http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QuVtO6otu_U

I had the pleasure of interviewing Sir Patrick Stewart for Digital Nation, which aired on PBS’s Frontline. In this interview, Stewart explains why he can’t reduce life to 140 characters and why he’s afraid to start gaming. He also tells us why he loves technology and how the Internet has changed his life.

After the interview, we asked him if he was aware of the life his persona had taken on the web, specifically on sites like YTMND. He mentioned having a Google alert for his name, but quickly disabling it when the alerts began flooding his email inbox.

Not surprisingly, the interview was quickly created into a pretty hilarious mashup video by an online fan. Because this is the Internet… and that’s just what you do. Someone even used the background to simulate their own PBS interview.

I think it’s very easy for networks, shows, and personalities to feel uncomfortable when their content is floating freely on the web for all to use in whichever context they wish. But there is also something creatively rewarding about giving super-fans the ability to redefine and reinterpret what they see. Editing video takes time and effort, especially mashups, so when someone takes hours to recreate a piece of video, you know it means more to them than just making a “cool video.”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k0PjnzVSVkA

Thanks again to PBS, as well as our amazing team Steve Woolf, Lan Bui, Vu Bui, Rick Rey, and Tracie Cotta.