Month: March 2018

Database narrative is an entirely new conception for me. As Lev Manovich mentioned in his book <The Language of New Media>, ‘in contrast to standard film editing (which consists of the selection and ordering of previously shot material according to a pre-existent script), here the process of relating shots to each other, ordering and reordering them in order to discover the hidden order of the world constitutes the film’s method’ (Manovich 1999, p. 97). It explained the difference and creativity which the database narrative could give to the film industry.

So I want to discuss two examples, for me, these two projects are innovative and experimental, but they are reasonable based on the database narrative. I believe the database narrative could bring new inspiration and the approach of film deconstruction to filmmakers.

The first project is a fiction film named <Dragonfly Eyes> created by a Chinese artist Xu Bing. He edited a 90 minutes fiction film from over ten thousands hours footage of surveillance camera all over China. The film tries to explore ‘How to define the truth’ and the change of the relationship between our daily life and surveillance system, the technology that we used to reduce the incidence of crimes has evolved to a medium which allows the general public to become a pryer even a direct participant. The footage from the surveillance camera is a huge database, and Xu created <Dragonfly Eyes> which is a combination of unrelated footage through the massive editing work and the constant adjustment of the voice over. As he said, the working method that matches contemporary civilisation is exploring the new possibility of art creation.

<Dragonfly Eyes>  trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ccfz77ifeU

The second project is <The Clock> created by Christian Ernest Marclay in 2010. <The Clock> is a 24-hour movie, and there is a timekeeping scene for every minute. All the shots in the film from existing movies and TV series, the selection work took Marclay’s team three years. There is no relationship between these shots, roles, scenes and events. Since all shots were taken from already released film and television works, and many of these works were widespread, so the audience could easily be evoked by past viewing experience and resonate with the other people who have the same experience. ‘The sequence of numbers acts as a narrative shell which ’convinces’ the viewer that s/he is watching a narrative. In reality the scenes which follow one another are not connected in any logical way’ (Manovich 1999, p.95).

Part of <The Clock> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xp4EUryS6ac

The new technology made us can build a giant database that can never be filled. Therefore the filmmakers could use the database narrative to innovate and experiment continually.

Reference list:

HLGfilms 2011, Christian Marclay, The Clock, YouTube, 3 September, HLGfilms, viewed 28 March 2018, <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xp4EUryS6ac>.

Manovich, L 1999, ‘Database as symbolic form’, Convergence, vol. 5, no. 2, pp. 80-99.

Xu Bing Studio 2017, Dragonfly Eyes 蜻蜓之眼 Official Trailer (English and Chinese subtitles), YouTube, 11 August, Xu Bing Studio, viewed 28 March 2018, <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ccfz77ifeU>.

Undoubtedly, the nonlinear narrative film has created a new filed for filmmaking. Directors represent their purpose different from the traditional narrative method through de-structure a film.
Montage is an essential and necessary technical element in nonlinear narratives, the transition of time and space, the combination of various storylines and the rhythm of plot development can be showed creatively by Montage. The narrative montage builds the storyline through combining a series shots in time or logical. For example, in the movie <Lola rennt>, the narrative montage greatly shortens the time of narration and speeds up the rhythm of the movie.
About the presentation, the most interesting thing is, they used the topic ‘Four ways to make the audience enjoy the presentation’ to run through the whole presentation, and also combine with the weekly topic to clarify the structure. They also provided some examples to explain the two main nonlinear narrative methods in their presentation. But if they can use some video footage or screen recording to elaborate it, it will be much better.
There is two general concept of my pitch. One is the combination of the social media platform and the interactive narrative. People can create not only the static content but also the short video on the different social media, such as Instagram. I can create an interactive fiction series through the tool of social media such as ‘hashtag’ ‘comment’ even the ‘forward’.
The other concept is an interactive documentary project inspired the interactive documentary <Global Lives>. Image there is a website which is an ‘Apartment’, and the people who upload their documentary of a specific topic, the website will create an animated character image for him/her based on the real person. Also, he/she will be assigned a ‘unit’ of the ‘Apartment’. The visitors, which is people in front of the computer, they can choose any unit to watch the unique documentary.
So these two concepts are really general, I will try to define and finalise the pitch through the research and practical experience.

The development of various new technology and the popularisation of the multimedia brought us into an interactive social era. Is the creative form of the real person plus the live-action filming like <late shift> will be the new direction of the entertainment in the future?

Firstly, I think there are two different main type in the interactive movie. One is based on the movie and provides the audience with some simple operational elements. For example, the ‘Destiny Choice’ mode in the film <Final Destination 3> (DVD Version), it allows the audience to make a choice when the story at some specific moments which can lead to the different story.

<http://finaldestination.wikia.com/wiki/Choose_Their_Fate>

The most important revolution of the interactive movie is making the audience involved in the development of the movie. On the one hand, the audience could control the conflict, storyline, also the end With God perspective, they will have the maximised psychological satisfaction. On the other hand, the curiosity of human can be satisfied, the audience are willing to try, even every different development to satisfy their curiosity. Therefore, the interactive movie put forward a higher logic requirement to the filmmakers.

But in my opinion, this type interactive movie (based on the movie), it is reasonable as an extension of personal experience of watching a film, but it is hard to popularise among the audience widely. There are two main reasons, and one is the current technology and the design of the cinema unable to afford the chance for every audience to experience the interactive movie. So it cannot satisfy the needs of the diverse audience. The second reason is the audience will lose the fundamental discussion because of the film structure also the storyline is changeable. The audience will share their feeling based on their individual choice. ‘If the movie involves us, we leave our problems and preoccupations outside the theater, and enter a reverie state’ (Ebert 1994, para. 4).

The other main type is a game type. It has the cinematic narrative style, many twists, numerous options, and stronger sense of immersion. The player does not need too much operation, and the storyline is pushed forward by the different options at the important moment. It can bring a more immersive gaming experience by reducing operational freedom.Some games like <Red Alert> series used the real-shooting video as the cutscene before.  But the full-motion video game like <Late Shift> is definitely a new attempt. Also, there are not many this type of game on the market.

<http://scientificgamer.com/thoughts-red-alert-3/>

I do think the ‘interactive’ part in <Late Shift> is successful, every option can match different storyline perfectly, and the player only has 3 to 5 seconds to decide to put forward the story timely. Therefore the players are required to concentrate on the story.

<http://fmvworld.com/lateshift_screening.html>

Compare with a typical commercial film. Obviously, the cost of <Late Shift> is minimal. ‘The £1.2m-budget film, created with three times as much footage as a normal movie’(The Irish Times 2016, Para. 5). But the interactive movie game needs to contend the market not only with the game companies but also the film companies, and it is not easy to attract the audience who already used to watching those big-budget commercial movies. But from the multimedia perspective, the interactive movie games can break the limitation of the equipment, which means it can be operated on almost any smart device. Undoubtedly, the interactive movie games will trigger a boom in the future, but whether it can be the mainstream influenced by many factors especially the perfect script and actors.

Reference List:

Ebert, R 1994, ‘Dim future for interactive film’, Roger Ebert’s Journal, viewed 4 March 2018, <https://www.rogerebert.com/rogers-journal/dim-future-for-interactive-film>/

Ganatra, S 2016, ‘Late Shift – the big-budget interactive film that allows viewers to decide the plot’, The Irish Times, 16 March, viewed 4 March 2018, <https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/film/late-shift-the-big-budget-interactive-film-that-allows-viewers-to-decide-the-plot-1.2575445>.