Web Serials

I enjoyed and related to Virginia Heffernan's articles on Web T.V. Serials.  Going back to my first entry in this blog, I noted the ABC.com web series "Missing Pieces," an addendum to my favorite show, ABC's LOST, as a wonderful mode of filling in extra details about the show's ensemble cast during season hiatus (originally posted during the Writer's Strike).  As Heffernan so aptly puts it, "serials have always attracted completists," and anyone who loves LOST is generally semi-obsessed and addicted due to the show's mysterious, character-driven nature, so yes, we LOST fans are completists, eager for any extra help with putting together the elaborate puzzle of comprehending anything and everything related to the crash of Oceanic 815. I was also a fan of the web series Heffernan includes in her list of those worth checking out, "Clark and Michael."  As a big fan of all things related, directly or indirectly, to director/producer Judd Apatow, as well as anything with Michael Cera, it was an obvious viewing choice.  Funded by CBS for web broadcast, it is another perfect example of one of the big networks getting involved in the web serial scene.  

I also felt a connection to Heffernan's relating viewership of web serials to the "thrill… present in all Web interactions in which a Facebook friend or far-flung colleague or gchat buddy is so there, writing the long 4 a.m. communications about Russia or his cat, until he isn't.  When you kick off an exchage with someone online, you don't know how many episodes have been ordered, what shape or course the relationship might take or how much of a commitment it requires."  There are few things more profound, if not entirely unpredictable and unstable, than having friends and family all over the world with whom our main form of communication is reliant on technology.  Although some situations allow for greater predictability than others, so much depends on either party's availability as well as interest within the medium with such an obvious sense of removed intimacy.

Heffernan quotes Jean Cocteau, saying that, "Film will only become an art when its materials are as inexpensive as paper and pencil."  At this point in time, anyone with a digital camera, or videophone has the technical potential to share their videography.  But what draws the line? When does this become art.  As a student who spent the summer doing online research and data entry to pay for a MacBook Pro, HD video camera, and the latest Final Cut Studio 2, I struggle with the notion that anyone can suddenly become a filmmaker.  Certainly, the YoutTube generation is redefining the art of film, but perhaps not everything that shapes an art form can or should be considered art in and of itself.