The Artistic Vision: Past, Present and Future…

Since the dawn of man and their first cave drawings, the artistic vision has been carved in stone. As an audience, with a critical eye, throughout time it has been our job to accept that vision and either love it or throw tomatoes at it.
I hear creative people, all the time, talking about their visions of online entertainment. The one thing that everybody understands is that a lot more people will see their artistic offerings online. As I write this the new eight-minute Web show “Quarterlife” is premiering. The show plays to the obvious demographic; the story follows a group of twenty-something’s as they go through the growing pains of life.
Its creators Marshall Horskovitz and Edward Zwick are both talented craftsmen with two successful shows to their credit, “Thirty Something” and “My So Called Life.” So it is with great interest that people are watching their internet debut. These eight-minute shows will be great; these two producers know what they are doing when it comes to making shows with good storylines. However, for all of their knowledge they are still lost.
In an exchange, reported by David Sarno for an article he wrote on the press preview of the show in the L.A. Times, an audience member said to Mr. Horskovitz, “To me it looked exactly like an hour of TV with six commercial breaks in it. Did you do that on purpose?”
To his great credit, and with unabashed honesty, he said, “You can’t teach an old dog new tricks. I don’t know how to create real emotion in less than an hour. I know how to do it in two hours. I know how to do it in one hour. I don’t know how to do it in a half an hour, and I really don’t know how to do it in eight minutes, so we decided to stick with what we know.” (The old model of the television series.) Thank you, Mr. Horskovitz. If only we had that kind of candor in all facets of our society we would be so much further down the line.
He speaks the truth. The fact is that the current wave of entertainment providers only know the artistic vision that worked in the old TV network model. But someone out there knows how to make that eight minutes work, and we’re all waiting for him or her. They may be closer than we think. There has been a fundamental shift in the artistic vision power structure.
The old model says that you take my artistic vision and you live with it. The new model says show me your vision and I’ll interact with it and interpret it. The problem with the old model is the audiences’ emotions were dictated in predictable and proven methods. The audience rented those emotions at the price of watching a commercial. The emotion changed as the channel changed.
With the new model we have the chance to win the emotion for ourselves, but that won’t happen until the new model is completed.
When we have the palette of the artist’s original vision and it is the starting point for our emotional journey into the work not to be finished until we interact with it, to be able to re-edit it, to highlight scenes and add material to it if we want. We need to be able to put our emotional stamp on it and then send it back to the artist. Then and only then will the new model will be complete.
This interaction and interpretation has never happened before, because it couldn’t. Now it MUST. The new model will bring the emotional bond between artist and audience full circle, thus allowing that vision, carved in stone, to come to life.

Craig “Burine” Burns – In the video production industry for 20+ years, Burns has watched it evolve. With keen insights, Burns is imprinting his own vision, creating companies that will be a part of the new model. Send him your questions.