Video+as+a+Medium

toc =THE VIDEO AS A MEDIUM=

The video may seem to some people as a regular medium but many people do not know how influential the video is and was; Thus, I based my concept map on the impacts of the video in the past as well as how it has changed and impacted today's society. In general, this concept map shows how the video is not just a medium to view sound and moving images. It is a medium that gave birth to many important and society changing ideas and technologies. For example, the video brought to society the idea of time manipulation because the video allows the viewer to rewind and fast-forward real time - an act that had never been done before the invention of the video (or rather, before the invention of the VHS which uses the magnetic tape).

Design Rationale
For my design, I wanted to show the revolving and changing aspect of the video (both visually and through my ideas). With this, I decided to plot out my ideas using a circular grid. I tired to keep the web-like structure in some of my initial sketches, however it wasn't working out as a good design for my topic and thus I resulted to two large circles that are linked to each other. This idea was inspired by how the magnetic tape ran in a VHS. I feel that this idea visually shows the "video" aspect of my idea quite well as it is literally how a video (VHS) would work. I used thin connecting lines to connect the ideas that cross each other to help complete the circle, visually, as well as to help make the design more dynamic. I especially wanted to show my ideas with a variety of colours to visually help show that the video impacted many different things (see Visual Design Development). However, as I picked my colour palette I learnt that colour is a very important and difficult aspect as I needed to pick colours that both black and white letter would be readable. All in all, I feel that this project challenged our idea development skills as well as our design skills as we needed to show our ideas in an easy and simple manner so that other people can understand.

Research Summary
For research, I looked up how the video had impacted society on the internet but did not seem to find alot of information. The internet did allow me to understand the history of the video and the mechanisms that make it work. I did, however, seem to find information on the Rodney King event and The Vietnam War which were two very influential and globally known events that were very important for the growth and development of the video. With these two events, among other readings (see Sources), I was able to deduce how the video impacted society. Such things include, documentation (which played a part in the Rodney King event) and surveillance. As for how the video impacted today's society, I turned to Nmungwun 's book called //Video Recording Technology: Its Impact on Media and Home Entertainment// and the article called //Mobile Video Recording in Context//. These readings gave me a brief overview on the impacts of society and thus with the information that I had, I made two very general groups (Communication and Entertainment) in which I felt the Video impacted most on today's society. Even though, the readings helped with creating my concept map, alot of the ideas were based on what I had concluded and deduced after research.

[|V1.1_web-1.jpg] The image above (V1.1_web-1.jpg) is my initial sketch of my concept map.

[|Interactivity_2_-_Video1.jpg] After reconstructing my ideas, this was my first attempt at constructing my map on the computer (Cmap)

[|V2_web-2.jpg] After the 2nd critique, I realized that my ideas were very hard to understand without any of descriptions and thus I had to reorganize and restructure my ideas to make it more clear and understandable. With this, I grouped my ideas within broader categories so that the viewer can understand the main ideas better.

[|Interactivity_2_-_Video2.1.jpg] This ws my final concept map in which I based my design on.

Visual Design Development
[|V3_design_ideas_1.jpg] At this point, I was at the "designing" stage where I needed to find a way to visually map out my ideas in a clear fashion. I wanted to use circles as my basis because many of the aspects that has to do with the video revolve, rotate and spin in a circle. (For example, the digital disc is circular and the magnetic tape also runs in a circular manner) Thus, here, I have developed several circular ideas to map out my concept.

[|V4_design_ideas_2.jpg] Again, these are other sketches to map out my circular idea.

[|V5_design_ideas_3.jpg] Here are more circular design ideas.

[|V6_design_ideas_4.jpg] Here, I wanted to take the idea of how the magnetic tape ran in a VHS to illustrate my concept. However, this did not work out the way I wanted to.

[|V7_design_ideas_5.jpg] Finally, I resorted to a friend who told me how the magnetic tape actually ran in a VHS (which is drawn on the top of this page).

[|V8_design_ideas_6.jpg] Then, I began to map out my ideas and structured them accordingly on the two "wheels". With this, I made sure that I would have enough room to fit everything onto a small enough sized paper with all my information. I also had to make sure that the fractions of the circle would be large enough to type my ideas onto but small enough so that 7 ideas could fit around that circle.

Constructing the Concept Map (Computer)
[|V9.1_Skeleton.jpg] Here is a computerized version of my concept map.
 * After critique:** My ideas are hard to understand and do not group well together (for example, the recycling of images does not link well with viewer control as one is based on a new idea in society and the other is based on new physical technology)

[|V10_Colour_comp_1.jpg] This was my first attempt at adding colour. The colours are dark to light from the outside of the circle to the inside of the circle.
 * After critique:** I need a new colour palette. The concept map looks more like information design than a concept map.

[|V11_Colour_comp_3.jpg] This is another attempt at adding colour. This time, the colours are from dark to light from the inner parts of the circle to the outer parts of the circle.
 * After Critique:** I still need to adjust the colour because they do not fit well together.

[|V12_Colour_comp_2.jpg] Here is another, more successful, attempt at adding colour. This time I used the colour spectrum in its order. I also added the connections between ideas using the same colour.
 * After critique**: It's starting to look alot better colour-wise but my ideas are still very vague. Thus from here, I decided to restart and rebuild my concept. I decided to use limited colours to show a more cohesive look and an easier method to view my ideas.

I used these images for my new colour palette since I wanted to have a 80's retro kind of feel.

[|V16_Colour_comp_5.jpg] This is my newly organized concept map with descriptions. In this image, my concept map is entirely mapped out but the connecting lines are still missing. I also needed to fix the wording of some ideas. On the left wheel, the one side uses cool colours and the other side uses warm colours to denote the different categories.
 * Realization:** Colours are very very difficult to pick especially in the case where you need black and white letters to be readable on. Thus, I resorted to a large portion of greens/blues because green is a neutral colour. I also used the colour orange because it contrasted green very nicely and orange is a good colour to work with both black and white.
 * After critique:** The centre circles should be the same width as the surrounding black line (5pt). The surrounding black line should also be fixed to "run" more smoothly. Also, the wheel may be confusing and the viewer might not know to read outwards (from the middle) or to read from the outside inwards. Arrows may help this.

Final
Here is my final copy of my concept map: The Video as a Medium.