Way back in 2002, when less than 10% of cameras sold were digital. I looked at what it would take to simplify the art of telling a story in multimedia. It seemed to me that multimedia would be an emerging opportunity. My main motivation was to find a way to allow people to "give voice" to their stories. I wanted to hear the stories of my friends and family in their own words. I wanted to know what made them who they were. Still images, video tapes and books did not seem like the answer. Over time, it became obvious that three things were necessary.
Individual Expertise
Probably the most difficult thing was to have an idea. What did you want to do? If you have never done something, how would you know what you could do? You also need motivation, and lots of it. Storytelling is a daunting task. You needed content and industry information showed that more than 1 trillion printed images were stored in shoe boxes and darkened closets. In many cases you knew something about the images (context) and in many cases you did not. For example, I found an image in an old album my Dad had stored in the garage. It appeared that my grandfather was in the image with my grandmother, but they were very young. I asked my Dad if that was grandpa and grandma, he said "no". I took the image out of the book and their in my grandmothers handwriting were the words "our first apartment". Case solved. You also needed artistic ability and technical competency. No wonder storytelling was a lost art.
Hardware
You needed digital cameras, personal computers, printers, video cameras, tape players, tape recorders, VHS, Beta, D3, Video Tape, Film etc. All these were the capture and create devices. With one device you would capture moments through images, video, sound and with others, you would publish those moments in a form that others (and yourself) could enjoy. Things like prints, movies, DVD's, CD's and anything you could think imagine.
Software
The interface between humans and machines is software. Software tells the machine what to do. Only problem is, software was (and is) designed by engineers. Engineers just love a challenge. So the more powerful the software, the harder is is to learn, use etc. Imagine needing to learn a new language in order to use a pair of scissors!
Next: What did I learn from scrapbookers?
Probably the most difficult thing was to have an idea. What did you want to do? If you have never done something, how would you know what you could do? You also need motivation, and lots of it. Storytelling is a daunting task. You needed content and industry information showed that more than 1 trillion printed images were stored in shoe boxes and darkened closets. In many cases you knew something about the images (context) and in many cases you did not. For example, I found an image in an old album my Dad had stored in the garage. It appeared that my grandfather was in the image with my grandmother, but they were very young. I asked my Dad if that was grandpa and grandma, he said "no". I took the image out of the book and their in my grandmothers handwriting were the words "our first apartment". Case solved. You also needed artistic ability and technical competency. No wonder storytelling was a lost art.
Hardware
You needed digital cameras, personal computers, printers, video cameras, tape players, tape recorders, VHS, Beta, D3, Video Tape, Film etc. All these were the capture and create devices. With one device you would capture moments through images, video, sound and with others, you would publish those moments in a form that others (and yourself) could enjoy. Things like prints, movies, DVD's, CD's and anything you could think imagine.
Software
The interface between humans and machines is software. Software tells the machine what to do. Only problem is, software was (and is) designed by engineers. Engineers just love a challenge. So the more powerful the software, the harder is is to learn, use etc. Imagine needing to learn a new language in order to use a pair of scissors!
Next: What did I learn from scrapbookers?
No comments:
Post a Comment