Nature photography redux.

Is DVD dead?

A DVD is an optical disc storage format, which holds digital information, mostly in forms of films, music and games. It took over the popularity of VSH and took it out of the market as it is much more convenient in its use – but lately it’s been getting major competition from digital software, with arguments proving that it’s a lot more convenient than DVD, a lot faster, reliable and cheaper; but is that really the case? In my opinion the DVD is nearing it’s doom. Digital entertainment is simple and instant, just search for a show/movie and click play and you’re on your way to watching what you want to. The DVD however takes a couple of days to mail, sometimes even a week, and the alternative is walking to the store yourself, not knowing if the copy of your show/movie is there, especially since DVD renting stores are closing down extremely fast. Blockbuster for one, the biggest, most popular place to get your movie just a couple years back, is officially bankrupt due to lack of customers, and HMV is heading the same route.  The day when digital entertainment takes over is soon, just like the time DVD took over VSH.

But on the other hand we have people who argue that digital entertainment doesn’t have the same sentimental value as a DVD has, for example you could share your DVD with friends and lend them your copy for viewing, however with Netflix that would be impossible, and when your subscription runs out, or if your internet goes out, you wouldn’t have any movies to watch, which is where the DVD trumps digital copies.

You can also find special features, such as deleted scenes and behind the scenes on a DVD which could bring you further entertainment, while digital copies just have the movie by itself. The DVD in itself could also serve as a storage unit, which is still really useful, you could download movies form the internet and put them on a disc, to later watch that on a DVD or share with others. The older generation could also find it a tad confusing to operate software such as Netflix as it might be quite confusing for the non-tech savvy, while they could easily operate a user-friendly DVD.

Another rather important disadvantage to using DVD’s is the fact you have so many unskippable trailers and adverts before the movie even starts, which takes 10-15 minutes to finish, that would probably takes its toll on people and aggravate them.

Overall I believe digital entertainment is the future, it’s a lot faster, cheaper and better than DVD’s. You only pay £6 a month for Netflix and you get a selection of thousands of TV shows and movies. While with DVD’s you pay a minimum of £2 per movie, which could take a chunk out of your wallet. The only future I could see for DVD’s is to act as storage units, while people could enjoy a good movie on Netflix and LoveFilm, until a new competitor comes into play.

Video Installation Evalatuion

The whole process started with me researching different successful installation artists so I could get inspired. The 3 artists I talked about were Rachel Whiteread, Allan McCollum and Pascal Dombis. All 3 differed in styles; for example Rachel is a sculptor, Pascal is a digital artist and Allan does surrogate paintings, which was interesting to research. After snooping around, getting ideas, I've come up with an idea of having a person fighting his inner self just to accept it's help in the end, showing people that it's okay to accept help from others, however, sadly I didn't have enough time to execute it so I went with plan B and decided to go with a person clapping his hands and powder going everywhere, having everything but the powder in black and white to let the viewer enjoy the visual experience.

Something I enjoyed the most has to be the actual researching, as I got the chance to view all kinds of different installation art which really caught my attention. It made me think about how endless a human mind can be, the variety of different ways people can portray their art is truly mind blowing; some were even ideas that would never cross my mind in a million years. Truly astounding.

The only thing I didn't like about this project was the fact that I didn't have the time to execute my initial idea, mainly due to my own fault. I believe it could've been something people would have enjoyed a lot; but unfortunately not enough planning went into the idea so it was dropped.
An annoying thing that happened was the whole editing process, loads of hiccups with Final Cut which would mess up my files and not render properly, a frustrating experience indeed, I was forced to render my video in 240p which destroys it's original captivation.

After showing my video to the whole class, I gathered some important pieces of feedback, I was told that the colours were very interesting to look at as well that they appreciated the fact that same amount of effort went into filming as well as editing. I was also told that the editing was used well and matched what was going on the screen. Main piece of criticism I got was that the quality was bad and the video would improve by a lot if it was just rendered in better quality, and I completely agree with that. I could see people getting offended due to the whole mess that was made during the filming, since it was dry powder it made quite a mess and I could see clean freaks stressing out over that. The quality of the video is also rather offensive.

In conclusion, I found this project to be somewhat satisfying but all in all a very interesting experience. It got me to think outside the box to create something others wouldn't really think of. The classmates also came up with some remarkably captivating work, it shows how vast the imagination of this class can be. If I had the chance to redo the project, I definitely would, to make sure everything goes well in the editing process and I have my video rendered in high quality.

DVD Menu map