Viewfinder: When Text and Images are Not Enough

Many camcorder enthusiasts became interested in making video after confronting the limitations of other media. Text, which we receive from print media, is the easiest and least expensive medium. But it also leaves much of the message to the imagination of the reader.

Illustrations and still photography, more dynamic than text, prompt the imagination with visual cues. For example, photographic exhibitions allow artists to prompt the imagination of the beholders with no clues other than the photos themselves. Text and photos together are a great combination. Their combined use in magazines, pamphlets, brochures, e-mail and Web pages is commonplace. The pictures provide visual images to enhance the text (or vice versa).

Audio is a medium that most people use in "real time" by speaking in person or on the phone. The spoken word used in face-to-face communication is our oldest form of expression. We use recorded audio to create "audio-text" in telephone voice mail systems. Musicians are primary users of recorded audio media (cassettes and CDs). Their messages are more an expression of an art form than a practical conveyance of information. Public address systems and certain radio frequencies have been communications tools, primarily used to convey information. But as time has passed, many of those emergency-based information sources have migrated to TV and the Internet. In addition, some Web pages utilize audio, thereby combining three different media text, pictures and audio. Slideshows, mostly produced and played backed on computers, also use three different media. Text and images appear on the screen, while audio plays through the …