Who is the practitioner and when were they practicing?
The practitioner I have chosen is filmmaker and photographer, Foster Huntington. During his education, he started a blog called Restless Transparent, where he posted photos of camping and surf trips. In 2009, he was approached by Ralph Lauren which kick started his career in photography and film making (O’Malley, 2013). However, in 2014, he and some friends built tree houses in the mountains in Columbia River Gorge, Washington State. He told Monster Children that ‘It’s one thing to travel all the time and take photos, but video requires more infrastructure’ (Abada, 2017). I thought this was an interesting idea, because as pointed out by Halpern and Humphreys (2014, p.1) the emergence of the iPhone has meant videos can be uploaded straight from a device onto networks, creating a more accessible and mobile form of video. However, Huntington’s stop motion endeavours aren’t that quick and easy and must be shot and edited offline before they can be uploaded.
What is the title of the video you have chosen to analyse (can you provide a link?)
With the video you are examining when was it produced (date)?
The video was produced in 2017 and is a stop motion film depicting the laid back lifestyle of ‘pool scum’, skateboarders who seem to perpetually hang around an old Californian pool, repurposed as a skate bowl. The short 4 minute film follows the pool scum as they compete against each other and perform tricks to different music. The video is shot vertically for the format of Instagram, and due to the nature of the stop motion would have been completely edited in post-production. The caption reads ‘POOL SCUM EPISODE 1: THE SHOWDOWN!!! Here’s the first episode of #poolscum. I’ll be posting the next episode mañana, but if you want to peep what happens next head over to @moviemountain. #poolscum’
How was the video authored?
Huntington specialises in DIY stop motion, he and his team create rough and raw characters with charm before setting up rigs to hold them in place whilst they take each individual shot. In post production, these shots are edited together to create a self-aware home-video aesthetic.
Whilst Huntington could not have authored the film on Instagram he did author the film to conform to Instagram. The film is shot vertically in order to conform to the constraints of Instagram, because Huntington knew he wanted it to publish it on Instagram before he started. Huntington uses hashtags in the caption as well as tagging the production team’s Instagram.
How was the video published?
Huntington knew he wanted to publish his videos on Instagram, noting that ‘everyone just assumes, without really thinking about it, that social media is a platform for nonfiction: “this is my life, this is what i do, these are my travels.” Well why can’t it be made up stuff too?’ (Abada, 2017).
The video was published on his Instagram account (@fosterhunting ) on 17 October 2017, as well as being published on the Movie Mountain Instagram, the Movie Mountain YouTube and Huntington’s Vimeo account that same day, with the title ‘Pool Scum Episodes 1-3’. A teaser video was also published to the Movie Mountain Twitter and Facebook pages in the lead up to release. The major difference that I can see is that the episodes 1-3 of Pool Scum are posted as one video on YouTube. The constraints of Instagram mean that Huntington posted episodes 1 – 3 of Pool Scum as separate posts on October 17, 18 and 19 respectively.
However, Instagram, YouTube and Vimeo also afforded Huntington publication platforms where his content could be published to generate a profit. This would not have been the case in the times of analogue video because television and film corporations would determine what was shown on TV or in the cinema, and would only invest in that video if it would generate a profit margin. I think that Huntington’s use of video publishing on these platforms is a great example of how video and other media content can be published and engaged with by individuals without the constraints of profitability. However, it is important to note that there still may be some interference base on Instagram’s algorithms.
How was the video distributed?
The video has been distributed across multiple platforms and therefore will have reached a much larger audience than distributing on one channel. It was easy to find the videos many months after I originally saw it, through Monster Children. The affordances of instagram in its visual tile format allowed me to scroll back through the Monster Children account, to find where they had tagged Foster Huntington. I could then scroll through his posts to find the video. I was also able to find the Movie Mountain Instagram through this tagging which creates a traceable network between accounts and users.
The use of the #poolsum hashtag distributes the video to more Instagram users who may not already be following Huntington or Movie Mountain. And whilst the hashtag shows many re-distributions by fans it also shows real life ‘pool scum’ (i.e. people skating in pools). This allows Huntington’s work of fiction to effortlessly merge into the non-fiction posts authored, published and distributed in Instagram.
On 17 October 2018, Movie Mountain re-distributed Pool Scum in a gallery format, to their followers. Furthermore, almost three years later, the film continues to be redistributed by fans and Instagram users.
The nature of Instagram and many other social media platforms means that the publication and distribution of online media is very closely linked – as the user publishes it, it becomes distributed to followers instantly.
References:
Abada, A 2017, ‘Pool Scum: Foster Huntington’s stop motion skate movie’, Monster Children, 17 October 2017, viewed 31 April 2018, <https://www.monsterchildren.com/65520/watch-foster-huntingtons-stop-motion-skate-movies/>
O’Malley, P 2013, ‘Foster Huntington Stopped Working for the Man and Started Living in a Van’, Vice, 11 October 2013, viewed 31 April 2018, <https://www.vice.com/en_au/article/gq8gvb/talking-surfing-and-vans-with-Foster-huntington>
Halpern, M & Humpreys, L 2014, ‘iPhoneography as an emergent art world’, New Media Society, vol. 18, no. 1, pp.62-81.