Hi guys, I’m intrigued at the posibility of creating an Instagram account dedicated to pokemon collecting. Ideally, if it picked up some traction, I would invest money and time into pushing out proper interviews/studio shoots with a dedicated crew. I wouldn’t want to sink money into something like that unless I felt like I had the audience for it though, so my idea is as follows:
I will create 1 minute instagram features via dedicating my time and editing skillset out of self-submitted video content from other instagram users and collectors.
How it would work:
You send me recorded footage of the following:
Close up B-roll shot HORIZONTALLY of the pokemon card you’d like to see featured.
A self-taped recording (cell phone on tripod or friend holding cell phone is fine) of yourself or a collector of your choice discussing this card and telling a little bit about it.
I would suggest you make yourself a script to follow or at least a flashcard with bullet points to reference. I can cut out any footage of you reading from the script or from bulbapedia or whatever else and fill that with B-roll of the card or whatever you are talking about. I will only use the most confident/flattering footage of you looking at the camera or card when it is being discussed.
You can talk as long as you want but keep in mind that the final edit will only be ONE MINUTE LONG. Maybe if I can identify some really good submissions/speakers, I’ll put in the extra work to create IGTV pieces that are longer.
Once the video is posted, your instagram will be tagged and you will be given the high-res export of the project file in case you want to cross post to your own instagram.
*IF YOU ARE UNDER THE AGE OF 18, I WILL REQUEST A SIGNATURE FROM YOUR GAURDIAN RELEASING PERMISSION FOR THE FOOTAGE TO BE POSTED*
Think of this as a self-taped casting call. You’re sending me some raw video files and I’m converting them into something special with my editing skills. The best submissions giving the audience the most information, fun presentation, most intriguing cards will likely be featured first. I’m not promising that every single submission will be featured, though I’m not opposed to editing them for your own instagrams if I’m not overloaded with work.
Good Idea? Bad Idea? Let me know your thoughts and suggestions.
For those who may not be familiar with Chris B’s editing work, this is what he does full time. You’ve probably seen multiple examples of his work on TV or online and never known he produced the content. It’s a great opportunity to have Chris offer his skills. The execution should be discussed (Instagram vs YouTube vs other). Having Chris piece together content for building Pokemon, collecting and efour could gain a lot of traction and visibility which is a net positive for the hobby.
If it’s unique cards (trophies, promos, etc), or cards where the person has a meaningful story behind them, it would be super cool! If it’s just 60 seconds of Bulbapedia on a WOTC 1st Ed. Holo, I’d prefer the basic post picture format on Instagram that I follow users for instead of a video.
I think there are already plenty of instagram accounts simply posting a high res image of a card and dropping a brick of text below it. The point would be to engage an audience that prefers video.
Not all collectors have been exposed to as many different and unique cards as a lot of people here have. If the card you want to submit is a set card submission, then you can give a background about that card and why it’s special to you and your collection. I absolutely want all entries to be informative and at least tell the basics about the card such as the set it’s from or any sort of background or history. If that isn’t something you are personally interested in, that’s fine. But it is the only style of narrative storytelling that I’m currently investing in putting my time in. You have to understand that bulbapedia is a niche website within a niche hobby. My hope is a lot of casual collectors that obviously wouldn’t spend their time looking up the history and factoids about cards on bulbapedia might actually become a little intrigued with similar information and tidbits being presented in a visually engaging format. Would I like to see trophies and promos and stuff that a lot of casual collectors may have never seen? Absolutely. But every card has a story, not just the super rare ones.
If you’d prefer me to link to a website or youtube channel or anything else instead, that would work too. It’s just a way for me to cross promote your own platform if you have one. I’d obviously love (I’d be psyched) an entry from you Gary but I think I’d want to wait until I rolled out a few posts/examples to give you a better idea of my style of editing and what kinda info I’m looking for. You have such heavy-hitting cards that I’d want to make sure whatever you wanted to talk about came after I worked out the kinks and once I gained a few more followers.
Maybe I’m misunderstanding the target audience? If it’s for people like those on this forum, then none of us would need bulbapedia (that’s why I mentioned I’d rather just see the high res image and not waste my time with a video). But if it’s for a much broader demographic then what you are describing makes a lot more sense. It would also be neat to virtually “meet” collectors in the hobby by seeing a video with them beyond what they post here.
Yes you were confused/misunderstanding. I’m asking if anyone here would want to take part in sending in a video submission for editing
to
cross promote their own platform from a platform I’d be starting myself
have their own edited video (that they can use however they’d like) focused on talking about a card.
As far as who will tune in, that demographic will find itself organically. I can’t force people to be interested in anything nor would I want to curb my own interests in editing these (it is a lot of work and time) to fullfill the interest of someone else.
To your last point: It would also be neat to virtually “meet” collectors in the hobby by seeing a video with them beyond what they post here.
Yes. It would be a chance to discover a bunch of DIFFERENT collectors and DIFFERENT cards. People can choose to follow who they want based on the video that is being featured.
I’d be willing to share something about the TMB #1 Trainer that I bought back in 2000. At the time, it was thought to be the first public sale of a trophy card. If interested, let me me know.
@shizzlemetimbers , As soon as I get some submissions, I will chop them up and post one for reference. If people are submitting from here, it’s gonna be easier for me to get what I need even if I need to ask for some tidbits that might be missing from their entry to round out the piece .
@japanime , That would be amazing. Some entries like this will definitely draw attention to even hardcore know-it-all collectors since they get less exposure to cards like that.
@theeucollector , I can always crosspost to Youtube in the future but I’d rather focus on one platform at a time and for short narrative content in the 1 minute range, I think Instagram would be perfect. It also hits a different demographic than youtubers. I want to make “snackable” content that people can watch on the go, even people with short attention spans or just looking to peep something on a quick break. I also feel like this would be a better platform for getting submissions. More collectors/users have an instagram account that they post to than a youtube account and being able to give them an edit/content of their own to post and tagging their accounts will hopefully incentivise people to send entries.
In any case, you can submit the footage/audio files to the following email: chris@thenyfrequency.com (This email will change when I go live with the IG account)
I would imagine that you will need to use a free hosting site to upload to. I recommend wetransfer.com. Be sure to leave a message that includes your instagram account and e4 name so I know who to tag/if I have any asks once I get to editing and feel like it’s missing something important.
Snackable content is 30 seconds to 1 minute long across all social media platforms which is the perfect length for the instagram platform. PR and marketing agencies have spent millions of dollars testing these markets and companies have spend billions more adhereing to the results of those analytics.
Yes, I would ABSOLUTELY do 5-10 minute videos if the submissions are strong. But I think the longer pieces would be posted using the Instagram TV feature. If there are ENOUGH pieces of that length, then sure, I could double-upload them to youtube as well. It doesn’t hurt to have content living on different platforms to maximize “reach” of audience.
But I would not exclusively upload to youtube. I just don’t think Youtube is as appealing for a next-gen/tech-savvy audience. Youtube is kinda dying in many ways even though it is propped by Google while Instagram continues to grow and pump out new features. To me, IG is to Youtube what Facebook was to Myspace.
Facebook purchased Instagram for a cool billion in 2012 and are strongly hedging their bets on it. In 2012 there were only 30 million users and zero revenue. Now there are over 600 million active, daily users and it’s turning into a multi billion dollar business.
Google purchased Youtube for 1.6 Billion in 2005 and haven’t done much of anything with it other than annoy people with how they’ve scrubbed content/caved to pressure from big companies and youtubers in a plethora of bad PR scares over the last few years. They’ve lost huge chunks of their audience to other platforms like twitch and they are trending downward.
I don’t dislike Youtube. I’ve worked on projects at youtube studios in Chelsea Market several times this year and all the people are great. But I’ve also worked with IG and they just seem to have their shit together
