Your Film Festival finalist filmmakers head to Venice

This weekend, the filmmakers behind the ten films you selected as the Your Film Festival finalists, will travel to another film festival – the world’s oldest, in Venice. There, they’ll pitch their idea for a new YouTube project to the Your Film Festival jury and have the chance to win $500,000 to make their idea a reality with the support of Sir Ridley Scott, Michael Fassbender, and Scott Free Productions.

Subscribe to the channel to catch the latest news and return on Monday 3rd after the finalist film screening has taken place in Venice, when we’ll announce the Grand Prize Winner. In the meantime, meet the ten finalists in the video below and watch their short films on the channel.

Watch the Republican and Democratic National Conventions live on YouTube

Last week, we announced the YouTube Election Hub, a channel where you can find the latest live and on-demand coverage from the 2012 campaign trail.

Tonight, as part of YouTube’s role as Official Live-Streaming Provider for both political conventions, the trail leads to Tampa, Florida, for the Republican National Convention. You can watch all of the podium speeches and backstage action live on the site, including Mitt Romney’s acceptance speech on Thursday night.

Next week, starting September 4, we’ll give you an all-access pass to the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, North Carolina. Once again, every night during prime-time, you’ll be able to turn to YouTube to see all of the speeches like President Obama’s live address from Bank of America Stadium on September 6.

Accompanying the official proceedings, the YouTube Election Hub will feature live partner convention coverage so you can get the latest analysis from a variety of sources and form your own opinion about the election. If you’d like to stay updated on the latest coverage, you can follow the action here.

The conventions have delivered some of the most memorable political speeches of the past few decades, like Sarah Palin’s notable hockey mom riff and Ann Richards’ 1988 straight talk. Relive them here now:



The live primetime Republican Convention speeches begin tonight at 8 p.m. ET. Tune into

www.youtube.com/politicsto watch and comment in real-time.

Life @ YouTube: Interns Go Behind the Screen

What do you think when you hear “YouTube”? I used to think of videos of panda bears sneezing, British toddlers biting each other’s fingers, and the instant stardom of seemingly everyday people. But over the past 11 weeks, I’ve had a true insider’s perspective on the company. I’ve worked with hundreds of YouTube employees who are redefining how we create, share and consume video. 

As a BOLD intern, I’ve been able to go behind the screen and leave my mark at YouTube. Google’s BOLD program began placing undergraduate interns at YouTube in 2010, beginning with a class size of just two and it continues to grow each year. This year we had nine undergraduate YouTube interns bringing fresh ideas and making a huge impact along the way. I, along with other interns, have had the opportunity to work on meaningful projects that have directly benefited YouTube users. My fellow interns and I worked on “Your Film Festival,” an independent film contest, the channel design for the 2012 Olympics page, and support of the live streaming at Lollapalooza music festival - just to name a few projects. 

As an intern in People Operations, I’ve worked with many different teams across the company, from content partners to product managers and designers, while developing leadership training programs, producing and editing videos, and interviewing Directors and VPs. And I’m only one intern! Total, there are 30 other undergraduate and graduate school interns that make up the YouTube family, all of whom are working on phenomenal projects involving software engineering, web developing and user experience design. 

The professional development opportunities afforded to interns at YouTube are unmatched. Still, it’s not all work and no play. While at YouTube I’ve been able to chat it up with Rick Ross, meet Congresswoman Jackie Speier and host over 100 Bay Area engineering interns for a night of BBQ, beer, Bluegrass music and cool product demos. YouTube is a magical place and this summer gave me a taste of the magic. If you’d like to find out more, visit our site for information about internships and jobs. 

5 Questions with Scott Harrison, Founder of charity:water

charity:water is an organization dedicated to providing clean, safe drinking water to people around the globe and since exploding onto YouTube in 2008, they’ve made a name for themselves with consistent catchy, aesthetically awesome videos. charity:water is a nonprofit who isn’t afraid to push the boundaries of what’s possible with video so we weren’t surprised to hear that they have big YouTube plans for their upcoming September Campaign. We sat down with charity:water founder Scott Harrison to learn more about the campaign and their approach to making videos that are both inspiring and compulsively watchable.

Q: You're launching your 6th annual September Campaign next week. Can you tell us about the campaign and how video will play a role? 

A: charity: water was born in September, and each year we take that month to focus in on a particular country, tell an amazing story and challenge our community to make a big impact there. This year, we’re telling a powerful story of redemption in Rwanda.

It’s been 18 years since the genocide, and the country has been rebuilding faster than most people ever thought possible. Rwanda is now attempting to achieve 100% clean water coverage by 2020 -- something no country in Africa has ever done before -- and we want to help them. By partnering with the local government, through the September Campaign, we’re going to bring clean water to 26,000 people in the Rulindo District.

At the core of this campaign are stories, stories of families who have to haul water up and down a mountain every day--water from a swamp or river that can make them sick; stories of people making a living by managing and maintaining the kind of water points we’ll fund; and stories of our fundraisers doing amazing things to help people on the other side of the world.

In addition to the trailer which launched on August 21, we’ll release four short films during the campaign, and then on September 7, we’ll film and upload a video -- live from Rwanda -- as the work begins in the field. It’s important to us to inspire our fundraisers by bringing the story to life and also to use video to help them see their impact.

Q. Your "Thank You" campaign fascinated us at YouTube because it did a few things differently. For example, it featured your whole staff and each video was targeted towards a particular donor. Was the campaign successful? Can you share any learnings? 

Yes. Last year, to mark our fifth birthday, we decided to celebrate the thousands of fundraisers who gave up their birthdays, biked, swam, and built lemonade stands to raise money for clean water.

There was no fundraising goal for these videos, and we intentionally didn’t make them only for our top donors and fundraisers. Instead our goal was to just make 250 different supporters feel special and let them know how much we value them.

Our metrics for the campaign were soft, but dozens of people who received the videos, sent us emails to express the depth of their feelings and ‘love’ for our brand.

And our staff (everyone from our receptionist to our CTO made videos!) reported back that this ‘thank you experience’ was among their favorite moments working here.

Most importantly, we think that anyone who sees the thank you videos will understand just how much we care about our relationship with our supporters. 




Q: Besides view count, how do you measure the success of a charity:water video?

A: The first goal of our video strategy is to inspire people. Inspire them to become aware of this important issue, to donate, to fundraise, and hopefully to become lifelong fans. Inspiration is difficult to measure, but the results driven by that inspiration are powerful.

For this year’s September Campaign, we’ll release five videos throughout the campaign as key content to drive our $1.7 million fundraising target. Without the video inspiration, we wouldn’t be able to create the movement of thousands of fundraisers needed to bring clean water to 26,000 people in Rwanda.

And despite the fact that we don’t make videos to drive immediate donations, we frequently see a fundraising spike alongside our best video content. For example, last year when we launched our animated Water Changes Everything on YouTube (now viewed over 800,000 times), we saw our online donations spike for weeks.



Q: One thing that comes across in your videos is your sense of aesthetics. How does design play a role in video production and does it take a large budget to make videos that are aesthetically appealing? 

A: Time, energy, and talent can be more important than budget when it comes to making great videos. Our video team is only made up of a couple people, but we invest significant time and energy in bringing excellence to everything we produce.

It’s important to us that charity: water videos always look beautiful. It shows respect for our supporters that we invest as much time as possible in the highest aesthetic appeal.




Q: What's one mistake you see nonprofits making with video? What advice do you have for organizations making this mistake? 

A: The biggest mistake we see are non-profits using the power of the medium to drive feelings of guilt or sadness, instead of hope and positivity.

You can evoke strong emotions with a video, and a sad tale or a shocking image can indeed induce someone to pull out their wallet and donate. However, we believe in respecting both the subjects of our videos and the audience, and you’ll see us continue to focus on positivity, possibility and inspiration over guilt and sadness.

The U.S. election, live on YouTube

Today we’re introducing the YouTube Elections Hub, a one-stop channel for key political moments from now through the upcoming U.S. election day on November 6. You can watch all of the live speeches from the floor of the upcoming Republican and Democratic National Conventions, see Google+ Hangouts with power brokers behind the scenes, and watch a live stream of the official Presidential and Vice Presidential debates. You won’t need to go anywhere else for the must-watch moments of this election cycle...they’re all happening here live.

In addition to videos from politicians and parties, a diverse range of news organizations—both established names in media and sought-after new voices—are sharing their coverage of the political process on the new hub. You’ll find live and on-demand reporting and analysis from ABC News, Al Jazeera English, BuzzFeed, Larry King, The New York Times, Phil DeFranco, Univision and the Wall Street Journal. Each will put their own stamp on the Presidential race—from the conventions to the debates to election night.

  

Of course, we’ll have special live coverage around the Republican National Convention from August 27 to 30, the Democratic National Convention from September 4-6, the Presidential and Vice Presidential debates in October, and election night. Bookmark the Elections Hub now for a front row seat along the road to the White House.

Attention, cricket fans: Sri Lanka Premier League T20 comes to YouTube

The world’s attention may currently be concentrated on a certain international sporting event in London, but cricket fanatics’ minds are much closer to the equator as they mentally prepare for the first ever Sri Lanka Premier League (SLPL). This Twenty20 tournament goes from August 10 to August 31, featuring Sri Lankan cricketing icons Mahela Jayawardene, Lasith Malinga and Muttiah Muralitharan, as well as 42 international players like Chris Gayle, Shahid Afridi, Nathan Mccullum and Saeed Ajmal.

And just as we did with the India Premier League, YouTube will be streaming straight from the pitch (with slight delay) on the SLPL’s YouTube Channel. For those far from Sri Lanka in an un-friendly time zone, no worries—just catch up on the highlight videos uploaded after the match conclusion. 



We’re always excited to see a new T20 tournament popping up, and we’re even more excited to help bring the action from Colombo and Kandy straight to you, wherever you a

How the Olympics played out on YouTube

How the Olympics played out on YouTube

When we started preparing for the Olympics last year, we prioritized two things: giving you a front-row experience, and serving you video at the best quality possible. You responded in a huge way:

Around the world

• Giving more people access to watch live and recorded events was key. Across the US and 64 countries in Africa and Asia you watched 231 million total streams. Of those, 72 million total streams came fromIOC YouTube Channel.
• At peak, YouTube delivered video for more than half a million livestreams at the same time. That’s 5X the capacity of Wembley Stadium.
• Live video looked better than ever before, with a 7X improvement in quality based on low buffering and high frame rates.

In the U.S.

• We powered online coverage for NBCOlympics.com, delivering more than 159 million total streams.
• Through NBC’s native apps, 37 percent of views came from mobile devices, and more than half were in HD.
• The U.S. Olympic Committee YouTube Channel shared behind the scenes video with more than 6.75 million views, and 50 YouTube Creators “Invaded” London to show the full experience through their eyes.

Game on: Get the new YouTube app for PlayStation 3

Playing hours of Journey giving you cravings to watch Journey on YouTube? Or maybe DiRT Showdown put you in the mood to watch real-life action sports from the Red Bull YouTube Channel?

Give button mashing a whole new meaning with the new YouTube app for PlayStation 3—rolling out today in North America for free download from the PlayStation Store.

You might have watched YouTube on PS3 before, but get ready for a whole new world of video and features. We have a completely new experience, designed for the big screen and PS3 controls. Here’s what you’ll find:

• Search: Finding the videos you want is easier than ever, with search suggestions and instant video results while you type.
• Your subscribed channels: Sign in to find the latest videos from your YouTube subscriptions, which now also includes HD and official music videos.
• Your phone as a remote: With a quick pairing process, you can control YouTube on PS3 with a smartphone. Find a video on your phone and with a button it’ll play on the big screen. While the video is playing you can control it from the phone, or keep browsing YouTube for the next one.

You’ll find the new app in the PlayStation Store under My Channels. We’ll keep improving the PS3 experience and plan to bring the app to more countries in coming month