Back in TV school, I was taught that when framing up a shot, it’s really important to look at the background. Even if the framing of a shot is perfect, if something weird is going on in the background, it can ruin everything. It could be a cable from a light running across the floor. It could be a person goofing off at their desk, or a strange looking shadow. It could also be a case of bad juxtaposition – when a stair rail, or a picture frame “cuts” through the back of someone’s head. If you don’t focus on the background, then the perception of what’s in the foreground can be completely lost.

I think a big part of the problem with the reluctance of many people to adopt social media is that many people are not spending enough time focusing on the background.

How’s your DOF? There’s an expression used in film, video and photography known as Depth of Field. Specifically, it refers to the amount of distance between the nearest and farthest objects in the frame that appear in sharp focus in an image. So, if you have a shallow Depth of Field, it means that you’ll see one object clearly in focus, while all other objects in the background appear out of focus. On the other hand, having a deep depth of field means that everything in the picture appears to be relatively in focus, whether it’s up close to the foreground or far in the background.

Shallow depth of field is often used for dramatic effect. It’s a very attractive style, because it allows the eye to focus on one thing, blurring everything else in the background. Deep depth of field can be very attractive when shooting landscapes – it’s a wide-angle shot where everything is crystal clear.

Part of what freaks people out about social media is that by nature, it is exposing. There’s no shallow DOF in social media. It’s all quite deep, in fact. Successful social media is not about companies interacting, it’s about humans interacting. And that means there’s going to be an endless mix of dimensions, tastes, activities, comments, questions, and information. Some of it may be junk to you. Some may be of incredible value to you. But the fact is, social media is vast, and deep, like a photograph where you can see for miles and miles and miles. And that scares a lot of people.

Consider your online interactions for a moment. Who are the people you relate to best? Are they the ones who only show you a little bit of themselves, and keep the rest a closely guarded secret? Or are they the people who present a clear picture of who they are, from all angles, flattering and not-so-flattering?

Social media has deep, deep Depth of Field. The people and companies that are most successful in the medium are those who accept that. Their lens is not focused on one one object. It’s focused on the vast expanse and potential of each interaction they have.

Juxtapose this! I remember one of my profs in TV school equating juxtaposition to that classic gag that comedian Steve Martin made famous. He always said “You don’t want to be the guy with the arrow through your head”. When framing up a shot, you need to be totally conscious of what’s happening behind your subject. If there’s a picture frame, or stair rail, or any object, appearing to stick out of, or cut through the back of someone’s head, it makes them look silly. And nobody wants to look silly.

If social media is all about genuine relationships and real conversations and actual human beings, then it stands to reason that occasionally, even the best intentioned people are going to look silly. It doesn’t matter whether you are the CEO of a Fortune 500 company, the owner of a flower shop in rural Iowa, or a PR flack trying to build your professional network and generate leads, when you choose to engage on social media platforms, you need to be prepared to open yourself up to the possibility that someday, what you say in the foreground, and what’s going on in the background won’t match.

But that does not necessarily have to be a bad thing. Some of the most fascinating and dynamic people I know online are that way because they accept that the image everyone sees in the foreground is completely subject to what’s happening in the background. That means, if someone is having a bad day in the background, and that surfaces, so be it. If someone is super busy and just trying to keep up in the background, it might mean they have to reframe things. All of this is real life, and all of it’s more than okay. We need to be accepting of everyone’s juxtaposition.

What I think is at once amazing and frightening about social media is that it’s totally raw. The people who use the medium most successfully are completely in focus at all dimensions, and they are not worried that sometimes things are just going to line up in funny ways. They deal with it, and move on.

I am hopeful that as more people begin to understand this new medium, they will be more inclined to present the wide angle view of themselves. For often, what’s in the background is far more compelling than a shallow little dot of focus.

What say you?

[photo credit ohector on Flickr]

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The man on the right side of this picture, the one sitting in the chair with the camera….he gave me my first break.

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Wow – people are really all a-buzz about mainstream media’s latest foray into the world of social media, eh? I’m seeing lots of different viewpoints and some great conversations. In fact, I’d say that social media is really showing it’s stuff right now – the community is out in full force, in one way or another, trying to figure out what it all means.

I have been a media producer, in some form or another, for going on 20 years. In my time, I’ve produced media (television, radio, print, advertising, marketing campaigns) for everything from high profile, mainstream media outlets to large corporations to mom and pop shops and local community cable. I feel fortunate that I’ve been able to witness first hand what is likely the single largest transformation in the way people communicate since the invention of the telephone.

With that said, I wanted to present my take on recent events within mainstream media and some of the social media community’s reaction to these events. I present here the dispelling of a couple of myths about mainstream media, based on my observations over the past several years. Please keep in mind that this is my opinion only. The purpose here is to state my position on the matter, and open up honest discussion about it. I invite you to dispel what I’m dispelling.

Myth #1. Mainstream Media Doesn’t “Get It”.
I’m seeing a lot of defensive behaviour coming out of the social media crowd in the past few days. They are right on top of celebrities like Oprah and Kutcher, accusing them of ruining Twitter, using it as a broadcast medium only, and the one that really gets me – not understanding the “nuances” of social media.

It’s true that there are things people can learn about effectively using social media as a tool, and there are plenty of good, interesting, smart professionals out there helping people to figure it out. But anyone who thinks that a multimillion dollar corporation like Harpo has not done their homework before diving into social media with both feet is coming at it from the wrong perspective. The beef incident from a few years back, if nothing else, should prove that Oprah’s people most definitely have learned to do their homework. As for Kutcher and the rest of them, they’re all businesspeople too, with images to uphold, and a flurry of agents and publicists who have to damage control their careers if they say or do something stupid on the public stage.

Mainstream media doesn’t get it? I beg to differ in a big way. In fact, they may get it a lot more than many of us. We’ve been stuck for a long time in the same rut with social media, talking about the same stuff over and over. They are in part, starting to move the medium forward.

Myth #2. Mainstream Media is Missing the Boat.
Ooh! I love boat analogies. And my husband came up with a doozy last night. He said “Big media is an aircraft carrier. It takes a long time to turn a ship like that around.”

Let’s look at mainstream media in relation to the average social media superstar. Oprah has hundreds of millions of viewers for her TV show. According to Wikipedia, she gets 70 million page views per month on her web site. Social media superstars, even the really popular ones, are not working anywhere near that scale. Most are in the tens of thousands, and a few elite are in the hundreds of thousands.

What does that mean? Oprah’s driving an aircraft carrier. So is CNN. Your average social media superstar is driving a speedboat. He can turn on a dime. I’m not saying he’s not putting a great deal of thought into strategy and planning and image and all the rest. Of course he is. But big media is strategizing and planning and considering image too. The difference is, they are doing it on a much larger scale. They aren’t missing the boat. They are just driving a way bigger one than the rest of us. And once they get it turned around – and it’s about 3/4 of the way there in some cases – then the game is going to change for good.

So – I guess what this all means is – are you ready for things to start changing? Instead of defending the models that have been created over the past few years, how are you going to adapt your model to the changing tides? Or maybe you don’t think big media changes things at all. They’ve just shown up at the party, and are going to mix with the crowd.

What’s your take?

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I met someone for the first time recently. They asked me “What do you do?”.

The story of what I “do” has changed over the years. I used to just say “I work for [insert company name here].” Then after a while, I started to identify more with the actual work I was doing. “I’m a TV producer.” “I’m a web designer.” “I’m a technical writer.” “I’m a professor.”

When we started the company, my description started to become more complex. “I’m a partner in a production company.” Which always prompted the response, “Oh? What kind of production?”, to which I’d have to go into a long-winded explanation that well, we do tv production, but also web video, corporate video, and oh – yah, we develop web sites too, and do marketing…..

The problem I was having is that I could no longer easily sum up what I actually “do”. I was “doing” too many different things. Then the other day, it hit me. What I do is irrelevant. It’s a task list. It’s what I am that matters.

So what AM I? Simple. I’m a storyteller.

All day, every day, I’m telling stories. I’m telling them here, on my blog. I’m telling them in 140 character increments, on Twitter. I’m telling them when I meet my friends for drinks or coffee or dinner. And I’m helping my clients figure out how to tell their stories too, whether it’s through a new web site, a video, a TV show, a marketing campaign, or all of the above.

It’s all storytelling.

So how does this tie in to the notion that it’s not about the tools? Well, the fact that it’s really all about storytelling rather proves it, I think.

If what we’re all doing out here is telling stories (our own, our clients’, others’ -it doesn’t matter), then really, the tools become irrelevant. Sure, it’s important to know how to use the right tools, and use them the right way to ensure the story is told well. But the tools themselves are secondary. It’s the story that really matters.

When all’s said and done, it’s the story that people will remember – not what you used to tell it. I’m wondering if it’s time to reconsider how much effort we are spending talking about the tools themselves, and if perhaps we should be spending more effort figuring out what our story is and how we’re going to tell it.

Thoughts?

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I have a confession to make.

I, Suze, don’t watch TV anymore. In fact, I’m pretty much turned off of just about every show out there. It’s an interesting irony, really. After all, I produce TV. Right now I co-produce a series that airs on our local cable station. We have a bunch of other shows in various stages of development and pre-production. I contribute directly to the industry, but I don’t really participate as a viewer.

Here I am, on a Friday night, flipping endlessly through the hundreds of channels that I have available to me on my digital box. And aside from one or two interesting documentaries, a few movies, the odd cooking and home reno show and, well, our show, of course …I can’t get over how little actual, good content there is on mainstream television anymore.

Now, before I continue, I must admit that I have never been a dramatic series watcher. Aside from the occasional episode of Law and Order or CSI, I really have never been able to commit to watching a series week after week. I do appreciate that there are some good series out there – Lost, Heroes, Grey’s Anatomy to name a few – but if you look at the current lineups of the major networks, even those types of shows are becoming the minority.

It seems to me that the major networks and U.S. specialty networks are obsessed with drama. And I don’t mean “E.R” kind of drama. I mean the staged, exaggerated, over-the-top “reality-based” Drama Queen type of drama that makes up a good majority of mainstream television these days.

I love video. I always have. It has the power to impress, to entertain, to really move people to change for the better. But these “reality” shows are an insult to the medium and frankly, an insult to my intelligence. These programs seek only to bring out the worst qualities in people – they are stories about greed, revenge, deception and negativity. Why anybody finds this sort of show entertaining is really beyond me.

The more time goes on, it seems, the more shows like this are becoming the mainstream. Obviously, somebody is watching them. Why they are so popular puzzles me greatly. As much as I love the medium of television, I’m losing faith in it, fast. More often than not these days, I am turning off the TV and turning on my laptop.

The Internet is so ripe with awesome content, it makes me want to burst. I can watch shows about any topic imaginable, produced by people who have skill and talent and heart and passion. I can do it on my own schedule, from my bed, my livingroom, my coffee shop or my backyard. Through the Web, I have regained the capacity to be impressed, entertained and moved by video.

And that’s where I start to see hope for the future.

What do you think? Where does TV sit in your life these days?

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I have a confession to make. I watch Oprah. I LIKE watching Oprah. It’s my unwind-from-a-long-day, think-about-something-completely-different, guilty pleasure. But at this moment, I’m glad, I watch Oprah.

For all you non-watchers out there, Oprah is doing something cool these days in the online media space. She is touting a new Book Club Book, called “A New Earth”, by Ekhart Tolle. I don’t usually pick up the Oprah books, but I have always been interested in spirituality and religion, so yes, I picked up the book. It hasn’t transformed my life yet but it raises some very valuable and interesting concepts that I’m willing to continue to explore.

But this post isn’t about the book. Do a Google for Ekhart Tolle and I’m sure you’ll find plenty of reviews. This post is about how she’s talking about the book. On March 3rd, she is hosting a “web event”, what is being called an “online classroom“. There, she and Tolle will discuss the book and take video, audio and text questions from the audience. The class will be running Monday nights (EST) over 10 consecutive weeks. As of yesterday, over 300,000 people had signed up.

What I find fascinating is how this is being implemented. If one wishes to sign up for the class (which is free, by the way), they go to oprah.com and sign up for an account (And it’s nice that you can opt out of all the newsletters, etc. up front). Then you just register for the class, and at 9pm EST on Monday, March 3 you tune in.

I was wondering how they were going to do this. 300,000 people (sure to AT LEAST double or even triple by next week) all logging on at the same time, can you say, crashy crashy? But today, they sent me an email prompting me to download and install the Move Networks media player onto my computer. Of course I went to check them out, and yah, these guys have pretty much got their #$*@ together. They offer superior quality (it’s spectacular) and a scaleable system that allows simultaneous streaming to millions of people at once with no crashy crashy. It also collects lots of data about the users – experiences, demographics, geography – all the juicy tidbits of information Oprah’s advertisers could dream of. They’ve got it down.

As far as interactivity goes, well, viewers can record video or audio questions, and submit text questions as well. There are discussion forums so that if you are not one of the lucky few that gets to actually talk to Winfrey and Tolle, you get to talk to each other about the class and the book.

Maybe I’m expecting too much, maybe not, but this seems to me like a pretty nifty idea. I’m sure it will be successful. 300,000 people, including celebrities like Jim Carrey and Valerie Bertinelli have signed up already. (The star factor will only make it more popular.)

This could be the beginning of a trend with mass-market broadcasting, possibly the beginning of true interactive television. And I’m so in. Maybe I’ll get a spiritual awakening, maybe I’ll just be entertained. Maybe I’ll get both. Say what you want, but if there is anyone that can move millions with online media, it’s Oprah. I’ll let you know how it goes – but then again, you’ll probably sign up too…won’t you.

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