We at plugincinema asked, “Is it was time to reclaim film?” as part of the launch of the pluginmanifesto. The manifesto was our opening vision of where filmmaking, technology and the Internet could and should be. It generated loads of interesting responses. Steve Bennet of Iron First Motion Pictures has provided us with his alternative web-cinema manifesto:

Steve Bennet of Iron Fist Motion on the pluginmanifesto:

1) Motion Pictures on computers and the web are different from those in cinema and on television.

Web videos, as with web "pages", are more or less temporary graphic renditions of, and largely determined by, code in text files. They are not physical objects, much less any real equivalent of books, magazines, feature films, or TV shows - despite the fact that current design practice, and even legal practice, chooses to assume they are.

Web "movies", or the application/incorporation of moving images on computers and the web, exist in a different technical and experiential space than "film" and "television" do. The eventual purpose and implementation of them will likely be something quite different than those of film and TV.

Linear "cinema type" movies do not fit with the user environment, leverages, and motivations of either computer or web use. There are no computer "viewers" like there are with TV, and no computer "audience" as there is with cinema - there are only computer USERS, as in people who largely want and expect to BE ABLE to DO something.

Motion pictures in the form of animated graphics, typography, and video, as well as structural treatments like content transitions, moving layers of content, and animated and user-controlled combinations of navigation and content elements, can (within appropriate proportion and use) provide useful leverages in computer/web user experiences and communication that go far beyond what is possible using flat text documents. Remember, web users do not necessarily read huge amounts of text any more than they necessarily enjoy watching long linear animations and/or "films". Moving images can potentially say and do more than many lines of text in communicating as well as conveying/facilitating experience.

 

Images from film and images from the web… (left to right); 'Star Wars', Marlon Brando in 'Apocalypse Now' and 'Access Denied' by Carolyn Black.

2) Motion Pictures on computers and the web can be software applications instead of mere data streams.

Non-linear data and content access in the user environments of computers and the web is somewhat diametrically opposed to the linear nature of conventional film and video. Additionally, computer screens, and the subset environment of web browser windows, are not an optimal display environment for conventional films and television shows. Interaction with software applications could be said to be the dominant user mode for computers, as well as a base component of web use. Software fits computers better than television programming, but software can easily INCLUDE something "like" television sound, graphics, and pictures (and radio, telephony, photography and typography, etc, too).

The definition and scope of software applications can be and will be expanded to include all forms of media as data, interface elements, and content, and as such, these need not be constrained by the physical metaphors applied to web video and web music now being dealt with as discreet, inseperable "objects" as if they were physical reels of film or CDs on shelves, etc. (and that thus need to be physically protected like objects from thieves busting into the store). We see this in the applications used to "create" media, like NLE apps where we take bits and assemble them into a meaningful whole according to our purpose (in other words, we accomplish this, we don't "watch" it). Increasingly, we will see this in media delivery and "consumption" as well. Understanding this is a difference between, say, holding and moving physical "objects" and,,, "object-oriented" programming.

Software design and narrative stories both make use of "decision" (and attendant action) and "consequence", but each in a different way. Part of what makes, say, a Hitchcock film so nerve wracking is the LACK of interactivity, the inability to DO anything when you find out stuff the characters don't know yet. By the end, what you have is a happy ending and all, but you DO "participate" in the decision making process and "experience" consequences of it - albiet in a disembodied, vicarious, and passive state. In narratives, decision is what builds and reveals character. In computer games, decision is often reduced to a 1:1 knee-jerk, but sometimes comes quite close to something of a dramatic narrative. In software UI design, decision and consequence both determine useability, user experience, and affect the user's learning curve. These are some of many common elements in drama and software. Software could easily become more dramatic, and computer movies could easily become actual software applications. By "dramatic" with respect to software, I mean the structure and leverages of dramatic structure (not necessarily the "content" of it) as opposed to the other kinds of metaphors already in use for UI navigation and functionality (desktop, trash can, window panels, menus, etc). Its only convention that causes us to think of them each within certain bounds.

Video may be video, but computer and web video is potentially something much more. Add network connectivity, and you add the ability to composite tracks on the fly from opposite ends of the earth, perhaps overlaying a text article or narration generated via XML in a text file template or whatever. take a look at the entire body of MPEG-4 standards work. Video compression is just a tiny subset of the functionality of MPEG-4, and will likely be just a tiny subset of what is eventually going to emerge in terms of the functionality incorporating video and other media elements on the web. Consider running video as one of many data formats within larger applications, dynamically drawing in music from one place, video from another, and so forth, so that the movie is delivered and assembled in use. Dramatic narratives can be built this way too, as can symphonies or documentaries or whatever categories one might wish to use (or expand on). Right now, I think we're just in a phase of "the shock of the new". People are still really just grasping the idea of running video or music at all, in any manner, on their own computers. Pretty soon though, the shock will wear off, and people won't be so protective of the conventions of past media on/within this newer one. Its a big field, with a lot of the best thinking still left to be done. Video itself can be composited with other track types, such as HREF Tracks, which are part of the video timeline and turn the video (or just the sound tracks) into hyperlinked media. Hotspots can be added to video tracks to provide similar fuctionality, not only enabling navigation from clip to clip and between motion picture clips and separate applications, but navigation within clips themselves. It is also possible to enable or disable tracks in web video on the fly, changing the language of the audio, adding or removing titles or other text, or warping the video, adding/removing transparency, and/or altering many other structural characteristics. Web video is not confined to a standard codec and construction like, for example, a JPEG image, and even a series of JPEGs "presented" in the form of 24 JPEGs per second is,,, a movie in the conventional sense of the word.

The concept and framework of "movies" can be enlarged to include many of the aspects of what we think of as software applications, while at the same time, many aspects of software applications may benefit from narrative and structural ideas initially developed around motion pictures.

3) Purpose, facility, and interactivity are important aspects of software applications made for use on computers and the web.

I think it will become apparent that the real limits to/of the user experience of video/TV on the web are not bandwidth, but patience in the face of the interactivity and expectations of purpose inherent in the rest of the web and the rest of the software on people's PCs. There is already a good body of evidence to this among web useability observers, and the now common admonitions that web videos and movies should be short and to the point, and so forth. For example, of sites running extensive Flash animations as intro sections, there is a common joke that the "skip intro" button is becoming THE most hit link on these sites. I tend to disagree with the view that people are impatient with TV-style linear movies and animations solely because of the lower resolution and compression artifacts. In fact, there is a good deal of evidence that the mere interactivity of any button or link appearing NEXT to such animations and movies is eventually seen as more compelling than the prospect of sitting stationary at a desktop PC while something plays out from A to B with no other potential for active participation or action given.

Expanding and cross-pollinating these things is especially made possible when any given media is absorbed into another of which it is just a subset, the way radio content is a subset of television content, or a brochure page, an arrangement of text and images, is a tiny subset of what is possible in a web site. The same will happen with motion pictures on computers and the web. At first, they are merely "presented", and later, we start to go a quite beyond just that. It is possible right now, for example, to "present" a high-fidelity recording of a symphony over a telephone, but few would dial in to listen to it. Even if the audio quality were improved far beyond that of current consumer stereos, few people would want to use a telephone just to listen passively to a 2 hour concert. The same kind of thing is found to be true for "films" on computers and the web, and as/if web bandwidth is increased, as long as desktop computers as we know them today remain the user environment, it will remain true that few will want to sit down at a computer to watch a conventional feature film or television show. Its no wonder that televsision audiences have rejected interactive experiences in favor of passive viewing, either. This is exactly what we are talking about here, the ill-fated and ill-suited attempt to "conform" one medium into a completely different one. Similarly, people have actually rejected NON-interactive experiences in favor of interactive ones on both their telephones and their computers. User studies reveal that people click away from ("do" something) web pages that just sit there, even if they have a movie running in them, longer than a few minutes. People on computers who come to sites with long Flash intros voice annoyance at having to sit through from A to B before they can do whatever it is they called up that site on their computer to do or find.

4) The real place of video in computer and web applications is just barely beginning to be looked at. These won't be issues of, say, comparing the appearance of pictures in magazines to those hanging on the wall in a gallery, or the audio clarity of a live symphony compared to that of a telephone conversation, or even the resolution of web video as compared to TV or cinema.

The progression from low to high resolution and data rate will probably not be anywhere near as important as the progression of understanding the functionality in terms of network structures and interactivity within and between software applications. Heck, what we think of as "movies" or "songs" don't even have to be transmitted as single and discreet "files" like their physical counterparts - they can be composed on the fly (via software applications) from elements accross an array of servers at distant ends of the planet in direct response to user interaction and/or various other data structures, filters, and commands. Sure, video and other forms of motion pictures will continue to be used by people who want to be merely occupied or entertained in a passive way - especially within the construct of their respective familiar user environments. But computers in general, and much of what the web is now, is about being "productive" or "creative" - 2 things that few would associate with the activity of current TV viewers, but which will become important features of applications (and of web-enabled devices themselves!) using video and other media on computers and over computer networks.

Right now, its as if we are in a crash zone, where video has landed in computer applications, and software is coming in over the phone, but all many "web filmmakers" want to do is pretend to be 18th century characters like Cecil B DeMille - even as their own identity gets lost in a sea of databases! After all, this IS the future - and while you CAN be famous for 15 minutes, people will need a search engine to find it and even then, they will only pay attention for 5 to 8 seconds before clicking on something else.

Perhaps this is a great time to start exploring the true functionality possible with computer/web video as opposed to just the resolution limits as compared with cinema and television. At least its easy not to get TOO hung up on the (rearview mirror of) cinema and TV metaphors, due to the "offensive" visual difference!