From the Wk 12 presentation we gathered a variety of feedback from our fellow peers and tutor, that allowed us to rethink out interface designs and concepts that we wish to portray. Overall, everyone was happy with what we have achieved and thought that our ideas and research is shown throughout the k-film, through the personalised structure and the interface design. The main points from the feedback was to keep the interface clear and simple. The snu’s need to be larger, along with the previews because there is too much negative space surrounding the screen.

We need to find a way to have the selected snu stand out from the previews, so that the viewer knows where to look. The group suggested that we use text to guide the user – however we decided not to do this, as we didn’t want the text to influence where the user clicks next.

A couple of questions that were raised was:

1. Do we want sound over the previews? The class was debating about this issue, because the snu’s and the previews in our work all seem to look the same, which can become confusing for the user. The class suggested having no sound, while others said that we need sound to show the user what is to come. If there is no sound, the user won’t know what is in the videos.

2. Do we want the previews shown at the same time as the snu is playing? This, again, comes from the granules all looking the same, and something that we came up to possibly fix this issue would to have the previews appear 5-10 secs after the user clicks on the desired clip.

And to finish off the group said – the user can just watch the videos without clicking in the next one – how can we change this? Is it a positive or a negative?

Moving towards creating a prototype we asked a couple of people to user test it, to see what their response was to our work. We are interested in these key aspects, and to see how easy it is to engage with, with them intuitively engaging with the material, how they engaged with our interface design, and what they are drawing from it in terms of cycling.

After getting the prototype tested, the user understand the idea of cycling, and thought that introducing Carly is beneficial to the rest of the k-film. The symmetry works well, however the granules could be closer together and bigger within the interface. The user thought that we could possibly use a background that relates to the theme, and to include text and descriptions. the user understood that all of the granules link to what Carly is saying, and the patterns of the granules playing in different positions, however not from the keywording. These are all points that we are taking into account to create our final prototype, and to enhance the user’s experience with this k-film. They are all valid points that will add to our work’s concept.

The prototype that we have created demonstrates the ability to research, design and produce media, through connecting theory and practice methodologies, and communicating and producing topics in complex ways. This k-film has progressed from an intermediate piece to a piece that has been rethought, reworked and reimagined. It is something that has gone through all of the levels of thinking and designing, that allows it to be seen through various angles which is something you need when working with new media practices.

From our perspectives, one of the most significant breakthroughs for our project is seeing it as a polyvocal piece that is represented through keywording and recurring themes and patterns. It is not planning what the final outcome will be, and deciding to let Korsakow find our end point, or the new direction that we wish to head in. We have challenged assumptions, been receptive to new ideas from within our group, the teaching faculty and outside practitioners; recognised similarities through the work; made connections between the granules and gathered materials from all briefs that we have completed; we have looked at our direction in new ways, allowing us to reinvent our methodologies of working; taken chances on our design to better our understanding for this new media software; and have built upon ideas to make better ideas.

This prototype has allowed us to follow the verification process of design, by analysing the result against the original perspectives. It is essential to test all ideas to analysis and synthesis, where we were then able to assess its validity and judge the final result. This is necessary after all of the research we have completed, to look back at our work and see that is has progressed in positive ways.

Throughout this process we have had highs and lows, however we have had some significant breakthroughs in terms of having a high standard working k-film. These breakthroughs were from the research that we have undergone, and listening to Hannah’s presentation on noticing. This lecture really gave us an insight on what we should be doing and where we should be. At first we were quite didactic in the ways in which we were working, however now we can be ensured that we have spun this around to us being more open about the idea of having no hint of narrative, and allowing the granules and key wording to determine its natural order. We have also taken onboard her idea of noticing, and not planning as much as we were in previous briefs. After working through project 4 we have tried to simulate this idea by breaking up our gathered recordings and making them into smaller self-contained granules that can be placed within four clusters.

In relation to earlier works that we have created our planning, collaborating, media making and methodologies have changed to fit with Korsakow and not work against what it is trying to do. We are now deciding on ideas and ways of working that work with the idea of not having a narrative structure, however we have come to a stage where we like to challenge this as well, from looking at works of Matt Soar. It is essential that we show what we have learnt along this process, and demonstrate it in our work, which will essentially lead to a better k-film. We now allow the work to determine its own outcome, which relates to how we have described our new and improved media practices. The idea of this final brief was to make a start, and to respond to the material as we go along, and that is exactly what we have done. We edited the already recorded material of Carly, and then allowed these videos to influence the extra footage that we needed to get in order for this work to be executed to a higher standard. Here, we are using Korsakow as a creative tool, which we haven’t been doing in the past.

Our interface consists of four boxes (one for the active video, three for previews). This reflects the 4 clusters linking the k-film through keywording: cycling, community, training and purpose.

How we came about deciding on these is through our previously recorded material, that we allowed to develop into its own story. We rewatched the footage and identified the key themes, asking ourselves how they could be used within the final work, considering the elements and techniques that we now know. This K-film has taken the already edited and compressed files from Project Brief 3, but portraying them from a different angle that is more poetic. We’re also experimenting with the use of text throughout some of the granules. We went through the existing material and cut up each file, reducing them into smaller clips. We have tried to rework the existing footage in a way that demonstrates our research and design journey throughout the studio. In addition to this, we filmed additional clips to add more context to each of the clusters, supporting Carly and her story. This new footage allowed us to experiment with a more poetic technique that we wanted to try out, letting our k-film determine the direction it was heading, rather than us trying to force it.

After thorough research into different artists and their methodologies, we decided to work with patterns, and how they help to develop what your k-film will look like and how it will operate. The recurring patterns are what the user can pick up on and engage with throughout their experience. Each cluster is shown in a different position when clicked on, just like the other three clusters. For example, the snus from the purpose cluster will be shown in the top box, while snus in the community cluster will always be shown in the bottom box.

Looking at a k-film as a polyvocal database that allows for an unplanned project, and helps to navigate the user and designer to an end point is something that we, as a group, have finally come to terms with, which allows us to really focus on this aspect for the final brief. Not only have we rethought our idea and how it could be presented through this online medium, we have reworked the material to present a documentary that is nonlinear and uses self-contained granules that are the backbone of the work.

After completing Project Brief 3, we had a ‘lightbulb’ moment you could say, in that we were taking in all of this information from lectures and course readings, that it occurred to us that Korsakow is a polyvocal software, therefore through changing our concept by connecting with our recorded material, keywording and themes, we arrived at a poetic response to this final brief. This is where we connect with the idea of noticing that Hannah suggests in her lecture, and allow the materials to lead us to our final endpoint. We are gathering reoccurring keywords/themes from our materials and letting that lead our direction for future recordings.

Our primary focus for the final brief was the development of the K-film itself, with an emphasis on user experience. We wanted to create an interface that works with our theme, and experiment with the affordances of Korsakow to create intuitive navigation and a more visually engaging interface. Throughout the course we have all developed different levels of experience with the Korsakow program, and we have tried to approach the work with an open mind, in order to achieve the best result for our material. Our final k-film prototype was always going to be the main focus in this final project, so we have gone away and researched ways of working with korsakow. We had to think deeply about what Korsakow is and what it has to offer, through our own experience and that of other designers, to really start to understand the affordances of the software.

As said in the previous blog posts, noticing is a significant factor within the design indursty, and especially used when working with a ploy vocal software. To find out what our working was telling us, and the direction that it was heading naturally was worked out by watching all of the granules that we already have and writing down one word descriptions from the cues that I could pick up.

The picture below is the starting point of my reoccurring themes, which allowed this project to make more sense to me, and where the group could go from now. I narrowed all of the descriptions down until I came to the final themes which are: weather, friends/women, bikes, community, freedom/emotions/health, training, outdoors, hills, breaks/eating, and hobbies.

From working out these themes I was then able to move to keywording, which is a significant part of the Korsakow program, and is something that Hannah and Matt Soar speak so highly of. This is evident throughout their works, and this is the only structure they use. The keywording will become clusters within the project, which will have bridging clips which is influenced by Matt Soar.

I eventually kept Narrowing down these themes until I came to the final four keywords that will be used in Project Brief 4, those being:

These keywords help significantly, aiding us with the natural structure that this k-film will follow. Not only has this process been influenced by Hannah it will allow us to have the idea of four clusters within our work, and that can be shown within the interface.

Reflection is a main element within this studio, and is something that is used throughout the media industry. Our ideas should be developing through making, as more ideas will come from this, and it is a more organic way of working with patterns in Korsakow.

Our group has been quite didactic while working in Korsakow, which is not what we are meant to be doing, as it is a polyvocal piece that allows us to experiment with the multi-linear non-narrative. From here we can make our k-film more experimental, and we don’t have to be attached and restrictive to everything that we want to do.

A main idea that we have come away with from Hannah’s presentation is the idea of using lists, which she does, to look for the naturally occurring patterns that are being formed.

For our project: What moods are occurring within our granules – a sense of rhythm, mood and ups and downs.

A PHD student, Hannah, came to our class to talk to us about her projects with Korsakow, she was also on the panel that we had to present our project briefs to.

For her, it is all about noticing. She has based her entire project around noticing with Korsakow. She starts with a quote – “To notice is to make a distinction, to create foreground and background, to distinguish some ‘thing’ from its surroundings” (John Mason). Like our group she refers to Matt Soar – she uses his words when she says “if not languid, exactly, then contemplative, interpretive and exploratory”, and that the works are documentary-orientated.

She goes into talking about how there are three components to making a K-film:
1. Video component
2. Relational pattern (the work you do in Korsakow such as key wording)
3. Interface (what the user interacts with as they view your work).

She said that her starting point was to film everyday moments that she believed were worth noticing and build conceptually upon that collection. She then goes into saying how close up thumbnails are better to use than a wide shot as it is more personal and interactive, and she likes to add sound to the previews, to suggest they are video like.

Coming away from this class, the questions that came up were to think about the interface design – the video granules positioning for the different clusters and bridging clips ; How can we find a voice in a K-film combining noticing, list making, and multi-linearity?

Our group needs to look into key wording, as this was a huge emphasis on Hannah’s work, and one point is to not have too many key words. We need to create patterns for the user to pick up on, and not to complicate the key words, keep it simple! She is suggesting to think about patterns and rhythms that are reoccurring. We need to notice what is happening!

Now going onto to interface designs, she works with multiple interfaces, uses clustering and has bridging clips, which relates to our projects in the way we want to have four clusters with bridging clips that allows us to create a structure for a multi-linear non-narrative. With Hannah’s work, she has designed her interface in a way that has four clusters and has them set in the same position so that the user can see the reoccurring rhythms – which could work for us if each bike was in the same position. She says that Matt Soar has clusters and then a rhythm – it has an alternating rhythm! We can use loose assemblage through patterning, and k-films express an idea instead of telling a story – this will help with the keyboarding process!

This presentation that she delivered gave us further inspiration, and ideas to move further to make the best of the project, and get the most out if it. We can now go away and rethink what information she has given us, and the way she designs her projects through media practice. We have been to focused on creating a set structure whereas Hannah suggests that we should be allowing Korsakow develop the natural structure, which is where she informs the idea of noticing.

The feedback from the panel was a mix of positive feedback and constructive criticism. They enjoyed our pitch and the direction that we were heading in, however told us possible ways that we could go. Those being:

-Focus on Carly specifically

-Not focus on Carly as such, but let the idea of four bikes lead the viewer from cluster to cluster. Carly does not have to be the main object, there could be other cyclists as well.

-Specify which direction we want to head in directly , whether that is with Carly as the protagonist or having the 4 bikes the main idea – or we can stay with our own idea of Carly and her four bikes.

-The Korsakow expert said that the idea that we have works because thats the beauty of Korsakow. It is a multi-linear non-narrative we can have various leads, because there is no set structure – however on the other hand she liked our structuring of the clusters.

-One of the panel members  said that he isn’t affected by the jumpy and out of focus footage, because that is what you expect when you are on a bike. What he does have a problem with is how over exposed the shots were. He said that this is the worst thing of all. We could use zebra patterning (which I have used before) or just switch the camera to black ad white, which is an easier way to distinguish exposure.

All of these points that were brought up will be considered and improved upon for Project Brief 4.

After having come away from the group presentation, we gathered all of the constructive criticism given and discussed how we could improve for the panel presentation in a couple of days. We were told that everything we had was good, but their were no visuals to compliment this; the audience couldn’t see any of the work that we had done. Therefore we came together and discussed what we needed to improve on, and that was to have a presentation running in the background. I went away and created a presentation for the group over the weekend. I gathered the material that I wanted to have shown and timed it in with my speech. When the others had their material I got them to send it through so I could put it all in one document.

For this presentation I used Keynote as I believe it is a simple and professional application that works with what we are trying to achieve. We used a collection of granules and images to support what we were saying, and to illustrate to the audience what kind of work we have created thus far. We cut out our introduction for our talent Carly, and let a video from one of the interviews introduce her. This was a more dynamic way of incorporating our presentation with the speech. All of our slides are timed, and in the correct places, so that in the presentation to the panel, everything will run smoothly.