The Lesson of Fast Food
Everything around us is becoming more modular and more scalable. Fast food may be the best example of this. Today’s fast food isn’t just fast; it’s customizable. I can get a #2 with no mustard and extra pickles, substitute onion rings for fries and get it with a shake instead of a soda. I can even get my kids Jolly Meals with fruit instead of fries. Back in the day, BK had a national ad campaign that was driven by the fact that you could "Have it your way” at their restaurants. Remember the jingle? "Hold the pickles, hold the lettuce special orders don’t upset us." At the time that was a big deal. Most people just ate it the way they made it or went somewhere else.
Our Way
Today, having it our way is the only way. We expect it. Who would accept anything less? The portions are scalable too. I can get my custom-created-just-to-my-liking #2 combo Regular size, Jumbo size or Gargantuan. It’s up to me! I like that. I bet you do too. As consumers, we all like to have things "our way." I think fast food chains have done a brilliant job of serving us their "content" in modular combinations and scalable portions.
The Challenge
As a video producer, writer and host, I wish that I could do that for my viewers. As producers, we face a dilemma when it comes to distributing our programs. There just isn’t a good way to create and present a video in a modular format that can be customized by the viewer on playback. We edit video in a nonlinear, random access fashion, but (with very few exceptions) our viewers still watch our productions as linear presentations. They start at the beginning and they have to watch the middle to get to the end. In my opinion, that’s too rigid for today’s busy, fast food content consumers.
One Possibility
Wouldn't it be cool if you could watch your own custom-created edit of a video, rather than being forced to settle for the one-size-fits-all option created for a mass audience? I think it would be cool to be able to offer my viewers optional 2-minute, 5-minute and 10-minute versions of a show and let them choose which version they'd like to watch. Sure, I could edit and distribute 3 or 4 versions of a show on DVD or post 4 versions to a web page, but that's way too time consuming and bandwidth intensive. It's not practical. What I want is a way to create one edit, the full-length version, and then embed invisible markers into the file to assign commands that would re-direct or re-sequence the show on the fly during playback based on the viewer's individual level of interest in the episode.
So, a short version of a Field of View episode, for instance, might play the opening, then seamlessly jump to a quick example, then skip to the "so what" part of the conclusion in a way that's totally seamless to the viewer.
QuickTime, Flash and DVD can all sort of do this, but none of them is meant to do this or makes it a fast and easy process for the editor and a high quality viewing experience for the viewer. My hope is that it won’t be long before we see this kind of technology built into editing applications.
I predict that, in the future, the way we distribute video will have to change to become more viewer-customizable. Our shows will need to become modular and scalable. Viewers want to watch videos on their own terms; they just don't know it yet! Until that day comes, they'll just have to watch what we give them… or exercise their right to turn us off.
Chuck Peters is VP of Media and Publications at Digital Juice and is an Emmy Award Winning writer and producer.
