I can't tell you how many times I have been thankful for the resurfacing of the poor image, and just the poor image in itself. I have seen many videos, old commercials, and old movie spinoffs like the 1978 Star Wars Holiday Special that I never even knew existed. Not to mention old experimental film... films that I have watched and gotten ideas from. With the circulation of these images, they have risen from the graves that modern media has put them in, and once again become useful to the world; even more useful than most of mass-media. I have not been fully able to understand why picture quality is such a commodity these days. I enjoy a film or image based on it's success in execution. Personally I have found that HD and Blu-ray movies are comical to watch. To me the quality is so good that it ruins the fantasy or storytelling aspect of the film and attempts to interject itself into my personal world, like I am just watching an event unfold outside of my window. I may just be an advocate of minimalism and lo-fi recording, so maybe I am slightly biased. I also enjoyed reading the part about the poor image and it's relationship with remix. This generation expresses quite a bit artistically through the avenues of remix. Works such as Bangarang by Pogo, which is composed almost entirely from sound clips from the movie Hook, do films more justice and recreate the feelings of the films more than any corporate trailer could. (In my opinion) Anyways, the fact of the matter is, these types of artistic expressions owe a lot, if not everything, to the poor image.
Video: The Distinctive Features of the Medium
This guy went of on such amazingly long tangents. I followed it for quite some time but ultimately ended up skimming near the end. I enjoyed reading a lot of this as I really enjoy film art and video art. I thought it presented a clearly the evolution of film today and how television has become extremely scripted and attempts to give us the illusion of live events. I thought his comparison of commercials with television programs, and how they have become increasingly similar was interesting as well. He talked a lot about how television seems to be all about taking the viewer out of the picture. With every technological increase they are taking input away from the viewer and putting control into their hands. He stated somewhere that television is all about control now. This somewhat relates to the last article where Steyeri stated that quality was a commodity. If something were to go wrong the blame would fall upon the producer. The producer wants a good reputation and good ratings, therefore he takes all controls of the program and removes any chance for spontaneity or disaster, therefore leaving us with an illusion of reality. The truth of the matter is, that people are entertained by goofups and the like. I mean look at Youtube, just type in something about a reporter screwing up his lines and you will find hundreds of videos, many of which never made it to the air. People are looking for these videos though, because that is part of the reality which has been taken from us in modern television.
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