Story. Lens and looking glass.


I barely watch broadcast television any more - and all too often even the news is a victory of prominence over significance. I don't know about you but making an appointment with a TV in order to be informed, educated and entertained seems like a ludicrous thing to do in this age. Netflix and other online, on-demand providers enjoy an unlimited shelf space that makes enduring works available at a time convenient to me. Why do I want to enjoy these works? For the story of course. The dual purpose of entertainment has always been to both escape and explore reality.

There is a second problem, and it also applies to the film industry. Over sensitive to ratings, insipid commissioning is prone to choosing remakes over reinvention. There is a chasm of difference between the process by which great works are made and simply re-making great works. The latter is often doomed to obscurity because we just misunderstand story. We think of it as a manifestation of some creative aethereal flux, mystical even. Why does Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice endure so well? Could it be that it makes an argument for solving a problem that every generation faces - how to marry well? In his film Sicko, Michael Moore argues for a better healthcare system for America. Both are stories. Argument is not a word we often associate with story.

It is one of our oldest cultural artefacts, we humans are wired for story. Yet it is one for which familiarity has not brought great comprehension. Some of us appear to be born with a innate storytelling ability. For many of us it is an enjoyable mystery. Understanding its nature should encompass both factual and fictional stories within a single and comprehensive definition.

For a long time Astrology was a model of reality, a lens used to explore various facets of the Universe and their causal impact on life. Today, if we wish to make cosmological predictions then we generally turn to the science of Astronomy. Newton's insights into gravitation produced a theoretical description we could use to make useful predictions about things like how to fly machines around our solar system.

How might we usefully define story? Stories contain messages. Messages are nuggets designed to impact a mind. A story is a collection of messages encoded in a robust structure that retains its integrity through time, language and retelling. If a story is to stand alone and last then the intention must be to impact minds without recourse to the author.

We might define a complete story as a mind's argument for the solution to a problem. The power of complete story is thus immediately clear; it allows audiences to explore a problem and its solution in a way that is as natural as it is compelling. We continue to need stories just as we always have. They allow us to rehearse our own response to the inequities of existence and make them as our own.


There is a rabbit hole. I suggest jumping in here, here and the comic book here.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Framing Questions for Interviews

Image
The fourteenth century is not one which the English celebrate with any great pride - if, indeed, at all. The population had been halved by the Black Death, two kings wrested from their throne, and English dreams of empire had crumbled in the attrition of the hundred years war. Not quite the end of the world, but you could definitely see it from there. In the candlelit Kentish dark, and with his quill on vellum, the then Clerk of Romney wrote up his Register. Daniel Rough added a short epigram which may well have been his critique on the times in which he lived: Si sapiens fore vis sex servus qui tibi mando Quid dicas et ubi, de quo, cur, quomodo, quando. If you wish to be wise I commend to you six servants Ask what, where, about what, why, how, when. Some six hundred years later, the relationship with France was healing, the British Empire far exceeded expectations, and a journalist called Rudyard Kipling had a story published in a womens' magazine. The Elephant's Chi
Keep reading

Come on Steenbeck

Image
When I think of editing I still have a momentary image of a big blue table with six plates, the feeling of joining tape under the fingernails and heady anticipation of looking at an answer print. Steenbeck is ingrained into my mind even after years away from editing film. So I looked Steenbeck up on the web and they're still there. In Holland now not Hamburg but still turning out new machines and repairing old ones. In a fit of nostalgia I wrote an email saying how glad I was that they still existed and got back a very polite reply. But I think that they're missing a trick. Undoubtedly, the Steenbeck paddle controller is peerless in its sensitive control of the machine's transport. You can be so accurate with it from almost plate tectonics up to full rewind chat and its magnetic detents were in just the right place. That controller should be driving Final Cut, Premiere or even Avid because it's a part of editing! I can see so clearly in my mind how the film tr
Keep reading

IPTV World Forum 2008

I went to the recent IPTV World Forum 2008 show at Olympia. At least I went to the exhibition as the conference was quite expensive. As I walked in I was almost overwhelmed by the number of set top boxes on show. There were also a lot of head end server systems as well as myriad test tools and equipment. It reminded me of the IT trade shows I've been to. It seems to me that IPTV is hanging its hat on quality of service for TV distributed by ISPs like BT Vision whose model is so similar to broadcast as to be almost indistinguishable. One USP to the ISPs is that there are bundled facilities here to prevent churn - things like caller ID on your TV. My impression is that there are just too many players for the market to support. I think this for two reasons. First is that even if everyone deserts cable and satellite in favour of IPTV there are too many. But perhaps more significantly I think they have missed a trick. It's possible to get pretty much all of Freeview via the
Keep reading

Naked Bike Ride Southampton - A film

Image
Friday 11th of June did not enjoy the 'flaming' weather that tradition would have. Instead it was a bit cold. But this did not deter the 200 or so cyclists, environmentalists and naturists who met at the top end of Southampton Common to strip off and cycle into the town centre en masse. This followed an earlier ride in Portsmouth. Rob Jordan, a local IT specialist, organised the ride as a part of the #WorldNakedBikeRide, a global initiative to publicise cycling safety and dependency on oil. Some of the riders started at out Southampton's Art House to paint their bodies. At 6:30pm they set off to ride the route into the town centre and back. We recorded the following film: Here is a film of the event:
Keep reading

The New Producers Part 1 - Who is making paying content for free?

Image
Video equipment is cheap, and access to eyeballs has never been easier. But getting a sustainable return on the effort and cost of creating content is one big problem that has been killing traditional publishers. So, who is making free content that people will pay for, how do you actually monetise that content, and how do you create free content that people will pay you to make? This three part article looks at these questions. Part 1 - Who is making paying content for free? Part 2 - How do you monetise free content? Part 3 - 8 things you need to know to create free content that people pay you to make! A while ago, video was mainly the domain of the pro. And getting seen by a wide audience was next to impossible for amateurs. But now, traditional gatekeepers are losing their grip as prices for kit plummet. So, who is making free content that actually earns cash repeatably and reliably? A new wave of documentary is being made sustainable by social funding and free dis
Keep reading

News, fast and furious...

Image
Smartphones are increasingly being used to capture audio and video. Whilst it's true they are getting very much better, they have limitations which prevent them from achieving the best of their capabilities: they are so light it's hard to hold them still they have very small lenses which limit the amount of light reaching the sensor their built-in microphones often face a different direction from the camera and cannot get close enough for good interview sound. Much of the footage that they generate is used simply because it can be made and it's broadcast only when there is no alternative. We have become used to the footage from Egypt, Libya, Syria and the London riots. But smartphones are also computers, and very powerful ones. They can run programmes which are able to interact with sound, stills and video. Editing apps are becoming very common and they can take the footage and turn it into the same sort of packages produced by the long established equipment and pr
Keep reading

Trimming the taproot, St Malo Corsairs and the Falklands Islands

Image
For years I have spurned holidays as inefficient, stressful and self-indulgent uses of time. I must now suppose that there really is some good in them after all. A few days boating around the armpit of the Cherbourg peninsula had a surprisingly regenerative effect. Usually, I speed through to a more southerly destination, but St Malo is a treasure worth exploring. It is also the eponymous origin of the 'other' name for the Falkland Islands. The Malouines have been largely ignored by an English history still smarting from the tribute squeezed out of British shipping by these swashbuckling Frankish brigands. Corsairs who made the Îles Malouines their base of operations for a fleeting period of South Atlantic supremacy. In a St Malo moment of serendipity we met the delightful Kapiten Musiker Erling Matz of the yacht Elisa. He once jammed with ABBA in the early days. Now he lives the dream as a writer and journalist who often works with his photographer wife Corina. They make
Keep reading

Reality of iPhone Reporting

There are three main areas of concern over using iPhone as a tool for mobile journalism: • Video quality. Here is a side by side test of the 4S and the Canon 5D Mk II - http://vimeo.com/30606785  shows them hard to tell apart. But there are reasonable criticisms; shaky images and a tiny lens. To address these issues there is a device which holds an large accessory lens, weighs more and has many extra points of attachment for accessories and mono/tripods. The Owle Bubo now sells under another name but is still available. • Sound. There is an extremely expensive app, Lucie Live is Skype on steroids, which is currently used by broadcasters like the BBC. It can use the iPhone internal mic, which produces broadcastable sound. But, with an impedance matching cable from VeriCorder you can use unpowered or self powered XLR broadcast quality mics. The iPhone handles sound at above broadcast specs. If you need Phantom power then there are pre-amps you can get. I regularly use reporter, radio
Keep reading

The New Producers Part 2 - How do you monetise free content?

Image
Video equipment is cheap, and access to eyeballs has never been easier. But getting a sustainable return on the effort and cost of creating content is one big problem that has been killing traditional publishers. So, who is making free content that people will pay for, how do you actually monetise that content, and how do you create free content that people will pay you to make? This three part article looks at these questions. Part 1 - Who is making paying content for free? Part 2 - How do you monetise free content? Part 3 - 8 things you need to know to create free content that people pay you to make! Video is an engaging storytelling medium, and it’s extremely popular. But doing it well and often requires resources. But these can be expensive, particularly when making long-form content. So, how exactly do you go about acquiring the funding to continue making these films in a sustainable way? Generally speaking, channels and not individual films are what gain audience loyal
Keep reading

It's not Groundhog Day, it's oscillating between the horns of a dilemma

There is a central dichotomy for news media organisations. Doing the news properly is very expensive. To do the news properly means being completely independent. Funding the news generally depends upon advertising revenue. Advertising requires a relationship with the advertiser. This is a conflict because how can you have an independent activity when it is dependent, for its function, on precisely those from whom it should be independent in the first place? If you see what I mean. Al Jazeera is probably the most respected news service in the world - it will remain so long as it gets its funding from a hands-off benefactor. Second in reputation to AJ is the BBC's news service. It is funded by public license fee and is quickly in trouble with which ever government is in power at any given time. It's mandated to speak truth to power. It seems these things go in cycles. In 1896, Adolph Ochs bought and saved the New York Times by focusing on excellent and principled journalism.
Keep reading