Dismantling narrative in video.
I may not be a typical web user, but for a while now I’ve found myself actively avoiding watching most videos (the exceptions are presentations from people I’m interested in). I think this is because my typical mode of usage with the Web is information-based. I am looking to learn and be informed, but on my own terms. I want to explore the threads that interest me, I want to proceed at the pace that fits me and I want to build my own themes and conclusions. I suppose that one way of describing the act I’m engaged in is story writing. I am weaving together bits and pieces of information into my own narrative.
Video doesn’t support this act. I feel held captive to the narrative of the creator of the video and impatient because I often feel that a “punchline” is being set up and I just want them to get to it. It’s not that I don’t value the story being told by the creator of the video, it’s more that my mode of engagement with the Web makes it feel tedious.
For a little while now, I’ve contemplated risking the scorn of Brian, with a posting about how video on the Web may be dead, however I’ve been spared that by today’s find (thanks Dave) of an annotated interactive video on YouTube.
I think this is going to be huge. Annotations don’t just enable interactive comments and message, any URL can also be an annotation (thanks Zemanta!). That means that different video steams, applications, sites, anything with a URL can be linked to video. It also means that video can be broken down into modular pieces and using annotations, viewers can disassemble, recombine and remix video on the fly.
I think it’s going to be very interesting to watch this develop. My sense is that this type of video creation requires a different set of skills from classic, narrative-driven video. I also think this has huge applications in the field of delivering video as a service.
