Pro-Life Abortion Speech by 12 Year Old

Children Influencing Culture through Media?

We always talk about media influencing children and culture, but how about children influence culture through media!?

A creative speech video that has been making the rounds a few months ago is the video of a young Canadian 12 year old Lia who chose the topic of abortion as her topic for a school speech contest. Her teacher wanted her to pick a different topic but she chose to continue. As you’ll see below she was an excellent speaker and crafted her arguments with thought and strategy.

“What if I told you that right now, someone was choosing if you were going to live or die?”

“What if I told you that this choice wasn’t based on what you could or couldn’t do, what you’d done in the past or what you would do in the future? And what if I told you, you could do nothing about it?”

“Fellow students and teachers, thousands of children are right now in that very situation. Someone is choosing without even knowing them whether they are going to live or die.”

“That someone is their mother. And that choice is abortion.”

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Youtube Statistics – The Ultimate Time Suck

YouTube Logo - Statistics Media

YouTube Statistics – Where did my time go?

How many times have you gone to YouTube to watch some video you’ve heard about, then 7 videos later you wonder where the time has gone? or perhaps 15 videos later… 30 videos…

Well you are not alone. 77% of users coming to YouTube come intending to watch 1 video but end up watching several.

YouTube has become a time sucker and a place people have gone to alleviate their boredom. But first a quick summary of some Internet & YouTube statistics.

Internet Usage

  • Adults spend 15+ hours on Internet a Week
  • Expected 217 MM US internet Users by 2012 (71% Penetration)
  • 55% broadband access, will grow to 90% by 2012
  • Online video viewing increased 35% year over year
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Creativity: Superbowl TV Commercials

It’s that time of the year again. Superbowl! Though most people don’t care too much about who wins the big game, everyone wants a reason to get together and enjoy some good food and good company.

Another tradition of the Superbowl is the million dollar TV commercials in between the coverage. Advertisers spend several million dollars and pour hundreds of man hours try to capitalize on the large Superbowl viewer base. Due to the expensive nature of these TV Commercials, these TV advertisements get critiqued and scrutinized on how creative and effective each spot is. Hundreds of articles and top ten lists discuss how good or bad each Superbowl TV Commercial was. Hundreds of sites will take polls and stream every Superbowl TV ad to be viewed again and again long after the game is done. But what about the cleanliness of the ad? How about ethics?

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Creativity: Powerful, Slow Motion Social Service TV Commercial Videos

The following videos are service ads shown on TV or other mediums in order to send a social message. Each of these TV spot videos are done in slow motion to enhance the message. The first video has to do with fire arms. The second video has to do with slowing down driver speeds in residential areas and the last is promoting the use of seat belts. Each of these videos use some powerful imagery to shake people into thinking about these issues.

Bullet Slow Motion Video


Disclaimer: I am going to spoil a bit of the punchline but I need to get this disclaimer out. Those who are faint in heart, there is a portion here where the ad leads you into thinking something is going to happen, but it doesn’t. Just know this is a CLEAN video.

(Lesson of the Day: “Faint in Heart” is correct. “Feint in Heart” is not. Feint means to trick or deceive. So the ad “feinted” or did a feint… but it’s not for the “Faint in Heart”.)

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YouTube vs Hulu vs Facebook Statistics

Hulu Logo ImageData on online video usage by ComScore continues to show YouTube dominating the video category with over 125 million monthly viewers resulting in about 1 billion views per day.

However, two well known players, Hulu and Facebook  has grown significantly month to month. Overall online video was up 7% from Sept to October with nearly 28 billion videos viewed. YouTube is responsible for about a third of those views. Hulu had jumped from 583 million views in September to 855 million views in October for a 32% growth. Hulu is a joint venture by News Corp, NBC, and Disney to provide advertisement supported TV shows and movies. Facebook also showed strong gains with 25% more unique visitors bringing their visitor count to 41 million a month.

Online Video Usage Growth - Facebook, Hulu, YouTube

  • How many YouTube videos do you “think” you watch per month?

[poll id=”7″]

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Creativity: Great TV Commercial Series and Athletes – MasterCard & NBA

What happens when you take the a great TV Commercial idea and add athletes? A wonderful TV Commercial with, you guessed it, athletes. Companies take great care to only use the most clean cut of athletes to promote their brand.

Mastercard “Priceless” Commercial: Peyton Manning
Below is one such example of using Peyton Manning, the quarterback of the Indianapolis Colts, in one of the most creative campaigns in TV history – the priceless Mastercard series. Following that is two very well made TV series by the NBA.

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Creativity: Nokia N96 – Bruce Lee Ping Pong Nun Chuck Commercial

Nokia’s Recent Bruce Lee Ping Pong Viral Commercial has been making the internet rounds. I would have to assume this is a TV Commercial being shown in China? It’s one of the top viral videos online and it is not surprising. Take a look as “Bruce Lee” as he plays Ping Pong with a pair of nun chucks. Throughout the video you have no clue what the commercial is for, but it ends with a note referring to the phone. How effective is it? I am not certain at this point, but cleaver enough to draw enough eyeballs and have it shared throughout the net.

Two videos are posted. See Below!

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Black Hole Short Film – Underestimating the Subtle Power of Desire

As always, Clean Cut Media is always looking to bring the latest news, reviews and insightful articles in media influence on our culture. Clean Cut Media will also periodically post excellent pieces of advertising, well made videos and overall creative pieces of work. Considering so much of advertising these days resort to cheap emotional grabs, vulgar non-relevant references to sex, as well as send subtle messages that is detrimental to the way we view the world, the only true requirement to show on this site is that it is Clean Cut, thus the name! However we may post non-clean pieces of art for review and discussion. If you find any pieces of work worthy to share or review please comment! We’ll contact you directly and if you wish you can contribute your insight for the entry.

Below is an excellent short film. Short films require immense creativity and planning because an entire story must be condensed into 3-5 minutes. This piece is well done. Quick Commentary follows.

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Creativity: Toshiba Timesculpture Advertisement Video

This advertisement was shot using 300 Gigashot Cameras, the highest number of moving image cameras ever used to film a sequence. Utilizing full looping action in 360 degrees view, this involved 20 Terabyte (that is 20,000 GB) of data which took 4 weeks of 24 hours a day video processing time. New editing software was built just to carry this out. The Cost? Word is going around that it costs nearly $4.7 million dollars. The music is originally by Crystal Castles called “Air War” but remixed by Advert Shock Remixes (NKNB).

Toshiba Timesculpture Advertisement

So how did they make it? See below!

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5.3 Billion Spend on Federal Political Candidiates

Today was election day! Hope everyone has gone out to vote! Not just for the presidential candidates but for all the propositions and local positions.

To be honest I don’t like writing about politics, but in the spirit of voting day here is another!

Media Spend by Candidates Breaks Reocrds
So as everyone knows a candidate’s spend on media will have a direct influence on how we view the candidates and ultimately who we vote for. So how much has been spent on this election?

The country will have spent $5.3 billion on federal political candidates. 27% higher than 2004. The presidential race? $1.5 billion by mid-October, on track to be closer to $2.4 billion by the end according to Center for Responsive Politics.

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Creativity: Apple vs Microsoft. Mac vs PC Marketing

By now most of the public has seen at least one of the many creative Mac vs PC commercials. If you are like me I find them hilarious and very memorable. Already thousands of spoofs have been generated using a similar type of message delivery. The Mac vs PC campaign is so unique and memorable it will most likely go down in history as one of the best.

Microsoft however was not amused. After Vista failed to meet expectations and criticized across the board, Steve Ballmer, the CEO of Microsoft blamed the commercials for the poor view of Vista. Microsoft than launched a $300 million dollar ad campaign to fight back.

I find this “battle” quite amusing because the type of ads that are produced are only further affirming the image the public has of each company. Microsoft as the out of touch, big bad company that throws money to get what it wants. Apple as the hip young company who are well in tune with what consumers want and one of the best at marketing it’s products. I’ve summarized their campaigns embedded the relevant videos below. Definitely check out the Apple ones.

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