AV News 180 - May 2010
Letters
Video in AV
J e ff M o rris LRPS APSSA
Thanks for another superb AV News. They just get better and better.
Regarding the letter from Barb Butler in Australia (Page 19, Issue 179).
She and I have been in touch a lot in connection with 'allowing video' and
there is a thread on our discussion group about it. (See below)
The current, official position of the PSSA is limited video clips are allowed
in audio visuals submitted for Honours. Their full definition of AV is: 'An Audio
Visual is a compilation of still images and may include a limited number of
video clips with an integrated theme or storyline where sound, transitions and
images are interdependent. An effective AV will therefore have unity of its
three parts – the conception, the visuals and the sound. All this together
makes up the presentation.' (from the Honours and Awards Information
brochure of the Photographic Society of South Africa - www.pssa.co.za)
The 'limited number' of video clips is not quantified by the PSSA but is
there not a danger that AVs will become closer and closer to ‘movies’, for
want of a better word, as more and more clips are included? Is there a
possibility that AVs, as we know them now (still images and sound), will die
out and be replaced by what was known as ‘cine’ in the good old days?
I could not find anything on any RPS website or document on inclusion of
video in AV, it would be good to have their guidance.
I like the argument from Chris Daly, one of our best AV workers:As digital photographers, we are living in a time of amazing technical
developments and, it will only get better. We must be careful not to allow
archaic definitions to keep us in restrictive little boxes. We can either ban all
movement in AV’s including the use of pans, zooms spins, tilts etc, or allow
movement or the illusion of movement by whatever means we achieve it. The
Movie is about movement and an AV with movement is a Movie. An AV without
movement, well, we may as well go back to making Diaporamas. An AV with a
limit on how much movement is allowed is restrictive. There really is no middle
ground. If the definition says “an AV is a compilation of still images with a
limited number of video clips (movie clips)”, then the limitation will have to
apply to all movement as it will become harder and harder to distinguish the
difference between the movement of a sequence of still images or a movie clip
which is also a sequence of still images at a rate of 25fps.
Technology, as usual, leads the way and we must follow. Camera Clubs
and Photographic Societies must move with the times and not become
dinosaurs. As far as AV’s are concerned, it’s 'The Story' and how we use the
medium to tell the story that matters. We must be allowed to use the medium
of AV (audio, visuals and movement) as we see necessary to produce a truly
creative story.
See http://groups.google.co.za/group/mffc-av-interest-group?hl=en
for the full discussions on this matter.
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