Is the DVD dead?

The digital video disc or DVD for short is a means for getting entertainment to the consumer. Whether it’s a movie or TV series or recording of a live production, or as long as its digital content and can fit on the disc.

The versatility of the medium, means you can design it to look and do what you want, but in terms of the presentation of entertainment there are certain conventions that are followed. The first thing they have in common is a main menu, which lists all the content available like play from beginning, scene selection and special features. TV show DVD’s also have episode selections. They all also have a window on the side playing clips from the movie or show with audio playing, as to show a trailer preview. And they all start the same, with legal copy warnings and the same anti-piracy video, followed by trailers that never change. Although blu rays now update them.

 

The functions on a DVD such as the buttons let you access the media and are generally laid out in a list to make them easy to find and navigate. The animations make the transition flow and thus improve o the user experience as they mask all the information on the screen loading in.

 

And even now with online entertainment getting bigger and better, the DVD seems to be holding its own.  This can be thanks to quite a number of contributing factors like all the extra features that aren’t available while streaming. And even when buying a movie off a virtual store you may not get the trailers, but it is still the barebones version without even a menu. The other reason people still prefer them is that DVD’s are yours to own once bought, just being available for an uncertain amount of time on Netflix, or locked to a certain media player. And even though it is illegal to copy or distribute them, you can still borrow or lend them out to friends. Also some shows like the Simpsons will never come to streaming, so if you’re paying to own it might as well all the special features.

 

Now DVD’s are outdated in some ways, firstly by not having a convenient option window pop up to watch the next episode, so as soon as the credits roll you have to back out and manually select the next episode. Set up time also comes into play, it takes a lot longer to get your DVD, take it out of the case, put it in a player and wait for it to boot up, than just simply clicking a link or file. And they are not entirely permanent as they can get scratched or damaged quite easily to the point of it becoming unwatchable.

 

Video installation reviews

The first video installation I will review is ‘Nixon’ by Nam June Paik. This was an interesting installation because it was a video piece and a sculpture at the same time, he had two televisions showing two separate speeches by President Richard Nixon, one at the beginning of his presidency and one at the end. There were two electromagnetic coils attached to both screens so that they distorted the video at given intervals, and the audio would switch from which speech was being said too.

The installation was just one of many that were done by this artist, in where he merged science, or rather technology with art. But this was the one that was mostly ignored because I think of the fact that you had to spend a good five minutes looking at it to figure its message out, and the audio being really low didn’t help.

I think the message; the one I got at least was about a corruption of state and also of Nixon himself. I don’t know much about him but I know the president was quite widely hated at the time, but also well like amongst other communities, and I think that was demonstrated by only one image being corrupted at a time.

 

The second video installation I will review is ‘Oil and Sugar’ by Kader Attia. This was just a video being screened in a little show room, and it shows in real time crude oil being poured onto a structure made of sugar cubes and it slowly collapsing.

The video keeps looping and I think it takes a few times through to finally get the meaning, as lot of people didn’t leave showroom straight away but stayed and watched again.
I found it a little confusing at first as well with the meaning seeming unclear, but after watching it a few times and giving it some thought. Then I realized that maybe the oil given its stronghold over the economy and combined with the environment effects and what it did to the sugar turning it all back and gloopy, was meant to represent the corruption of money and abuse of power on our society. And that we were pure before it came along.

Video Installation Storyboard

Video Installation Mind Map

Video Installation Treatment

My video installation is about paying attention to your surroundings. And noticing what you otherwise you might have ignored. But its also about paying attention to the people who are around you very day, but you never seem to notice, all the strangers. My video will convey the notion of stepping out of your own bubble and into some else's with disturbing it, and invoke the need to look for little details.

I will film in two separate location of people on the move, somewhere busy like a train station so as to get a lot of people coming and going in the shot. Then I will time-lapse the footage and layer both videos so as to cause slight disorientation and get the viewer to really pay attention.

Video Installation Mood Board

DVD Menu Map

Video Installation

It's often easy to forget that other people exist, but we encounter these strangers on a daily basis, spend more time with them than people we know. So this video is a tribute to all those people around you every day living in their own unique worlds not too far from your own.

This video is for the people you pass on the high street, the person who sat next to you on the train with the music slightly too loud; many don't have faces, some partake in eye contact and an awkward smile. Each and everyone of them take up a tiny part of your day but the there's a lot of them and that adds up, but they go largely unnoticed or ignored.

This is for all you strangers out there.