I’ve had some things to blog about lately but really no motivation to do it. I’ve been feeling a bit behind the 8 ball lately, dunno why. But I think I’m finally been shaking this funk.

One thing I wanted to come back to was the Filmmaker/video blogger issue I mentioned last week. Interestingly this subject came up on the Videobloggers list not long after I mentioned it here. One of the most insightful observations came from Adrian Miles who wrote:

film makers fetishise film (or video) and so are much like authors in
1995 when the web first came to attention (to them). So a film maker
wants to

a) maintain control over the viewer (my work is 22 minutes and you
really should see the whole 22 minutes - what do you mean they might
go somewhere else? what do you mean they might actually be able to
rearrange *my* vision??)

b) like the author regards publication (a book) as the top of their
tree, film professwional sees TV broadcast, cinema or festival
screening as same.

c) like authors, real writing happens on white pages, serially
ordered, between covers. You are special to get there. Real film
makers produce real programs/shorts/features that are serially
ordered between credits. You are special to have your work
made/selected. On the net anyone can do it, therefore the lowest
common denominator rules, and I am not part of that (I’m a film maker
after all).

d) I own your screen. I own all of it. On the net you own your
screen. I couldn’t possibly show my film at 320 x 240, or heck, even
640 x 480.

e) the quality is too bad (this is result of bad compression but was
an issue once upon a time).

f) it might get stolen (of course if you don’t put it online and you
are lucky enough to get into a festival, your work might be screened
once at the wrap party, once at your own premiere, and once at the
festival…)

There are other reasons but I find the easiest way to explain it to
others (which I’ve done a few times in papers and conference
presentations) is that if you think about how authors responded to
the web in 1995 (you mean everyone can read my work? cool? hold on,
links, you mean they can go elsewhere? and you mean my beautiful
perfect structure should be granular with links inside, no way) is
much the same problem confronting trad. professional video and film
people right now.