If you are an Egyptian social media user, you must have crossed by a sarcastic summary of a movie with a unique comic voice over while scrolling on your Facebook newsfeed or in YouTube. The content which found great popularity within a very short time and made it to the top social media trends raised curiosity about its creator.
“Trendify” interviewed Mohamed Taher the Egyptian social media content creator who is well known with the comic summaries of movies and series. He told more about the process of creating his short videos, how he creates his own special lines and the copyright issues.
How it all started in movie reviews or summaries?
I come from a journalism background where I work as a reporter and in COVID-19 there was a long free time in which I thought of doing something for entertainment on social media so I started to summarize some movies using comic lines to comment on them and suddenly this went viral. Then, I reviewed some series like “Lo’lo’” after which I found Egyptian users like the content and it keeps getting millions of views so I decided to increase my production in Ramadan.
Why do you produce more non-Egyptian movie reviews or summaries?
Copyrights are the reason why I am unable to add sarcastic commentary on any Egyptian series or movie. At first I thought their problem was that the voice over on scene of Egyptian works are sarcastic so that they report the video for breaking copyrights rules, but later on I discovered that they have a problem with even the non-sarcastic content. I don’t want to generalize but 80% of the Egyptian drama and movie industry never permit the use of their scenes as they see that no one has the right to use their materials unless they agree to this.
I prefer producing sarcastic summaries and content about Egyptian works since this is closer to me and my audience as well. However, the work on this content goes in vain because of copyrights. On the brighter side, currently I have an ongoing collaboration with Shahid.net whereby they grant me the right to produce content about their material.
While writing a script for a review or summary, do you work on each aspect of the video with the objective of it finding its way to the trend?
Becoming a trend on social media can not be expected. Sometimes I work on one video script for 4 weeks and it brings less reach than expected. Surprisingly my top viewed video, reviewing “isn’t it romantic” movie, was written and produced in less than one day and it received 15 million views.
How long does the production process of a video take?
The writing process is the variable factor that may take a few hours or many days because I am looking for a certain word or two to incorporate. What follows writing usually takes less than one day where I shoot the video of a review and summary then get it edited by the end of the day or next morning. Most effort is put in writing to produce sentences that are both descriptive and sarcastic.
Over time you managed to create your own special lines instead of using the popular lines from movies, how was the drift?
Yes, at the beginning I used lines from Egyptian movies to describe something in a sarcastic way then I found that some people thought these lines were mine or I am pretending they are mine despite the use of a screenshot or photo of the movie from which I took them. So, I decided to start creating my own special lines which suit my format and appeal to my audience. I never thought people would relate this much to my lines and start using them to describe other situations.
Your content achieved great success and is well received by the Egyptian social media users, in your point of view what is the reason why your content succeeded?
I have done a lot of things before this and people didn’t like it. What made this succeed is that I managed to do something I am good at, not that I am creative but that I luckily found the thing I can do well and the thing that people didn’t see before. The idea of summarizing a movie using lines other than those of the movie itself and telling the story of the movie in a sarcastic manner through voice over. This was unprecedented.
Do you see that if you summarized or reviewed a movie that hasn’t received many views your review may make it go viral?
Yes of course, some movies after summarizing them I find out that they are top downloaded on Egybest. This is exactly the reason why the platforms which agree to let me use their content are indirectly making a benefit out of it. Shahid, for instance, surely understands how reviewing or summarizing some of their original works will make the audience curious to watch. It is indirect marketing. The first video I made last Ramadan brought 11 million views so it is absolutely making the audience want to see more.
Were there any public figures who didn’t like the content you mentioned him/her in and asked you to delete it?
This happened a lot of times. I won’t mention names but there was one time in which I have deleted the video even before the figure I mentioned asked for it because I felt that I misused his name in a way people may find inappropriate. Other than this I never delete my content as long as it is not ethically violating anyone.
What was your favorite series last Ramadan?
The series I liked the most in terms of the way in which it boomed was “Le’bet Newton” where it managed to stay a trend everyday along the month. My favorite one was “Naguib Zahi Zarkash” that in spite of how it may have looked boring at the beginning but it was my favorite and the one I make sure I watch its episode everyday.
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