I've been off reading one of my collegue's blogs about videos and learning, and this time I've got to get stuck right in!
"Why are they videotaping actual lectures?"
In the most primitive terms, the main reason is one of investment: money but more likely time. I'd entirely agree that video presentations such as
The Web is Us/ing Us are fantastic presentations: highly informative, imaginative and entertaining. But look at the requirements for production: It is made up of lots of text, typed in a large number of locations, transitions.
"It isn't heavyweight video stuff"
It may not be heavyweight in the tools required to produce, but it is in performance, and in performance 90% of your effort does not go into putting it together, it is deciding what to put together in the first place. I would also surmise that each of these producers is now fairly expert in using the tools to achieve the narrative effect they desire...I can just about guarantee that at some point they weren't and their first attempt was not neatly produced or fast!
So what's the alternative? Well you have people like me and my collegues or media departments who will quickly and neatly produce an archive of the content. The presentation may not be slick, or even very effective, but the content is there, and is usable. Yes, it doesn't provide much entertainment (unless the presenter is actually "good") but it is fast, and it is much faster. It is entirely concievable to turn around a live event to a recorded, re-usable medium, in well, 30 minutes (as proved by DiscLive & Instant Live).
And so to the comments...
Live lectures...yes definately a great resource for sources, background even just plain archival.
For example -- if I come across a passage that I want to capture, say, 34 mins 23 secs into the video, that lasts for 2 mins, how do I capture that easily without a video-edit desk or specialist software? I'll probably also want to embed it beside similar extracts, maybe link it up, comment on it, share it, etc. -- mashup! as you said. But I guess I'd have to download the video, open it with specialist software, view it, cut the bit I wanted, etc., possibly upload to another specialist tool to splice with other media. As I was saying in the previous post, 3D Rhetoric, we don't yet have the simple manipulative tools to match the potential conceptual sophistication that the digital environment allows us to create.
I hate to say it but this is a fundamental issue, each of the creators that Paul has used as illustrations will have used "specialist software". The software is so specialist that it ships on every Windows based PC...Windows Movia Maker. I must disagree with the "specialist software" comment, it isn't any more. Yes you "could" go out and spend £1000s on software such as Adobe Premiere, but there is no need. YouTube, Google Video and all the rest work on the basis that all these tools are now available to the masses for low/no cost. The expertise for all of these has been reduced down to drag-drop with instant review.
There has to be a distinction between "making easier" and "dumbing down". As a software developer I'm looking for ways to make things easier. So I could easily write a bit of software that allows me to cut out a bit of video and merge it with another. A simple program that does one thing...what happens when I want to merge 3 bits of video? Do I create another application that works with 3 bits? Ok I want to control the transistion between those clips...ok a 3rd program. I now have 3 fairly dumb, 1-trick programs that I can use. This is creating specialist tools!
Instead I'll write Movie Maker, which will let me drop an abitrary number of videos and transitions together, so I have one general tool...and then I'll learn how to use it!
