Evolution of Video following Photography and Writing?
by Paul Prins at 9:18 am
Clive Thompson wrote an interesting piece on how YouTube is changing the way we use video/film in our society. While the majority of his argument stems from the
It isn’t quite a documentary; it isn’t exactly a conversation or a commentary, either. It’s some curious mongrel form. And it would have been inconceivable before the Internet and cheap webcams—prohibitively expensive and difficult to pull off.
This is what’s so fascinating about online video culture. DIY tools for shooting, editing, and broadcasting video aren’t just changing who uses the medium. They’re changing how we use it. We’re developing a new language of video—forms that let us say different things and maybe even think in different ways.
With over 100 years of the moving picture and we have still be drastically limited in how we use the medium do to cost and time restraints. Over just the past 10 years have peoples home computers been powerful enough to edit their videos on par with the pros, and costs have come down drastically since then.
The Evolution and Change in Cost
Video is now following a similar path as Writing and Photography have before it. The costs to enter into either of those markets is now negligible. The barrier to entry is all but removed. For photography consider $4000 for a camera, computer and website verses $10-20k for comparable quality equipment (large format camera, darkroom, chemicals, and tons of trial and error) a decade ago and we writers can now digitally typeset their whole work which used to be a lengthy time intensive/prohibitive process.
We have seen this with the rising of movie industries like Nollywood that would struggle to survive without the cheaper equipment.
Marshall McLuhan pointed out that whenever we get our hands on a new medium we tend to use it like older ones. Early TV broadcasts consisted of guys sitting around reading radio scripts because nobody had realized yet that TV could tell stories differently. It’s the same with much of today’s webcam video; most people still try to emulate TV and film. Only weirdos like MadV are really exploring its potential.
The next step for the church?
So one question for the church is; How can we use video for something other than promos, commercials, documentaries, and films? And how can we incorporate the communal thrust of modern American society?
How might live video look beyond just an interview? Are there different goals we can use video to achieve?
So many questions, and so few answers.
January 2nd, 2009 at 5:18 pm
[...] up our post on the Evolution of Video is this 4 minute video (by MadV) that uses a communities response to a video to form this [...]