Whilst, still being quite unfamiliar with the purpose of our ‘story’. Moving forward, Sem, Samantha, Meita and I then started questioning our intentions even more through asking what can isolation as a mental health issue convey? Will our fragmented clips make sense? Does it matter? in relation to, the narrative we are trying to portray (funny as Hannah called us the ‘worried’ group :D). One of the main concern towards this assessment for me was to not be able to create a project that has enough clarity in its content.
Due to the segmented clips our project has, along with, being someone who has never really experimented on an abstract, thus, different way of thinking in media production, I was afraid that the user experience or the viewer wouldn’t be able to understand what my group and I are trying to emphasise in an interactive project.
Similar to our last assessment, we as a group knew we wanted to exhibit the project and the feeling of being isolated as an expression the viewer/”user” will come across. We knew we wanted to do this through our character and the narrative we formed within her life (just like our last assessment, but in a more effortless, easy to analyse and organised manner). However, we were afraid if what is being shown would not express, what was initially intended to demonstrate.
My concern was caused by the fact that unlike, the online screen production I researched, The Border Between US, my group and I did not intend to make ‘isolation’ an obvious thematic prompt directly to our audience. Yet, I was still constantly being suppressed by the idea of producing content that does not ‘make sense’.
After discussing this with Hannah, she suggested that an online screen media project (especially, interactive) or any media production for that matter, doesn’t have to ‘make sense’ to be engaging. She mentioned that perhaps, our group’s project intentions would just to be able to ‘express a feeling’.
Although I wasn’t entirely sold to this concept, I understood that everyone has different perceptions that are out of our control and displaying a project that does NOT have a particular ‘abstract’ to a story like most movie does, where the audience will and must know what it entails, is a notion that makes online screen media production most appealing. Being able to dive through the project not knowing anything. But, indirectly feel a certain way through the experience and drawing these different perceptions as the interaction, was an idea that finally, convinced Sem, Samantha, Meita and mostly the concerned, me, to this abstract picture and concept our project could incorporate that Hannah appointed.
My group and I started engaging with this perpetuation and thought that this side of storytelling was a part of research necessary for us to document. As well as, to explore further on, in relation to, the individual documented research this assessment highlighted.
Among many scholars and academics I have read about user experience, documentary filmmaking and evoking a feeling through it, I found a research by Köppen and Tversky (in Riche et al, 2018) about data-driven storytelling, particularly, narrative patterns most relatable, in association with, our project. Köppen and Tversky (in Riche et al, 2018) defines narrative patterns as
“…a low-level narrative device that serves a specific intent. A pattern can be used individually or in combination with others to give form to a story.”
Although Köppen and Tversky (in Riche et. al, 2018) described the interaction we discussed with Hannah as narrative patterns, I began to grasp the understanding alternatively, through their discovery of the concept in which I relate to, the concern my group and I had.
They state that there are various possible ways that a ‘narrator’ or ‘storyteller’ could form a narrative pattern, whether through the influence of data, formal setting, particular audience and/or its assumed background knowledge. Narrative patterns function in a way that reiterates these combinations of influence that may demonstrate how the narration fit its intentions. This ‘intent’ may revolve around enlightening audiences, evoking an emphatic response or even, engaging them to take action and questioning their beliefs and behaviour (Köppen and Tversky in Riche et. al, 2018) – in our case, evoking the feeling of, isolation.
This concept by Köppen and Tversky indicated that data-driven narratives like the project Sem, Samantha, Meita and I are producing, supported constructively the notion we have been trying to perpetuate. The idea goes back to our initial purpose maintaining, an indirect manner of storytelling that relies upon ‘evoking emphatic response’ or essentially, a ‘feeling’ proved to me that the concept is not that peculiar and actually, will result in more engagement. Along with, the fact that my group and I should not be too worried about the portrayal of our project to ‘make sense’ and also, what Hannah talked about was right and actually, utilised in the many forms of storytelling Köppen and Tversky underlined.
As Köppen and Tversky (in Riche et. al, 2018) state “…narrative patterns should not be considered direct implementations of visualization or interaction techniques, nor should they be bound to any specific implementation.”
After this slight panic, worry and a little downhill, my group and I had, we came back to continue the rest of our production. Last Thursday, we had already finished filming the classroom scenario as per our schedule. Due to this stage, we started question the rest of the production. But, after learning this we moved forward relieved and had more motivation to finish the project than ever.
REFERENCES:
Köppen, U & Tversky, B 2018, ‘Narrative Patterns’, in NH Riche, C Hurter, N Diakopoulos & S Carpendale (eds), Data-Driven Narratives, CRC Press, Florida, US.