Online Video- I Clarify!

by kathryn on July 12, 2010

in actor, online video, video

Steve Garfield takes a picture of himself, his inimitable mother Millie Garfield and myself in a monitor at Video on the Net, Boston, 2007. Photo by SteveGarfield

This has been nagging at me.

The lovely and revolutionary Steve Garfield commented on my last post wherein I once again assert: If it’s not good enough for TV, and if it isn’t interactive – then what value do we bring to the online video paradigm?

While Steve didn’t comment on that assertion (he asked rather how I intended to make Better Left Unsaid interactive) – just the fact of his comment made me realize how un-specifically I use the term “online video”.

While I’ve worked in all sorts of online video- branded, vlogs, narrative, informational, I am an actor by passion and background and my main interest in online video is narrative- so when I refer to online video I almost always am referring to scripted series.

Do I think it is imperative to use technology to expand our experience of storytelling. I do. Do I think we waste everyone’s time and energy when we simply reproduce old forms of storytelling online, but with less quality, technique, and money and in less compelling ways? I do. (Hence i have an online scripted series floundering in development- until the technology exists to tell the story in the interactive way I think it requires, the series will remain shelved.)

But I also think the world of documentary style online video is amazing . The accessibility of online video has made it possible for people with incredibly original ideas and no budget to create very unique, small doc style shows, and one after another they have broken new ground. Steve Garfield is a pioneer in this medium with hundreds of video makers following in his footsteps inventing all sorts of new ways to express themselves.

My apologies to Steve and all those video makers out there who are surprising me everyday with their unique voices and videos.

And do I think those of us who work in the scripted realm have mostly been followers instead of pioneers- a short, unequivocal, YES.

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