I've been struggling with editing the existing episodes of The O Show because I can't reconcile my desired aesthetic with the production values achieved in the recordings of the live events. This concern has come to a head since showing my work (and this particular clip) at a talk on Saturday as part of the exhibition For Our Freedom Years organised by two of my former students Kerry Clarke and Gemma Donavan. The question keeps coming up, is the 'look' of the video document a conscious choice? Are you going for an anti-chat show aesthetic? Sadly, the answer is: I did what I could under the circumstances, so no, it doesn't have the 'look' I most want. I'd love for The O Show to approximate more closely the production values of mainstream talk shows, but I simply don't have that kind of budget. I could go for a more consciously alternative aesthetic, a highly personalised one, as Jennifer Sullivan has done with her It's a Process series, creating the set out of her own paintings and sculptures. As of now the solution is yet to be found. I want to create a visually stimulating and thought-provoking video series, but I also want to push the show forward in terms of content which means simply making more shows despite the shoestring budget. Do I put future shows on hold while I do some fundraising to acheive higher end production values or do I go on making shows that work as live events and don't translate as well to video? Does performance documentation have to be boring and ugly? Can I find a compromise?
The below TED talk video is not only fascinating in terms of the content, but it looks great. Clearly a large sum of money has gone into this. I'm wondering if I can approximate these production values for my shows with slightly less extravagant means.