Social interaction = increased responsibility?
I had a game plan for this entry. Bill did a video How To Properly Color Correct A Presidential Candidate showing how easy it would have been to color correct Obama in the video Clinton released called True. My article was going to be about ethics; jumping to conclusions and making accusations about the color correction being intentionally done. Seemed like a good idea at the time, until I started writing the article. Doing some research, I found that Obama’s image was not only color distorted, but it was wider than it should have been. While watching Bill’s video you’ll notice that he had to re-size Clinton’s clip so they would be in similar proportion. I thought about this and I was confused. If the color was off and Obama’s portion was over-sized why wasn’t Clinton’s portion over-sized and color distorted? It made no sense to me. I realized I couldn’t write the article from an authoritative standpoint, meaning…I didn’t have enough knowledge on the topic to write an informed article.
You know, an article where I don’t make a fool out of myself.
Talking to Bill, I realized the only way I could be authoritative would be to interview someone from Clinton’s camp to see exactly what happened, then write my article based on what I was told. How ironic that, taking that extra step, would have made my article a “better” article, a unique article because I would have information the other writers/bloggers did not have.
I don’t care enough about the topic to take that extra step.
I noticed that many writers do not research the facts for their articles, particularly if the writer is referencing what he or she feels is a “trusted” source. For some reason, “trusted” tends to equate to popular, yet popularity has nothing to do with trust or being reputable. Taking the extra step would make the writer/blogger more of a journalist, more responsible, one of the sticking points between a blogger/writer and a journalist.
Responsibility.
My question: with social interaction on the rise, and the ability to maintain anonymity decreasing, doesn’t the need for responsibility, if you are interacting in a public medium, increase?
Related posts:
Marquee Says:
Increased responsibility but I don’t think the crowd is ready for that responsibility. What are Bill’s thoughts on the video?
Posted on March 7th, 2008 at 12:05 pm
Curious George Says:
More, which is why I stay off that stuff lol.
Posted on March 7th, 2008 at 12:20 pm
Not Responsible Says:
More responsible but what I do on my own time is my business right?
Posted on March 7th, 2008 at 1:03 pm
Kenny Wilson Says:
Do you mean social programs like Facebook, MySpace, et al?
Posted on March 7th, 2008 at 1:13 pm
Allison H. Says:
Not anymore Not Responsible. If you do something on your own time and it reflects on your boss, your co-workers, etc that is on you.
Posted on March 7th, 2008 at 3:11 pm
Methu Says:
Don’t put it on the internet if you don’t want it public. Anything public should be held against you.
Posted on March 7th, 2008 at 3:12 pm
Foreman Says:
More caution. What does Bill say on the color stuff? On purpose or by accident?
Posted on March 7th, 2008 at 3:17 pm
Snoopy Says:
I stay away from the social sites. I don’t see the point of them. I talk with my friend but to answer your question, more responsibility is needed now because everything we do is monitored somehow.
Posted on March 7th, 2008 at 3:19 pm
Frank M. Says:
I had a MySpace account but I don’t use it anymore. I didn’t put anything up that I didn’t want mamma to see. That’s my safe guard.
Posted on March 7th, 2008 at 3:25 pm
Morgan Says:
More responsible. I have a private Flickr account for my family to keep track of the kids. That’s about it.
I’d like to know what Bill thinks too.
Posted on March 7th, 2008 at 3:27 pm
SuperMan Says:
Was it intentional? I heard about it and I wondered why she was so white and he was much darker.
Posted on March 7th, 2008 at 4:32 pm
Felix Says:
I want to know if its possible for Hillary to be normal and Barack to be abnormal in the same video and it is not done on purpose.
Posted on March 7th, 2008 at 4:39 pm
Felix Says:
Forgot, aren’t they making laws to separate what is done on personal time vs. business time for employees? I thought something was in the works to give employees protection. Smarter decisions is a better answer.
Posted on March 7th, 2008 at 4:39 pm
Arlene Says:
I think it was intentional but Hillary didn’t know anything about it. That’s a marketing nightmare to fix, would it be worth it?
I enjoy reading Bill here. He’s a nice guy.
Posted on March 7th, 2008 at 4:45 pm
Bill Cammack Says:
Hey All.
I’ll cut and paste my thoughts about this situation. This is why it’s so technical and not conversational:
There’s no way to tell whose fault that is. This is why it’s
important to hire professional editors for video projects where your
ETHICS may be called into question instead of hiring interns who don’t
know the first thing about color correction or quality control.
I don’t know who they hired to make this ad, but if they’re
professionals, it’s THE EP’s FAULT (executive producer). The EP’s
responsible for quality control. If they DIDN’T hire professionals to
make this ad, it’s THE CAMPAIGN’S FAULT for not realizing something
like this could make them look bad and staying on top of the details
of media going out the door.
SOMEBODY’S got to be responsible for signing off on the final version
of media that goes out to the public, text, video or images. Either
way, it’s either a deliberate ploy or a mistake that shouldn’t have
been signed off on because of the potential of it LOOKING like a
deliberate ploy.
Let us also not forget that youtube compression is garbage in the
first place, and that the clip could have been darkened (deliberately
or mistakenly) at any stage of the process. We don’t know how they
captured the footage, what they used to edit it, what filters they put
on it, how they applied the split-screen, how they applied the text,
how they compressed it, what codec they used, how they uploaded it to
youtube…..
Either way, SOMEBODY’S got to be in charge of looking at the final
product and signing off on it. That person has to know what they’re
looking at, TECHNICALLY as well as for content and in this case for
political implications.
> Bill, do you think the footage was color corrected.
>
> I agree with pretty much everything you say here, but I can’t imagine
> that kind of change not coming from color correction.
I’m going to do a video about it. I’ve been planning an editing/CC
video series for a few months now, and this is really a good enough
question to start with. I’ll email you to see if you want to send me
(or post and link me to) a short video question to start the piece.
It’s not so much “color correction” as there are standards that have
to be followed. This is why video cameras come with “white balance”.
If you don’t white balance manually, your camera will determine on
its own what the scene looks like. You may end up filming with the
same camera in the same location and have the scene look different
because the camera auto-white-balanced differently. So there could be
an issue on input. That’s not the case here, because they didn’t film
it themselves. They ripped it from another video, which was either
online or on television or from a news feed….
Anyway, it’s too complicated to type about, but easy to demonstrate.
It’s up to the EP to say “I’ve seen 100 videos of Obama,
I’m saying that somewhere along the line, Obama stopped looking like
Obama.
and he doesn’t look like that, so fix it” to the editor and producer
that are on the job. This is why people need to hire professionals or
risk looking shady or incompetent.
Actually, until I get my video together, check out my appearance on ForYourImagination.com’s “The Shirless Apprentice”. We filmed the exact same scene with two cameras set up differently, then I explained the basic way to get the scenes to match. That could EASILY and QUICKLY have been done with the Obama footage in order for them not to be accused of impropriety.
> Although I’ve been thinking that I’ve never really checked my raw v
> YT compression, and could totally be wrong about that.
I have videos on youtube where I’m different colors in the different
thumbnails. I’m not running for office, so I can afford that.
> The squishing, or widening, is a non-issue for me, aspect ratio, but
> knowing it’s a standard practice to blacken a political opponent to
> paint them as ‘bad’ I can’t seem to get by the color correction.
Yes, it’s standard practice. However, I’m biased in this case because
I know how badly people are dying to cut corners in internet video. :/
I’ve been aware of their campaign efforts since I filmed this myself over a year ago.
Even then, their online video was garbage compared to mine. Grainy,
lip-sync completely and obviously off, incorrect aspect ratio…
Garbage. I suspected at the time that they had some intern, or at
least someone that didn’t know JACK about internet video compression
making their videos for them. So, fast forward a year and a month,
and the same people that allowed bad video to be on her site back then
are probably still in charge of it now.
I’m not saying I know one way or another whether it was a deliberate
darkening. I’m saying that IF your videos are going to be scrutinzed
for technical issues that people could use to imply things about you
as a professional, a candidate or a person, it’s in your best interest
to hire people that clearly know what they’re doing. First of all, so
that situations like this don’t occur, and second of all, so you have
someone to fall on their sword when the accusations start flying.
For instance, let’s say you did a video about dogs that you take care
of and you left the video creation up to people that don’t know
anything about white balance or color correction and also don’t know
anything about dogs. Let’s say they put out the final video, and your
dogs are tinted yellow, compared to their real-life color. I don’t
know anything about dogs, haha but let’s say that that color indicates
unhealthy dogs. People are going to talk about the health of your
dogs that YOU are responsible for… because whomever did your videos
visually misrepresented the situation.
Similarly, it could go the other way, as people are saying about the
Obama video. YOU might commission a video to be made and when it’s
finished say “add a little yellow, so the dogs look sicker”. OR, you
might leave the videos up to the company you hired, and they might
alter the video themselves, by accident or on purpose. Either way,
when it comes down to it, they’re going to say that YOU put that video
out there, and it’s going to be YOUR reputation on the line.
> The reason I ask is that there are many opinions coming from people
> claiming to be professionals that deny color correction took place.
Again, I’m going to make a video about it, but I’m not saying they
used a color correction program. It takes about a second and a half
to make Obama look darker. What I’m saying is that in the world of
professional video, there’s always SOMEBODY who has the critical eye
and is responsible for signing off on a video so that it goes out to
the public. Whether that’s Hillary or one of her aides or someone
they hired from a production company or someone that offered to do
their videos for free to get their foot in the door or an intern that
had a youtube account and was selected to make videos solely because
of that is unknown at this point, at least to me.
The INTELLIGENT thing to do is spend the money to get quality people
involved so you don’t have to spend the money on damage control after
being accused of using the same tactics that people have been using
for years already.
> One guy, to his credit, stated ‘inconclusive’ as to the color
> correction question.
It’s CONCLUSIVE that the color is incorrect.
It’s INCONCLUSIVE how it got that way.
Posted on March 7th, 2008 at 4:56 pm
Arlene Says:
The INTELLIGENT thing to do is spend the money to get quality people involved so you don’t have to spend the money on damage control after being accused of using the same tactics that people have been using for years already.
Makes sense. At the end of movies there are always a million names listed. I guess those people are needed to make sure the movie comes out the best. Hillary needs the right people because I think the video caused more problems than helped her campaign.
Posted on March 7th, 2008 at 5:16 pm
Bill Cammack Says:
@Felix (13): They can make all the laws they want. If your employer finds things about you they don’t like because you put it on the internet, they don’t have to cite those things in your dismissal.
It’s all about the opinion someone forms of you. The more ammo you give them, the more shots they can take at you. Next thing you know, you get fired for poor work performance…..
Posted on March 7th, 2008 at 5:17 pm
Curious George Says:
The video is still on YouTube. That answers the question. I would have taken it down.
When I heard Hillary say she approved the message, that would indicate she’s the sign off person, right?
Posted on March 7th, 2008 at 5:18 pm
Felicity Says:
Can someone explain Twitter to me? Most of the things I read on Twitter is boring or better meant for a private conversation.
Posted on March 7th, 2008 at 5:20 pm
Kenny Wilson Says:
Let’s play devil’s advocate. Let’s say I take one of Bill’s videos and use it in my video. Can I do that? Didn’t Hilary need permission to use it?
While using Bill’s video I make him look 20lbs heavier. Can Bill sue me even if I did it by accident?
Posted on March 7th, 2008 at 5:23 pm
Peggy Dale Says:
Bill make sure you tell Tyme about the video so we can all check it out!!
Felicity, Twitter is a mystery to me as well. So many topics I’d like Tyme to talk about. Twitter, long distance relationships, how to fix online problems like saying something one shouldn’t say.
Posted on March 7th, 2008 at 5:41 pm
Barnaby Says:
If you used Bill’s video and put 20lbs on him he’d sue you! :=) You brought up a good question though. What is considered fair use? Have laws caught up with all the electronic stuff?
Posted on March 7th, 2008 at 5:55 pm
Leslie Moore Says:
If you had a choice on how you prefer to talk to a person who is not around, which one would it be? Text, voice or video chat?
I ask this because video seems to be the next new thing and Seesmic encourages conversation through video.
Posted on March 7th, 2008 at 6:13 pm
Bill Cammack Says:
@Curious George (18): Yes. The video’s still there. It’s still wrong. You see in my video that it took me about 6 minutes to fix, including playing the video sections back and going reeeeeeeally slow to show people how it’s done.
The fact that people know it’s wrong and haven’t taken any steps to correct it speaks for itself AND actually overrides what I was saying about EPs because now, it falls under the jurisdiction of the campaign manager to deal with problems. As far as I know, nothing’s being done…….
Also, that “I approve this message” is a sound file. You’ll notice that regardless of how many videos they make, she’ll say that the exact same way. That’s a file that the editor places there without her being anywhere near the edit. She doesn’t even have to watch the video. They already have her voice saved along with their graphics and music. So there’s no guarantee that she saw it before it went out. It’s a REEEEEALLY good bet that she’s seen it by now…..
@Peggy Dale (21): The video is here.
@Kenny Wilson & Barnaby (20,22): If something’s released “All Rights Reserved”, then you’re supposed to get permission to use it. OTOH, a video could be released with one of many different Creative Commons licenses which allow people to do things with your video without asking you. For instance, you could release it with an “Attribution” license, which means people have to say where they got the footage and link back to you (or however you specify you’d like to be attributed). You could release with a Non-Commercial license, which means people can use it, but not if they’re going to make money with the video they’re using it in. You can also mix licences CC-BY-NC => Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial.
As far as the debate footage, it depends. It’s either released so anyone can use it or it’s the property of the station, which would mean that the campaign would have had to pay to use the footage. In this situation, I’d be surprised if the footage wasn’t “public domain”, being that it’s in everyone’s best interest to be able to re-blog what happened.
Also, putting it on youtube comes with its own set of rights and lack thereof, so they may have gotten the footage for the commercial straight from the television (you see how the ad’s footage is cut off at the part of his tie that’s ABOVE the graphics that the station put on there), they may have gotten it straight from the station, or they may have taken it from youtube. Either way, the color’s absolutely wrong, not only of Sen. Obama but the background, his suit and everything else. As you see, it COULD have been corrected, but it hasn’t been.
Posted on March 7th, 2008 at 6:20 pm
Felix Says:
Video, then voice, then text. If I was working while I talked then text, audio, video.
Posted on March 7th, 2008 at 6:22 pm
Hurricane Says:
Engadget mashes up a bloggers article and they get away with it all the time. I don’t see the same leniency with video. On YouTube I see daily someone getting busted out for using someone’s video.
Posted on March 7th, 2008 at 6:50 pm
Stunning Says:
Bill how do you release your videos? Creative Commons? Tyme releases her things All Rights Reserved I think.
Posted on March 7th, 2008 at 7:32 pm
Bill Cammack Says:
@Stunning (27): Every video I post has its own selector for licensing. Some videos I release “All Rights Reserved”. At this point, most of them, I release CC-BY-NC (Creative Commons, Attribution, Non-Commercial), because I want people to be able to re-blog them and embed then without having to contact me.
IF they’re aware of my license, they know I’d like for there to be a link from wherever they post the video back to my site or at least the location where they got the video. Also, if I’m not getting paid for the use of my video, they shouldn’t be either, so that’s where the “NC” comes in.
Having said that, people are mostly unaware of all this stuff, so I watermark my videos anyway. Especially if I’m not IN my videos, I usually put BillCammack.com in the corner so that unless people go to the trouble of cropping the video, re-encoding it and uploading it, whatever they do with the video, it still has *my* name on it.
There isn’t anything you can do about people using materials you put out on the internet, but watermarking your videos is a deterrent against lazy people trying to take credit for your work or art.
Posted on March 7th, 2008 at 8:05 pm
Amber Says:
I’m just now hearing about this. This incident did not do anything to build my trust in her.
Posted on March 8th, 2008 at 8:14 am
Tyme Says:
@27 (Stunning) - Yes, I reserve rights on my stuff. There are gray areas on the Creative Commons licensing that I am not comfortable with.
Posted on March 8th, 2008 at 9:30 am
Cedric Says:
I was going through my bookmarks and found the cutest video of Tyme.
http://nottoogeeky.com/podcasts/thankgod.wmv
I don’t know what caused the video but her hair and her eyebrow, just her entire “seriousness” cracks me up. You are precious Tyme.
Posted on March 14th, 2008 at 9:45 am
Felix Says:
Holy mackrel, she is so CUTE! Rock it girl!!! Got the hat turned to the side!
Posted on March 14th, 2008 at 9:52 am
Curious George Says:
That made my day. Thank you.
Posted on March 14th, 2008 at 9:53 am
Marquee Says:
OMG you are so CUTE Tyme!!! Look at you!
Posted on March 14th, 2008 at 9:57 am
Peggy Dale Says:
I love you Tyme. Your video is right on time. I have to go to a meeting. {{{{{{{{HUGS}}}}}}}}}}}
Posted on March 14th, 2008 at 10:00 am
Tyme White Says:
This is first. I don’t know how you found that video but this is the first time the “audience” has seen it lol. It was taken during my birthday celebration week last year. We just got back from Cedar Point. It was one of those off/on rainy days where we were acting like complete fools. At one point I was walking around in a mink coat with a crown (Queen of the Day). Anyway…we got back to my house and I turned on my playlist while I checked email and such and my SONGS came on. And I started acting a fool, which you see here lmao. I uploaded it so the guys could see it and I forgot about it. I never publicly showed it because…
Well, you see why LMAO
Anyway, that’s the backstory on that one.
And thank you for the kind words. I’ll just continue to blush now.
Posted on March 14th, 2008 at 10:10 am
Cool Guy Says:
Glad you forgot about it sweetheart. Cedar Point is the best one of them all. Best rides, best food.
Posted on March 14th, 2008 at 10:19 am
Jermaine D. Says:
Have any more of these you forgot about? I could eat these up. No matter what you do, you are the hotness.
Posted on March 14th, 2008 at 10:25 am
Larry B. Says:
I watched it 5 or 6 times. I need to loosen up and sway like you do.
Posted on March 14th, 2008 at 10:43 am
Chandra D. Says:
I love you video Tyme but probably not for the reasons everyone else does. You’re adorably cute but this video proves you are REAL. Not a made-up woman plunked down in front of a camera paid to deliver a message. You are the way you are, on a blog, in a video, you’re you. You look the same make up, no make up, hair not done, it’s you, cute as always with different levels of presentation.
Posted on March 14th, 2008 at 10:47 am
Helene Says:
Awesome!
Posted on March 14th, 2008 at 11:42 am