by Eugene Vasconi, owner of Communication Arts and author of "Say What?  Do You Really Know What You Are Communicating"

I have been preparing and recording a series of videos on the topic of "Web Video Basics" in an effort to help any video amateurs better use the now-popular web video to its best potential.  To do this I am dredging up all of the video theory and techniques I have learned over my career and have re-discovered a few interesting things.

The first revelation is that the old phrase "the camera never lies" almost isn't true anymore.  Actually the camera doesn't lie, it records what is place in front of it.  However, with digital capability, what is done to that footage can be an outright lie.  So the phrase becomes "the camera never lies but the editor might...so beware."  Do not believe  ANYTHING you see on any screen anymore.

The second thing I have revisited is that, even with all the new technology and "neat" stuff to make videos more "cool", the basics of editing and creating a video message have not really changed since video technology was invented.  Indeed, we still shoot video with a camera and still record it on some kind of medium, but the shots and the composition are pretty much the same as always.  When a new, "revolutionary" video maker hits town and starts to do radical things with special effects and such, these fads always fall flat.  Why?

I believe that, like clothes, the old saying still rings true.  Clothes don't make the man...the man makes the man.

Creating a terrific video (or film) requires one thing that overrides special effects and all of the other junk we can now dump into our video entertainment.  That one thing is content.  You can spend 50 million dollars on an epic film or video, put every special effect, computer generated animation ever devised, and shoot it in 3-D, but if the content does not exist, the movie fails.  Same thing with our little, teeny web videos.  Swing the camera around on a rope, fill it full of cheap effects with no real reason and it merely takes up cyberspace.  However, lock the camera down and pour your heart into it about something that has a real purpose and you have your viral video.  Not an easy task and that is why every video isn't the big winner.

Now, experimentation is at the heart of making things better and video is no exception.  But, I must consider that in the many years we have been making TV, films and video, maybe just about every technique possible has been tried.  What remains are the tried and true classic techniques that provide a strong foundation through which to tell a story.  Again, that pesky content thing arises again.

The tools of the video trade will always be advancing as long as we need cameras to record.  In five years everything may be in 3-D, holographic 3-D  in ten years, and the circuits keep marching along.  But these things are simply tools like a hammer and a wrench.  They can do nothing on their own unless a human mind discovers something to put them to use. Keep in mind that classics like "Harvey", "On the Waterfront", and "Casablanca" had no benefit of computer effects - each one told a compelling story.  Are we surprised that movies like these will outlive all of the special effects flash-in-the-pan films by eons.

So, go out and experiment with your videos but, when you have your fill, spend some alone time and labor long over a video that will actually mean something and communicate your message well.  We certainly need more of those.

Good luck.

Gene Vasconi