User engagement
For Patricia Aufderheide, Director, Center for Social Media, American University, and author of Documentary Film: A Very Short Introduction, the biggest macro trend is, “user engagement, which can be seen in Facebook creating ways to share info on what people are watching, in HTML5 options to provide many ways to engage with material, and with crowd-sourced stories such as Life in a Day.” On July 24, 2010 thousands of people from around the world uploaded videos of their day to YouTube in order to participate in this documentary about one day on earth. From over 80,000 YouTube submissions (about 4,500 hours of footage), director Kevin MacDonald, working with a team of researchers, crafted a 90-minute documentary film showing the cycle of life on earth played out in one twenty-four hour period. MacDonald said, “I learned to appreciate the beauty of some of this amateur footage. There’s a great and very specific beauty to material that’s shot on handicams or even on cells phones and the kinds of shots that they can get, the kinds of shots that an amateur can get that actually professionals couldn’t get,” see: Conversation: Kevin MacDonald, Director of ‘Life in a Day’ (ArtBeat, PBS NewsHour).

Competition from distraction
David Kung, a fellow MIT Media Lab graduate, tells me that competition from distraction is a major issue, he observes that “the Media Industrial complex has failed to capitalize/monetize Distraction (a.k.a. “Snack Culture”) the opportunity to provide ubiquitous (afforded by mobile technology) and elastic content (entertainment that lasts as long as you want it to,” He points to key examples, including: a short experience with Angry Birds; watching a “viral” video; ending/reading a Tweet, etc. Kung is concerned that, “because of intellectual property/copyright restrictions, the traditional players won’t ever be able to compete in these areas which has allowed for new players to emerge… Facebook, the App Store, etc.”

Social consumption is changing how viewers experience media
Ryan Evans, Director of Experience Design, Corey McPherson Nash, observes that “social consumption of media is going to change not only the way consumers learn about their options, but also how they experience video, music and art together.” This trend is enabled, “not only social networks but mobile devices, but geolocation and video streaming too.” Evans illustrates this with two examples of social networks built up around media consumption: Into_Now and GetGlue. Evan adds that Foursquare and Facebook are enabling social connections around events including movie screenings, concerts, festivals, for example, see: Foursquare Goes Beyond Place; Adds Movies, Music & Sports and Facebook Lets Users Check In to Events via the Touch Site, Soon the iPhone. Furthermore, Evans sees the integration of YouTube with Google+ Hangouts, “takes things further by making social connections in realtime with video conferencing,” as described in YouTube Gets Google+ Hangouts (PICTURES).

Fragmentation of the media experience
Writer and director Federico Muchnik expresses his concern over fragmentation of our media experience. It appears to him that long form narrative is in peril as it gives way to short bite sized “video-ettes,” a product of our decreased attention span fueled by a cornucopia of choices at our fingertips, something Cyber-Surrealist lou suSi has referred to as “Media Snacking.” Muchnik says that viewers today, rather than watch a single film, are often watching what he describes as, “…disparate narratives, music videos, ads, talking head shots, cute kittens, porn, news clips, random material, animation, experimental, and documentary clips we confabulate [into] our own customized two hour ‘virtual narrative’ whose beginning, middle, and end are of our own choosing, whose characters are legion, and whose conflict is unknown at the start of the experience.” Muchnik adds that this experience is “often interrupted by phone calls, emails, trips to the bathroom and the fridge,” This is the digitally enabled equivalent of multiplex hopping, taken to a new level of digital efficiency. We are now in a role where we can extract our own story. Muchnik reflects with a mournful tone, “god died when we acquired the ability to change the channel, once we used to trust the storytellers, now the storytellers are commodities.” That’s one prediction I don’t want to be true, but it rings true, and we know for whom the bell tolls: our old friend, the long form narrative. Long may it live.

Are hyper-linked, fragmented, media forms evolving?
Working in a form that may appear as a living nightmare to Muchnik, artist and provocateur Geo Geller highlights what he calls a “micro trend [...] a very small one indeed,” in what he calls Social Sculptures, “where the story is a non-story story a non-linear experience that like the mind our eyes and ears and senses are attuned to see/listen/smell/feel, especially heightened in times of danger.” His work suggests that we “think of a treasure hunt as the new trend” and that this process “happens in your mind but also in some instances it will be eavesdropping on conversations mixed with options of video/audio/still/text/smells etc” providing an experience allowing your to follow your curiosity and “jump all over the place.” Geller’s work provides a fragmented, hyper-linked, multi-layered, media experience outside the confines of traditional, linear, media forms. More of his work can be seen at silentmusicvideos.com and myownprivaterevolution.com. We’ve been able to create links and fragments ever since the web was created (and before that with Ted Nelson’s vision of the ultimate hypertext in Literary Machines), and yet much of the media we create is not deeply hyper-linked and easy to repurpose at a fine granular level as evidenced in Geller is working in an evolving form that may become more common in the future.

The boundaries between genres and styles are slipping away
Anne Marie Stein, Dean of Professional and Continuing Education at Massachusetts College of Art and Design thinks that “while production costs may be relatively more inexpensive, navigating distribution is a much more difficult proposition than ever,” viewers are inundated with more media options than ever. She asks, given our limited time, “what are you going to pick with the huge amount of stuff that’s out there?” Therefore, there is a need for new forms of curation to come into the mix. From a creative perspective, Stein observes that the “boundaries between genres and styles is pretty much gone, there are documentaries that are made like narrative films that use experimental film language, and narrative films that pretend they are documentaries,” which results in a lot of interesting and innovative work, however, she believes “for the viewer, it underscores just how important it is to be media literate.”

Apple has become a primary driver of media and entertainment trends
Brian Lucid, Professor of Design at Massachusetts College of Art and Design points out that when it comes to Macro Trends, Apple has become “one of the primary drivers of the trends influencing media and entertainment” with their “shift from a hardware company to a service design company” which has led to the development of “new ecosystems that include content, licensing, distribution and consumption.” Apple has changed the way we think about photography, music, movies, phones, “even operating systems and applications.”

Who’s going to pay? Content remains “King”
Brian Henderson, a Boston-based Cinematographer, believes the key question regarding the future of media and entertainment is “how do we pay for it?” He predicts that the current format of television as an “half hour by half hour schedule in the long run will evaporate,” and we’ll move to a format in which “people can chose to watch their shows whenever they want, on whatever device they want (TV, computer, phone, cerebral implant…).” Henderson sees that “advertiser’s money is being spread very thin” and that “there is a limited amount to spread around,” which in turn leads to “a problem for advertisers (the people who fund our work) [...] appointment TV is dead.” Right now advertisers have to reassess the entire business model. Henderson point out the simple economic reality that, “as advertising dollars get stretched across more platforms, budgets will drop, and shows may get shorter.” Perhaps one way to make up for lost ad revenue will be “more product placement in shows and movies.” What may be an opportunity for innovative producers and advertisers is that “smaller productions will become more accessible, independent films and programs made privately or for small markets will be viewable by people everywhere [...] on the web, they may even compete with the the established [...] networks because as we say, ‘Content is King’.” Henderson adds that “if the story is good enough, people may chose to watch some thing made by high school students in Wala Wala Washington rather than by NBC Universal.”

Embedded in our media technology are hidden consequences
Audrey Kali, a professor who teaches rhetoric and communication at Framingham State University in Massachusetts, brings to light some of the political and environmental consequences hidden inside the information technology devices that connect us. For example, their manufacture drives demand for coltan (Columbite-tantalite), which is used in the manufacturing of capacitors used in smart phones, tablets, computers, and the like. This concerns Kali, as “media and entertainment become increasingly more digital and accessible to more consumers, it drives increasing demand for rare materials like coltan that are causing political and environmental havoc, desire for this mineral is connected to violence,” for example, “Rwanda, Uganda and Burundi smuggle coltan from Congo, using the revenues for a violent war.” Kali observes that “It’s so absurd, when I think about it, I’m writing about the horrors of a mineral that is causing so much human pain and environmental destruction with the technology that actually supports those horrors.” While it’s possible to avoid “conflict diamonds” it’s more difficulty to avoid “conflict coltan,” adding a new twist to Marshall McLuhan’s phrase, “the medium is the message.”

Crowd-funding provides new ways to fund projects and connect with your audience
Many of my respondents concurred that crowd sourced funding is a key macro trend. The two leading examples of services enabling this are Kickstarter and IndieGoGo. These services differ in siginifiant ways in terms of how they operate. Kickstarter is a community limited to fundraising projects that meet their curatorial goals, and projects don’t receive any money unless the fundraising goal is reached. This is good in terms of providing funders confidence their money will go to a project that will be completed. On the other hand, IndieGoGo is an open community allowing anyone raise money for their creative project. If you don’t make your goal, you can still keep the money you raised to put towards your project. It’s clear that we’re in the middle of a rapid rise in the number of creative professionals leveraging crowd funding to support their work. One of the most impressive examples to date is Jennifer Fox’s Kickstater campaign for My Reincarnation in which she raised over $150,000 in order to get her film into distribution.

Digital production tools expand opportunities for expression
For Caroline Blair, a Cinema Instructor at City College of San Francisco, the most significant trend she’s observed is the effect of digital filmmaking (cameras and editing) on her program. As a “community school trying to meet the needs of the population it serves” the school in the past “experienced difficulty serving lower income groups” before digital technology became widely available. She illustrates this with an example, prior to the use of digital video, City Shorts [their annual film festival] was struggling with “very few submissions.” Today City Shorts is a “well attended film festival” with a good selection of quality work shot on digital video, much of which is also shown in other Bay Area venues.

Democratization of taste-making
Cinematographer and director Charles Papert, who has experience in both high-end and indie productions, tells me the big trend is “the democratization of the taste-making process in entertainment.” Papert reflects that “whereas in the past a talent or project would be discovered, packaged and groomed” in what he calls an “insider process” that would move through “a corporate machine to determine their worthiness to be presented to the masses,” we now have the ability for unknown talent to “become popular with the masses” through a process of “viral exposure” and after that “traditional media takes it from there.” He explaining this is a “reversal of the process,” and illustrates this with the observation, “in the heyday of radio, an influential DJ could break an artist, as radio became more corporate with mandated playlists, artists were manufactured.” But new options now exist, “now an unsigned and unknown artist can build their brand via iTunes and social media and gain wide exposure.” Papert has been working with Garfunkel and Oates, a musical comedy group, who’s been able to quickly built a following via “low-tech ‘couch videos’ of them simply singing to camera and are currently on the comedy circuit, selling out 500-600 seat venues.” Papert adds they now have an HBO development deal, providing a crisp example of the big trend. He’s pleased that “the possibility of creative freedom” provided by this new environment is “encouraging.”

Non-traditional distribution channels are gaining traction
Philip Hodgetts, Technologist, Author and President of Intelligent Assistance observes that “non-traditional distribution channels – iTunes, Amazon, Hulu, Netflix as well as AOL – are getting traction from brands now, such that it’s beginning to be possible to create and distribute without the traditional network gatekeepers.” Yet Hodgetts points out that, “of course brands end up still controlling the media,” but in parallel to this, “the rise of crowd funding is making producers less dependent on having advertising support at the distribution end.” You can see a list of the most funded Kickstarter projects on their site. Hodgetts points out Habib Kairouz’s article, Buckle up: Traditional TV is in for a heck of a ride, in which Kairouz points out that in order to find out how television is going to change “we’ll all be tuning in (on multiple devices) to find out.” One example of this is AOL spending on original series.

Circumvention of traditional media outlets
Julie Mallozzi, a documentary filmmaker and teacher observes we now have a “global communications infrastructure that “enables everyone to both create and consume media anywhere, anytime – and share it with the entire world within seconds.” Mallozzi sees the “circumvention of traditional media outlets” by Occupy Wall Street, Occupy Boston, etc.to get their message straight out to people as a significant trend. These groups have “all kinds of people out shooting video – on cameras, phones, whatever – editing it right on the spot using laptops or ipods, and uploading it for the world to follow their actions via Twitter, Facebook, etc.” She adds, “they are inspired by the Arab Spring – who of course used these methods, too.” This makes our connection with current events more intimate and meaningful. We now have the ability to learn what’s happening from a variety of perspectives beyond the television news establishment for which ratings, not newsworthiness, is the prime directive. In addition, social media has made it easier to organize, participate, and get people involved in these events both directly and indirectly. For example, when Mayor Bloomberg announced that he was going to clear the park on the morning of Friday, October 14th, MoveOn.org immediately launched a petition drive to let the Mayor know how citizens in New York and beyond felt about his intended actions. The mayor was given a clear read of public reaction to the clean sweep, it was telephone calls from elected officials to the owners of the park that stalled the clean-up, but you can bet they were responding to the groundswell of support that was expressed. Social media is enabling citizens to make their voice heard and connect with current events in a manner that is way more intimate and meaningful than possible back in the day when broadcast media was the only conduit for live, breaking news.

Citizen journalism is influencing how mainstream media handles news
Artist Perry Bard observes how citizen journalism is influencing, “how mainstream media handles news,” pointing to the example of Police beat and pepper spray protesters on 10.05.11, a YouTube video in which a police officer discusses how he hopes to be able to beat protesters with his nightstick later in the evening. This is not something mailstream media may not have covered in the past. See also: MSNBC/Lawrence O’Connell on NYPD Police Brutality during Occupy Wall Street (not the same event). Now that amost everyone has cameras, more points of view come into play. During the launch of Iraq war Bard followed Riverbend’s blog, Baghdad Burning which, according to Bard, “gave daily accounts about electricity outages, food availability, i.e. effects of war on daily life.” The blog was later published. Bard points out the “difference between then and now is dramatic, more people with more devices and the ability and organization to upload instantly,” is making a significant difference in how news is being covered.

Smaller and larger screens
Videographer Chuck Green observes that, “millions consume video, music, photos, and more (plus compose and read their correspondence) on micro devices, iPod nanos, mobile phones” while at the same time we’re seeing the rising popularity of large screens, “IMAX and IMAX3D is growing, as are home television/media center screens,” Green suggests this might be “weird for producers” and represents the challenge of “divergence,” which is developing media for both small and large screens simultaneously. Other trends he sees include “collaboration on editing, mashups and such,” and these he finds scary and exciting at the same time. For Green it’s ultimately about embracing the expanding palette and opportunity with both smaller and larger screens.

Greater flexibility in communication and collaboration
Kathryn Dietz, Executive Director of Filmmakers Collaborative, observes that “there are far more outlets for our creativity.” She explains, “If I have an idea, I can conceive of it as not just a movie … which costs a lot and takes a lot of time.” Instead her idea can, “take the shape of a game or short video clip shared on YouTube or maybe be a blog post or a comment on someone else’s media.’ This now all comes to us at “lower cost and far greater flexibility and opportunity for collaboration.” One implication of this is that media makers don’t just one thing anymore. Kathryn ran a production company for 23 years, always producing feature length documentaries. Now, she has three jobs (executive director of a non-profit, a producer, and as a writer). Kathryn is currently writing a feature length documentary being made in collaborative manner and she’s producing a series of web shorts for the new England Journal of Medicine in collaboration with another filmmaker. Much of this is possible because today it is “easier to manage” multiple projects because of the “ease of access and communication.” She pointed out to me that she and I were able to have a conversation over email while I was in Rio de Janeiro at the film festival and she was on a “lovely long kayak trip,” providing a sharp illustration of her point.

Beyond product placement: brand as character
Artist and filmmaker Jon Goldman sees a trend towards the convergence of storytelling and brand messages being “integrated into story-driven, serialized content positioned in web-based space straddling commercial spots with episodic enticement.” This work is a response to viewers becoming increasingly allergic to ads. As we move beyond traditional media forms, there’s a demand from advertisers to find new ways to create engagement. Jon has been working with StoryPoint, an organization responding to this challenge by creating compelling stories embedded with a brand. The brand message becomes an integral part of the story and character mix. Why should ads interupt our stories when the story can be the ad?

Our tools let us convey emotion to anyone, anywhere, at anytime
Artist and educator Philippe Lejeune says that “to create a tool so well designed that anyone can use intuitively to project to someone else our emotion through a complete set of communicative applicaitons is remarkable … tools are becoming transparent enough to let our emotion be carried to anyone anywhere at anytime,” this represents, “progress that is revolutionizes our desire for better communication and individual expression between each other.” Lejeune asks, “this media is ours … who needs anymore his/her 15 min. of Fame?” observing that he is part of the 99% of the once anonymous who “today have a voice and a name,” to illustrate this, Lejeune remixed Apple’s 1984 commercial giving it “a new meaning with today’s concerns (Occupy Boston),” reflecting that citizens now have, “the tools to prevail.”

Be the one you’re looking for
Kevin Brooks, UX Product Manager, Motorola Mobility, believes that “non-profressional producers creating the media they want to watch,” is the most significant trend. With the “increasing quality of production equipment we carry in our pockets and purses, the general population is more ready to capture what they see and express what they experience.” However, Brooks points out that what’s still missing is “deeper creative empowerment.” At this point in time we “have the tools in our pocket to create high quality crap.” Brooks thinks that “Once we start seeing compelling videos about producing compelling videos, or films about making films that aren’t about how zany, wacky, crazy, sex crazed or financially foolhardy it is to make films, then more people will make films.” He adds “as Brother Blue said and as I think Steve Jobs implied, ‘Be the one you’re looking for’.” Brooks sees a lot of “brave filmmakers who distribute on their own, they want their story out there and believe in it, so they skip over many of those concentric circles to go directly to the public.” He says that “Sita Sings the Blues is just one example, though a favorite of mine.” Brooks is encouraged that people “have found and will continue to find more creative ways to build theater – more creative ways to bring eyes and ears to their art,” but along the way, “many traditional business models and mechanisms will have to change the way they do things or disappear.”

Rise in multi-screen viewing
Lee Morgenroth, Founder and CEO of leemail.me, sees “an increasing number of new ventures looking at multi-screen viewing, or the idea that while people are watching television, or other video content, they are also on their laptops, tablets, or phones.” He believes that parallel viewing, “may lead to a more interesting ‘interactive’ experience than trying to force all of the experience through one screen/medium.” On the negative side, Morgenroth is concerned that, “legacy licensing and copyright issues still bind so much content, both new and archive.” Therefore, without a updated approach to licensing materials, we’re going to restrict the evolution of a “global audience of viewers and makers that are defined more by social graphs than by geographies and territories,” and without that, “we won’t see the full potential of innovation in media & entertainment.”

Perpetual escalation and insinuation of shock and awe
Nathan Felde, Chair of Design, The Art Institute of Boston at Lesley University, believes that the most significant trend influencing Media & Entertainment today is violence. He asserts, “now that attention is the new and only valid currency in the global economy, perpetual escalation and insinuation of shock and awe into media are needed to continually renew and raise interest rates while double digit hyperinflation of significance and attention deficit take their toll and tax our minds.” Related to this, by making it possible for humans across the earth to be linked in a digital world, technology has opened a Pandora’s box of possibilities, as Felde writes in From wilderness to bewilderment: Which frontier does your type face? Of visual frontiers, pattern recognition, mass media, and the survival of the human species. (DMI Review, 14:4, Fall 2003). Felde also shared this photo of 6,000 students at a school for animation, video games and comics, in Changchun, China.

The process of DIWO: Do-It-With-Others
Slava Rubin, founder and CEO of IndieGoGo observes that we’re, “moving from a world of transactions to a world of relationship.” He thinks that instead of a DIY ethos, things are moving to what he describes as, “DIWO (do-it-with-others),” this is, “the new breed, instead of millions, it is now the power of a dollar.” Since production and distribution have become ubiquitous, Rubin says, “it becomes a challenge of attention.” He suggest that “Youtube turned everyone in a TV channel,” and as a result, “crowdfunding will empower everyone to become a banking channel.” This will lead to storytelling evolving, “across mediums based on the customer touchpoint.” He paints this picture, “kind of like how banks now know how to best optimize their customer channels – physical location, ATM, website, mobile, etc.” His company, IndieGoGo, is currently providing the integrated social media tools that help creative people run their crowd-funding campaigns including community building and outreach, empowering creative people to fund, make, and distribute their work through the process of DIWO (do-it-with-others).

Media and entertainment becomes a catalyst for a wider dialogue
For Sean Flynn, an indepedent filmmaker and Producer of the Points North Documentary Forum, the most exciting possibility right now is, “location-based participatory storytelling,” pointing out that software like Ushahidi can, “extend the web to anyone in the developing world with a cell phone.” He’s been observing the proliferation of mobile apps that, “happened much more quickly than anything dependent on broadband.” Flynn looks at this and is rethinking what he does, saying, “as a filmmaker thinking about interactive, participatory models of storytelling, these technologies force me to reconsider the concepts of authorship and ownership,” changing the role of the filmmaker. Flnn reflects, “the content I produce isn’t necessarily the end result of my work, but can be a catalyst for a wider dialogue.” Flynn concludes that, “media and entertainment are no longer just about delivering a message or story through content, it’s about facilitating social interactions, dialogue, and community.” Perhaps it’s always been that way but to Flynn, the web is “opening up more feedback channels.” In addition to Ushahidi,Flynn as also been looking at Zeega and VoIP Drupal as possible tools of production for his next documentary project in India. He points to Mapping Main Street (by the co-founders of Zeega) as a good example of participatory documentary.

Big media talent listening and talking with their audience
For Steve Garfield, a video blogger and author of Get Seen: Online Video Secrets, the most significant trend in media and entertainment today is, “talent, from big media, listening and talking to their audience, social media is driving this change.” Garfield has observed that, “many old-timers are figuring this out, sometimes too late. He tells me about several stories in which, “news anchors, posting on a Facebook page, get fired from their jobs, only to hear form hundreds if not thousands of people that say they are going to miss the anchor on TV.” Garfield points out the cultural divide, “it comes as a surprise to these news people that they can interact with the audience.” But this is changing, now there is a growing number of TV journalists you can subscribe to right now in response to this trend of connecting with the audience. Garfield explains that several years ago, “I became friends with Jimmy Fallon because of his video blog, he reads, comments and responds,” (related video). Garfield adds, “I regularly chat with the FOX 25 news anchor, Maria Stephanos, on twitter, where she shared her cookie recipe with me.” (related blog post).

High speed internet connections/instant gratification
Jeremy Osborn, an Adobe products training specialist, believes that “high speed broadband connections are more important than ever since they facilitate instant access to media.” Osborn observes that his 10 year old son’s relationship with online media, “reminds me of myself as a kid but with books in the library” but in his son’s case, the relationship is with movies. Kids are growing up with a lot more motion media consumption and are accustomed to getting it on demand vs. appointment, compared to the previous generation, and this will drive huge changes as these kinds become adults. Osborn is, “ambivalent about this ‘instant gratification’ tendency,” and, “think it opens up a lot of troubling issues, but without a doubt it is a macro trend.” On a lighter note, Osborn points me to Adrian Curry’s posts offering critique on movie posters.

Hollywood is driving the divide between major and indie films farther apart
Zak Ray, a recent film school graduate currently working as a freelance cinematographer and editor, thinks one of the most interesting trends, “has not been a shift in the content itself, but rather the way it’s consumed, indeed, when content has shifted in recent years, the cause can often be traced to modes of consumption.” He suggests one example of this is, “the proliferation of transmedia,” and continues, “whether you like it or not, this is a format created entirely as a response to those consuming media on a variety of platforms, and as web series have shown us, such content need not exist only in support of a broadcast television show or feature film, and some content may actually be better suited to the web.” Ray points out that the economics of this trend can’t be ignored, “the ability to distribute one’s film on web and mobile channels is both a blessing and a curse, the blessing is that it’s free; combined with the democratization of every aspect of the filmmaking process. As a representative of the generation of filmmakers Ray does not have to raise a $1,000,000 budget, nor even $10,000, to make his next film. The flip side, Ray continues, is that, “monetizing such distribution has not yet been solved in any meaningful way, the notion of the internet being free is a hard one to break, and even with much web content moving from free to fee (read: paywalls), consumers seem unwilling to shell out for digital goods, with exception to subscription services like Netflix.” Ray laments, “that’s assuming the customer decides to pay at all, piracy plays no small role in this.” As far as the major industry players are concerned, Ray observes, “Hollywood seems to be driving the divide between major films and indies further apart, the result being the consolidation of all their eggs into summer tentpole baskets, and the relegation of smaller filmmakers to the web and other platforms.” Ray expresses concerned that there is, “very little in between, not necessarily a bad thing, but something filmmakers will have to learn to fit their films into.”

Photo credits:
1. People-Watching by Stuart Richards (CC BY-ND)
2. Tools are Transparent by Philippe Lejeune (CC BY-NC-SA)
3. 6,000 Students by Nathan Felde (Copyright 2011 by Nathan Felde)

Minor revisions were made to this document on October 17, 2011 to correct missing links and fix some typos..

1. Broadcast Network => Group Forming Network

We’re seeing a gradual decline in television audiences while people are spending more time on social networks and this is wreaking havoc on business models. A traditional broadcast network grows in value along a linear scale, therefore the community value can be calculated based on the number of viewers. The value of social networks (a.k.a. group forming networks) grows along a very different curve as dictated by Reed’s Law. The significance of Reed’s law is that eventually the network effect of potential group membership can dominate the overall economics of the system. David Reed discovered that the community value of large networks–particularly social networks–scales exponentially with the size of the network. The number of possible sub-groups of network participants is 2 to the power of n, where n is the number of participants. This explains the phenomenal growth in the value of social networks. Adding an additional 100,000 viewers to a television audience of 1 million is no big deal, but adding 100,000 network participants to a 1 million participant social network has a significant effect of the value of participation in the network. Networking pioneer J.C.R. Licklider wrote in 1968, “we form communities of common interest, not common location.” David Reed explains these concepts in the article “Weapon of Math Destruction: A simple formula explains why the Internet is wreaking havoc on business models” (Context Magazine, Spring 1999, link) along with “That Sneaky Exponential—Beyond Metcalfe’s Law to the Power of Community Building,” a companion article originally published as an online suppliment to the “Weapon of Math Destruction,” article.

2. Institutional Funding => Crowd Funding

The internet and a growing number of people paricipating in a variety of online communites is making it possible to raise money for creative projects online. Two services that stand out inlcude: IndieGoGo and
Kickstarter. These services differ in siginifiant ways in terms of how they operate. Kickstarter is a community limited to fundraising projects that meet their curatorial goals, and projects don’t receive any money unless the fundraising goal is reached. This is good in terms of providing funders confidence their money will go to a project that will be completed. On the other hand, IndieGoGo is an open community allowing anyone raise money for their creative project. If you don’t make your goal, you can still keep the money you raised to put towards your project, however, a lot of funders might not like they’ve given money to a project that does not have the funds needed to be completed. To some people this seems to give Kickstarter the edge with their all or nothing approach. At this time, Kickstarter is only available for projects made in the United States and you must have a U.S. bank account and a U.S. place of residence in order to use the service (even though contributions can come from anywhere in the world). In favor of IndieGoGo is that it’s open to any project (not just creative, and no gatekeeper) and they have a more global perspective with campaigns in almost every country. This year (so far) fourteen films have made it to top festivals after crowdfunding on IndieGoGo, see: “IndieGoGo Films Showcased at World-Class Festivals in 2011” (Adam Chapnick, Tribeca Future of Film, September 30, 2011). There’s a rapid rise in the number of creative professionals leveraging crowd funding to support their work. One of the most impressive examples to date is Jennifer Fox’s Kickstater campaign for My Reincarnation in which she raised over $150,000 in order to get her film into distribution, she shares what she learned doing in her guest post, “How MY REINCARNATION Broke All Kickstarter Records & Raised $150,000” on Ted Hope’s blog.

3. Independence => Interdependence

In our connected world, filmmakers are moving away from the paradigm of “independent” filmmaking and embracing the notion of “interdependent” filmmaking. Unlike many industries, we’re not in competition with each other and we can benefit more from cooperation. This idea is being championed by Tiffany Shlain, Her film Connected is about the impact of the Internet on our lives and a call for to embrace a new philosophy of interdependence, for more details see see: 10 Big Ideas for the Future of Film by Tiffany Shlain (Mediashift/PBS.org, April 20, 2011) and The Power Of One: Food For Thought 2011 by Sawn Parr (Fast Company, Jun 1, 2011).

4. Oligopoly => Constellation of Gatekeepers

Once upon a time talented filmmakers and/or promising projects would be discovered and/or packaged by the Hollywood studios. With high barriers to entry (e.g. specialized knowledge, scarce resources, a lock on distribution, etc.) the major studios has a tight control on the industry and operated like an oligopoly. With access to inexpensive digital technology for production and postproduction–along with social media making it possible to establish a connection with an audience–filmmakers with the talent and drive to make it have the ability to take themselves from a state of being unknown talent to becoming popular with an audience through a process of lots of hard work developing an audience on their own. It used to take an influential executive at the studio to give you a green light for a project, now you can take your work directly to an audience an see if what you’re doing resonates with them. It may still take lots of money to make a film, but the ecosystem is growing into a constellation gatekeepers working a variety of levels, for example, film production is not within reach of many organizations who may choose to fund films that promote their agendas. One example that stands out is Paranormal Activity (Oren Peli, 2007) a supernatural horror film. It was originally produced as an independent feature with a home movie camera, but was later acquired by Paramount Pictures after a representative saw the film and was impressed. It has become a very profitable film along with a very effective social media marketing campaign, see “Paranormal Activity Rides the Social Web to Millions at the Box Office” by Christina Warren (Mashable, October 13, 2009). Realistically, cases like Paranormal Activity are the rare exception to the rule, it’s still as hard as ever to find an audience, but it you have a film that resonates with an audience, there are less factors in your way, as the oligopoly has given way to a constellation of gatekeepers that are more attuned to enabling rather than limiting your potential. Scott Kirsner’s book, Fans, Friends And Followers provides a good survey of how various people have developed their audience in the new media landscape.

5. Auteurs => Collaborations

Normal Hollyn, an editor, teacher, and author of The Film Editing Room Handbook (now it a 4th edition) wrote a delightful blog post titled, “Collaboration and Why The Auteur Theory Is Bull,” in which he argues that, “it’s impossible to make a film by yourself.” He points out that not every idea the director is going to have is good, and not all good ideas are going to come from the director. Film is a highly collaborative art form. Hollyn suggests the ideal way to work with any creative person is to, “come to the table with an idea (the ‘thesis’), let that person come up with a different idea (the ‘antithesis’) and then to let those two opposing notions contribute to a third, usually better, idea (the ’synthesis’).” Hollyn argues that directors who think they are the, “sole auteurs of their work, and are too afraid or guarded to open up to other ideas, will generally miss out on those ‘third, usually better’ ideas, and their work will suffer.” Today it is easier than ever with email, Twitter, Facebook, DropBox, etc. to share and communicate and keep an open dialog as a project develops over time. But these just facilitators. The important trend is a change in mind-set in terms of what it means to be an “auteur” vs. “visionary” director. A visionary director can articulate a clear vision while orchestrating the process of synthesis that Hollyn discusses in his essay, which leads to the best work. Even Orson Welles, perhaps one of the greatest “auteurs” in Hollywood history, surrounded himself with amazing collaborators who made significant contributions to his films. He had so much respect for Greg Toland’s cinematography that he shared a title card with him. Behind the most successful “genius,” whether it be an Orson Welles or a Steve Jobs, is not an auteur in the classic sense of the term, but a visionary who collaborates effectively with creative people. There’s a huge difference between the two, and the difference boils down to creating an environment that supports synthesis.

6. Media Objects => Media Fabric

I believe Blu-Ray disks are the last physical media distribution format consumers will ever see. Everything is moving to the cloud. I love the convenience of Netflix streaming and I find it annoying I still have to wait for many movies to arrive as DVDs. Why can’t they all simply be streamed to my Mac or iPad? While licensing deals will keep a lot of media tied up in knots for a while, eventually it will all end up on the cloud. See “Apple, Hollywood Close To Streaming Movie Deal?” by Thomas Claburn, Information Week, October 13, 2011) and “Movies in the Clouds” by By Michelle Kung (Wall Street Journal, October 11, 2011). But the concept of Media Fabric (which I borrow from Glorianna Davenport) goes way beyond the notion of media living on the cloud. Davenport’s idea is that of, “a semi-intelligent organism where, lines of communication, threads of meaning, chains of causality, and streams of consciousness converge and intertwine to form a rich tapestry of creative story potentials, meaningful real-time dialogues, social interactions, and personal or communal art- and story-making.” The idea is that media is becoming something integrated into our everyday lives, connecting us in new ways that we are shaping through the very process of our interaction with each other. See “Media fabric — a process-oriented approach to media creation and exchange” by Glorianna Davenport, et. al.

7. Specialized Competence => Media Literacy

Media was was once the domain of specialized individuals working in specialized organizations. Today, the trend is towards media production and dissemination becoming a core competency of every organization, as well as every individual. Many of us shoot a lot of casual video to share with friends, which helps us develop a sense for working with a camera. Increasingly we are purchasing smart phones equipped with spectacular cameras. Small videocameras like the Canon VIXIA provide high-quality high-definition images in the form-factor of a small camcorder. Things like smart-auto focus with face recognition makes it easy to produce good, sharp, point-and-shoot video. The ubiquity of video cameras has made it easy for anyone to pick up a camera and try their hand at media production. In the late 1990s it was essential for everyone to have a web site. Today it has become essential to enhance that web site with video. With video sharing sites like Vimeo and YouTube, we have at our fingertips an easy way to share video with others. With all the traditional barriers gone, writing with a camera is poised to become almost as ubiquitous as writing with a word processor. See my blog post, “Cinema will eventually become a flexible means of writing.”

For additional perspectives on these trends, see my companion post, “Researching Seven Macro Trends,” which provides a survey of the background research I did while preparing for this presentation. It includes micro-interviews with: Patricia Aufderheide, Perry Bard, Philip Hodgetts, Brian Lucid, Caroline Blair, Charles Papert, Steve Garfield, Chuck Green, Geo Geller, Jon Goldman, Julie Mallozzi, Kathryn Dietz, Kevin Brooks, Lee Morgenroth, Nathan Felde, Philippe Lejune, Ryan Evans, Slava Rubin, Zak Ray, Anne Marie Stein, Audrey Kali, and Brian Henderson.

This post was revised on October 17, 2011 to fix some typos and links.

I’ve been contemplating the evolution of the documentary this summer and I was delighted to see that The MediaGuardian’s recent Sheffield Doc/Fest 2011 coverage includes ten articles providing a refreshing perspective on how documentary makers are finding new ways to reach their audience. These articles provide a view into a crystal ball in which we can begin to see a vision of the future. Here are links to the articles, worthwhile reading and a good starting point for further reflection and discussion.

Social media influences documentary-makers
Social media have had a truly revolutionary effect, enabling film-makers and citizens to disseminate their own stories

Adam Curtis: happy to be different
The maker of classic documentary series such as The Trap and The Power Of Nightmares believes he is still learning his trade

New technology opens up documentary-making
Recording devices are always evolving – from 16mm cameras to iPad apps – offering film-makers the chance to innovate

Jay Hunt: Social media promotes a better viewer experience
Using multiplatform and social media is an incredibly important part of what we’re doing at Channel 4

Can you make a film and a profit?
Making money from documentaries is no easy task, but there are some business models that are generating revenues online

How the internet is galvanising support for social justice documentaries
Films that form part of a campaign for social justice are regularly appearing online – greatly increasing their reach and impact

Tools of attraction: creating multimedia content for games and TV shows
Audiences now expect stories to be told in new ways across different platforms, but commissioners often fail to produce compelling ‘transmedia’ content

The impact of Twitter on TV shows
For producers, posts on Facebook and Twitter are seen as indicators of success – but do they influence ratings?

BBC documentary boss wants programmes that do more than entertain
Commissioning editor Charlotte Moore favours quality and craft over feelgood and populist

Steve James hails a ‘golden age of documentary film-making’
Prior to his visit to the Sheffield International Documentary Film Festival, director says attitudes towards docs have changed

Image credit: Crystal Castles by Frogman (2008).

But the camera itself has never really been the ideal place to record audio, since ideal microphone placement is rarely at the camera position, so double system (a.k.a. double or dual source) sound recording (which was the standard in the days of film cameras) is coming back in vogue. Double system is the practice of recording sound and image separately in production, and then synchronizing them in post production. This used to be a laborious process, but thanks to new tools like Dual Eyes or Plural Eyes from Singular Software, this process can be automated in Final Cut Pro.

So what to record with? Professional location sound recorders can cost thousands of dollars. If you’re on a tight budget, don’t fret, you can record excellent sound with one of several portable audio recorders on the market. For example, the following four units are all under $300. and can produce good results. In the end, microphone placement is at the top of the list of those factors contributing to the quality of location sound recording for your documentary.

In a future post, I’ll look at some higher-end recorders (the downside of these little puppies is they are not as quiet as you would like them to be). In my next post, I’ll talk in some detail about some microphones to use with these small recorders and how to automatically synchronize the audio from them to the audio and video recorded with your camera using Dual Eyes or Plural Eyes from Singular Software. One comment about formats: for video editing, I suggest setting these recorders to WAV, 16-bit, 48kHz recording. Don’t use the MP3 format for location sound recording. It’s fine for notes, meetings, etc. but you want to start off with the cleanest, uncompressed recording. Better formats like 24-bit and higher sampling rates are overkill for dialog and don’t produce significantly better recordings with these little puppies due to other limitations in their design.

Manufacturer	Zoom (Samson)	M-Audio	Roland	Zoom (Samson)
Model	Zoom H2	Microtrack II	R-09HR	Zoom H4n
Street Price (U.S.)	$140	$180	$265	$299
Manufacturer’s web site	[link]	[link]	[link]	[link]
Recording formats	WAV (BWF): 16 or 24-bit @ 44.1, 48, 96kHz (Stereo) and 44.1, 48kHz (4 Channel) MP3: 48 to 320 kbps, @ 44.1kHz	WAV (BWF): 16 or 24 bit @ 44.1, 48, 88.2, or 96kHz; MP3: 96 to 320kbps @ 44.1 or 48kHz	WAV: 16 or 24-bit @ 44.1, 48, 88.2, or 96kHz; MP3: 64 to 320kbps @ 44.1 or 48kHz	WAV: 16 or 24-bit @ 44.1, 48, 96kHz; MP3: 48kbps to 320kbps @ 44.1kHz
Channels	2 or 4	2	2	2 or 4
Limiter/AGC	Limiter or Automatic Gain Control	Analog input limiter with bypass	Limiter or Automatic Gain Control	Compressor/Limiter
Low-cut Filter	Yes	No	Yes	Yes
Balanced inputs:	No	Yes (TRS, Mic or Line)	No	Yes (XLR/TRS combo)
Phantom Power:	No	Yes (48V)	No	Yes (48V or 24V)
3.5mm mini-jack audio input	Yes (Mic and Line)	Yes (Mic)	Yes (Mic and Line)	Yes (Mic)
Plug-in Power on 3.5mm mic input	Yes (2.5 V)	Yes (5V)	Yes (5V)	Yes (2.92 V)
Built-in Microphone	Yes (W-XY mic patterns with 4 mic capsules and signal processing allows Front 90° cardioid, Rear 120° cardioid and 360° polar patterns)	No	Yes (Stereo 2 mic in T configuration)	Yes (X/Y stereo configuration can be configured with 90° or 120° recording pattern)
Headphone output	3.5mm mini-jack	3.5mm mini-jack	3.5mm mini-jack	3.5mm mini-jack
Additional inputs or outputs	Line in, Line out (via headphone jack)	S/PDIF coaxial digital input, line out (RCA connectors)	Line out (3.5mm mini-jack)	Line out (3.5mm mini-jack)
Recording Media	SD or SDHC flash cards up to 32GB	CompactFlash (CF) or Microdrives	SD or SDHC flash cards up to 8GB	SD or SDHC cards up to 32GB
Display Screen	Backlit LCD	Backlit LCD	1.5″ OLED	Backlit LCD
Interface	USB-2	USB-2	USB-2
Power	AA Batteries or AC adapter	Built in Li-Ion battery (charges battery and can be powered via USB port) AC to USB power adapter included.	AA Batteries or AC adapter	AA Batteries or AC adapter (or USB adapter, not included)
Additional features	Awesome stereo imaging with 4 microphone capsules and clever signal processing.	Add markers to BWF recordings easily, includes electret t-shaped stereo microphone, software for editing and file format conversion, 1/8″ stereo extension cable with lapel clip.	Wireless remote included; speed adjustment effects; Cakewalk Pyro Audio Creator software included	Built in reference speaker, optional remote control, can be mounted on a standard camera tripod threaded mount. Four track recording takes two channels from the built-in mic and two channels from the XLR/TRS inputs. Can be used as an USB audio interface (sampling rate 44.1 kHz)
Commentary	Popular, value priced contender, great for recording live music and ambience tracks. If you need XLR inputs, check out it’s big brother, the H4n.	A solid performer. If you are looking for a small recorder to use with separate phantom-powered condenser mics, this might be the one for you, the built-in battery is it’s Achilles heel, it will not hold much of a charge after a couple of years of use. M-Audio charges about $75. for a battery replacement. If this recorder worked with AA batteries, it would the perfect portable recorder in this price category. The first Microtrack had issues with low phantom power voltage and did not have a limiter (essential for professional recording), and those issues got fixed with this model, I hope the battery issue will be resolved in version 3.	A solid performer, if it had balanced TRS inputs with phantom power, it would be the perfect portable recorder in this price category. While I own a Microtrack v.1, I use these a lot in a educational context and they have held up well with student use and are good for teaching with their nicely organized menu, logical set of controls, and crisp, easily to read display. Having a choice between AGC or Limiter is nice.	With X-Y microphones, 4 channel recording (so you can record stereo ambience with the built-in mic and dialog from condenser microphones or mixer at the same time, what’s there not to like about this nice update to the H4? One strange thing about the design is that the 3.5mm microphone jack is located on the back of the device, and the plug-in power voltage is not a full 5 volts, but does seems to work with a reasonable number of Plug-in Power microphones.

For a good basic introduction to HTML 5, see Dive into HTML5 by Mark Pilgrim. Rich media and dynamic web content has outgrown the ability of HTML 4 to describe the content of web pages. Video, audio, and dynamic interfaces that rival desktop applications are now commonplace. By adding additional HTML elements, HTML5 will provide web developers with a better way to describe the content of a web page. Significant new features include <video> and <audio> elements, improved forms handling, a <canvas> element that allows image scripting on the fly, and new ways of marking pages to support user interaction.

Video, especially, should be shown with a video player that is HTML5 compliant in order to include the new generation of mobile devices like the Android, iPhone, and iPad. With the right HTML5 player you can support HTML5 for these devices and newer browsers but fallback and use Flash in the event the viewer is using an older browses. Two examples of video players capable of this include the JW Player for HTML5 and the Kaltura HTML5 Video Library.

Industry players are currently debating the merits of HTML5. Apple, with its large deployment of iPhones and the iPad growing in popularity, neither of which supports Flash, has taken a strong position in favor of HTML5. Even after you factor away Job’s famous reality distortion field, he still makes a compelling argument for embracing HTML5, although Adobe might disagree.

Image source: HTML 5 Video Element – New Open Video Format Tags by Mark R. Robertson.

I would argue the film is not propaganda due to the fact the filmmakers focused on one woman’s story through which the filmmakers explored the injustice of the situation of El Salvador. Reminds me of the old film school adage, “show don’t tell.” The film was made in conjunction with CISPES (Committee In Solidarity with the People of El Salvador) and was a very effective fundraising tool for them, definitely in part to the film’s personal perspective. Viewers might disagree with Maria, her politics, her approach to the problems she faces, but they could not disagree with the reality of her life and the people around her. Not only is there no such thing as objectivity, the duplicitous “objectivity” of the mainstream media stifles real dialog, real debate, real understanding. I like my documentaries with a point-of-view from perspective of real people, and if the filmmaker has an agenda, so be it, as long as they are willing to go to bat for their facts and perspectives and the social reality they are depicting.

But I digress. This post is more about what makes this particular film interesting from the perspective of media technology history: the production of the film was made possible by the use of a new Sony Video8 camcorder that recorded high quality audio and introduced around the time the film started filming. This film was made at a watershed moment in documentary film history. The filmmakers have told the story (ref. Q&A session during a San Francisco screening of the film, circa 1991) of the first time they went down to El Salvador with their 16mm film camera, audio recording gear, and many cans of 16mm film. Maria’s response, in summary, was “with all that gear you can’t move fast, you’re going to get us killed” and the filmmakers returned to San Francisco and had to rethink how they were going to shoot the film.

This was just around the time that Video8 (and soon after Hi8) were being discussed in documentary circles as viable alternatives to 16mm film and Betacam SP for shooting documentary films. There was lots of talk about whether PBS would accept Video8 (and later Hi8) documentaries and the video engineers and film snobs were out in full regalia for this debate. John Knoop, the cinematographer on the project, came up with a solution, using Sony’s new Video8 prosumer camcorder, a small shoulder mounted camera that had high-quality built in audio recording capabilities with real audio meters, and he fashioned some solar panel powered battery chargers for the camera batteries. The prosumer Video8 (and later Hi8) video cameras, were lighter and a tad smaller than most 16mm film cameras like the Aaton LTR popular at the time, but they required more electrical energy than their 16mm counterparts, so a methodology of charging the batteries in the jungle was critical.

With the new smaller gear and a way to charge their batteries far from the power grid, the filmmakers returned to El Salvador and this time Maria allowed them to follow her and her army of children and men as they travel through the hills to their campsites in preparation for what they hope will be their final offensive against the government. With very little resources and a small number of weapons, they are not the revolutionaries we see in movies but this film is about a social reality we often don’t see. Revolutionaries who are also mothers, fathers, sons, daughters, fighting for basic human rights. No stars or effects or steadicam or sweeping crane shots in this film. Just life as the filmmakers observe it day to day living under harsh conditions. The quality of the video image actually works in favor of this film, constantly reminding you this is a mediated experience, not a mimetic virtuality.

The film is also interesting because for the theatrical release the filmmakers had no choice but to produce a film print. This was at the time that a post firm in Los Angeles called Image Transform has perfected a video to film process that was helping filmmakers make film prints that looked good enough to entice some distributors and theaters to program films that had been shot in video. We don’t get hung up on shooting medium these days, but circa 1990 people sure did. The video vs. film as an acquisition medium debate was raging like a California wildfire.

The film is primarily a document of political struggle, but it’s also a turning point technologically because it was among the first films shot in Video8 that presented a compelling and important portrait that could not have been made with the analog photo-chemical film medium. The electronic Video8 format provided for a smaller camera, recording sound and picture in the same camera (16mm required the use of a separate Nagra 1/4″ tape recorder) which further reduced the technological overhead, making this film possible.

The use of a small video camera improves the filmmakers ability to record everyday life in a more intimate fashion. One of the more poignant scenes in the film is when Maria travels back to her home village, devastated by long years of fighting, and talks about the events that transformed her from a young girl into a guerrilla leader, and the story is all the more intense through the unvarnished video image with it’s matter-of-fact starkness, we observe how she’s become a hero to her people, inspiring her troops as they prepare to engage with the government.

There’s another scene I remember in the film when Maria, her soldiers, and the filmmakers are attacked by government troops. The filmmakers dive for cover. The camera, dropped to the ground, continues to record the skirmish, and while the picture from the camera laying on it’s side is not interesting, the soundtrack is about as real as you ca get and brings you there into the moment in a manner that post-production sound effects just can’t do, you know this soundtrack is real, it’s a part of Maria’s life. For this scene, the filmmakers take the actual audio footage of the attack and lay over it images they had shot at a different time. We’re a visual culture and we need images as a frame upon which to experience a film, even though sound carries most of the emotion. Some people complained that it was a re-creation. The documentary purists cried foul. But they did not understand the role of sound in conveying the so-called reality of the moment, and providing authenticity, but that’s a whole other discussion.

At their best, documentary films provide us with points-of-view we could not, or would not (possibly due to ideological bias), ever see on our own. They are extensions of our collective selves that allow us to share social reality with others, and the evolution of cameras from analog film, to analog video, and finally to digital video has made it possible to show so much more, to go places that we could not have gone before. Maria’s Story was made at a very important inflection point in this history, among the first films to show us a social reality we would not have been able to see here in the United States had it not been for the introduction of viable prosumer camcorder with decent image and audio quality from Sony.

I saw the film and heard the filmmakers talk seventeen years ago, so my memory might be sightly inaccurate here and there, but the gist is right. The film is currently available for purchase from Amazon.com. A wonderfully effective example of intimate documentary filmmaking and making good use of new technology to produce a story that otherwise could not have been told.

Note: A 20th anniversary edition of the film was released April 20, 2010 on DVD. This post was updated on July 9, 2011 with new links to the Maria’s Story web site and the Maria’s Story page on Amazon.com. The original edition of the film is no longer available from the original distributor, Filmmaker’s Library.

With a keen attention to multiple perspectives, Kirsner presents the view of industry executives who are reluctant to innovate, and contrasts their views with the innovators who have advanced the many technologies like projection, color, sound, non-linear editing, digital projection, internet distribution, etc. that have transformed the industry over a century of change and revived it over and over again for many generations of audiences. Inventing the Movies is a lively book of interest to innovators in any field, as well as people who love movies and want to take a look at the business and technological machinations behind the many screens in their life: cinema, television, home theater, personal computers, portable media devices, and video-enabled phones.

Last week I did an interview with Scott Kirsner about the book, how the project got started, and what he plans to do next. The interview is currently being edited will be posted on this blog sometime before September rolls around.

The book is now available from Amazon.com. The book is also available as an e-book from LuLu. Scott Kirsners blog post on the book is here.

In terms of first impressions shooting with the camera goes, the first thing I noticed is that while the camera is a bit on the heavy side for hand-holding in “handycam” mode, the adjustable handle with the ergonomics of a pro 2/3″ zoom lens handle made it easier to use as a handheld camera. Of course, on a tripod the camera is right at home. A camera’s handholdability is all relative, I’ve grown used to shooting with my HVR-A1 and a friend’s Sony HVR-V1 over the past year, so I find the EX1 to be a big change in terms of weight. But the extra weight is worth it, for the image quality is absolutely spectacular. Goodbye HDV (and good riddance to videotape), hello XDCAM EX!

The PVM-EX1 features a 14x zoom with pro-style controls
and real focus and iris rings. More photos available on Flickr

There’s lots of serious glass in this camera, as the 1/2″ sensor requires a larger lens than 1/3″ chip cameras like the Panasonic AG-HVX200 (still an excellent performer). And while it’s still not providing the 2/3″ image sensor look of a professional camcorder, the 1/2″ sensors are a big improvement over 1/3″ sensors in most prosumer cameras. It’s easier to get separation between the foreground and background. I’d like to see Sony come out with an APS-sized single sensor camera (like a documentary form-factor Red) someday, but I digress. The EX1 is clearly not in the middle of the pro-sumer price range, it straddles between pro-sumer and low-end professional gear in terms of price. While the camera alone sells for $6,500.00, by the time you add a couple of 16G memory cards and extra batteries (which you’ll need), a wide-angle adapter, and a few other gismos, you’re looking at something hovering around a $9,000.00 purchase. That’s a serious chunk of change when you compare it to the HVR-Z1 HDV camcorder, but if you look at it another way, this camera does most of what the Sony PDW-F350 XDCAM HD camcorder does for much less dough. So it’s either a very expensive pro-sumer camera or an amazing price/performance breakthrough in professional level cameras.

Not all things are rosy, however. Audio was clearly a second-thought with this camera, with digital recording there is no reason why Sony can’t support four channels, but it only supports two. One of the features I’ve really enjoyed with the Panasonic HVX200 is recording camera mic audio on channels 3 and 4 while running audio from my mixer into channels 1 and 2. Having the ambient sound is a nice plus, as well as it often makes it easier to hear a director’s questions in an interview. Battery life is short, so you’ll have to buy one or two additional high-capacity batteries with this camera. In addition, for folks who shoot with a 35mm lens adapter, you’ll not be pleased with the camera’s inability to invert the viewfinder image. There is no ability to shoot in standard definition, so for those quick and dirty jobs that require standard definition deliverables, your stuck converting in post. But no camera can be all things to all people, and this camera seems to have most of the bells and whistles most people want.

Since I’m Macintosh and Final Cut Pro user, I found this camera integrated seamlessly with my Final Cut Pro workflow. I have previously worked with XDCAM HD and I found the workflow to be pretty much identical, except there is no need for a camera or deck. If you’ve got a MacBook Pro you’re all set, you simply slide the SxS card into the ExpressBus/34 slot. Otherwise, you can use the camera to transfer media via USB2 to your computer or use an external USB2 SxS card reader available from Sony. For all of this to work, you’ll need to download two pieces of software, the SxS card driver (from here) and the XDCAM Transfer Utility (from here). It was a snap to ingest footage, rename the clips, and bring them into Final Cut Pro. The much fast transfer time of the SxS cards was a welcome change from having to do HDV captures in real-time. And the footage shot in the HQ mode looks spectacular. Ahh, the beauty of real high definition progressive scan images, simply breathtaking. Some sample images and images of the camera can be found in my Sony PMW-EX1 Flickr set.

Minor revisions were made to this post on 22-Feb-09.

At Media Fabrics for Media Makers, MIT Media Lab, June 20, 2008, Nicholas Negroponte discussed the status of the OLPC project and was very frank how some corporations have actively tried to sabotage the project. OLPC moves forward undeterred with plenty of cash in the bank, excellent technology, a clear vision, and strong ideas for the next generation. Here he showed a prototype of OLPC 2.0 which is more like a book. The best realization yet of Alan Kay’s vision of the Dynabook is probably OLPC. There are many good reasons why OLPC is a non-profit. If you’ve not seen the documentary, The Corporation, I recommend it, it offers an excellent explanation why a corporation would try to sabotage a humanitarian project. While there’s a lot of talk about corporate social responsibility today, the economic factors are working against it day in and day out.

The origin of the name (which I believe came from a discussion with Steve Garfield during a brainstorming conversation we had on the name for this) comes from: Media: 1. plural of medium, 2. the means of communication that reach or influence people widely, 3. pertaining to or concerned with such means, origin: from the latin medius, central; Tech: 1. technical, 2. a technician, 3. technology, origin: shortening of technology, from the greek technologia, systematic treatment; Tonic: 1. a medicine that invigorates or strengthens, 2. anything invigorating physically, mentally, or morally, 3. the first degree of the scale, the keynote (music), 4. quinine water, 5. soda pop (new england), origin: from the greek tonikos, pertaining to stretching or tones; and thus, Media Tech Tonic.

If you would like to present at one of these meetings, contact me about it.

This post was revised 10/12/2010 to correct URLs that changed.