Video Episodes:
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04:37:38 03/25/07
George Orwell, Campaign Strategist?
[LESS INFO] 2 VIEWS | ADDED 04:37:38 03/25/07
If you want a vision of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face — forever.
— George Orwell
The "Vote Different" video is raising lots of questions about campaign ethics (did Obama's people commission the video; is this a new low in smear campaigning) and the growing role of new media in politics. But I'm not seeing much discussion of "Vote Different" as a mashup, or of mashup/ remix culture , per se . That surprises me because it seems like a perfect illustration of what mashup/remix is for and what it can accomplish.
"Vote Different" is a good mashup, and not only in the sense of being skillfully produced. It's also good in the sense that it does what a mashup should: combine and juxtapose elements of existing works (and the meanings encoded therein) in such a way that the new, derivative work contributes something new to our understanding of that subject or item or concept. The point of using existing material isn't just to be lazy and avoid producing one's own work from scratch. Remix culture seeks specifically to activate the audience's systems of association and cultural knowlege — the messages we've already received and internalized and incorporated into our own "maps" of the world — and to then take that whole cognitive package and tweak it (recontextualize the familiar) to elicit new meaning.
I think the "Vote Different" video is a truly excellent example of how that works. The original Apple ad used imagery from an existing work, George Orwell 's novel 1984 , to evoke a sense of liberation from an oppressive world of bleak conformity and lack of choice. It did this very effectively, but not for the purpose of illuminating anything or anyone: it was just an ad produced to create a brand, not stimulate or express thought. The "Vote Different" piece takes all of the meaning crammed into the Apple ad and redirects it: now we aren't looking at consumers bored with the range of computers available to them, set free at last to buy stuff from a cooler company. Now we're looking at the public, the culture, ourselves, dully gaping as the latest Big Brother figure drones on at us — it almost doesn't matter who it is, the point is we get that it's the face of the state, of entrenched power, of a system too big and old for us to know how to change.
In this sense, I think "Vote Different" actually helps recover the meaning of the original work. Orwell created Big Brother as a way to talk about government and power and hegemony and coercion — not what color of plastic you want your computer to be. Apple trivialized that meaning in its ad (and faced similar criticism for its Think Different campaign, which capitalized on images of people like Cesar Chavez, Albert Einstein, and Mahatma Gandhi. "Vote Different" restores Orwell's original meaning and refocuses attention on something relevant to the original work. That isn't something required of all mashups or remixes, but it's an extra little bonus that I appreciate in this one.
As for whether "Vote Different" is an ethical kind of campaign material, I have to admit I don't see it as significantly different from most campaigns. Aren't they all using the same emotionalistic, button-pushing, id-activating, critical-thought-squashing, propagandistic message-pushing strategy? Why is it any different for George W. Bush to stand on the White House lawn or on the bridge of a naval carrier spouting slogans and catch-phrases and sound bites — isn't that just as manipulative? If someone out there sees a connection between Hillary Clinton's speech and Orwell's world of permagov and doublespeak, why shouldn't he manifest that idea as a video and put it out there for discussion? Honestly, I think that Philip de Vellis (who called his work a "citizen ad") has contributed something incredibly valuable to this campaign cycle: something intelligently conceived, clear in its message and intention, that calls for discussion of things we really ought to be discussing, not just now but all the time.
And while I personally felt some dismay at seeing Hillary get that treatment — I like the principle behind the video, not necessarily the content of the message — I wouldn't want to squelch remix culture or keep it out of the political realm because then we might never have been given "Imagine This" (video at right). It's another great example of a mashup/remix making full use of the encoded meanings in the original work, and recontextualizing the familiar so that new meaning emerges. In this case, the derivative work further illuminates a subject/theme/concept which it shares with the original — not always or necessarily the case, but done rather nicely here, expanding and refocusing rather than just repeating the original message.
And while we're talking about Orwell, here's a video of a guy getting arrested for asking Texas governor George W. Bush a question at a campaign appearance. Not removed from the event — arrested . The cameraperson gets roughed up, too. A disturbing look at very early signs of how our free speech and freedom of the press were going to go. As a remix or mashup, though, I have to rate this one very low in concept and quality: it's hard to tell whether the music and CG text are supposed to be ironic, scary, or silly. And the guy, Alex Jones , doesn't seem aware of how his behavior might be undermining his message; I'd think a smart conspiracy theorist would try to avoid triggering all those stereotypes of the paranoid loudmouth with no social skills. Too bad — I love conspiracy theories and hate to see them wasted like this!
"Vote Different" by Phil de Vellis, who says his message was that "the old political machine no longer holds all the power."
Here's the original Apple "1984" ad.
Here's the original Hillary Clinton video announcing her intention to run for president in 2008.
Mashup of George W. Bush singing "Imagine"
Alex Jones getting arrested for asking George W. Bush a question at a campaign appearance.
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00:06:44 02/13/07
A Hoax by Any Other Name
[LESS INFO] 0 VIEWS | ADDED 00:06:44 02/13/07
Bad media writing alert!
On February 1, Boston police arrested Sean Stevens and Peter Berdovsky for having put up several LED display devices around Boston. The men were charged with placing a "hoax" device intended to cause panic.
Media coverage of the resulting "bomb-scare" in Boston and of the case against the two suspects—specifically, the different treatments of the word "hoax" in headlines and articles—reveals how frighteningly easy it is for news writers to mislead readers and influence opinion out of sheer carelessness with language.
Let's start with a look at the word "hoax". Merriam-Webster defines it as "to trick into believing or accepting as genuine something false and often preposterous". The Free Dictionary says "1. An act intended to deceive or trick. 2. Something that has been established or accepted by fraudulent means". Given the context—harmless devices mistaken for bombs—the word "hoax" implies that the people who created the devices and placed them where pedestrians and motorists would see them intended to scare people.
It's pretty clear that wasn't anyone's intention. The devices were part of a marketing campaign by Interference, Inc. to advertise Turner Broadcasting's Cartoon Network program Aqua Teen Hunger Force .
We'll probably never know whether anyone involved ever raised a hand and said, "Hey, what are people gonna think when they see these unfamiliar devices with wires hanging off them, mounted in strange places like freeway underpasses and bridges?" Turner bought its way out of having to answer such questions for $2 million (to compensate the city of Boston for the expense of deploying emergency crews, and to ease the sting of the traffic tie-ups caused by the scare).
But even if someone did say something like that at some point, and even if that person got silenced or brushed off, what's the likelihood that anyone intended the devices to look like bombs?
It's interesting to see how different media sources handled the word "hoax". Some referred directly to the wording of the charges, for example CNN 's headline: "Two plead not guilty to Boston hoax charges". The article reports that Judge Paul K. Leary maintained that the D.A. would have to prove the suspects' intent to cause a panic, which didn't appear to be the case (though he said the issue should be discussed at a later hearing). So this story was in fact about charges of a hoax, not about a hoax . Fair enough.
The Christian Science Monitor put the phrase "bomb hoax" in quotes, which seems to invite appropriate skepticism. However, the article does not question whether the incident was a hoax; in fact, it privileges that interpretation by giving this quote from Gov. Deval Patrick: "It's a hoax – and it's not funny." The article ends with a reminder about the guy who faked an anthrax-powder alert and a lament about fraudulent fundraising e-mails that sap productivity at work, prefaced by this sentence: "Hoaxes and fake terror alerts can cost big money." Forget about inviting readers to question whether there was a hoax; CSM seems to want them to think there was, and to augment their disapproval based unrelated incidents. That strikes me as overtly manipulative as well as inaccurate.
Even more inaccurate is the The Huffington Post headline: "Time Warner Group Apologizes for Boston Bomb Hoax". The wording of that apology specifically reads: "We...certainly did not set out to perpetrate a hoax." Obviously, you can't apologize for something by saying you didn't do it. TWG spokespeople are referring to the incident as a "guerilla marketing campaign" and have never confessed to or apologized for attempting a hoax.
ABC's blog, The Blotter , featured this careless—and cryptic—headline: "Boston Bomb Hoax Blamed on TV Stunt." Huh? "Blamed" implies uncertainty as to who or what did it; some people blame X, some people blame Y. "TV Stunt" suggests something that happened on TV. Every word of that headline is muddy, except maybe "Boston" and "on". The strangest treatment, though, was the globeandmail.com headline, which put bomb in quotes, but not hoax . The headline reads: Man arrested for marketing "bomb" hoax. That one makes my "head" spin. (It also suggests that the man was arrested for marketing a bomb hoax.)
I noticed that on Jan. 31, the day before the two men were arrested and charged, NPR featured this headline: "Misconstrued Publicity Stunt Shuts Down Boston". Now that's an accurate and descriptive headline. Too bad so many news reporters were bamboozled by the sloppy wording of the charge—and too bad so much slanted and inaccurate writing happened as a result.
Here's the little dude who scared the pants off Boston. He's a Mooninite, and he's flipping you off.
Here's a video showing how the devices were made and installed.
(Globe Staff Photo / George Rizer)
Sean Stevens and Peter Berdovsky, who claim that their work is "guerilla art". That's another semantic issue altogether... At their press conference , Sean and Peter refused to answer any questions that were not about hair.
(AP Photo/Turner Broadcasting, Edward M. Pio Roda)
The fall guy: Jim Samples, Cartoon Network executive vice president and general manager, sent this e-mail message to his colleagues: "I deeply regret the negative publicity and expense caused to our company as a result of this campaign. As General Manager of Cartoon Network, I feel compelled to step down, effective immediately, in recognition of the gravity of the situation that occurred under my watch." He'd been at Turner Broadcasting for 13 years. Boston Mayor Thomas Menino commented, "Someone had to pay."
2 Views
21:20:21 01/21/07
The Death and Resurrection of Formula
[LESS INFO] 2 VIEWS | ADDED 21:20:21 01/21/07
I've been teaching media writing since 2001 — not all that long, but much has changed with the rise of new media. Not just in terms of production and distribution tools, though those have evolved and proliferated with amazing speed. Content is changing. Which means writing is changing.
I sometimes have difficulty getting my students to believe that they are writers. They see themselves as audio engineeers, camera operators, directors, editors, producers. But more and more, these separate jobs are getting done by one person. More and more, the media we watch is coming from a single author, or a very small team operating as an author.
And a lot of these authors don't want to write sitcoms, or crime dramas, or anything else they've seen over and over again on TV. Or they do, but they want to write it better . No one has to copy a formula to get their work "on the air" now. Perhaps the most important feature of new media is that it's different from TV .
This is a beautiful thing. It could save us from the suffocating affliction of monoculture, as long as we refuse to let it devolve into a small-screen version of old-fashioned, corporate-owned, commercial-sponsored television. I understand the urge to keep new media pure in that sense.
But I'm worried, too. "Kill Your Television" worries me. The "death of the sitcom" worries me. I'm worried for all those media-makers out there who suddenly have to be writers, because it seems like a lot of writerly knowhow is about to become taboo.
Yes, I know TV mostly sucks, but we should figure out exactly why before we issue a blanket condemnation of all things broadcast. I feel strange saying it, but I think there's a lot about TV that is worth saving. I feel even stranger saying that one of the things I hope survives is — and now I'm really taking my life in my hands — formula.
"Formula" shouldn't be a dirty word. Of course, most TV shows are crap — but not because they follow a formula. It's because they do so in uninspired, repetetive and predictable ways, and because they sacrifice art (which is original and risky) for commercial viability (which relies on imitation).
But it's silly to say that a bad sitcom is bad because it's structured as a comedy, or that a drama is bad because it's structured as a drama. Formula doesn't make a story boring; rather, it heightens the impact of the material by keeping it clear, uncluttered, and powerful. It helps the storyteller focus and strengthen the plot, create engaging characters, and send the audience on an enjoyable trip.
Formula doesn't have to limit or repress creativity; it can help a writer tell where, whether and why the story is working (or not working). If a story is going to engage us, it needs to be shaped, edited, structured — some writing has to happen. Decisions must be made about what gets told, in what order and at what pace; what gets omitted, or rearranged, so that there can be focus and clarity and meaning; what effects are achieved, what gratifications delivered, what experience is created for the audience.
When a writer knows how to tell what works and what doesn't and why, then any element of a formula can be rejected or modified. Some proficient storytellers (vloggers, for example) do this instinctively and so might think that they're not doing it at all, but we've all seen enough clunky, pointless and boring vlogs (and cable-access TV shows, and student films, and "experimental videos") to be able to instantly register the difference.
Do a search on YouTube for "cat fight" and you'll see where we might end up if we choose to forget what we know about storytelling. (And I'm not even talking about the porn.) I've chosen three cat-fight videos (at right) as examples of storytelling technique (or lack thereof), hoping to inspire my students and other new-media makers to take up the work of being writers.
I've done this because I dread the day when all there is to watch is people's cute cat footage, or unedited road-trip videos, or private musings in extreme close-up. Because, honestly, your cat is not as cute to me as it is to you; your friends are not as funny as you thought they were when they did that crazy thing you caught with your cell-phone camera; the raw footage you shot of the broken-down semi in a ditch somewhere along I-90 is not a pithy commentary on the economics of food transport or life in the heartland. It's just home movies — which can be a lot of fun to watch, but most people still prefer to go to the cinema or the video store or, yes, the dreaded TV, to see something that's had thought and craft put into it. The fact that someone was somewhere with a digital camera doesn't necessarily mean the result is anything anyone wants to watch.
So my hope for my students is this: that they think of themselves as writers. That they take the time to learn about story structure, and then hack the hell out of those formulas with precision, deliberation and skill. That they make media that brings light and life to the great world of people out there, watching.
Click on images to play
6,090 views; 5 comments; 11 favorites. This one didn't "go viral" (spread by word of mouth) and didn't generate much response. It's easy to see why: viewers have to wait through lots of nothing-happening time, and what little action there is doesn't build. Real life is like that: lots of waiting, events not effectively arranged in sequences with pacing and timing and rising action. But a good story needs some shape, needs an arc — or else no tension, no drama, no interest! 25,530 views; 2 comments; 10 favorites. This one didn't generate much discussion either, but it had almost 20,000 more viewers. It uses music to establish some context, and focuses on one event that has a bit of build; not quite telling a story, but getting there. 249,836 views; 116 comments; 986 favorites. Now we're talking viral! And the reason is obvious: at only 9 seconds, this video tells a complete story with identifiable characters and strong 3-act structure. Act I: Naive, overconfident protagonist faces a challenge; is ignored by bigger, wiser, more powerful opponent. Act II: Naive protagonist doubles his efforts, taunts the opponent; at first it seems his second attempt has failed as well (dark night of the soul). Act III: Climax! Powerful opponent engages, beats crap out of naive hero. OK, so it's not a happy ending. But storywise, all the elements are there. And the audience definitely responded.
9 Views
21:18:25 01/21/07
Character as Story: Meet Betty Butterfield
[LESS INFO] 9 VIEWS | ADDED 21:18:25 01/21/07
What about story as character, character as story?
If you've ever been in a screenwriting or creative writing class, you're familiar with the "character study." These exercises aren't meant to stand on their own, or even be read by anyone else; they're just a way for the writer to explore/develop/get to know the character.
Occasionally a film gets made that is actually a character study. The idea is that "the character is the story." But a character isn't "story" until placed in a context that allows meaning to arise. Then you have a character - driven story (fueled by character's dramatic need) — not merely a two-hour look at a character being who he/she is.
So a character needs some kind of context in order to "be a story" — that is, to generate meaning, to illuminate more than just a fictional personality for its own sake. But that context doesn't necessarily have to be a traditional narrative structure.
This is one of the strengths of new media : work can be crafted for specific purposes outside traditional genres, structures and formulas. For instance, the essay is a powerful form rarely used on TV outside of journalism/news editorials and film reviews, but proliferating online. Many videoblogs are basically personal video essays.
But the video essay is not limited to journalism or even "realism." Expanding the essay form into dimensions of fiction and hyperreality can allow even greater meaning to arise. Stephen Colbert's The Colbert Report is a great example of how the fictional element (character) can combine with the "real" element of news media to generate a more potent commentary than fact alone.
This is an area where character can actually "become story": juxtaposing the character with some aspect of reality (great or small) creates tension and meaning. The premise may be extremely simple: Character X records her own opinions and reactions to events in the real world. It is up to the writer to execute this in a way that sheds light upon those events, and perhaps even on our culture as a whole. By way of example, I'd like to offer three video essays featuring Betty Butterfield, a character who, over the course of 74 episodes, becomes a story : the story of our culture, the story of how we all make each other who we are.
You can learn more about Betty's creator here and here . All 74 episodes of Betty belong to the public domain and are available on Internet Archive (just search for her name in the Moving Images category).
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Like so much media found on the Internet, Betty was discovered by happy accident. I was browsing Internet Archive for public domain video related to Wal-Mart , and I saw her thumbnail; I thought it was a picture of a Transylvanian (as in "Rocky Horror" , not the region).
Click on images to play
Dig friend Betty's astute observations about late-night TV. Supremely one with her/our/their culture, she speaks for all of us; way down deep in our ineluctable reptile brains , we are everyBetty .
Ever heard the screenwriting adage "Show, don't tell" ? Well, if you ever doubted it, take a look — here's why. This hyperreal dialogue between Betty and her sister Bonita (and the camera) is infinitely more powerful than the standard-model public service announcement ; it skips the tired information, the preaching, and the spokesperson's lame attempts at sincerity, and gets right into ghastly.
What's wrong with Wal-Mart ? You can find out by watching this footage of a day-long protest, or you can listen to Betty for two minutes. Note the use of an unsympathetic and unreliable narrator ; Betty is an appalling individual, yet we learn so much from her... she is the Humbert Humbert of vlog culture.
01/21/07