Last Thursday we had our group consultations, which was a good opportunity for us to finalise our idea before we began filming. We pitched our idea essentially in two different forms. The first, a Korsakow with random fragments simply linking via keywords. The second, a multilinear Korsakow that would place the viewer in a first person perspective, allowing them to choose objects around the room that would play out different fragments from the point of view of a bored student. The Korsakow would loop back after playing one fiction and one non-fiction fragment related to a type of boredom.

The main two pieces of feedback we were given were:
a) To go with the non-fiction/fiction loop structure, however, the point of view screen was not necessarily needed.
b) To film our fragments sooner and worry about how we’ll put them together later.

We took a general structure away from the feedback that gave us the confidence to begin shooting. Soar’s reading from week 7 was something else that personally gave me a better idea of where we were going with our Korsakow film. The program was a little bit confusing to me at the beginning, but his description of multilinear narrative as fragments that “will be viewed collectively in sequences partly prescribed by the maker and partly chosen by the viewer” (Soar, 2014) was enlightening. The way we covered his material as a class last week helped in giving me a sense of direction regarding our third assignment.

Over the weekend, our group shot a couple of fragments that could be done individually, however, we shot most of our footage today. We actually finalised the theme for our fiction fragments this morning during class – we’d been contemplating the idea of creating parodies of old 50s instructional videos for each type of boredom. I’m sure you understand what they look like but here is an example of one we looked at for inspiration. The idea behind it was to keep the viewer engaged my making the videos ironically on the nose and a bit self-aware. Hopefully they turn out to be a bit humorous and a nice counter-weight to the non-fiction fragments.

References

Soar, M (2014), Making (with) the Korsakow System: Database Documentaries as Articulation and Assembly, New Documentary Ecologies: Emerging Platforms, Practices and Discourses, Palgrave Macmillan, p. 154–73.