April 6, 2006

Video Mashups Offer New Possibilities for Dance - Part II

In Part I of what will be a four part story, I wrote that as a result of the introduction of a new type of online video editing software program:

dancers will be able to share, choreograph, document, learn, collaborate, analyze and create in ways that have barely been contemplated before.

In this second part of the story, I would like to describe the key features of this new crop of web-based video editing software. And in the next part, I'll explain why these features are potentially so important for dancers.

Introduction to Online Video Editing

Whether you use a video editing software program on your computer or a web-based video editing software program, the idea is the same: You edit a video clip by placing video sections on a time-line, trimming portions of the video, adding transitional effects and including introductory and other titles to your work.

A fast way to gain hands-on experience with online video editing is by visiting the Jumpcut website [via TechCrunch] . From the home page, click "Explore" to find a movie to watch. You will now be watching a video and the screen will look like this - click for larger image:

Click for Larger Image

On the above screen, you'll see that on the right-hand side there is a column with thumbnail images for each section of the video, in the bottom left there is a listing of "tags" that are created by users to categorize this video, and in the bottom right of the video screen there is a "Remix" button.

This "Remix" button is pretty radical. Click on "Remix" and you will be taken to the video editing area that looks like this - click for larger image:

Click for Larger Image

So even though you are not working with your own video, you can now remix the video, audio, titles and transitions in any manner that you would like. Then you can save and publish your work. I guess using the word "your" is a stretch. So I'll say you can now save and upload your remixed version of the original work.

Jumpcut does not appear to allow you to edit an existing video by adding one or more of your own video clips to the remix. So when I discuss in Part III specific applications for dancers, I'll assume that there soon will be or already are online video editing applications that allow video clips from any source to be used for remixing.

Tagging and Deep Tagging

In the first screen shot above, you can see the tags for this video in the bottom left-hand side of the screen. The tags are: "squished, funny, humour, faces, distortion." This video was tagged by users (or the original creator) so that all Jumpcut users can group videos that share specific characteristics. For example, show me a list of all videos tagged "funny." This is the essence of the concept of tagging. The owner of a website does not categorize information; the users of the website are the ones that categorize content - in this case movies.

But there are some richer possibilities for tagging and that's what is now known as "deep tagging." The reason why I talked about the video editing software program Motionbox in Part I was because it is the only program that I know of that will have this capability (it is not yet launched). In the context of video editing, deep tagging means that you can tag any section within a video clip.

So let's imagine that in the second of the two screen shots above that you wanted to tag this section of the video clip "racinggoggles." You would use the video editing tools of Motionbox to mark off this section of, say, 5 seconds and add the tag "racinggoggles."

Now users can conduct a deep tag search for the word "racinggoggles" and find any sections in any video clips that have this tag. This is clearly a lot more powerful than just tagging an entire video clip. You can now tag just 5 seconds of a clip (or any length you wish) so that other users can easily find it.

Wrap-Up

So for the sake of the upcoming Part III of this post, this is what we have:

1) An online video editing software program that allows us to mix multiple video clips from any source.

2) A software program that allows us to add video clips to a timeline, trim sections as needed, add transitions and include titles. And,

3) A software program that lets us add tags to any section of a video clip.

Technorati Tags: dance, education, mashups, software, tags, video, web2.0

Trackback Pings

2 Comments