bit with the last one.

4) Try to inject some more humor into the presentation of information. People's attention spans will likely last longer, and they'd be more likely to remember what they saw. The challenging aspect to this is that it's difficult for me to make light of something I regard as being so amazingly crucial. Any and all hints would be much appreciated.

[Unclebananahead]

Okay, so I just recorded an audio track of *my voice* for the next iteration of the 'What Is Marxism?' video by yours truly. I felt a little antsy TBH, and I'm a little concerned it'll be apparent in the recording. Maybe I'll have to drink a few glasses of wine, and then re-do it. Part of the problem is that I've been off of Lexapro (which I take to control my anxiety) for about a week now, and I think it's starting to really affect me.

Anyway, I'm in the process of getting my medication situation sorted out, so it's just a matter of time before I record a satisfactory version of the audio track. (jeez, it was so much easier when I was using the 'robot voice,' LOL. Oh well)

[Garret]

Use Audacity (http://audacity.sourceforge.net/download/windows) to cut out awkward pauses...

[Unclebananahead]

Use Audacity (http://audacity.sourceforge.net/download/windows) to cut out awkward pauses...

Excellent! I'm going to Download this the next time I get the opportunity to so. I can't know for certain, but this seems like exactly what I need. To make it even better, it's free and open source, which is precisely the sort of software I prefer to use. Very nice. Thanks, I really appreciate it. I'm really excited about turning down the pitch of my voice and making it sound like ED-209 (alà 'Robocop')