Video Haiku and Anne Frank
Having
worked with online video for many years now, it’s easy for me to forget the
impact it can have on people.
I am
surrounded by video professionals who know their craft and work hard to ensure
that the video product they deliver arrives with the necessary impact and is concurrently
able to tell a story.
Online video
is a medium unlike any other as it values brevity over quality. In other words,
your video doesn’t have to be shot by Spielberg nor your animations generated
by the computers at Pixar to get the job done right as long as the job is done
in as few seconds as possible.
Also, the
stories told in online video are necessarily shorter. They are video haiku
where the imposed limits force a more impressionistic sense of narrative that
you usually find with longer forms.
When
prepared and produced by an expert these online video haiku harness the power
of words and images combined to deliver a compelling message that can be used
to encourage, persuade or convince the viewer.
At other
times serendipity may capture a fleeting glimpse of something and instantly
turn a shared myth into something or someone painfully real.
I have seen thousands of online videos, but I can’t think of a single one that has moved me more than this silent, grainy, 20-second, black and white footage captured nearly 70 years ago in Amsterdam.
