Yes, the "digital age" really does change everything. The evidence is all around us, local broadcast news being fed not by your traditional ENG (electronic news gathering) professionals, but an army of "citizen journalists" empowered by low-cost high-resolution digital cameras and trained by the local stations to put "eyes" everywhere in the community. Now Sony Pictures Entertainment (SPE) announced a new "open studio" approach akin to this, looking to create "citizen videographers" to produce content for its "Crackle" streaming entertainment network-and perhaps serve as a kind of farm system to breed the next generation of entertainment talent.

Steve Sechrist
Senior Analyst and Editor
Projection Monthly

Unlike the content of YouTube that is "undifferentiated," Crackle’s intent is to put the power of the Sony Studio behind specific citizen projects, some commissioned, some given incentives and shepherded by the studio’s editorial staff. The company said the best new video creators will receive funding, promotion, syndication and tie-ins with the mammoth SPE empire that includes Sony Pictures Animation group, Imageworks, Columbia Pictures, Sony Television, the IMPROV Comedy Lab and others.

It doesn’t stop there, as access to Sony’s distribution network is also in the offing. Successful citizen videographers will find opportunities to syndicate content on the PlayStation Portable (PSP) and a host of other web distribution sites.

Sony said the business model is paid-advertiser based, with some new and creative ideas in the pipe.

For its part, "citizen journalism" started with a few local broadcast stations in markets like Nashville (WTNH) and Santa Rosa (KFTY) facing the continued loss of local coverage due to ever shrinking budget cuts. Some visionary network risk takers, willing to engage viewers as "citizen video-journalists," began arming local viewers with digital video cameras and a modicum of training to cover the community-for a fraction of the traditional ENG cost.

In the meantime, YouTube and other social networking / video content sharing sites came along, empowered by the Internet and again, the low cost, high quality digital content that can be created today ala the digital revolution.

What we are really seeing in this latest Sony announcement is the confluence of several factors. Mass, ubiquitous distribution (Internet), content creation / capture technology (digital video cameras, etc.), PC-based editing capabilities, and a generation of digital gear-head kids all raised on a healthy helping of first video, then digital games and other content. These tools are as natural a medium of expression to them as pen, paper and typewriter are to pre-digital generation fogies, like me.

So bring on the next digital entertainment wave. Technology has opened the door and the citizens are responding in kind. What a fantastic time to be alive, even for us pre-digital generation fogies…–?SS

Reply to the author