Digital Books: A New Balance

     The world of media should be understood as something that constantly evolves to meet expectations that developing conditions create. Digitization has made a splash into the smooth waters of traditional publishing and has since caused quite a ripple effect. Nowadays you can't look left or right without seeing that snobby guy on his iPad or that hipster girl at the coffee shop with her Kindle. Companies such as Apple, Barnes & Noble, and Amazon are all adapting to the digital era by investing in personal and practical products like these tablet-type products. 

     Does this mean that the world will make a sudden shift from paper to digital? Not yet, however the audience for e-Readers will only increase in coming years. The publishing industry has truly been re-formed due to this new platform of technology, yet e-books haven't served as a single lifeline for any of the major publishing companies. The developing demographic of e-Readers simply functions as an alternate opportunity for delivering content -- besides the internet, mobile, and print. For many people within the publishing industry, e-books are simply viewed "as a promising alternative distribution channel -- and one for which they might actually get paid". The numbers have indeed strongly suggested that digital books offer a huge profit for these companies in the near future.


     In July 2010, online giant Amazon.com announced that the sales of e-books for its Kindle surpassed sales of hardcover books, saying it sold a whopping 140 e-books for every 100 hardcover books. Another publishing power has profited from the future investment of digital e-books despite the financial risks and concerns that come with competing against Apple's powerhouse iPad. Barnes & Noble predicts the sales of e-books rising from around $250 million in 2010 to over $2 billion in 2015. The increase in demand for e-books is re-shaping the publishing industry and creating a new market for our digital pioneers to explore. Colleges and businesses are institutions that are soon predicted to help integrate the younger generations with this new technology. University of Missouri's program director for digital publishing Roger Fidler stated he"wouldn't be surprised to see schools require e-readers at some point," he says-particularly if they can replace heavy textbooks. This concept would help draw in younger demographics to e-readers; while the common Kindle operator is around 40.

     The spectrum of digital and printed books seems to be more balanced than ever before. Interestingly enough e-book readers remain dedicated consumers of print books as well, with 58% of e-book owners stating that they were reading print as well as digital books simultaneously. So for those of you who are worried about losing traditional book styles, take a chill pill. The resurrection of digital e-books has given more agency to the consumer by introducing a new medium. Out of many individuals that were asked it was easy to see how these mediums were preferred according to specific situations.

     One can clearly observe how the process of digitization can affect an industry either for better or for worse. The development of e-Readers does not mean the end of anything. Written books will always be around, however digital copies also provide consumers with advantages such as easy access, simpler storage, and mobility. The question here is not whether or not printed books will survive in today's digitized world. It is instead important to look at book publishing from an updated perspective and observe how these mediums will coexist with one another on an equal spectrum.

Seth MacFarlane's Cavalcade of Cartoon Comedy

     The evolution of the internet has created space for change within the realm of television and its inner workings. Web series are a great example of this. Seth MacFarlane's Cavalcade of Cartoon Comedy is a popular web series that consists of comic cartoon shorts that are quite unrelated to each other. The series is brought together by no one other than the mastermind who created popular television shows such as Family Guy and American Dad. With having an already established fan base the series was almost assured instant success.

     

     Two days after the first episode release the series went viral with over 3 million video views earning it the most watched YouTube channel that week. “Seth Comedy” would be hard to see ever make to a television series for a number of reasons. Not only does family guy fill the acquired slots, but it would lack structure simply because there is no real plot or premise. Take a look.

     Interestingly enough this series gained a lot of financial support due to its early hype. Feel free to look at the statistics. Burger King, Priceline.com, and eventually Nike stepped in and sponsored the series, with videos appearing on their official channel. It seems that content that is already proven and recognized makes it easier for viewers to cross over certain mediums like television to the web. The series went on to become available on DVD and Blu-ray. In addition to the 23 episodes released online, 27 episodes were exclusively included on the DVD and Blu-ray release. The Series released uncensored content, which the first eleven episodes had censored. It is important to not that here digitization did nothing but help the web series achieve its success through copying media and organizing it onto a different platform, the Internet. Perhaps we are making a slight shift away from television and drifting more toward "the comfy bubble" that online web series offer. 

Television off TV: Chad Vader

            Upon watching Chad Vader I definitely had my doubts, however after watching Season One, I must say that I thought it was a fairly impressive web series.  The storyline was easy to follow with some entertainment and the acting wasn’t half bad.  It reminded me of a traditional television series in many ways.  The storyline was consistent and it had a likeable main character like many television shows have today.  Chad, the main character, goes through many struggles throughout the series such as being demoted and then fired from his day managing job at the grocery store Empire Market, trying to find a new job, problems with the ladies, and many more which eventually lead to him battling his arch enemy Clint for his day managing position back.  Chad wins back his day manager position in the end, giving us another classic example of good triumphing over evil, which is seen in a lot of television shows today. 

            Though there are similarities between Chad Vader and traditional television shows, there are also differences.  Chad Vader episodes were only about five minutes long and there were only eight episodes in the first season for starters.  The quality of the videos and the special effects, like Chad Vader’s summoning abilities and his lightsaber, were subpar.  This suggests that the show didn’t have much funding, unlike television shows today that require ample amounts of money to produce.  For these reasons I do not believe that this series could be made into a traditional TV series.  I just can’t see people tuning in to watch the new episodes of Chad Vader each week, and I also can’t see any companies thinking that this show would make them money. 

            In order to become successful on television, Chad Vader would need to come up with more ideas for episodes and more content for each episode so it could fit into a traditional 30 minute time slot on TV.  It would need more funding so it could have better special effects and video quality.  But mostly I think that the series would have to develop some edge in order to become successful.  If Chad Vader were on TV, I see its demographic being high school and college aged people, and as a member of that demographic I can say that the most watched shows by this demographic are edgy shows.  Chad Vader currently has no edge to it, which is probably the main reason the show is a relatively unknown web series.  I feel like in order for Chad Vader to become successful, its humor needs to become more crude and its episodes need to be about more touchy subject, giving it an edge kind of like It’s Always Sunny on FX.

            I believe that digitization allows for positive advancements in media production/distribution/exhibition because it takes away a lot of the costs that are usually associated with media.  The production costs remain the same, but the cost of distribution and exhibition is diminished because all the creator has to do it put in on the web.  By taking away a good amount of the expenses, it allows for more creativity and anyone can create a media product and put it on the internet, where anyone can be exposed to it.  A problem arises with digitization however; do you really want anyone to be able to put whatever they want on the internet?            

Television off TV

I chose Mortal Kombat Legacy made by Machinima on YouTube as the web series for this digging deeper. First a quick summary, Mortal Kombat:Legacy takes place before the events of the original game and tells the background stories of several characters from the franchise, culminating in their reasons for participating in the upcoming tenth Mortal Kombat tournament, on which the first game was based. The episodes in the anthology web series are non-linear with minimal continuity, and each devoted to the story of a specific character or characters. 

This series is not too many differences though from how a normal television show runs, because the run time of the video is anywhere from 9 minutes to 13 minutes. Unlike normal television which usually has a 30 minutes to an hour run time. It also differentiates itself by not having commercials breaks so you constantly stay in tuned to the action. It also only has 9 episodes in a season compared to some of the higher numbers of mainstream television.

Even though there are these differences it has quite a lot of similarities as a normal television series. It has enough episodes to have a good season, and it has the same production value as the normal series. Mortal Kombat also has actors that have track records of being in films and even mainstream television shows like the Arrow on the CW. It has a plot and background stories for each character just like regular television also. The video quality and audio quality both match television you watch on a daily basis.

Mortal Kombat Legacy could have easily been made into a series because they have plenty of characters and background story lines for them to carry the show on for many seasons. They can also even have the tournament action in weekly shows and show the progression of the tournament as they fight through it. It also has the ability to have a great fan base because each web series has close to 18 million views for each video already if you put that on television it might increase by much more. But while it could have easily been made into the show it has a TV-MA rating on YouTube, it is Mortal Kombat which means its violence of fighting but we already have that on television now. This could definitely cause a problem at the time slot you could air it based on safe time so that just in case any parent was concerned about their kids watching it. This could probably be a better fit for cable channels so they can air the show like Spike or FX.

If they were to air this on television they would have to be able to increase the run time of the episodes a little bit but with better funding they would be able to do that with no problem at all. They also might have to tone back on some of the episodes so they could get it at a great time slot, but otherwise not much would have to be done to the series for it to be a successful show.

Digitization has made huge positive strides with allowing distribution to become so much easier along with exhibition. With digitization Mortal Kombat and other web series can be shown to the community with much more ease. It also allows for buzz to create about shows because of the easy access of being online. It also allows the shows to get a huge fan base because everybody is online now a day. Production I would feel you would have the same difficulty considering that my web series has the production values of a regular show. But the ability to distribute and exhibition at almost literally no cost has improved the way people can show their content. It also allows for increased creativity practices by the creators and producers.

Television Off TV: Chad Vader

Differences and Similarities to Television on TV
    This was a bit hard for me to swallow to be honest. I really liked the first episode and where the show appeared to be heading, but after that I kept watching because I wanted to give it the benefit of the doubt. In all, I liked it, but I don't think that it is quite up to par with traditional television. Perhaps that's why I'm rather critical of it, because I was comparing it to traditional television. While it wasn't up to par, in my opinion, I do think it was a very well-done amateur series. It felt like I was watching a film student's final project or something, not like I was watching a television series. That's the biggest difference from this show and traditional television, for me at least. And that may be due to what resources were available to the creators, or maybe that's the way they intended for it to be, I don't know. Also, there wasn't really any character depth. Characters were presented as "you should not like this character and you should like this character, but you should like the apparently evil brother of a super villain who is trying run this store and get a girlfriend." In my experience with television, there is more character depth. Now, this season was only eight episodes ranging from six to eight minutes a piece, so there's some leeway there, but in comparison to traditional television, it just doesn't hold up.

Now, there were some similarities to traditional television. The biggest being that it told a story and it was actually entertaining. Additionally, there was a protagonist competing against an antagonist, there was love (sort of), comedy, drama, and action. These components make good television, but like I mentioned earlier, the eight-episode-season made it seem rushed and it was hard to connect.

Success of Chad Vader: Dayshift Manager on TV
     With that being said, I think that this show as it was in season one could not make it as a traditional series on television. Now, I haven't seen the other seasons, so I don't know how it has evolved, but I don't think season one would fare well. I think this because of the reasons I stated for it being different from television, but also because of the limited audience. I didn't even know this show existed before this assignment and I doubt anyone else does unless they are familiar with the creators' other work or they happen to stumble across the series. So, if you want to watch it, you pretty much have to go look for it somewhere. I was surprised to find it on Hulu. Now, if it were on television, perhaps it would have more publicity, but I think it's quality would fail it at that point. The audience for this show is Star Wars fans who want to see the puns and allusions to the film series, but it's kind of hard to watch. I guess there are similarities to the show The Office, which could draw fans of that humor and type of show as well. So, once you weed out the one's who can get passed the quality of the show, I would argue there would be little left that advertisers would be willing to bet on to fund the show.

In order for the show to succeed on television, I would argue that the acting would have to step up. Not that it was horrible and unwatchable, in fact, I really like Chad. However, characters like the crazy janitor were much too corny. The love interest wasn't very believable. And the competition between Chad and Clint seemed to be pressed a little too much. Like I mentioned, there would also have to be more time to develop character depth so the audience can relate. The special effects could be upgraded as well. I've seen better lightsabers in crappy YouTube videos. Little details like these would make the show easier to watch in my opinion. Again, this could be due to the resources available or could even have been the intentions of the creators, but I don't think people are going to stop watching Grey's Anatomy for this.

Digitization of Production, Distribution, and Exhibition
     Havens and Lotz (2012) describe how digitization of audiovisual production has put many opportunities into the amateur's hands. I think that's a true statement. I don't think Chad Vader: Dayshift Manager utilizes what is available. The lightsaber looked okay, and the force powers were pretty believable, but other than that, there wasn't anything overly impressive to me. Perhaps other web-only television series are better about using such resources. Even so, traditional television and film obviously already use these resources and they have dramatically advanced television on TV. Therefore, if these resources are available to the amateur online film or television series creator, then digitization definitely allows for positive advancement in audiovisual production.

As for digitization of distribution, there is definitely potential for positive advancement. Havens and Lotz (2012) point out the success of digitization of music and getting rid of the physical components (for those who so desire). I would argue that this would be very successful for the film/television industry as well because everything is in one place. This is especially true of television series that tend to come in four to six discs and take up a lot of room on the shelf. Access to the material is easier than ever and this is even more true with the outbreak of the "cloud" and other online memory sources. Now, piracy is definitely an issue that is a negative aspect of digitization, but no one will win that war. Havens and Lotz (2012) point out difficulties in making this process happen (coming up with new regulations), but once it's worked out, I think digitization will absolutely allow for positive advancement  in media distribution.

     Finally, I think that digitization also allows for positive advancement in media exhibition. The process of making media available for consumers on the internet is much easier than making it available at other locations (theaters, venues, kiosks, etc.). For instance, getting a film to a movie theater is a stressful process and if something goes wrong, then it could mean that the film isn't shown at it's scheduled time. In contrast, Hulu is capable of putting whole episodes of TV series on its site over night and it is much more convenient for consumers to watch their shows than waiting for the series to come out on DVD or for the rerun later in the week. Also, consumers are able to access the media from anywhere there is an internet connection.

In all, I liked Chad Vader: Dayshift Manager and I might watch the later seasons. When held next to shows that are on TV, it doesn't fare so well, but it has potential. However, it's important to note that without digitization, this show wouldn't be able to exist in the first place, and that is commendable. The creators' ability to utilize digital production tools, being able to put it online for anyone to access for free at any time, and having websites like Hulu and YouTube that will host their show are the result of digitization. It will be interesting to see how the future unfolds for television off TV.