So, what’s wrong with video?

The idea for POSEFY started evolving several years ago, after a visit to my chiropractor. I have been suffering from cervical spine problems for half a decade, probably owing to a really defective posture while sitting at my desk. Although this is not a life-threatening illness, it is accompanied by rather unpleasant symptoms including dizziness and recurring headaches.

Apart from showing me correct posture techniques, this chiropractor suggested that I perform several exercises consisting in stretching my neck and upper back muscles on a daily basis. After a couple of days, I felt a significant improvement in my symptoms and I was eager to share these exercises with others who I knew were suffering of similar complaints.

Over and over again, when I called these people and tried to explain everything that I had learnt from my physician, I heard crickets. They found it very difficult to visualize the exercises and postures I was trying to explain in words. The response I got after several unsuccessful attempts was “why don’t you record a video and show me?”

I thought about it for a while, but there were just too many obstacles. To name a few:

• As we’ve mentioned in a previous post, we at POSEFY believe that the future of the Internet is 3D. Online video is great, but although resolution and load times have improved substantially over the past 10 years, it is still flat. This makes video an OK, but crippled, way of learning stuff.

• While most people nowadays have access to video recording equipment (heck, most of us carry a smartphone in our pocket that can get the job done) professional quality videos continue to require expensive hardware that not everyone can afford. I might consider this kind of equipment if I’m planning a really ambitious vidcast, but not if I just want to show my brother on the other side of the Atlantic how to stretch his neck properly.

• Production quality greatly affects the credibility of a video, in particular if that video is trying to teach someone something. You can have the best Yoga professor in the world showing you how to perform an Asana but if the man/woman is scruffy, the audio is unlevelled, the background music is corny and the room looks scruffy and poorly lit, it will be very difficult for your audience to see past this and focus on the actual teachings of the master.

• Very few people get the perfect take in one shot when recording video; chances are you’ll mess up a few times, the phone will ring in the background, a passing cloud will ruin your lightning… All in all, it will take more than one take to successfully record something remotely like what you are hoping to transmit.

I was not going to go through all of this, but I still thought that I could help many people with what had been taught to me so instead of recording the video we decided to put a great team together and start working on POSEFY.