been checking out some other people’s blog this week and came across Kevins very funny vine post called “what happens to an asian on vine”. not the most academic video but it is very enjoyable. however, the video does have some kind of relevance to the course, specifically the kuleshov effect that was discussed in last weeks reading and the lecture earlier in the week. the kuleshov effect describes the theory that individual clips have no meaning by themselves, but rather that meaning is drawn from the connections between clips. kevins vine is comprised of 4 separate clips that, if you were to only watch one by itself, would be confusing and mean nothing, but when placed together in this certain order, have a meaning. the video shows kuleshov in its basic format. putting clips that alone mean nothing but together create an experience that could not be had if the clips were separate. good stuff kev.
Tag Archives: kuleshov
narratives and conclusions – week 10 lecture
more discussion about k-films in this week’s lecture, we discussed themes, emotions, narratives and conclusions. looks like everyone has the major k-films on their minds. the major point that i took from the whole lecture was about the k-films not being a way to literally express any point but as a way to experience something for each individual. the point of the k-film is for everyone to interpret the content individually, they become a part of experiencing something without being told exactly what they are supposed to be experiencing.
how important are themes in a k-film? a theme gives us something to work around. like we discussed in one of the previously lectures, constraints are good. they allow for greater creativity. and a theme can do just that. limits that we work both within and around. even without a defining theme, as humans it’s within our nature to try and find any form of pattern or link between things, without pattern, all we see is chaos. our lives are associational because we link everything together so a them in a k-films allows them to feel more cohesive than they may be without one. however, the important part, like in the previous point, is to not always be too literal with the themes. infer a theme or idea without explicitly stating it. give the audience a means to enjoy and experience for themselves. its not so much the theme itself but how the content explores the theme. of course, this also depends on what the theme is, some can be far more obvious than others. for example the theme we have decided on for our k-film is superpowers and reality vs. fabrication. one of these is more obvious with the other and we are using this first theme as a means to explore the latter one. so while the superpowers themselves might seem obvious, the way that they are delivered and the ideas that they are being used for (reality vs. fabrication) will be more inferred than explicit.
does a lack of narrative or conclusion give an unsatisfying experience? the first answer to this was that we really need to move away from the ideas of linear narrative storytelling as a way of communication. that’s not what this course is about. of course, simply moving away from that isn’t that easy, it’s something that we have grown up with as part of society and is pretty much all we know. even though adrian says that non-linear is how we think, that’s how we think sub-consciouly, consciously we live in the world of linear narratives. what was a good point is that narratives and conclusions are separate. you can have one without the other. k-films can end. they can provide a specific ending clip. but even for the ones that are meant to go on forever, they must end. and that is when the viewer gets to decide the conclusion, which in a way makes that conclusion even more powerful because the viewer has decided upon it themselves (even if it’s just because they were bored with the film they were watching). and even without a set conclusion, we will always try to prove some sort of context or meaning to whatever we’re watching. even if the ending doesn’t make sense. we don’t watch a film for the ending, we watch it for the experience. our k-filsm are the same. another really good point i liked was that the internet is kinda like a giant k-film. its comprised of links in and out, is uniquely experienced by each individual and has no end (except for those decided upon by the user). there is no meaning on the internet, we give meaning to what we see and contribute to it as well.
finally, we discussed the kuleshov effect, a topic that was brought up a couple of times last year too. the kuleshov effect reminds us that when we are making, not just our k-films but anything, that it’s not the shots themselves that meaning anything but rather each shot in its relation to those around it. meaning only comes from relations, the shots or clips themselves have no meaning.
a collage about collages – week 9
this week’s reading was interesting and for once, understandable!!! (maybe i’m a little to sceptical about all these readings. but they’re just so tiresome and continuous.) shields provides us with a series of i guess i’ll call them dot points. all about collage and fiction and stuff. like adrian said on the subject blog, this “Could have been written for this subject”. and if it wasn’t, then i reckon this entire subject might have been written around this reading.
the reading itself, as i mentioned above, is comprised of various dot point like sentences (and sometimes paragraphs), making it thankfully very easy to read. it’s generally about collage vs the normal conventional fiction narrative. and you can tell Shields is a major collage supporter. he loves the idea of the many fractured parts coming together to form one whole. as he says, “collage is the many becoming one”, it “connect bits that don’t seem to belong together” and creates something new with them. remind you of anything? here we go again, korsakow!!! yay!!! i guess if this article didn’t relate in some way to korsakow then it wouldn’t really be here, considering korsakow is this entire subject.
shields describes the collage as representing the mind which he describes as “chaotic and opaque rather than unified and transparent” but likens this also to the journey and experience of life itself, saying that “fiction teaches that life is coherent, can be neatly tied up. but life flies at us in bright splinters”, in other words, a mosaic. “story says everything happens for a reason.” but it does not, and collages and k-films mirror this. and with a lack of reason there can sometimes tend to be a lack of plot. but Shields doesn’t say that that is a bad thing, rather that the “absence of plot leaver the reader room to think about other things”. although, i thought he may have gone a bit overboard when he said “plots are for dead people”. like… what does that even mean? calm down Shields. lets not get too over the top here.
moving on we see where Adrian got his favourite ideals, that of “collage as an evolution beyond narrative”. how many lectures has adrian been telling us that we need to get over narrative? the k-films and nonlinear is the way of the future. Shields knows where its at.
a really good point that i liked from the reading was bringing up the kuleshov effect, which we talked about quite a bit last year too. shields says that” meaning and emotion were created not by the content of the individual images but by the relationship of the images to one another” which is again what adrian tells us. in our k-films, it doesn’t matter what the clips themselves are, meaning only comes from how they are linked into and out from the other clips in the film. “meaning is a matter of adjacent data. everything is collage”. the most relevant point Shields made IMO to korsakow is – “you’ve found some interesting material, how do you go about arranging it?”. because that’s what korsakow is, arranging footage to create different meanings, unique meanings, that could never be achieved using simple linear narrative storytelling.
the only issue with all of this, which is something a lot of us have been asking ourselves have only been newly introduced to this new form of communication and story telling, is “how long will the reader stay engaged?”. because collage and korsakow is not for everyone, and a lot of people may not understand it. but as shield says “art exists to make one feel things” so as long as we can let our audience experience something, give them some form of emotion, then isn’t that all we can really ask for?