The purpose of this essay is to have a critical look at the contribution that Social Media is making and the effect it is having upon traditional film genres such as News and Documentaries. Emerging trends in Social Media are creating new sub genres blurring the lines between traditional news, documentaries and fiction storytelling. Some of the key things I will be looking at in detail: Is video content changing because of the devices being used to access these new genres? How is Social Media affecting traditional genres like documentaries and broadcast news channels? What are some of the new genres emerging out of social media?
With advances in technology, consumer targeted video equipment, software, and the Internet what is required to publish a digital video is now so widely accessible by most that literally anyone can publish their own videos. Social Media is rapidly becoming the new way that much of this content is being delivered, online whenever you want to watch it. What is happening in the online environment and specifically with user generated content is the key driver forcing corporate television networks and major production companies to look at very closely. Is it a threat, or an opportunity, what are the emerging trends in content, what is the next big thing?
Messages about the ‘next big thing’ video spread virally across a range of different platforms of Social Media incredibly fast. Historically traditional cinema was an absolute treat for the family - a circus for the mind eyes and ears. For a large family the journey to the cinema was a full experience, the outing followed by a meal, treats, popcorn and a block buster movie like E.T. In 1981 Special Effects created a new level of anthropomorphic horror that was so real and totally believable in An American Werewolf in London, even an Oscars awards category had to be created specifically for the film – Outstanding Achievement in Makeup. Going to cinema was much like going to a big carnival or show - plunged into another world or reality, the huge movie posters 12ft high and lit up, the smell of piping hot popcorn and then the screen and sound system itself a visual and aural overload of the senses.
But anecdotes such as these are possibly less impactful nowadays, as the experience is now online. Anyone with Internet access can go to YouTube and see a seemingly endless amount of user-generated content with a vast spread of genres being represented and created. YouTube gives people what they want to see when they want to see it. The world is much more instant with websites like YouTube where the experience is user driven. There is a new era of entertainment at your fingertips, one you don’t have to leave your house for. Facebook connects people globally as ‘friends’ creating a virtual social network with people uniting them on a common platform where you share all the video content you like. Traditional genres such as news, documentary, horror, and commercials are are represented but have been exposed to a new genre of its own, Reality TV.
Reality TV is constantly transforming itself as shows are changed and warped into different genes. Big Brother has to be attributed to be the television series that kicked it all off into mass commercialism. Big Brother gave us the ultimate experience in people gazing, for one hour a night you could sit and watch strangers who have been forced to live together for 5 weeks and made to vote one another off of the show one by one. A type of game show, a blend of news, documentary from the perspective of the secret diary vlog, comedy and at the same time intimately watching people interact and socialise, Big Brother had created a sub genre to Reality TV - Surveillance.
Similar to vlogging where a user appears to be just being habituate, existing and exhibiting their normal daily routine, Surveillance has the added attraction that the artist know they’re being watched creating a tension and often over animated responses.
This was an interesting time for emerging genres and sub cultures, as ordinary people were suddenly becoming TV celebrities with all the fame and fortune. At a similar time another reality TV show was taking off in popularity. This time the scene is Survivor; a cast of people forced to live on a remote island with limited tools and resources and then vote each other off the island. Hosted like a game show where contestants must play games for a prize a new genre based around a documentary style but under surveillance fighting for basic human survival. Contestants would lose radical amounts of weight and change appearance dramatically right as you follow along on live broadcasts.
This merging of genres from Reality TV and this surveillance aspect of watching people YouTube creates a new type of exhibitionism, stemming from both the desire to be in it, and the desire for it to be watched. People will do anything it takes to get their video up as the Featured Video on the YouTube homepage. But just doing something crazy doesn’t necessarily mean instant success. The content still has to appeal to the mass audience for a hit result, they expect fair representation and honesty in being dealt with. Teresa Rizzo calls this ‘the cinema of attraction’ whereby we are drawn to the virtual circus and it stems from our natural curiosity and sense of wonder. Social Media is creating a new connection between traditional cinema formats and the emerging genres springing from user-generated content. Social Networking evolved from people connecting, chatting and sharing into one worth billions of dollars and one that most big corporates are willing to pay heavily for. Of particular interest in this new age of film is the delivery of all of this content which now is becoming increasingly more popular on hand held devices. Broadband delivery on a mobile device and of course like the iPhone consumers are now taking the delivery of video content with them.
Computational power increases and the storage capacity and multimedia ability of hand held devices gets more powerful it is quite reasonable to take your favourite movie, news, documentaries, animations and music with you and share them just as easily.
Another aspect of delivery that is new is the ability for producers to get two way feedback and interaction with users as is the case with current film ‘Two Fists One Heart’ (Riley 2009). The Australian producers of this film released 30 minutes of footage on the Internet for anyone to use as a ‘mashup’. A mashup is footage and audio from different films and soundtracks or music and combine them together to create something new. This is nothing new in itself but the fact that producers are releasing this footage under creative commons before the movie is released in Australian cinemas is. The producer David Elfick made available footage that was otherwise wasted – cutting room floor content - and used the web and its sharing capability for delivery. It could be judged as a clever marketing campaign prior to the movie release but this creates the opportunity for anyone to work on professionally shot footage with full artistic license. The additional incentive is that the 5 best scenes created from this footage will be added to Disney’s promotional Two Fists, One Heart site, and of course on YouTube. Other emerging genres from YouTube are PR viral campaigns and docu-vlogging. The YouTuber boxxybabee is a enigmatic young lady with a very unique persona talking about who she is, what she likes, exhibiting very eccentric behaviour and prime example of the docu-blog. She pertains to be telling the truth and is honestly representing herself as herself and becomes a smash hit, her video Foar Everywun from Boxxy has more than two and half million hits (YouTube Boxxybabee 2009). Her reach is global and makes media coverage. Whereas commercial industry can dictate ‘what you see’ via Hollywood mainstream productions and success but with YouTube and Social Media the success Boxxybabee is still decided through public opinion.
YouTube gives every user the ability to make a personal decision and be involved in or have some control in the process of making a docu-vlog successful. The sharing of these instant videos via email and viral messaging as well as word of mouth and publicity stunts in some cases spread the word. Public opinion rules. No Hollywood director, clever PR campaign or inane amount of spend on publicity has an effect. This new genre is driven purely on public opinion.
The creation of social networking sites like ‘Facebook’ has only increased this change in digital media and cinema. Where YouTube was one the place to view the user-generated content of choice, Social Media itself has enabled the genre by becoming the platform to propagate your favourite videos. Facebook recognized the success of video sharing sites like YouTube and quickly incorporated its own video sharing capability. Networks of connected people globally realized that digital video could be cross-referenced or embedded videos on their personal pages. Every other social media site from Blog to Corporate propaganda site also recognized the opportunity to raise the profile of their own messaging and YouTube cemented its place in current society as the video sharing site of preference. From my perspective digital media and cinema changed forever.
An interesting aspect of this change is that the traditional delivery of blockbuster movies has not changed. It is reasonable to believe that the average family has a massive flatscreen tv or a massive overhead projector system creating a cinema at home, yet cinema still appeals and continues to fill seats. I believe that this is the extension of the cinema of attractions and the need for human beings to react and interact with each other. This is the atmosphere of the cinema of attractions. We laugh and cry together, react simultaneously and feel better for having similar reactions to the stranger next to us. We like the cinema. The bigger screen, the amazing Dolby Surround sound systems installed in today’s theatres forming a big part of the attraction and creating that atmosphere. Social Media connects our relationships and provides the platform to share and showcase any material. A user, or friend, posts a message, a picture, a video on an online social media page, every person in their contacts list sees that something something has been posted, they click watch and experience and by doing so alerting everybody in their contacts list of their interest in what I am saying, doing, experiencing and so the viral message spreads. New content is being created users and delivered online and it is very popular, and Social Media is having a prolific effect on digital video and cinema by the merging and blending of traditional genres like news and documentaries into docu-blogs and reality television based surveillance cinema. All of this content has a new angle to consider in that it has become completely mobile and portable. It has affected what we view on free-to-air television and cinema as much as it has affected traditional advertising and print media streams, and will be a key source for the emergence of new genres into the future.
Bibliography
Brie Byncild (2007). Adobe After Effects CS3 Professional. California: Peachpit Press, Berkley. 278. Ken Dancyger (2007). The Technique of Film and Video Editing. 4th ed. New York: Focal Press. 10. Anthony A. Apodaca, Larry Gritz, Ronen Barzel (1999). Advanced RenderMan. San Francisco, CA, USA: Morgan Kaufmann. 3. John Conomos (2007). Mutant Media: Essays on Cinema, Video Art and New Media. Australia: Power Publications. 31. Teresa Rizzo. (2008). YouTube: the Cinema of New Attractions. YouTube: the Cinema of New Attractions. 5 (1), 1. Jim Stinson. (202). Video Genres. Available: http://www.videomaker.com/article/8843/. Last accessed 20 March 2009. Duncan Riley. (2099). World first: cut movie footage released for fan mixing under Creative Commons . Available: http://www.inquisitr.com/20350/world-first-cut-movie-footage-released-for-fan-mixing-under-creative-commons/. Last accessed 21 March 2009. Mark Andrejevic. (2003). Between the New and the Old Medium. In: n.d. Reality TV: the Work of Being Watched. n.d.: Rowman & Littlefield. 1-6. CMNS6040 | Digital Video | University of Newcastle Marked Assignment 2 – Written Essay
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