SXSW postgame: Video for Web and Devices
As I make my way through all the panels I saw, I wanted to tick this one off the list because it was the panel with the richest potential, and the weakest delivery.
Pre-panel, I was juiced thinking I was going to get some technical insights on what plays best on the Web. h.264 at 30 fps before flash? What sized video has the best streaming rate? Is pixlet the best intermediary codec? Is there and future for convergence of surround sound now that the home theater market seems completely saturated?
Ok, so the panel wasn’t going to be that technical. Guess I’d have to hit NAB or IBC (I think that’s what that conference in Amsterdam is called) for people on the leading edge of worldwide video delivery for those answers. Here, they said, we were going to focus on narrative.
So then I started to get re-ramped up for a thoughtful discussion on what separates the chaff from the wheat in terms of narrative. What storytelling is working best online? What character arcs do people buy in to?
Well, by the end I found out it was really more about people touting their own wake in the industry than thinking about the unique position of narrative convention on the Web today, how convergence is happening, and where the future of online video most likely lies.
Even when I finally got called on to ask a questions directly about the future of narrative convention on the Web, I was blithely dismissed with a bunch of harrumphs.
But first, some background for those not in the narrative biz to understand what’s up…
So today’s Web video is mostly comprised of repurposed TV and movies.
TV convention:
Two-act narrative structure. Act one sets the stage and the conflict. Act two furthers the conflict, and then generally, quickly resolves it so that the characters can be in the same place that they were at the beginning.
Interestingly enough, this concept is beginning to fade with the advent of great programming on pay TV (weeds, sopranos, Lost), and with the Web. No longer does Higgins so consistently shake his head at a smirking Magnum tending to his wounds with a cocktail, or the Friends crew sitting down at central perk and "glad that’s over" as the credits roll.
But the medium of TV still hinges on extreme conflict, disappointment, and with reality TV, a healthy dose of humiliation thrown in to make the steak extra-juicy. No one loves fear mixed with extreme unresolved conflict quite like our cable news shouting heads — god bless our no-spin zones.
And then the narrative door swings the other way for Film, which is all about hope, and characters developing through conflict to become the better people we wish we could all be.
The classical narrative here is three-act, and you won’t see it executed more perfectly than in Hollywood perfection like Chinatown (written by Robert Towne), the recently re-released Princess Bride (written by William Goldman, you’re a freakin’ genius). But this is the Hollywood standard that you can catch in just about any movie churned out these days.
We’re introduced to a character and the basic terms of the conflict in the first act. As act two opens, the false solution makes everything seem so simple. Of course it’s not that simple, and as we’re introduced to the foils that will help our hero, the jeopardy rises exponentially, as does our understanding of our hero’s flaws.
By the time act three rolls in, it feels like there’s no way they’re going to get out of this jam. But, luckily, they are starting to learn from their mistakes, and they overcome the biggest challenges — evolving into victorious super people right before our eyes. Snagged from the jaws of death at the last second (one foil usually makes some kind of ultimate sacrifice for the good of the plot and main character), and trotting into the sunset.
Where a few movies have gone (and we’re starting to get to the Web part, I promise) is with circular narrative.
In circular narrative, you have a whole bunch of characters that are presented to you skipping around space an time, giving you a series of insights that allow you to piece together the path of the main character, her triumphs and tribulations as we find out what the story is.
Circular narrative done right is a pleasure to watch, like in Citizen Kane or Pulp Fiction or 12 monkeys (La Jetee). It can also go really wrong really fast, which is why you rarely see this convention used relative to classical. I give Daughters of the Dust as circular narrative done badly, but I know there are a lot of people out there that feel exactly the opposite.
In the video on Web and devices panel, there was a lot of talk about "non-linear narrative." Here, you have a small clip (like on current TV) that is surrounded by community comments. Thus, comprising the complete narrative structure of video+comments.
When you put this in the context of conventional film or TV, it sounds a lot like circular narrative. Especially as people constantly talk about the "99% of crap out there." It started to gel with me that this is because circular (non-linear) narrative is incredibly hard to do well. And when you leave it up to a bunch of anonymous commenters to complete the narrative with written or video comments, even worse.
But then where does that leave the future of Web video? Will we keep ping-ponging between TV and film until we find our way as a society to a communications standard that everyone can agree is entertaining?
I don’t know the answer. I’m not even sure I know the question anymore. But I do know that the panelists weren’t prepared to think about video on the Web and devices in these terms. Comments and clicks and remixes don’t point to the bigger issue of how people want to be communicated with visually, in a broadcast sense.
Maybe next year?
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