QUESTIONS FROM THE SHIELDS READING:

Shields describes most films & novels as being predictable, tired, contrived and purposeless, yet literature is a form of thinking and wisdom-seeking. Discuss how K-films are so lively and purposeful.

Shields discusses melody as rhythm, how could this be utilised in our K-films?

He talks about the history of keeping time – what relation to the history of writing narrative does that have?

Although his methodology is relevant, is it any less fictional than stories? Or is it just another perspective of life and it’s chaotic nature? 

How do I keep a viewer engaged without creating a sense that my K-film is building towards something?

What does Shields mean by “content tests forms?”

This K-Film focuses on light, posing the question ‘what is it to think like a camera?’ The variation in clips and content, combined with the variation in angles and light source makes the film really interesting and poetic as sometimes you aren’t sure what you are seeing. It uses interesting combinations in different coloured lights; from fluoro green, red, softer yellow lights and movement of shadows to create a beautifully poetic film.

The dramatic, high-pitched piano soundtrack throughout the film brings an intensity to it, making you look at the clips in a different light, noticing the comparisons between the almost pitch black clips and the airier daytime light clips.

The white background with pale gold graphic adds a nice and light dimension to the film, emphasizing the airy and delicate nature of the film and it’s content.

The interface is compiled of a large main frame, with 4 previews still clips below it. They are nicely aligned, making it an enjoyable film to watch. There isn’t any text employed – this may have added another poetic nature to the film if it was chosen to be used. The main frame interestingly has a graphic along the bottom of it of a play/pause button, streaming graphic, sound graphic and expand to full screen graphic which all are interactive. It is however, hard to tell whether they are in fact interactive as the mouse doesn’t change when it is rolled over the buttons. While it is a good graphic as it encourages interactivity and allows for the clip to be replayed (as they aren’t looped), it is distracting as it remains over the video the whole time. It would be better if the graphic disappears after a couple of seconds like it does on other video services (YouTube, Vimeo, etc) as it distracts the viewer from watching the actual clip. If the viewer decides to replay the video, the streaming graphic doesn’t reset, which detracts from the it.

Other issues include lack of consistency of how the clips end, as sometimes the clips fade to black while other times it just stops. I prefer the fading to black as it relates to the theme of light, and would’ve liked that to be consistent throughout the film. Another problem is that sometimes the clips would lag which creates a break in the film and distracts the viewer.

Overall, it is an interesting and poetic film that makes use of different techniques and variations in content.

This week’s reading from David Shields is written in a partial style, numbering different phrases. It is written in this way as the Shields demonstrates his opinion that narrative and plot is boring and should be obsolete, while media makers should be focusing on the interesting, exciting and more ‘true’ form of collage making rather than traiditional film editing.

His observation of the law of mosaics as being “how to deal with parts in the absence of wholes” is relevant to how Korsakow films are made. It is similar to collecting various clippings and then deiciding how they will be arranged together to create something. It reflects the way in which clips in a Korsakow film are linked through the keywords the makers choose, giving them meaning.

Shields discusses a lot of things that I believe to be true, including that our minds aren’t unified and systematic, rather they are chaotic and there is no real boss controlling your thoughts. This idea relates to how narrative, and cause and effect, as has been taught so prevelantly at film and media schools are not in fact ‘truth’. Combining various clips by way of meaningful keywords reflects the chaotic nature of the world we live in. As Adrian has consistently said, there is no narrator of your life, things happen at random and your life is not a narrative whether you want to believe it or not. By filming and making media products (and more specifically Korsakow films), in a more organic way such as a mosaic or collage, we can create a more interesting and personal product.

As Shields points out the main question that a collage artist faces is how do you go about arranging the interesting material you have found? This is very similar to the main question that Korsakow films pose for makers. Filming your clips is probably the easiest part of the process, it is when you must sit down and analyse what you have filmed, and try to find meaningful keywords that link them together that it becomes quite a challenge. Approaching this question can be quite difficult, and I would argue that no matter how much planning you do before you shoot, you will most likely change your keywords once making your SNUs as you would discover different and new patterns you didn’t expect.

The 2011 K-film ‘City’ opens with the title page describing it’s premise. Bold white text is arranged on a purple backdrop; ‘How do you paint a city? How do you know a city? How do you write a city?’ It gives the audience a sense of the makers’ intention of the film in presenting the city (Melbourne) as a piece of artwork and becoming lost in it. The background also has some more smaller, more faint white text of adjectives such as, ‘slick, boring, adventurous’, showing just how diverse the city can be.

When you click into the film the background is of some Melbourne street art which remains the same throughout the film. Bassy instrumental music plays throughout the film and loops. White text appears along the bottom describing each clip. For example; one of them says, ‘This city is what it is because our citizens are what they are’.

The most interesting aspect for me to discuss is the interface used in ‘City’. It involves quite a large main frame which doesn’t loop, and four preview thumbnails that are arranged around the main frame. The previews vary in size and don’t line up with one another or the main frame, even overlapping over the main frame, obscuring part of the view. The fact that the previews obscure part of the view of the main frame does make it distracting to watch and can be irritating as you can’t see the entire clip. The previews become videos when the mouse is scrolled over the thumbnails which is a positive as it allows the audience to get a sense of what the clip will show before choosing to view it in the main frame. The sporadic arrangement of the interface can be distracting and take away from the film; while the sporadic arrangement of the interface does reflect the sense of creativity and art in presenting the city, it can be quite distracting with so many things dividing the audience’s attention. If the makers really wanted to keep the background, they should’ve considered using a more simple interface, or at least keep the previews the same size and in line, and not overlapping the main frame. Or the makers could’ve kept the interface choices but have a black background. This would minimise the competing information in the film. However, keeping the same interface throughout is a good choice by the makers as if it continued to change it would become too frustrating for the audience to view.

Another negative to the film is that some of the videos either haven’t been shot in the same position (portrait/landscape), or the aspect ratio is incorrect, meaning that there is a large black mask around some of the clips, making them smaller and inconsistent. This wouldn’t be as distracting if the interface was more simple as you could forgive the makers for having some inconsistencies, however because of the seemingly random/messy nature of the interface, this becomes unforgivable.

The quality of the videos are quite pixellated as well which contradicts the theme of ‘the city as a painting’ as it’s low quality doesn’t match that of a piece of artwork.

While this film does make its makers’ intentions clear, it becomes a frustrating film to participate in because of its competing information.

This week’s reading by Frankham discusses the fragmented form of documentary, including a broader definition of montage, and the construction of lists, and how it is being used to create a means of expression that further includes the audience. The ideas she presents can directly relate to Korsakow and how it works to create non-linear works.

Realtional asethetic (Nicholas Bourriaud, 2002) refers to how the asethetic of the work itself creates a space that allows the audience to connect and respond to it. This can be related to how Korsakow films rely on the audience’s involvement in order to be viewed as it relies on the audience clicking on the possible videos presented as previews on the main frame. This brings the audience closer to the work as they create their own meaning of the associations formed between clips by choosing which clip they would like to view next.

She also discusses how categorical links are used in poetic documentary to draw relationships between elements. This is also evident in Korsakow films as they require the makers to categorise their clips by using in and out keywords to create patterns and form relationships between vision that may not be normally associated.

In her discussion of associational form she demonstrates how relationships are created through “conceptual alignment, emotional impact, visual similarities and territories of gesture” going on to say that they create relationships between elements that are more emotional than logical. This reminds me of last week’s Matt Soar reading in which he states that he believes the patterns (keywords) in Korsakow films should describe the meaning of the clips rather than their aesthetic. With saying that, how would we as media practitioners create emotional links between our ‘noticings’ rather than grouping them in a logical way? Would it require more planning when making a K-film, rather than the find and shoot process that we used for our sketch films? Would we plan what we would film, or just plan the keywords to reflect an emotion? Or would we centre our K-film around a particular emotion?

The questions that these ideas raise suggests to me that if used in this way, we would be thinking more about the audience and how we want them to feel while watching our K-films. This contradicts Adrian’s point that we should be making our films for ourselves and not have the audience in mind. It also contradicts the idea discussed by Frankham (and has been mentioned by other academics aswell) that the audience would be able to form their own meaning from poetic documentaries and the relationships created by patterns in K-films. “The potential for a more keenly felt and critical engagement may be enabled by relinquishing absolute control over the way the work is read” (Frankham) – describes just how K-films allow the audience to engage with the work in their own way and take their own perception from it.

Another interesting point I took from the reading was Philip Rosen’s belief that a documentarian should transform raw artefacts of the world (he calls them documents) into meaningful constructions. This idea touches on the way in which we have been using Korsakow to film ‘raw artefacts’ and give them meanings through the way we construct our K-films and SNUs. As Frankham says, “in a poetic approach to documentary, the issue becomes one of finding the balance between offering a definitive, unquestionable single pathway at one extreme and presenting a loose collection of raw documents at the other. It is a process of centralizing and restricting meaning, making knowledge accessible through the ordering and contextualising of material. In effect it is the organisation of complexity.” This is evident through Korsakow as if you link your clips with keywords that offer no order or no clusters of similar clips, then they become more randomly generated and forming meaning from them can be difficult. However, if you link clips with keywords that create clusters of similar clips, more meaning can be formed by the patterns observed.

Frankham also states that poetic documentary “is a process of curating, selecting, ordering, sequencing, connecting, providing context and signalling intention.” This description can be matched to the processes we went through when making our K-films as we discussed in our tutes and is a good way to track the progress of your film.

The cool cats from the Monday 4:30 tute have come up with some interesting questions from the Matt Soar reading for the week 8 symposium.

1. Soar argues that makers should choose keywords based on meaning rather than visual appearance. Does this contradict the way we’ve been using Korsakow?

2. Why would we choose Korsakow as a filmmaking system if it only can be viewed on certain, limited technologies?

3. What is the point of having a technology that might soon become obsolete – is there any way the authors of Korsakow films can preserve their works without fear that they may not function (if for example; Adobe ceases to exist)?

4. Is it a possibility that Korsakow will allow an ’embed’ function that links to other media (Ie. Vimeo, Vine, YouTube)? And what might this mean for K-films?

5. Is Korsakow a place purely for artistic expression or is there any potential for it to be used commercially?

6. Is technology leading us towards a purely graphic/symbol based method of storytelling that is independent from linguistics?

I look forward to hearing how the panel answers these questions.

This K-film is so interesting in that it provokes the viewer to think about the questions being asked and how they would answer them, while listening to what interviewees have said. The two questions posed to them are “What is your proudest moment?” and “If you could go back and relive a moment of your life, what would it be and why?”

This is presented at the beginning of the film, every time you open it, by the makers of the film, explaining what the film is about and how to navigate through it. This gives the audience a better understanding of what the makers hope to achieve with their film and more importantly, what the interviewees’ answers are in relation to. Without the introduction, the audience would be a bit lost and unsure of the film’s objectives.

The audio of the answers are out of sync with the vision of the person in their natural surrounding. This provides a different experience from a traditional documentary, where the person’s answers are shown in ‘real time’ and in sync with the vision. It helps the viewer to focus on their answers while getting a better understanding of them by seeing them in their natural environment. A small title with their name, occupation and interests is used to introduce them.

People from various ages, backgrounds, and of different interests are presented; giving a wide range of answers to the questions. It’s interesting to notice how the older interviewees cite their grandchildren, or children’s marriages, or meeting their spouse as their greatest moment compared to the younger interviewees who cite travelling experiences, and meeting their role models as their proudest moments.

This film is probably one of the most interesting K-films I’ve watched as it doesn’t follow a narrative, but still manages to provoke thought in the audience as they reflect on their own lives. It is also really interesting to see what people’s responses to the questions are and just how varied they can be.

Matt Soar is a co-developer of Korsakow and writes about what makes Korsakow different from other authoring programs, addresses some of people’s issues with it and explains where digital interactive narratives are heading.

Korsakow is an open source application, meaning that the original source code is freely available and can be redistributed and modified by the general public. One of the main positives of open source is that the works made last longer because the software is usually housed in publicly shared repositories, meaning that they are able to be modified and updates to the program won’t negatively affect already published works. The program doesn’t require any programming knowledge and is very simple to use.

Another positive of K-films is that they’re self-contained, aren’t networked, and don’t depend on links to media outside itself in order to be viewed. They can be exported and viewed on a hard drive using a web browser. This ensures that problems with outside links are avoided. K-films can also be continually updated with new material, or changes to original film with ease.

However, there are still some issues with Korsakow. While you can embed part or a whole K-film into a website, you are unable to embed online content (eg; YouTube video) into a K-film. K-films also depend on the viewer’s investment in watching and paying attention to the film; therefore the ‘success’ of a K-film depends on the subjectivity of the viewer.

Soar addresses some academics’ issues with Korsakow; one saying they don’t like how basic the program and subsequent films are and if there is a way to make them more appealing or attractive.  As Soar points out, the program is simple in nature and aesthetic to make it easier for authors to create their own films without fuss. He also makes a point that the main focus of K-films is the presence of the author’s voice in the work rather than creating a spectacular show for the viewer.

An interesting observation I took from this reading was Daniel’s note that “the act of designing the interface is a form of argument.” I never thought about how the interface the maker chooses itself can present their argument, and this is something I will keep in mind for my major project. Another interesting point by Soar himself is that he doesn’t believe Korsakow radically empowers the viewer to put them in the position of editor, but still does give them creative freedom in using their own perspective to create a story from what clips they choose to watch and in what sequence. This draws on Adrian’s point that we should be making K-films for ourselves rather than for a particular audience.

Soar’s argument that the keywords a maker chooses should be based on the meaning of the clips rather than the visual appearance of them confounded me as we have discussed all semester that we should be finding patterns between the clips and using them as keywords and allowing meaning to derive organically from how Korsakow links the clips together. This is really thinking in the opposite way, by finding the meaning of the clips and the film as a whole and working backwards rather than allowing the program to create a meaning from the keywords you have picked. My question then is, “Do you think we should have a clear understanding of the story or meaning of our K-film before we look at the patterns of the clips we have created?” “Should we allow meaning to be derived from the program itself, or try to have more control over it?”

Soar also points out that works created by Adobe Flash player are reliant on Adobe’s continued investment in the application, drawing comparisons to Korsakow’s donations based funding. My question to this is, “Will the future of authoring programs rely on donations and crowd-funding rather than corporate funding? If so, will these programs (including Korsakow) be able to survive on donations?”

http://www.themediastudents.net/im1/2014/natalie.milidoni