These are some brief reflective notes on how I went about designing the interface for the k-film note commentaries that I made.
Figure One. First Interface.
Here the thumbnails are jpegs, that are black, with the text centred in each one. The background of the project is black. The text on all is Continue reading
I’ve made a k-film that is very linear. Well, not linear, you can listen and view the clips in any order you like, but it is not so much a k-film as using Korsakow to collect some screen casts together where I go over some things to think about in relation to making your k-film projects. This was made using Korsakow 5.0.4, and I’ve included a playhead in the interface which shows you where in the clip you are. The advantage of this is that it immediately tells you how long a clip is, since if the playhead progresses very slowly then you know it is a long clip (and vice versa). Continue reading
In the final k-film projects you have the freedom to design an interface to your own delights. However, keep in mind that some basic principles of good design still apply (just as when making a film you might be able to write your own script and storyboard and film it however you like, but basic compositional rules about good framing and composition remain). While you are not design students, your teachers can give a lot of feedback around these elements of your project – and as an interactive work the interface is a fundamental part of the experience of your project.
More formally, within your interfaces you can now experiment with:
These are some of the elements that make up your palette (or tool box) for your projects. Each provides choice but that also means decisions that affect how you can think about your work and how others experience it. Good work chooses to work with a small set and for these things to make sense in relation to the project. What I mean by that is you don’t use everything just because you can. That is like using every visual effect possible in edits because they are there. This looks bad, and comes across as, well, lacking the ability to judge and express discernment. You fade because a fade is good here, it works. You dissolve for similar reasons. But if you cut here, dissolve there, fade next, barn door wipe after that, iris in the next time. Well, already it will look and feel like a software demo, and not a film. Same with your interface. Just because you can use everything usually doesn’t mean you should.
You can also edit the index.html file, after all it is just a html page. If you open it in an editor there are things there that you shouldn’t change, otherwise the project will break, but you can easily add text or edit the existing text. Perhaps add the title of the work here? A copyright notice? Something else?
Finally, include a credit screen or sequence in your project. It might be the opening film (which should be a jpeg, unless you nominate a video clip as a start film). This is where you can also show the title of the work, and the names of the people who made it. These works will be viewed by others, not just your classmates, so have your name on there, let people know it is yours.
These are more notes from 2011, and are the various strategies and things I’ve learned through using Korsakow that make using the program simpler, or at least easier.
To really understand what you’re doing (if you are interested, otherwise potter around), then read the Korsakow manual, the faq, the quick-start guide, tips and tricks, and tutorials. These will be more up to date than mine below, which are largely based on the common problems that seem to have turned up in classes. Continue reading
This is a cut and paste from stuff I put together in 2011. It holds good today.
This is one of the most important things to understand when using this software (and this applies to all projects on a computer!). Understand:
Then
If you go to submit your essay and the link provides a “Form Not Published” error, you are looking at when not logged in to Google with your RMIT identity. You need to be logged as a RMIT student. Why? Because I don’t want a form filled with rubbish from every dill on the internet. And also it automatically collects your RMIT name which is a simple way to confirm that you are you.
In network media we discussed small world networks, dense nodes, and so on. A korsakow film is exactly this sort of structure. Below is something I wrote in 2011, reposting here as it should help you understand Korsakow film as an architecture and structure that you do things with, and an architecture and structure that is, in its very DNA, the same as the networks we are working on. It’s sort of a mise-en-abyme moment really.
A significant idea that has a lot of relevance for things like the internet, hypertext, and social media (which are all forms of distributed networks) is the idea of a ‘small world network’. This is related to the famous experiment by Stanley Milgram about there being a maximum of ‘six degrees of separation’ between any two people, anywhere in the world. A small world network assumes lots of a small number of connections between individuals (nodes, clips in a k-film, links on the web, people you know), but with a few individuals who have a lot of connections. In relation to social networks these links are not about how close you are to others (whether geographically or personally) just that you know them. The existence of only a small number of people who know a lot of other people (who have a lot of connections) makes it much easier to get from one group to another, from one individual to another. The key features here are that these connections (how many people you know) is not equally distributed – I know 100, you know 200 – and that to get from one individual to another you do not need to know all the connections, all you need to know is somebody that you think will be closer than you are. Continue reading
An introduction I wrote in 2011, YMMV:
So, you’ve downloaded Korsakow. The first thing is to actually put the program in the right place on your computer. This is just good housekeeping. On a Mac this is in the Applications folder, think it is the same place on a PC. You do this so that a) you always know where it is, and b) some programs need to know where they are to work properly, and the applications folder is where they are supposed to live. Continue reading
Have added a new menu to the blog (Korsakow) with lots under it. Including a form page where you can ask for tech help around Korsakow. What is asked there will be posted to the blog (once I have some I’ll add a menu), and if you answer them satisfactorily you will receive ‘payment’ of one mark. The mark is simply added to whatever total you get for the rest of your work in the subject.
One thing the teaching staff will discuss in the coming week is whether we’ve noticed any changes in how things are being filmed. In my own class there was quite a difference between week two and week one, with the material much better.
When you’re filming like this, where you have at best 10 seconds, a good way to approach what you’re doing is to think of it as about one key idea, or about one thing. This doesn’t mean it might not have several shots, or move, but if it is about that object then make it about that object. If it is about light then don’t also make it about camera movement – unless the camera movement is how you make it about light. To use that last example. I might track/pan across a light, moving from dark, to burning light, to dark. Here the movement is used to make the clip address the idea of light in some way. However, if I film the light, and then move closer, then back a bit, then twirl around it a bit, the risk is that the movement gets in the way of what the shot is about, and comes across as indecision or insecurity – that you’re not comfortable with 6 or 10 seconds of just that light. Relax about the busyness, think of one shot as one idea, what you want that idea to be, and do it. Repeat if it doesn’t work.