I grew up in a household that had a black and white television that my dad eventually and reluctantly exchanged for a color television. We had a huge load of LPs on the shelf and a superb tube driven stereo system that my dad built from the ground up. My father even had a Victorola that now sits in my living room and is over 100 years old. We had old tube operated radios and I remember when we got our first, very expensive, solid state radio with a cassette player. I remember disc jockeys in LA lamenting the missing hiss of vinyl when the first CD players came out. The point is that I was around to see major transitions in media delivery.
I was not around when television was invented; I am not that old. But, I do remember the discussions about the fear of people in the film industry that television would eventually destroy cinema. Well, it is more than 50 years since consumers have adopted television en masse and people are paying ten dollars to see films. Television has not killed cinema, it could be argued that television has enhanced cinema, providing additional business models for back-end sales.
Television actually evolved into its own format that is similar to cinema, but different. When television started out, it was highly technical and technical people ran the show. Until the 1980’s it was still required to have a special FCC license to operate a video camera at a network or TV station. Eventually, the storytellers took over and made TV what it is today: a medium for telling compelling stories.
When I worked as an Executive Producer at PBS a small group of us were assigned to a new project developing media for the Internet. My first day on that project involved sitting in a room full of software engineers and people concerned with technical stuff. These people were telling us how to build web sites.
I made enemies quick. I quickly developed the mantra “We don’t allow the people down in Master Control tell us how to make television, why do we allow the people doing the technology tell us how to build web sites?” Media is, after all, a storytelling medium, not a technology platform. Content is king. Eventually, I won a competition against 80 other PBS entities, held by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, to develop Television of Tomorrow. I combined the best of cinema, radio, television, graphic communications, gaming and interactive media to tell compelling stories. – I have to give credit where credit is due, I was helped greatly by two people at Carnegie Mellon University, Randy Pausch and Scott Stephens.
So, what are we doing with these multi-function boxes that allow us to read, listen, and watch? We are still kicking the tires and are only using a fraction of the ability of the medium. Computers have been around as long as television and yet we have not figured out how to effectively use the boxes on our desks to their full potential.
What makes a medium powerful is not the medium, but the application of the medium. It is one of the reasons we use professional screenwriters to develop our copy for web sites. We respect that all mediums are about telling stories, not the technology. I see a lot of cool stuff on the Internet; amazing animated sites with wiz-bang technology. I rarely see compelling stories. Until we compel and move people with what we do, it is simply a meaningless activity.
Stories are what move people. They are the foundation of communication. The message and story should always drive our efforts.
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