The Week's Best Viral Videos & Marketing Lessons: Time-Lapse Edition

It's Friday again, and you know what that means: no one wants to concentrate on work, and everyone's already in weekend play-time mode. So why not help ease that transition with something that is equal parts work and entertainment, the ReelSEO viral video round up? We'll give you all the best viral videos from this week, all here in one place for easy viewing, but we'll wrap it all in a nice educational bow--pointing out the lessons we can learn from these hit videos to apply to our own video marketing efforts.

It's the best of both worlds, so let's get straight to it.

SEE ALSO: The Week's Best Viral Videos & Marketing Lessons - Artists Edition

Time-Lapse

There are a lot of different styles for shooting video that are growing in popularity, like slow-motion, stop-motion, or tilt-shift effects. Right near the top of the pack of these styles is time-lapse, which typically involves filming an event over a long period of time and then compressing and speeding up all that video into a much shorter presentation.

It's a cool effect, and allows the viewer to get a quick look at something that traditionally takes a long time to develop or occur. And that's the kind of thing that can trigger the sharing behavior that powers viral video. We saw some fantastic examples of time-lapse this week, so I thought we'd take a look at a few.

Most of us (in the U.S., at least) probably watched some fireworks in the last week. But I actually saw several shows in several cities, through the power of online video.

One of my favorite fireworks videos of the week is this time-lapse clip of the Chicaco fireworks:

We also saw several cool time-lapse videos of the recent Arizona sand storm (which we wrote about here):

I guess Chicago is a popular spot for time-lapse clips this week, as another Vimeo user is piling up the views for this awesome video showing every Chicago sunset for a month in five minutes:

Beyond just your video concept and script, you need to also consider what style you'll shoot it in. Live action is fine, and the most popular format by far, but videos created with a special technique (like time-lapse) can generate added attention from viewers.

Clever & Cool Musicians

Music is still an incredibly popular genre of video online. New musicians are being discovered every day through the power of places like YouTube. Like this enterprising young singer, who combines a classic rhythm-based party game with an acapella cover of "You're Gonna Miss Me" by a band called Lulu & the Lampshades:

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XKcChGsDqnU" onclick="javascript:_gaq.push(['_trackEvent','outbound-article','http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XKcChGsDqnU']);" rel="nofollow, external" target="_blank"><img class="nopin" src="http://i.ytimg.com/vi//0.jpg" alt="The Weeks Best Viral Videos & Marketing Lessons: Time Lapse Edition" title="0"/></a>

Popular recording artist and street musician, Dub FX, is pretty clever himself. He used the new Loopy 2 app for the iPhone to make this next video that shows off both the app's capabilities and his own talents:

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7GgiVhTB_yA" onclick="javascript:_gaq.push(['_trackEvent','outbound-article','http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7GgiVhTB_yA']);" rel="nofollow, external" target="_blank"><img class="nopin" src="http://i.ytimg.com/vi//0.jpg" alt="The Weeks Best Viral Videos & Marketing Lessons: Time Lapse Edition" title="0"/></a>

Some really famous musicians got in on the viral act this week as well. Rock band U2 went viral with a very cool concert clip. The band was in Nashville (my hometown) last weekend for the first time in 30 years, and they definitely gave the crowd a memorable show by pulling a blind guitarist out of the crowd for a spontaneous final song. When the man gives the guitar back to Bono at the end, the singer tells him to keep it. Classy, and very cool:

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xNZjfz8rgT8" onclick="javascript:_gaq.push(['_trackEvent','outbound-article','http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xNZjfz8rgT8']);" rel="nofollow, external" target="_blank"><img class="nopin" src="http://i.ytimg.com/vi//0.jpg" alt="The Weeks Best Viral Videos & Marketing Lessons: Time Lapse Edition" title="0"/></a>

Singer Ben Folds has created a very cool new video to help promote his upcoming album. Over the course of seven different concert performances, Folds recorded members of the crowd performing individual acapella parts of a new song he was working on. Then, he stitched it all together to create a very cool giant group performance of the song. Check it out:

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CPmetLq72H0" onclick="javascript:_gaq.push(['_trackEvent','outbound-article','http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CPmetLq72H0']);" rel="nofollow, external" target="_blank"><img class="nopin" src="http://i.ytimg.com/vi//0.jpg" alt="The Weeks Best Viral Videos & Marketing Lessons: Time Lapse Edition" title="0"/></a>

Grab Bag

Sometimes all the videos I collect to share with you guys on Fridays don't fit into tidy little categories. But that doesn't make them any less worthy of being shared.

I'm becoming a pretty big fan of My Drunk Kitchen, a YouTube show where--as you might have guessed--a gal gets drunk and tries to cook something. The host is charming and funny, and the alcohol obviously makes things sillier as each video goes along. There's also some good editing work being done on this channel. Check out the most recent episode, which has a Patriotic theme... sort of:

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cKf0GirR0-A" onclick="javascript:_gaq.push(['_trackEvent','outbound-article','http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cKf0GirR0-A']);" rel="nofollow, external" target="_blank"><img class="nopin" src="http://i.ytimg.com/vi//0.jpg" alt="The Weeks Best Viral Videos & Marketing Lessons: Time Lapse Edition" title="0"/></a>

Funny Or Die scored a great viral hit this week with a parody sequel to Field Of Dreams, starring several famous football players and Hollywood actors. If you've seen the original, or you care about football at all, you'll love it:

The star of Firefly and Castle, actor Nathan Fillion, has recorded a mock PSA to help video game fans avoid a common problem (WARNING: some mild language):

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OCf9M5GsDSs" onclick="javascript:_gaq.push(['_trackEvent','outbound-article','http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OCf9M5GsDSs']);" rel="nofollow, external" target="_blank"><img class="nopin" src="http://i.ytimg.com/vi//0.jpg" alt="The Weeks Best Viral Videos & Marketing Lessons: Time Lapse Edition" title="0"/></a>

Magicians Penn & Teller have some kind of new American-Idol-style tv show where magicians and slight-of-hand artists try to impress and fool them with eye-popping tricks. And one magician's attempt went viral this week, for very good reason:

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OpthjI1z2FM" onclick="javascript:_gaq.push(['_trackEvent','outbound-article','http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OpthjI1z2FM']);" rel="nofollow, external" target="_blank"><img class="nopin" src="http://i.ytimg.com/vi//0.jpg" alt="The Weeks Best Viral Videos & Marketing Lessons: Time Lapse Edition" title="0"/></a>

Finally, we have a fun and funny video sponsored by JobRapido that shows a man doing 14 different jobs in the span of only 24 days:

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x8qJDMp5yfE" onclick="javascript:_gaq.push(['_trackEvent','outbound-article','http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x8qJDMp5yfE']);" rel="nofollow, external" target="_blank"><img class="nopin" src="http://i.ytimg.com/vi//0.jpg" alt="The Weeks Best Viral Videos & Marketing Lessons: Time Lapse Edition" title="0"/></a>

Honorable Mention

• We mentioned the show Firefly earlier. If you're a fan, you'll kick yourself for not watching this fan-made rap anthem dedicated to the show.
• Some Canadian football players have gotten on the silly "planking" trend, with a coordinated touchdown celebration.
• Michael Bay apparently re-used footage from The Island in the new Transformers 3.
• Did you hear the one about how LeBron James knocked down a little kid and dunked on him at a basketball camp? Don't worry, he sent the kid a pair of shoes.
• What happens when you combine sports with visual effects for fireworks? A cool (but fake) video like this one.

• The Week's Best Viral Videos & Video Marketing Lessons - Hockey Dancing Edition

• The Week's Best Viral Videos & Marketing Lessons - Toy Story Edition

• The Week's Best Viral Videos & Marketing Lessons - Parody Edition