For assignment one, we were asked to complete a practical test that demonstrated one of the form based criteria of online screen production.
After much deliberation, my partner and I decided on the word ‘unregulated.’ During our first week of discussions, we came to realise how much content truly exists on the internet and how much of this content could be seen as useless and boring. In the past, creating video content was always seen as such an expensive process that needed to be really thought out and planned before it was shot and shared. In this day and age, anyone has the potential to shoot anything at all that they like, which is what we decided to explore.
To explore this idea, we decided to use the Apple Screen Capture feature on one of our iPhones to record our typical phone usage for half an hour. From here, we posted the video on Youtube as a ‘Half an hour on my phone’ video. We felt that creating a video that just showed the screen of a phone for half an hour with long expanses of time where only the home screen was displayed was a highly unregulated video, both in terms of content and length, as the content itself was not overly interesting or useful and expanded across quite an unnecessary amount of time. Despite the fact neither of us had used the Screen Capture function before, we felt it did work quite well to show off how we would typically use our phones.
The piece of work we created is not an uncommon form of online screen media. These days, Youtubers are creating videos where they literally explain to their audiences what can be found on their phones (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FjsQkOt553Q), with this even extending further to ‘What’s in my bag?’ or ‘What’s in my purse?’ videos, like this one by SadieSaysHey, that is literally a 9 minute video of a girl emptying out her purses. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nKoYTOXL9LA)
This experiment has helped to grow my knowledge from week one, as I have now come to realise how broad the spectrum of what can be considered ‘online screen media’ is. Prior to starting class I always saw online screen media as a professional piece of work. While I knew this could involve Facebook and other social media videos, I never thought about how other content could be seen as online screen media. Because the spectrum is so broad, the edges of what exactly can be classified as online screen media is still blurred in my mind. I hope to learn more about what exactly can be classified as online screen media throughout this course. Does online screen media stop at film and images, can it spread further? Do blogs count as screen media? Does The Akinator, an online app that is interactive and allows you to think of a well known person for it to try and guess, count as online screen media? (http://en.akinator.com)
Another thing of interest to me moving forward from this experiment is the idea of construction in videos. For our video, we wanted to create something really natural, capturing exactly how we use our phones and what we do. However, we actually did construct our piece, as we planned exactly what apps to use when and what we wanted to do on them. While so many videos on the net could be seen as the type where a camera was just switched on and something recorded, this is unlikely to be the case. I want to learn more about how online screen media of different types is constructed and put together.
Finally, linking to this idea of how online screen media is put together, I want to learn about what is involved in making more professional pieces of online screen media and the production process. For this test, we brainstormed our word, came up with our idea and mapped out exactly what aspects of our phone usage we wished to highlight. I want to understand if this basic plan we used is similar to what other people do with their own screen productions, or whether more professional production plans are used. As I am looking to make online screen productions for organisations in the future I feel as though I need to know more about the professional side of online screen production.
Funnily enough, when creating this test, I actually thought of one of the oldest screen productions to be made. In 1895 the Lumiere brothers made the piece ‘Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat’ , which literally just showed a train arriving at a train station. When making my own online screen production piece I felt that there were parallels with regards to the simplicity of the project they made and the one we did, despite the fact they are so very different. I also noticed an interesting similarity in the way that both of these videos on a basic level were probably seen as unconstructed or completely non-fiction though this was not the case.