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Before your very eyes

I want to suggest that live broadcasting via the internet may offer a more compelling experience than selecting clips from a list or menu.  Unexpected twists and turns, a build to an exciting climax are lost in the world of clips. Something is missing when we fill our basket full of ingredients without experiencing the actual meal. Nibbling at carrots is not the same thing as enjoying the stew served at a table full of guests (sorry, I'm getting carried away).

Story telling is so much a human requirement that watching live can act as a release from the imprisonment of living in fragmented pockets of experience.

Why is live TV so important?  Who cares if something is pre-recorded or not? Is there an importance in sharing a moment in time with other viewers simultaneously not knowing the final outcome?

Clearly in a news context you would not want to imagine that the bulletin was prepared the night before, otherwise we'd wonder if anything had superseded the recording. 

LIVE (and I'll use capitals because we like to shout it) is a selling point. LIVE by satellite was all the rage once.  Indeed the whole point of inventing television was so we could see LIVE pictures. Up until TV was widely available, cinema newsreels could fulfill the need for pre-recorded reports. Of course, video gathering and processing has reduced the turn-around times, but never the less it is it is an important for us to know that news is happening, (and I'll use capitals again) BEFORE YOUR VERY EYES.

LIVE is immediate and fresh, anything could happen, LIVE is not as common as pre-recorded, it is dynamic, exciting and risky. LIVE is also a mark of being BIG. Generally, only the big boys can afford to set up a LIVE broadcast with all its links and paraphernalia.

There are undoubtedly psychological aspects to LIVE. Recently as a plane came into land without its wheels properly engaged a news network carried the pictures of the landing in which there was a strong possibility  that all the occupants of the aircraft could be killed. I have included a recorded version of this below.

Undoubtedly LIVE is an important element in the broadcasting mix. LIVE was the supreme advantage TV had over cinema, together with the fact that it could be delivered where you are - BROUGHT TO YOU, LIVE IN YOUR OWN HOME, as the early promos might have said.

The early years of the internet seem to have seen a backward step. As you know, there is an abundance of out or date material cluttering up this space which makes finding anything fresh and of value a major task.  As an aside, the humble egg timer has re-emerge as an icon of our times. I always find it humbling to see this simple and enduring device whenever there is a clog-up in the system.

So what can the internet learn from television's original selling points? Can "live in your own home" become, LIVE FROM ANYWHERE AND TO ANYWHERE.

Filxwaggon and others now offer the facility to broadcast live from your mobile phone. Much of the content will be trivial and there is the potential for voyeurism, displays of danger and jeopardy, shock and surprise - offerings which will undoubtedly prove addictive.

My bet for the future will be that LIVE will become important for the web just as LIVE was important for TV, together with its supreme portability. We have chosen to sell the web on the basis of non linearity and choice - video on demand and so on.  Might it be that some people will turn their backs on non-linearity and choice in favor of LIVE story telling where anything could happen, chosen or not - a kind of continuing Big Brother.

"Live in fragments no longer. Only connect, and the beast and the monk, robbed of the isolation that is life to either, will die." - E.M. Forster

Now watch this, a plane with landing gear problems is about to make an emergency landing. Imagine if you were a relative of one of the passengers watching this in the airport lounge?

Any time, any place, any where

The portability of capture devices - small video/stills cameras and mobile phones - allows the public to be prepared at all times to record that special moment in history. Whatever happens and wherever it happens, a lens can be in place within seconds. Mark Thompson of the BBC described it as the Martini culture - picking up on the adverts which sang, any time, any place, any where.

The question for our curator journalist is not whether an event was captured, but by whom - usually the person with the most compelling pictures will not be a professional member of staff.   

In the old world, a camera-person would be dispatched to record the aftermath and the reaction to events. Although sometimes they would capture unfolding events, there was a good chance they would be playing catchup.  Eye witnesses would be sought to describe what they had seen. 

The quality of the professional piece might be judged in various ways, including the visual story telling - the scene, the characters, an orderly description of the way the story unfolded. The story told using all the classic craft skills of writing and visual construction. Hopefully vivid verbal account of what happened would be supplemented by the actual footage of the event.

Now the order of things seems reversed. The footage of the event's climax is the star of the show and all other elements are of subservient. The drama of a plane crash or an explosion enthralls us. The business of the story telling is slotted in fragments around the images, often only filled out when there is a gap in the action.

It would be good to think that there could be time for a considered presentation of the story, but a new breaking story soon takes its place and we move on. (mw)