Jul 24 2007
STOP! DROP! DON’T ROLL! - Just Ask Yourself “Why Video?”
If I had my way, every person who picked up the cam-du-jour to add to the tubeness of the world would hear echoes of dear old dad saying, “Uh… wait a minute there. What EXACTLY do you think you’re about to do with my [choose one: power tool, Hustler magazine, bottle of gin, lacy red bra]?” and when reaching for the red button their finger would twitch as a frayed synapse recoiled in memory of daddy’s [choose one: misfiring berreta, stinging backhand, profuse obscenities, lacy red bra].
“And you may ask yourself, ‘How do I work this?’”
Better yet, ask yourself, “Why video?”
Far too many out there with an IP address and something to say are weakening their message by using video. Yes, weakening their message. They are either afraid to let words stand on their own, crave the ease of the red button, or have been swindled into believing that video magically makes things better.
Consider Scott Karp, poor guy. He’s a writer. A good one. And admits that he’s no video blogger. But the Wall Street Journal Online asked for a video piece. Ouch. This one doesn’t even recognize that it’s a video piece. It’s merely an essay read to the camera.
The Marty Feldman in the headlights effect kicks in. Sitting in a hotel room reading essay copy into your laptop’s built in camera is a unique exercise in frustration. You CAN’T look directly into the camera and read from the screen no matter how wide you open your eyes and force yourself not to blink. I admit that I’m picking on the worst of the lot that WSJ Online posted for their “Happy Blogiversary” homage to ten years of blogging. But really… It’s THE WALL STREET JOURNAL! To be accurate, it’s The Wall Street Journal Online. (Cool, we’re online. That means video!). The other videos weren’t as bad as Scott’s, but the interesting question is, “Was there an editor (in publishing terms, or a producer in video terms) assigned to this article?” Why didn’t an editor/producer ask Karp to try another take or find a stinky kid [TM] with a video camera? Would the print version of the WSJ or the NYT have sent out a photographer to get a still photo or asked the subject of an article to hold a digital camera at arm’s length in bad light and snap a lo res crooked JPEG? (maybe hand you a hat pin and foil to punch out your dotted self portrait). Would they have printed an awful photo? Why publish and awful video? The reality is that The WSJ needed content with which to entice readers; content they cannot get in the printed edition: video. You be the judge. If you had tossed The WSJ into the trash at the end of the workday, trekked home to a freshly cracked Stella and fired up the iMac to get to this bonus content, would you have considered it worth the bandwidth or would you have rather just read the video comments of the bloggers as insets to the primary article?
For a moment, the WSJ Online lapsed into the mantra that if it’s video it’s inherently worthy, and bought into the corollary: video belongs online and if you’re online video belongs. The choice to use video is simple: If it doesn’t enhance, don’t use it. If the content isn’t compelling, then it doesn’t measure up as bonus content that will make consumers accept a future invitation from the printed page to the rendered page.
I like NewTeeVee.com. There’s some good information there from a collection of writers, though the site is also snared in the need to be yet another online outlet for THAT-tube, et al. Jackson West gets caught in the middle with a piece that started out as a humble text entry, but never quite got to mature into a real piece of video. What we get is the “we’ll cure the boredom of the standard static face-cam closeup with a locked down medium shot” approach. Help! At least we get some B-roll and piano music. Could the video have been worse? Much. Better? Certainly. Why criticize? Because it should have been better.
Why should it or anything else be “better?”
Because if I or anyone else is going to make one of the 127,498,367,912 destinations on the internet a regular haunt, I must develop an expectation for the level of quality that I’m going to receive there. THAT is the live or die factor online; whether or not a person can return to a site/portal/brand and have expectations for type and quality of content consistently met. Offline entities embarking on online adventures need to keep this in mind. Clearly, the WSJ Online doesn’t know how to maintain (or care to oversee via an editor/producer) a threshold for marginally acceptable video. THAT-tube doesn’t care. I’m OK with that latter’s position, but I expect more of the former. The old guard, traditional, offline media entities are, taken as a whole, presenting content just above cable access level production values. Many new online startups who, as ventures born of the media savvy generation ought to be more in tune with video media aesthetics, aren’t doing much better. Does it matter? Explorations for another post.
Both of these writers acted on the words of others, as in “I got asked to make a video” or “I was encouraged to produce it as a video.” They should have asked, “Why a video?” or taken the steps toward better content and their publishers should have established the threshold.
“Just put ketchup on it,” may be a cure for powdered eggs at summer camp or mom’s mystery meatloaf, but as the saviour of the culinary world, it’s… well… it’s merely ketchup; a tasty condiment with some masking properties. “Just turn on the camera and read it” doesn’t even rise to the base level of ketchup’s masking utility. The camera cannot magically cover anything in video goodness no matter how generously slathered; quite the opposite –the camera reveals.
Oh well, it’s hard to blame today’s talking heads for their shortcomings when we’ve had 29 years of Andy Rooney and whines of this (m) ilk. At least he’s well lit. You know what I mean.
PCRQ (pop culture reference quotient) = .0032
Jay,
Your points are all good ones, but just as I fell into an amateur video trap, it appears that you have fallen into an amateur blogger trap — giving into the temptation to go on the attack and be REALLY obnoxious while making your points. I did that early on as a blogger and only barely recovered, because I managed to piss off a number of people who had the ability to make or break my reputation — it was hard work making amends and a hard lesson learned.
So my advice to you — if you have something negative to say about someone, ask yourself this — is this how I would talk to this person face-to-face? If not, stop, drop, roll, and take a different approach. Hiding behind a computer screen — and an anonymous about page (i.e. where do you work?) — it’s easy to get carried away.
It’s also good to ask yourself — does the blogosphere really need one more snarky blog? If not, stop, drop…etc.
I’ll accept the “REALLY obnoxious” tag as a terrible failure to be funny. I can be terribly funny. I can be terribly obnoxious. I’ve also been both and surely have been just plain terrible a few times. I can take the criticism and your advice seriously.
I would say to you in person that the WSJ Online needs to set high standards for online video presentations just as they set high standards for their print presentations. It’s a vitally important part of preserving an iconic brand. To fail to do so is extremely dangerous in my opinion. It’s not unusual that print people don’t understand or appreciate the complexity of delivering video based content on a daily basis, to say little of knowing the basics of what makes for reasonably good video. The networks may be dinosaurs, but they KNOW how to get reasonably well produced content together on a large scale daily. They also know that it’s not an inexpensive proposition.
I would also say to you in person that if you and I are going to be participating in a world that is visually centric we must develop some visual sensibilities –one of them being a basic knowledge of what is good video and what is not. Along with that comes a certain amount of sense about what to engage in and what to pass up. Or, referring to the video in question; recognizing what is passable and what needs help. If you’d been asked to write a blog post in Spanish, you could (tossing out the option to learn Spanish in a few hours) buy a English-Spanish dictionary, visit a translation website, or hire a technical translator. There’s obviously a best choice among those three. It was THE WALL STREET JOURNAL for goodness sake. If they were coming to your house to take a picture for the article would you put on a clean shirt?
Video is a funny thing. You turn on a camera and video just “happens.” Turn on a typewriter –OOPS! I mean, fire up a word processor –nothing! No wonder more are picking up a video camera than a keyboard. Video can be a powerfully influential thing or it can be an ineffective drag on the informational message it’s trying to bear. Writing a good script is very difficult. Pushing a button is easy. People tend to like easy.
The point is, there’s a ton of marginal video out there. I’m not interested in it. I’m not interested in thousands of portals all delivering the same thing. I’m interested in great content filters and great content sources. Once again, iconic offline media entities with legendary pedigrees, need to be careful when going online. To maintain their reputations, they need to set high standards both as filters and as sources. Theirs is a tricky road.
Enough…. already. I’m sure your bored by the repetition. Sincere thanks for the thoughtful reply.
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“Where do you work” seems so old school, but I’m old so I won’t take offense. This year I’ve worked in New York, LA, & Atlanta, though I’m based in Cincinnati.
Currently, I own an audio post production facility (16 years at that). I’m also a post production sound mixer for film, documentaries, television, commercials, the web, etc. I’ve been helping people put the finishing touch on content for 20 years. In the early 90’s I worked the Midwest as part of a two man crew regularly serving the network news and magazine shows, NBC & ABC primarily (Nightly News, World News Tonight, Prime Time Live, Dateline, GMA, Today Show, etc.). I was lucky enough to work bits and pieces of the 1992 presidential campaign. I was helping NBC cover Dan Quayle the day after the Murphy Brown incident and was on the Perot campaign the day before he dropped out. Interesting times. News is an interesting game. So is web 2.0.