Who Am I?

My name is Alaa Jaber, I am currently a senior majoring in film and finishing up my last few classes over the summer. I spend the majority of my time writing and directing short films. At this point I do consider myself to be an adept filmmaker. I greatly admire the work of others and love to participate on others projects.

I do consider my relationship to media to be very complex because for the most part I partake in almost all aspects of the media. I am not engulfed in any one part of the media but I do enjoy the social nature of video sharing sites the most. (Vimeo, You Tube.) I would consider media a very integral part of my life; I have six siblings for the majority of the time our communications are done over Facebook. I also manage a major electronics retail store in Queens so my time spent in front of a computer probably amounts to 95% of my day.

I do feel that the growing trend of streaming video on the Internet over the next few years will drastically change how we perceive narrative television. As a child I enjoyed many television narratives but was never able to communicate readily with fans of a particular program. Usually in the past if you enjoy a particular television program you would discuss that program with your close friends and family or maybe even your coworkers. But today you are not limited to the small social group of people you know, you have access to a vast community of followers who can come together and discuss the show in detail. Long ago if you were to create a short film it would be difficult for you to gather an audience to screen the film. Gaining the opinions of others on your work would've been time-consuming in on itself. But now that video sites like YouTube and Vimeo have flourished for years it is easy to gain access to audience to showcase your work. And within a short time you can have a wealth of feedback on your contributions to media.