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Abstract
A key feature of entry-level software tools is the emergence of various forms of automation to allow quick and easy generation of short video material. Higher level forms of automation are prevalent particularly at the prosumer or entry-level end of software culture, and illustrate how software culture serves more broadly as a realm for the evolution of hybrid assemblages of human and nonhuman. This paper addresses a number of patterns of automated practices within software-based videography, including the Ken Burns Effect and the emergence of mechanisms we can identify as ‘meaning-making engines’. These enable the harvesting and curating of networked material into a variety of cultural forms, encouraging both individual and collaborative practices that engage with all manner of data structures (including video). This part of the digital ecology is still in its early stages but nonetheless features experimentation with and expansion of ‘meaning-making’ practices that have implications for the nature and ‘evolution’ of user-generated culture (and for emerging documentary practices).
Funding
Royal Society of New Zealand (Marsden Fund).
Notes on contributors
Craig Hight is an Associate Professor in Screen and Media Studies at the University of Waikato. His research interests have focused on audience research, digital media and documentary theory. His most recent books are Television Mockumentary: Reflexivity, satire and a call for play (Manchester University Press, 2010) and New Documentary Ecologies: Emerging Platforms, Practices and Discourses (co-edited with Kate Nash and Catherine Summerhayes) (Palgrave Macmillan, 2014). His current research focuses on the relationships between digital media technologies and documentary practice, especially the variety of factors shaping online documentary cultures.
Notes
1. The emergence of HTML5 (the latest iteration of the hypertext markup language from which webpages are constructed), for example, allows the integration of video directly with other forms of online content, opening new data streams for algorithmic control (Pilgrim Citation2010, 151; Dovey and Rose Citation2012, 162).
2. CISCO announced in April 2011 that it was discontinuing the Flip series, anticipating a market decline as video cameras became ubiquitous within mobile devices.
3. See YouTube's one-click colour correct and stabilisation features: googleresearch.blogspot.co.nz/2012/05/video-stabilization-on-youtube.html, accessed May 2014.
5. As outlined by Arthur, this is a consistent pattern of experimentation and innovation in which a technology (very broadly defined) can be combined with others to create new technologies.
6. WIMP refers to ‘windows, icons, menus, pointers', which has been the default since Apple first popularised the desktop-based operating system where users interact using a mouse and keyboard.
7. These are interfaces where users are able to perform natural gestures to make their interactions as close to ‘real world’ as possible.
8. Wikipedia lists Muvee Producer as the first PC-based automatic video editing platform (2001), followed by Sony's MovieShaker and Roxio Cinematic in 2002.
9. www.magisto.com/, accessed May 2014.
10. With a free account, she can either choose to set one music track, or retain the original audio. There is a warning about posting to YouTube where music might violate copyright.
11. To some extent, this is a natural progression from the ability of digital cameras to preview shots, and hence to immediately delete those which are not deemed adequate, which effectively encourages users to edit in camera to retain the ‘best shots' (Rubinstein and Sluis Citation2008, 13). This is a stark contrast to traditional documentary editing practice, where the left-overs in ‘trim bins' might ultimately provide the most valuable moments in a film.
12. Again, this contrasts with documentary practice, where good audio often trumps bad video quality (filmmakers tend to assume that audiences can tolerate bad video if the sound is clear).
13. In particular, it is enormously difficult to differentiate between audio sources such as voices and rank these semantically.
14. vyclone.com/, accessed May 2014.
15. The site's terms of use includes an explicit warning to carefully consider the implications of uploading footage to the public domain.
16. Such as Zeega (zeega.com/).
17. Such as Popcorn (popcornjs.org/).
18. storify.com/, accessed May 2014.
19. My thanks to colleagues at Visible Evidence XX, Stockholm, 15–18 August 2014 for their feedback and debate on this distinction.
20. For now, let us stick to audio-visual linear narratives, but there is no reason we could not also talk about a variety of other kinds of constructions emerging from software-based engines.
21. This kind of AI is nowhere near the dream of constructing a separate and self-aware intelligent being, which continues to haunt the field as a whole.
22. www.youtube.com/user/lifeinaday, accessed May 2014.
23. beta.18daysinegypt.com/, accessed May 2014.