Millions for issue advocacy are being spent on all sides of the healthcare debate. The ability to separate oneself and message is key to rise above the chatter and get noticed. Online videos have become a tool for all as groups try to get their voice heard. Using humor, sprinkled with sarcasm, and a bit of irony can’t hurt.

In a humorous sketch on funnyordie.com, Will Ferrell and other celebrities do a mock-serious critique on health insurance companies.

A video entitled “Overpaid Celebrities” came out soon after as a response to the Funny or Die spoof.

The group Catholic Vote Action put out another video mocking the Ferrell skit.

The Dwight Drake (D) for Governor of South Carolina campaign put this creative web video out over the weekend. It has so far received extensive coverage. For a later entry into the race, Drake is looking for an angle on his opponents. He is connecting the video to a call to have Sanford’s removal from office brought before the Legislature in the next 30 days. A petition is linked to the video. The strategy to gain recognition and momentum seems to be working.

We’ll see if Sanford finishes his last 500.

August is here. Members of Congress use this much awaited recess to go home, listen to their constituents, and reconnect before the fall session. The recent controversy surrounding the cap and trade bill and the looming health care reform legislation has made this time interesting for Members of Congress as they go home and check the temperature of their constituents.

Recent media accounts have shown that the response back home is downright angry. Traditionally, during this time, Members of Congress set up town hall style events where they speak about current legislation and field questions from the audience. Americans have been showing up in droves to these ‘town hall’ events holding signs, yelling, and causing discomfort for their respective members.

Much of the raw footage of these events has made it to the internet. The most notable clip was from a town hall hosted by Senator Arlen Specter (D-PA) and Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius over the weekend. Senator Specter was hastled and booed over a response he made about the speed at which legislation is passed. HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius was noticeably irritated by the audience’s reaction. Close to 825,000 people have viewed the two and a half minute video since it was posted last Sunday.

Over 500,000 watched Representative Lloyd Doggett (D-TX) as he was hounded outside a grocery store by irate constituents yelling “just say no” (referencing healthcare) over the weekend.

366,000 viewed a town hall with Representative Tim Bishop (D-NY) as he was taken to task over a variety of issues including his support for cap and trade and the current healthcare reform.

These are just a few examples of what has happened as Members go home and meet with the people they represent. The declining support in the polls for a public option for healthcare rightly suggests that these episodes are an illustration of the feelings of many across the country.

While those taking the brunt of this anger consider these individuals plants and not representative of what Americans are truly feeling, it is clear Members of Congress are walking on thin ice when it comes to healthcare. Whether the protests are orchestrated or organic, they still represent growing concern with the legislative agenda put forth by the Obama Administration.

From a political communication perspective, there are deeper implications that continue to arise from this trend.  Video technology’s effectiveness was first highlighted in the 2006 cycle during the VA Senate race, when George Allen was caught on film calling a videographer a racially incentive slur.  Now, with Flip Camera and video technology on mobile phones, citizens have the power and ability to capture politicians and events en masse. With the widespread popularity of YouTube, people are able to watch these raw videos online, almost immediately. With more social media platforms being utilized for distribution, these videos have a much greater chance of going viral, reaching thousands, even millions of people.

This drastically increases the number of participants in the political dialogue. In the past, one was required to physically attend these events to get the true feeling because news accounts were heavily edited. Now, citizen journalists are everywhere capturing real-time events and posting them, largely unedited, on the internet for millions to view.

The political brush fire over healthcare is well under way.  New videos of public outrage at Congressional town hall meetings have fueled this fire tremendously.

Stay tuned for more from your fellow citizen journalist.

I’ve been posting a number of new web videos here to draw attention to this relatively new medium of political persuasion.  I’ve written in the past about the effectiveness of web videos, but now they seem to be really taking off as a tool for disseminating information, adding extra benefit to the audio / visual format of political communication.

Here’s why Web Videos work:

• The spread of broadband, coupled with the genesis of easy navigable social network sites, has allowed for greater mass distribution and attention of such video pieces.
• The popularity of the media site You Tube has created a simple place for message delivery vehicles to point to, for all online users to see the video, without having to download or worry about having to interact with media players.
• The longer format allotted, mitigates the restraint media producers and editors are under to crank out a spot at :30 or :60 seconds.
• The stretch in format timing allows for arguments and plot lines to be better developed, resulting in heightened effect and interest.

As a consequence, we are seeing a lot of new fresh video pieces on the interwebs.

Campaigns, movements, associations, issue groups, party organizations and think tanks are putting greater resources into web videos and testing new projects through this art form / message delivery system.  It’s great to be apart of and watch this growing field of political activity, as it opens up an entire new creative platform for sharing ideas and beliefs in the political space.

Below is a great example of a web video, that is well done and interesting.  It’s a piece written and narrated by author/screenwriter, Andrew Klavan and produced by Pajamas Media.  The piece features Klavan discussing his view on the liberal approach to countering conservative culture and ideas, which he defines as a strategy as “shut up.”

While this piece does not encompass a wide array of production effects and mechanics, it does the job of making the argument that Klavan makes more interesting.  The visual accompaniment and the timing of the effects definitely enhances Klavan’s well structured argument and serves to strengthen the overall point, which is the truest measure of success for any politically driven web video.

The ultimate benefit of creating this kind of web video is that it’s execution in video format is more effective  than if Klavan just wrote this argument down and posted it somewhere.

I found this gem on Twitter today.  It is an audio / video illustration, titled, “The Crisis of Credit Visualized.” It walks the viewer through the financial components that brought on the current credit crisis that’s gripped our nation.  It’s produced by Jonathan Jarvis, an interaction and media designer.

According to Jarvis, “The Crisis of Credit Visualized distills the economic crisis into a short and simple story by giving it form. It is also argues that designers have the ability to see a complex situation, then turn around and communicate it to others. By giving graphic form to the credit crisis, it becomes comprehensible. Not only do economic activities take shape, but new relationships can emerge between these shapes.”

This type of work epitomizes smart media – defining an important and complex issue in a clear and easy to understand format.

Have you noticed something similar in both the McCain and the Obama commercials? Have you recognized a common look and feel in many political TV ads this cycle?

Well your not crazy.  It’s true. There is something all to familiar in many political advertisements this year.  I found it unbelievable, how many Obama ads and McCain ads look so similar.  Many actually look like they were created in the same production studio, by the same editor.

It’s called, “Kid Stays in the Picture.” It’s a production technique. And both presidential campaigns, and many other campaigns with a high end media budget, are using this relatively new production technique.

What is it?

It’s a cinematic production effect that’s created when you separate the layers of the photos and move them independent of one another to gain depth.

This style is being used commercially as well, as you may have seen much of this technique in ads airing during the olympics.

The look ads drama to still photos, taking it an extra step from the tried and true Ken Burns effect, which is when you pan and scan or pan and zoom on still photos in a video piece. 

Here is a good description given by Bob Donlon, a TV editor with Adobe.

This [Kid Stays in the picture] has become a pretty popular technique, lots of doc-style shows and films are using it. The first film I saw that used this at length (and by “at length” I mean for the entire duration of the film) was The Kid Stays In The Picture. Almost the entire movie was photographs busted up into layers in Photoshop, then animated in 3D in After Effects.

See this new McCain spot as an example of multiple uses of this technique

Many campaigns do not have the luxury of being able to do multiple shoots or get a lot of stock shots of opponents, which cost a tremendous amount of dollars.  So often times, media consultants will use still photos in TV spots to give changes in looks or to tell stories.

But just plastering a picture on a TV spot would be very boring to an average viewer, who’s eye has become used to seeing repetitive amounts of flash and motion.  So, by employing the Kid Stays in the Picture technique, the producer creates movement and depth from simple stills.

Also, campaigns opt to use this technique if a candidate does not look particularly good in video footage.  As you know, except for Arnold Schwarzenegger or Ronald reagan, most candidates are not actors or actresses.

Many times, candidates for office are very awkward on camera.  If a media consultant doesn’t see this and doesn’t address it, they will run spots with a poor portrayal of their candidate, exposing them to unintended negative consequences.  Properly executed still photography alleviates this problem in positive ads.

In negative spots, the use of stills can also create an interesting drama effect.  By cutting the opponent out of stills, and laying them against dark backgrounds or footage related to the subject the spot is talking about, you can tie the visual much tighter to the audio of the spot.  This helps tell the story much more effectively.  It also helps to create a negative visual without doing the fuzzy, grainy, ominous stuff media consultants did in the past – which turns viewers off.

There are a few other very popular techniques being used this cycle, which I will share in future posts.  But this one appears to be the hottest craze.  Now you know what it is.