New York Dreamer

People waited too long for this live performance. My friends also waited for this French electronic group, Daft Punk, to perform in New York almost over the last 10 years.

One late summer night last year, a bunch of my friends and I took the B train and went over to Coney Island, despite the weather forecast warning that thunder storms and lightening will hit the Key Span Park area in Brooklyn. Occasional drizzling with the salty tasty sea breeze excited our frenzy group, who were packed with fantasy expectations of the evening concert. As a Daft Punk addict, I got really excited to see them and hear their music in person (fianlly!!). Additionally, thanks to my friend, Hunter, who was supposed to shoot a video of the concert, we could go all the way up to a VIP lounge, overlooking a concert stage and the empty beach spread further on.

The sensory stimuli of the concert was amazing. Especially, the futuristic images generated by the computer graphic effect tuned to the Daft Punk’s updated remix gave us a once-in-a lifetime concert experience. It was true visual electronic fantasy. What was also interesting about this concert was that they prearranged user generate video submissions which were shot during the concert by over 200 people at the spot. By aggregating all the user submitted videos, including my friends’ videos, they came up with a complete new UGC music video.

Compare the following two videos: the first one is a UGC music video and the second one is a professionally done video. The quality of professional videos is of course better in a sense that it’s more refined and planned. But at the same time, user generated videos created energetic and various views of the same event. I find it exciting to compare these two videos and witness what’s going to happen to the “UGC vs. Professional content” frame in the next five years. Are there going to be a cut-throat competition or amicable cooperation? Or they cannot compete in terms of quality in the first place? Let me know what you think.

VS.