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Music, Technology and Lifestyle

We have arrived to an era where if one states that they’re “computer illiterate” means they’re just “illiterate” and that they’re having great difficulty with coping with the world around them. There have been a few isolated voices crying that the internet is ruining people’s lives, preventing them from communicating properly with the real world. With the advent of the smartphone, the tablet and the mobile internet, people have come to enjoy their real social life and their virtual one at the same time.  And it doesn’t stop there.

An event that I witnessed a couple of days ago made me think of this BBC documentary: Synth Britannia . About 35-40 years ago there came a new type of music and it took time for the critics to accept it as a “valid type of music”. Then, as now, it started with mixing the new technology, the synth, with the oldest and most valued type of music, the classical music, as heard in Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange.

The concert I attended was a replica of the same experiment, only with tablets instead of synths. The concert started with a DJ performing at his table. He had the typical gear a DJ would have on his desk, with the addition of two tablets where he had sounds looped in, which he would manipulate whichever way he pleased during his DJ set.

The most impressive part was however the classical music performance, which made me think of the influence classical music still has on modern music and how fast music as an art is evolving, now with the help of technology. The act consisted of a male baritone voice, an oboe, a violin and a cello. As each of the performers played their instrument, the DJ, while still on the stage, began mixing and modifying live the sounds emitted by the instruments and the singer’s voice respectively. The only tools that he was using were the two tablets he had played with before, in his DJ set. We, the audience, know this because a camera was tactfully placed behind the desk, the images captured being projected on a big screen at the back of the stage.

This was a cutting edge experiment with an impressive result. It is all the more interesting if we think that the end result sounded like a classical music concert which had been recorded, then submitted to hours of processing in a specialized sound recording laboratory. It all sounded like an instantly remixed version of a classical piece, which of course was the DJ’s intention. Technical innovation is making its presence felt in the music industry, making lives easier to musicians worldwide and giving them more tools to create original music.

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Film Studies and SEO

What does cinema have to do with Search Engine Optimisation?

One might say the two have nothing in common and that might very well be true.

Cinema is all about creative ideas, putting one’s visions into practice and giving shape to one’s fantasies. A filmmaker has to find the perfect way to capture his abstract thoughts and structure them in a way that can be understood by the audience. There are of course exceptions to the rule, where filmmakers deliberately choose to play with the audience, giving new and original shapes to their visions, creating new types of cinema.

But if we were to look at standard traditional cinema, it is quite similar to SEO. For someone who can understand film and has no notion of SEO whatsoever the concepts are quite similar:

  •  SEO, like films, is about getting the best out of an idea and structuring it so that it can be understood, seen and liked by as many people as possible.  Well structured movies are easy to follow and enjoyed by a wide audience. The same thing applies to the process of website optimization. 
  • Like most mainstream films, SEO focuses on sending a message. If a film tells a story, then it has a message for the audience. Doing SEO for a website is about presenting that story in a compelling way for the viewer/reader. Sending the message across and having an impact is one of the most important things to do when optimizing a website.
  • Daring filmmakers are most often hailed as geniuses. They manage to get a simple idea across in a very original, cutting edge manner. Doing good SEO for a website is about doing the same thing. Getting a website to rank high on Google search engine is about being daring and creating original content that stands head and shoulders above the rest.
  • Movie stars are the best publicity a film can get. Most people check the cast before going to the cinema. They even look for a movie starring their favorite actors. In SEO world, the “movie stars” are the keywords: before accessing a website, people look for the keywords they’re interested in. Depending on the SEO ranking, they will click on the top websites out there.
  • In order to get to the top of Google ranking, websites have to have killer content: simple, but original and straight to the point, exploiting well those keywords, using their power well on the page. Similarly, to earn that much coveted Oscar, movies have to have a brilliant script: expressive, well structured and just like website content, exploiting well those movie stars and enhancing their power on the big screen.
  • Links are very important for good website optimization. When a website is being referenced by another website, and then another, people, as well as search engines, start trusting that website as somewhat of an authority in that particular domain. At the same time it helps people gain more perspective and knowledge on the subject. Similarly, in cinema, word of mouth and critical reviews are just as important for movie promotion and box office success. When a friend recommends a movie to you, and then you read a positive review in a movie magazine, your urge is to go and watch that movie.
  • Promoting a film and a website works in strikingly similar ways. Wording is very important for both domains as movie/website titles have to be catchy, memorable and to summarize well what the movie/website is about. Good metaphors work as well, as they stimulate the audience curiosity and make them want to read the article/watch the movie. Another thing that has to do with website promotion are meta descriptions. These work like movie tag lines, offering that little extra information about the website, just enough to get the reader to click on the website.

Ultimately both cinema and SEO are all about selling a product or an idea and getting to be at the top of the box office or the Google search engine results. Both processes require practical skills, creativity, originality and structure. Essentially, the film industry can benefit a lot from SEO and online marketing, thus finding yet another way to promote their product.