John Cleese’s fondness for the written word means that he tends to value diligently prepared scripts – as Eric Idle tells here. So it’s nice that John is starting to use video in this more intimate spontaneous way, with the able assistance of Garry Scott-Irvine whose numerous organisational tasks now extend to cameraman. Therein lies a tale of mastering the short form and being prepared to chase chickens in your pyjamas.

This kind of video is perfect for video blogs (or “vlogs”). Small Pictures maintains John’s blog at Cleeseblog.com. Using Vimeo as well as old-school podcasting (downloads delivered by RSS, available in iTunes and other podcast aggregators) also means that people can view the video in very good quality without necessarily being able embed in other sites, or download and re-post against the wishes of the client. Vimeo’s PLUS (pro) option gives great control over functionality and permissions of online video, and also allows HD to play on remote sites, for a price.

Small Pictures completed this short video for Forsters agency which was delivered as a downloadable video podcast, streaming flash and DVD, for NHS Southampton Alcohol Units Awareness Week.

This short trailer for the Seesmic John Cleese interview did spectacularly well, reaching over half a million views in under a week, and achieving the notable status of the most viewed video in the world on October 14th. As of today, it’s been viewed 931,950 times.

We were number one on Digg (see below), featured in various newspapers in the UK and elsewhere, and Seesmic trebled their traffic. The Palin/Parrot connection has also inspired a cartoon by some opportunist comedians.

Executive production by Dean Whitbread and Garry Scott-Irvine of Small Pictures, videography by Whit Scott who writes a nice post about the mission here and edited by Jeremey Lavoi, who writes another nice post here.

Promotional video for the Open Rights Group openrightsgroup.org – the UK’s foremost campaigners for digital and online rights.

Written, Produced and Directed by Dean Whitbread.

Videography: Rani Khanna and Mark Crook.

Featuring: Felix Cohen, Patricia Hanrahan, Harry Metcalfe, Mark Levitt, Glyn Wintle, Michael Holloway, Tom Reynolds, Dean Whitbread.

Music: “Who’s Watching Who?” by Cinema Du Lyon cinema-du-lyon.eu

A Small Pictures Production 2008

Licensed under Creative Commons by-nc-sa/2.0/uk