Chicago Community on OTV Video Art vs. Narrative Series

By Chelsea Peterson-Salahuddin
Northwestern University

This report compares OTV audience responses to the platform's original series versus the platform’s video art exhibitions. Comparisons are based on audience survey responses to five video art screening: Inertia, i-Love/Me, The Roach is Coming, Sur La Nuit, and Hair Story and  five, randomly selected original series: Damaged Goods, Renee, Freaky Phyllis, Seeds, and Afternoon Snatch. Audience responses  to each of these shows were coded using grounded theory, inductively searching for themes that ran across all nine shows. Constant comparison between the surveys was used to help elucidate new themes and patterns across survey responses (Strauss and Corbin 1994; Strauss and Corbin 1997; Charmaz and Belgrave, 2001). The analysis indicates that while audiences noted various production elements that stood out to them across all 10 shows, series were noted for centering representation of marginalized people and relatability, whereas the video art screenings were noted as being more experimental, and at times, confusing. 

Video Art and Series: Elements of Production 

Across all 10 shows, audiences responded that what stood out to them were production elements, including things such as cinematography and camera work, editing, and graphics. Audience noted the way that these elements both enhanced as well as detracted from the overall production quality of the shows. For instance, for the video art pieces, audiences noted that while the editing enhances the production of Inertia, they did not like the shaky camera angles and certain editing choices in The Roach is Coming. Similarly, for the series sampled, while viewers of Damaged Goods overwhelmingly highlighted the show for it’s camerawork and cinematography, viewers of Renne noted that the sound editing made the show hard to hear. However, in terms of production, the main difference between audience responses to the video art screenings and the series screenings were those production elements which stood out to them most. 

Series: Acting and Writing 

The element of production that audiences said stood out to them most were acting and dialogue/writing. Across all five shows sampled, these elements of production in particular, were highlighted. One clear example of this, speaking to both of these elements, was an audience member who said what stood out to them most at a screening of seeds was “Strong cast. Strong writing.” Similar comments like this across the other scripted series thus indicated that strong writing and acting were important elements to audience members in the narrative format. 

Video Art: Music and Visuals 

However, what seemed to stand out the most to audience members at the video art screenings were the music and visual elements of production. Speaking to the visual element of the video, an audience member at a screening of The Roach is Coming  said what stood out to them most was the “juxtaposition of the intimate conversation and innocent/eerie visuals, ” similarly an audience member at a screening of i-Love/Me simply said what stood out to them was the “stunning imagery. ” In addition, audience members across all five video art screenings highlighted the important role the music played for these screenings. For example, an audience member at a screening of Inertia wrote “The music reframed my experience, trying to better understand the director's point of view.” In this way, as opposed to acting and dialogue, it was music and visual imagery which played an important role in shaping audience viewings of the video-art pieces. 

Video Art vs. Series: The Real v. The Abstract 

Series: Representation, Relatability, and Humor

In the five series sampled, what stood out most to audiences was their representation of marginalized communities and bodies, their relatability and their humorous tone. Across all five shows, audiences comments pointed to the specific ways in which these shows brought attention to people and communities often left out of mainstream media. For instance, an audience member at a screening of Seeds said what stood out to them was the portrayal of“black women’s friendships and solidarity in the face of racism and sexism.” In this same vein, an audience member at a screening of Damaged Goods commented “It's great to see intersectional POC characters take the center stage for a change.” As these comments indicate, audiences at these screenings pointed to the important way in which the series gave further representation to marginalized and intersectional communities in a way that does not happen often in other shows. Similar comments in other shows also highlighted representation in foregrounding intergenerational stories, multicultural family experiences, and queer and gender non-confirming individuals. 

Further, many of the audience members found the stories the series told to realistic and relatable to their own life experiences. As one audience member noted after a screening of Renee “I think the work relationship is something that many women have experienced. It felt validating hearing her tell her friend she felt like she could have done more since that’s something everyone feels.” Responses such as this highlight the ways in which many of the scripted series directly reflected themes and experiences that audience members themselves had faced or had experiences with. 

Finally, for four of the five shows sampled, audience noted that the show was humorous in tone. Audiences across the series screenings made comments relating to both the comedic timing of the acting and the humorous and witty dialogue and writing.  The only show where audiences did not note humor as something that stood out to them was Damaged Goods, most likely because the show is not a comedy. While this could point to the general humor in OTV’s scripted series, it could also be a reflection of the specific shows that were selected for this analysis.

Video Art: Abstract Experimentation 

Comparatively, across the video art screening, what audiences noted most were the use of experimentation and abstract concepts. For instance, an audience member at a screening of Sur La Nuit said that what stood out to them most was “More esoteric, further abstraction of the body in space - playing with pace / time, experimentation with composition.” Similarly, an audience member at a screening of Inertia noted what stood out to them was the “Abstract/blurry renderings of the body accompanied by music.” In this way, audiences highlighted how the video art played and experimented with abstract concepts and forms of editing, something that was not noted in any of the audience responses to the series screenings.  

However, along with this, audiences at the video-art screenings noted more instances of confusion in not being able to follow the story or the underlying themes and concepts of the videos. Audience at the video art screenings, unlike audiences at the series screenings, noted instances of confusion in which parts of the story or concepts were unclear. For instance, one audience member at a screening of Inertia wrote I “couldn't figure out the narrative arc and I thought there was a bit too much image manipulation/ effects for me to feel connected to the story. In this same vein, an audience member at a screening of Hair Story responded “I was confused by the video and puzzled by the Althea psychic moments. I don't want to see less of it, just hope it is tied more into the story in the future.” In this way, some of the experimental elements used in these video art pieces left audience members lost about the purpose of these effects and unclear about what the directors were attempting to convey.