Git yo'self video lit'rit (annotated)

git yo’self video lit’rit
Amplified IFTF Presents

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Vernacular
Video
A new literacy

git yo’self video lit’rit | David Evan Harris | Institute for the Future 2010

Howard Rheingold brings us the extremely useful term “Vernacular Video”—the notion that
video itself is a new medium presently in the process of adapting itself as a mass medium—
not just for viewing or consumption, but for producing!

What is literacy?
Literacy takes years of formal and informal
training and practice to achieve

Literacy is incremental

Read only literacy vs. read/write literacy

Reading between the lines


Video as Vernacular

Video literacy becomes an expectation of all
high school graduates.

The medium itself is transformed and new
standard practices develop for new genres of
video.


In this YouTube gem, we see how video technology is enabling all sorts of new forms of
production that we had never imagined possible.

Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AC0sR5_NTFo

Bad Video
Unfortunately, it’s very easy to make very
very bad video.

Bad video stands to dilute or damage your
organization’s brand value...

But Fred and Sharon have some good points...


Why use video?
Video—if done well—can be:
Emotive

Immersive

Transportative

Engaging of large audiences

A faster and more effective communications
medium than text.

Malleable Media


Malleability—the degree to which a substance can be bent or manipulated—is another
attribute of media which is important to consider when looking at the changes taking place
today in the medium of video.

Video: http://www.archive.org/details/BﬂOggGX1963
For 99% of the existence of the medium of text, the production and viewing of work in the
medium took place in primarily linear ways. Even a monkey could produce a stream of text.

IMAGE
wordperfect for DOS
screenshot


As word processors developed, text itself became a much more malleable medium. Complex
systems for organizing ideas with notecards and dozens of retyped drafts became continually
evolving documents.


This wikipedia article on indexicality highlights an important quality of video—that it points
more clearly to a speciﬁc state of affairs—Video is more indexical than text.
Later, tools like wikipedia allowed for non-linear and collaborative editing to take place
between people across continents.

Though even wikipedia, with its hundreds of thousands of collaborators still has its own
markup language which is ultimately a barrier to the malleability of its text.

The capturing of moving images, shown here in an early stage, was initially a complex
process. (Video with lots of lenses, eventually monkey operates camera).
?Does anyone know the difference between linear and non-linear editing?


As camcorder technology evolved, linear capture remained the norm.

While form factor shifted, tapes continued to be the prime means of recording today.

Solid-state capture media will soon dominate the market, which makes a signiﬁcant
difference for ﬁlmmakers who previously needed to “digitize” hour-by-hour each hour of
tape that they shot.

The Flip camera brings solid-state capture technology to the masses.

The editing of moving images, however, is a completely different beast from capture. In the
beginning, editing was—much like the case with the typewriter—a linear process that
required literal cutting and reattaching of strands of miniscule images one to another.


Linear editing suites like this one required the constant fast-forwarding and rewinding of
tapes and relied on transfers always going from one linear piece of media to another.


While this image and the one before it may look similar, there is a major difference. Once the
tapes are digitized, all footage resides on hard drives and editors can access footage at
random without the manipulation of linear media.


As non-linear editing software improved...


Tools have allowed editors to manipulate images in more and more intuitive ways.

Text : Video ::
(some very rough analogies)

Alphabet : Light
Spelling : Camera & video capture
Grammar : Script & Timeline
Outline : Storyboard
Fonts : Exposure & colors
Table of Contents : Title cards, lower thirds
Index : Tags & video bookmarks
Page Size : Aspect Ratio
Cover : Intro & bumpers
Footnotes & bibliography : Credits
Binding : DVD or hosting service
Word processor : Video editing software
Hypertext : Hypervideo

This is a very rough experiment that I’ve done, trying to compare some of what I’ve been
taught about the written word and how to use it and what I’ve learned in working with video
in the past few years. These two media have more similarities than one might initially think,
and as video becomes a more broadly used medium, new genres of video production are
developing that produce new sets of practices and standards for format and style.


?Who knows the hypothesis? If you don’t learn a language while you’re young, as an adult, it
will be a lot harder. When I watch professional video editors who have been cutting since they
were teens or younger manipulate video using Final Cut Pro and all the keyboard shortcuts
available, I realize that in many ways, I missed my own critical period for becoming a fast and
efficient video editor. Muscle memory and speciﬁc types of hand-eye coordination play a big
role here.


The Chicago Manual of Style presents a codification of standard practices in the written word.
For video, the strange thing is that so far, there isn’t one! Big TV networks like BBC have their
own internal documents, but for academic video, fiction/narrative film, documentary,
comedy, news, and TV/web video in general, there really is nothing comparable.

Text : Video ::

Alphabet : Light

But don’t get overwhelmed

A sample timeline (iMovie)


Tools have allowed editors to manipulate images in more and more intuitive ways.

Text : Video ::

Alphabet : Light

Aspect Ratio
(don’t squish me!)


Lower thirds


Sample Chapter Intro


An intro to a video clip from the IFTF BRIC families project.

Hypervideo

http://webmademovies.etherworks.ca/popcorndemo/

Words of Wisdom
Everything you do with video takes at least ten times
longer than you think it will.
The essence of professionalism in video (and many other
disciplines) is to be able to conceive of or hear an idea for a
project, visualize the ﬁnal result, and know how much
time and resources you will need to get to the ﬁnish line.
Video is hard on your computer—keep lots of disk space
free (10%), RAM available (25%), don’t let it overheat,
restart often, be patient, and get a better computer.


Critical Tools
Production

Camera (please don’t use your built in webcam)
Tripod (critical in most cases)
External Microphone (a very good idea - lapel or shotgun)
Lighting (either natural or artiﬁcial)


Critical Tools
Post-Production (Mac)

iMovie
Quicktime
VLC (opens what quicktime won’t open)
Miro (downloads & converts youtube videos)
ffmpegx (converts what Miro, VLC and Quicktime won’t)
eCamm Call Recorder (record Skype videos)
iDVD
Final Cut Pro (major time investment required)
Note: This is a deliberately very partial list. There are also some great post-production tools from Adobe as well as others for Windows and
some that are getting better for GNU/Linux, but this talk was originally directed to IFTF staff who all have MacBooks as their standard issue
computers that come loaded with iMovie and iDVD, and IFTF also has FCP on a few video editing stations.


Online Publishing

Youtube - biggest audience, but must moderate comments
Vimeo - lets you password protect
Archive.org - can publish very large ﬁles if you need to
Blip.tv - can publish to all of the above at once and more


Resources

MakeinternetTV.org - Great tips on shooting
Archive.org - Amazing collection of historical & public
domain videos
Bay Area Video Coalition - Free training and classes


Interesting foresight/
research sites using video

Big Think
TED
Fora.TV
Long Now Foundation Seminar Series
Open Ideo Challenge
David Pogue’s Circuits Video Podcast


fin


fin
davidevanharris@gmail.com


Git yo'self video lit'rit (annotated)

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