While the word, “remix” brings to mind popular music, remix videos are a trend on Youtube and other video platforms in which one takes several pieces from more than one video to create a new video, to great effect. This video takes an historic speech by U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon in support of LGBT rights and adds resonance and depth with new material.
There are of course other video platforms, but if you want to make a video available for remixing on YouTube, all you do is grant a Creative Commons license. Go to Edit within the Video Manager, then switch License & Rights Ownership to “Creative Commons-Attribution.” You’ll soon see a “Remix this Video” button below the number of views for your video. When someone clicks that button, they enter the YouTube Video Editor with that video and all of their own YouTube videos available for creating new remix videos.
If you have a great clip that your coalition partners or members might want to use, this is a convenient way to make that available. As the video above shows, you can really make an old piece of video current with new content and even music.
Speeches are an obvious target for this approach—a person in a room talking for a while, however fantastic, resembles a two-dimensional piece of content. When you remix a speech or interview with action, images, and/or music, you bring it into that third dimension that makes a video watchable and encourages sharing.
Just like bumper videos, you can also use open sharing for remixing to create unity and a sense of generosity. If you score a great interview with a celebrity talking about your issue, it’s to your advantage to be generous and open—and facilitate experimentation that will increase exposure.
Remix videos are a powerful tool. It’s time for nonprofits to use them more widely to spread their video content far and wide!
If MiniMatters can help you use this tip or serve your other video needs, we’d love to talk with you at 301-339-0339 or via email at [email protected].
