The Newport Beach Film Festival, which ended Thursday, also featured a number of short films, many of which looked like video art projects. As a medium, video is ubiquitous. Video flips on as easily as it flips off, giving it an ephemerality that sets it apart from painting, sculpture and installation. And without electricity, video is nothing. A distinction should be made between film and video.
Film is expensive material, and creating it is a laborious and time-consuming process.
A film usually contains characters, a timeline and some kind of story. Video is not bound by the same restrictions. It's cheap, it can be produced quickly, and it can be taped over or recycled. Video was initially created as a storage device to document or archive events. It was introduced to the public in the 1960s through portapaks - devices that one could use to capture personal or historical moments.