I’ve got video envy. I work primarily in text (with the occasional photo), but I think a lot about audio and video content, and I wish had a better grasp of the language and metaphor of video (in theory, I’m a little closer on the audio stuff).
With modern tools, video is really easy to do really badly. You have to have the content, of course (which is where good writing and planning comes in), but you also have to have good audio, and then (duh) good video. If you’re lacking in any one of these three areas, it’s really obvious and distracts from your message. So good production values are key.
And then you still have problems with searchability and accessibility. You can do written transcripts, though that increases your post-production tasks even more (among others, the Wall Street Journal usually does a good job with integrating video — the article text summarizes what’s said in the video, and the visuals complement and enhance the text).
I don’t want to overstate the problem. Lots of folks have found a way to make video work for them, and if you’re a single talking head looking into the camera, all you really need on the production side is a backdrop, a good light (preferably bounced off of something), and a quiet space.
(If you’re primary ouevre is cute animals falling asleep or riding on Roombas, you don’t even need this.)
On the other hand, the consumption problem is trickier and doesn’t have an easy answer.
In order to get the most out of a video, you really have to be fully engaged — you have to be watching (not just looking) and listening (not just hearing). Even if you’re zoning out and watching passively, you still have to be paying attention. And to fully consume 5 minutes of video, you have to watch the whole thing. And that means you can’t really be doing anything else while you watch (unlike audio).
If you just listening to a video, you’re either missing something, or the video broadcaster isn’t taking full advantage of the medium and is wasting bandwith and might as well just be doing audio.
(That last bit, of course, is a slight exaggeration, or at least an annoyingly purist point of view. For a basic talking head interview, you might just need the audio, and doing video gives you the option of consuming audio or video. Also, look at the example of television advertisers, who have known for a long time to make sure their ads gracefully degrade — they try to make sure their message still gets across if you’re watching in black and white, or with the sound off, or you come into the middle of it.)
Anyway, in our theoretically pure consumption of video, you can’t be driving, walking, or doing other things. (Well, you can, but something’s not going to get the proper attention.) With reading, your attention also has to be focused, but you can read at your own pace, and you can stop and start as you need to (though there are some switching costs when you multitask — you can’t get something for nothing), and audio is probably the best medium to consume while you’re doing something else.
Despite all the shortcomings of video, we’re going to see a lot more of it. And that’s because we like watching stuff. And we know that the consumption of media comes at the expense of non-media activities (i.e. we spend more time being couch/mouse potatoes). So the point of all this is to just consider that when you’re doing video, either produce it so that you’re taking full advantage of the medium (and really demand people’s full attention), or produce it so it gracefully degrades so people can use it when they don’t give it their full attention.
I’m curious to hear from people who are working with video — do you do it because you can, or because you truly need the information presentation capabilities that video offers?
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