Pink Glove Dance is perhaps the single BEST You Tube video I have ever seen.  Why do I say something so extreme?

With over 3 million views, obviously lots of other folks like this video too.  It has become a viral sensation.  Let’s examine why that is.

Speaking as a video producer and online video specialist, Pink Glove Dance wins my respect and affection for several reasons:

• It put a huge grin on my face and kept it there!
• It inspired me to cheer and clap.  (Dance too!)
• It supports a fantastic cause that I, and everyone else on the planet, agrees with.
• It was well lit, shot and edited.

What more could one possibly want out of a You Tube video?

Notice the order those four attributes are in.  The technical video production aspects are LAST.  I love a well produced video, don’t get me wrong.  It is just that I believe storytelling and generating a positive audience reaction is more important and rarely hinges on where your lights are placed or whether your edit is a dissolve or a page wipe.

Pink Glove Dance was created by staff members at Providence St. Vincent Medical Center in Portland, Oregon.  Their goal was to promote breast cancer awareness.  The hospital gave free mammograms as part of the campaign and Medline promised a million dollar contribution if the video got over one million views on You Tube.  Time to pay up fellas!

On a technical level, it is a video anyone with some simple equipment and a few basic skills could make.  They did not do anything complex or fancy.  It looks to me like they took advantage of natural light and used a consumer grade video camera.  They obviously followed the basic rules of good, solid videography and visual storytelling. Camera movement was either controlled or nonexistent, meaning they used a tripod or did some hand holding with just a touch of movement.    Not chaotic movement, but controlled movement to add to the movement of the music and dancing.  I personally thought the amount and style of camera movement was very well done for the context.

They used lots of close-ups so viewers could feel up close and personal with all those happy smiling faces.  Close-ups are your single most important shot, I say that over and over!  Use them as much as possible.  Even their wide shots were “full.”  In other words, none of the shots were suffering from irrelevant and unnecessary dead space.  So this video is a winner both because it follows the basic rules of quality production values and tells a fantastic story in an appealing way.

THE “STORY” MAKES IT SUPER SPECIAL

Obviously part of this video’s appeal is the worthiness of their cause.  As it relates to video storytelling, this means the main “character” of the video is a good guy everyone supports.   A box office hero!

It’s a joyous video to watch.  Every shot is one of people dancing, smiling, laughing and exuding joy.  That is infectious.  Decent shots of people displaying that much happiness ALWAYS works, no matter what your subject matter.

This works particularly well because it supports a universally accepted cause, breast cancer awareness and treatment.  Couple the immense joy seen on the faces of the video’s dancers with the intense grief caused by breast cancer and you have an emotional powerhouse conflict for your story line.   This is one of those videos where you might not think of it as a “story” but it is.  All videos are.  In this case, the video is able to take advantage of a long running “story” with clear cut “characters” that everyone can relate to.

In this brief video, the good guys “win” because viewers are seeing the fighters of the disease banning together in joy.  That’s a win!   Audiences ALWAYS cheer to see the good guy win in a movie.  Always.   It’s not any different for a You Tube video.

Even the second-to-last shot, that of a lone janitor waltzing down the hall with his back to the camera reminds me of classic Hollywood movie storytelling.  Think of the guy in a white hat riding off into the sunset hollering, “Hi-yo Trigger Away!”  The very last shot is a reminder of the message.

As I watched this video, it was clear that at times the producers had planned ahead and staged a large group shot.  They  had probably sent out a memo and requested that people be in a certain place at a certain time.  When you have a shoot like this, it takes some time to get what you need.  The producers have to organize and instruct everybody on what to do and lead the way.  They have to not only operate the camera, they have to choreograph and direct all the players.

No doubt many people felt insecure about dancing on camera, so I would imagine that the producers had to show them how and help them over their inhibitions.  (If you knew how many times I did something silly to get people to do things  on camera you would never believe me.)

On other shots, it was obvious to me that they simply spontaneously set the camera up in a area where lots of people were bound to walk by.  Then they stopped everyone walking by to ask them to participate.  Here again, this is an exercise is cajoling folks to play along with you and then instructing them on precisely how to do it.

Notice that at every location, they took a variety of shots.  They never just took one shot and then left.  If they had a group dancing, they showed multiple shots of the same people in the same setting.  From a behind-the-scenes production standpoint, you want to get as much possible out of each photo opportunity.

Getting shots of people dancing would not necessarily require music while you shot, assuming the producers were willing to demonstrate the kind of moves they wanted.  (I would have been happy to do that!)  But taking some kind of portable music player with you while out shooting to get people in the groove is also a good idea.  If you wanted movement that was well-timed to the music, you would have to do it that way.  The dancing on Pink Gloves Dance looked a little looser to me than that.

When you edit, you would not use that audio, you would lay down your music track off a CD then eliminate any audio you captured while actually shooting.  You could toss in some isolated giggles for effect but most of your natural sound would be cut out so the music stands alone.

The pacing on the editing kept the video going at a fairly rapid clip.  If you notice how long the shots last, they do not linger more than 10 seconds.  The editor did a good job matching the rhythm of the music with the video.

Obviously the people making this video had FUN.  It shows.  So the people watching the video have fun too.  I wish them continued success.

Congratulations on making such a great video!

Thanks for reading Video Production Tips

Lorraine Grula