LEAP #1

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rr2GwNDGanA&feature=youtu.be

Alexander David

EDC 534

LEAP One Essay

3/6/20

Leaping into Leap #1

Leap One was a great assignment to start thinking about the ideas that we have been learning throughout the first half of our class. We not only analyzed the work of a digital author, but we also worked as one to create a screencast. Many people in society follow certain ordinary people turned digital authors, so it is interesting to really investigate what makes these content creators so successful.

On a personal level, I’ve probably been too hesitant to follow any digital authors too closely or think about becoming one myself. I think this relates to me being accustomed to consuming and creating content for more traditional forms of media. From 2005 to 2010, I worked in the television and film industry, so my expectations for video production included large production crews, intricate camera and lighting setups, and intense editing sessions. Around 2011, I was given the opportunity to work with a client on some “online” videos, but I came into that opportunity with the mindset of producing for television. We had two cameras, a green screen, lights, sets, and all of the heavy lifting involved with television production. We set up a couple of shoots and knocked out a handful of videos each time. However, the expectation for new content constantly became unmanageable, and unaffordable for the client to keep hiring me to produce these videos. This is when I first noticed some shifts in techniques that are adopted by 21st-century digital authors. Still, I was hesitant to adopt such changes, as I felt that they lessened the “magic” of movie-making, and it wasn’t as polished as traditional filmmaking.

Since then and through the Leap One Analysis, I’ve come to appreciate both new and familiar techniques used in 21st-century digital authorship and, more importantly, how digital authors leverage these techniques to engage their authors in a different way. For instance, the use of the close-up direct address as the main camera angle by YouTubers like Nathan Zed creates the feeling of intimacy and immediacy (Hobbs, 2017). This is a key technique used to gain the trust of the audience.

I took some time to peruse the comments on Nathan Zed’s video, “You’re Not Good Enough”, to get a sense of how the audience responded to him, and I found the comments both entertaining and profound. In the comments you can see how excited people are to get notifications that a new video is posted. You can see the relief that they feel by sharing common concerns with Nathan and others in the community. His followers praise him for his looks, his personality, and how entertaining he is. These comments are a great testament to the intimate connection between digital authors and audiences.

Truthfully, I don’t think my screencast was quite as engaging as Nathan Zed’s videos because I missed some things that he did really well. I think using that close up direct address camera set-up is such a key element when addressing an online audience. As an audience member, who might be watching while sitting on the couch or on a break during work, having that personal connection with the speaker can make the video more engaging. I did not use the webcam mainly because I had a script and didn’t want to be looking down at the script and reading while I recorded. I think using a script also made it a little bit unnatural for me, as I’d rather talk more freely off of an outline. However, the word limit did help me to keep the video more concise.

Overall, the LEAP One project was a great experience in that it gave me a greater appreciation for the techniques used by digital authors to reach their audience. With less production costs and easier set-ups, digital authors resources can be allocated to pre-production, post-production, and connecting to their audiences in different ways.

Works Cited

Hobbs, Renee. Create to Learn. Hoboken, John Wiley and Sons, Inc., 2017.

Zed, Nathan. “You’re Not Good Enough.” YouTube, uploaded by The Third Pew, 10 December 2016, https://youtu.be/tR82jfM7Tuo.