Walter Ong discusses the "garbage in, garbage out" complaint about computers in "Writing is a Technology that Restructures Thought." The same can definitely be said for short films. There is plenty of garbage out there...the dude that farts onto a flame seeing if it will explode, people doing stuff to their friends after they pass out at a party, etc... chances are, those people did not set out to make something meaningful. While we may enjoy those crappy videos, we understand that they are purely entertainment. In other words, we WANT the garbage. However, we just might not want it all the time. For the times we don't want it, there is good, deep stuff out there, too.
There is a an excerpt from Baron's "From Pencils to Pixels" that really sums up how I feel about this video technology: "as old technologies become more automatic and visible, we find ourselves more concerned with fighting or embracing what's new. Ten years ago, math teachers worried that if students were allowed to use calculators, they wouldn't learn their arithmetic tables. Regardless of the value that parents and teachers still place on knowing math facts, calculators are now indispensable in math class." I think the same definitely goes for low budget videos. There are definitely people, like Alexandra Juhasz, who feel these low budget videos are dumbing down out culture, but you can already see that they are becoming more of a staple in the education system today. How often does a teacher show a YouTube video in class? Most do at least once throughout a semester. I'm not saying that These videos should be used ALL THE TIME by teachers, but I think they can definitely help make things a little more interesting in the classroom.
There is a relationship between comics and short movies as well. When shooting a short movie, it is done in pieces, kind of like a comic is done in panels. Each piece is a little story, but as a whole, they accomplish something much bigger. If pieces were removed, the whole would be completely different.
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