Friday, February 22, 2013

Ian Forster, Introduction

Hello Everyone,

Thank you for inviting me to this group -- I'm so glad to be in touch with other video producers at arts organization. I work at Art21 in New York and have been with the non-profit for over three years. We are best known for our PBS series "Art in the Twenty-First Century" which has a new season every two years but we are also continuously shooting and editing new web videos for our "Exclusive" and "New York Close Up" series.

As the Associate Producer, I work in slightly different capacities across the different projects. For the PBS series I organize shoots at museums, galleries, studios etc., and sometimes serve as the field producer. Our last season, Season 6, was about half tape-based and half digital. Our next season, which just began filming, will finally be all digital. We use a variety of cameras depending upon the shooter and the subject -- Canon EX3, Sony F3, AF100, C300, Canon 5D. Our tape-based workhorse for many years was the Panasonic HDX900 -- it's now been put out to pasture.

For the "New York Close Up" series, I shoot and operate sound in the field, handle the media management, and plan shoots. We work with the 5D, 7D or our in-office Canon T3i for this project. We've also used the AF100 and the C300 though I personally never operated them. GoPros have also been very helpful when we've wanted to strap a camera to an artist's head or dip the camera into a bath of photographic chemicals.

I am most heavily involved with the "Exclusive" web series. "Exclusive" was originally conceived as a way to release unused footage originally shot for the PBS series that was left on the edit room floor. This footage is edited into short videos that cover a single body of work, a central idea, or an aspect of an artist's life. Over the past year though I have begun to also incorporate newly shot footage into this series. I conduct the interviews and direct the freelance camera and sound teams though sometimes I do the camera work myself. For all of the videos, I direct the editor in shaping the story. The goal of "Exclusive" is simply to hear the artist discuss a body of work or their life and visually represent their ideas as best as possible -- every story or artwork requires a slightly different approach. I must say, I have the most fun when a video requires me to search an artist's personal archive or the archive of a 3rd-party organization. A video I did with Ursula von Rydingsvard and another with the late Margaret Kilgallen (which is being released in two weeks) allowed me to really dig deep and find things that haven't been seen before -- it's tremendously gratifying. 

For the "Exclusive" project we are also using the family of Canon HDSLRs. Though I'm open to other cameras, these are simply what most shooters own and we have one in the office that I can operate myself. Here is an example of a video I shot on our T3i while also conducting the interview (El Anatsui very kindly followed my instruction to look at the sound operator when answering my questions):


I'm personally interested in learning about how to improve the web experience that surrounds each video. Though Art21 has a separate team dedicated to the web, Jonathan Munar being the key player, it's an issue I'm fascinated by. I think about how people come to my videos -- through social media, our website, iTunes, or our YouTube page -- and how each of those experiences is different and results in varying levels of further engagement. I also ask myself if I should be creating more ancillary content around each video. Of course my ultimate goal is to have more video views so I'm struggling with how to encourage people to stay and watch another video after they're done with the first.

Again, thank you for inviting me to this group and I look forward to learning from your experiences.

- Ian

1 comment:

  1. Ian, welcome and thanks for writing!

    I love the deeply personal yet experimental nature of the work you do with artists at Art21. One time, I tried to coerce an artist to let us strap a camera to his head to do a time-lapse, but he was too shy! =) I think those types of creative filming really enhance the story portion of what a video can be.
    Can't wait to hear more about your video views dilemma. It's something I know we all struggle with, although I wonder if it is the best marker? Not every video can have a million views, and I think a small niche audience can have a transformational experience with a video even if only a few watch it! Also, how do you guys track metrics over many sites?

    Looking forward to discussing more!

    ReplyDelete

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