The 2011 K-film ‘Murder!’ is quite different to the other K-films I’ve watched so far in that it employs a narrative. The clips show different characters and their perspectives in the lead up to a murder.

Some of the clips are shot from the perspective of a stalker watching a blonde woman, the same blonde woman in another clip is shown as being killed. The audience infers that the person in the ski-mask is the one who killed her as menacing music is played during his clips. The clips aren’t in chronological order which also allows the audience to infer what has occurred and gives them a feeling of suspense.

Even so, I didn’t particularly enjoy this narrative style of K-film. It felt like something I had seen before many times, and didn’t provide any new slants, style or perspective on the ‘murder mystery’. The other K-films I have watched have been more enjoyable as they have documented real life and not staged like ‘Murder!’ They have been more abstract, interesting and unique which makes you want to click through more. Even the K-films that I’ve found more boring than others have at least been documentaries and shown an abstract view of real life.

This has led me to believe that while it is possible to implement a narrative into a K-film, it shouldn’t be encouraged as (in my opinion), it detracts from the notion of real-life. It puts the audience on the outside as they don’t feel like they are experiencing something ‘real’ and feel like they have seen this all before. An important factor in K-films is the inclusion the audience feels when clicking through and that they are experiencing someone else’s reality. This is lost when an explicit narrative is used.

This week’s reading discusses narrative film, documentary, and experimental film. The main focus is on how experimental practices can help show us the role of multi-linearity in relation to K-films.

Narrative films are an organized chain of events in a cause-effect relationship occurring in time and space. Something must happen to a character in order for them to react to it, which causes something else to happen, which forces them to act again. Events are both explicitly stated and implied; making the audience infer what has occurred. Time is also integral to a narrative; while events may be presented in chronological order, they can also be shown out of chronological order. Even still, the audience is able to infer and understand the events, the story and plot.

Narrative films can be restrictive in that they must be logical and follow a particular form, thus doesn’t suit the nature of multi-linear K-films.

Experimental films, however, give filmmakers more freedom to explore a wider range of possibilities of film techniques with the choice of employing a narrative or not at all. They use various types of footage including borrowed and found-footage, reusing them in their own style. This type of film-making better serves multi-linear storytelling as seemingly unconnected images and sounds are edited together to create an unconventional film.

There are two types of Experimental Film; Abstract Form and Associational Form.

Abstract form allows filmmakers to organize their film around colours, shapes, sizes and movements in the images. They compare and contrast images by cutting between them, repeating recurring motifs, and introducing new images to break sequences.  The similarities and differences between images and sequences of images aren’t random. They use abstract organization with recognisable images to challenge the audience’s perception of everyday objects, people, and ideas. This form serves K-films as clips can be organised around properties rather than cause and effect, allowing a freedom to demonstrate multi-linearity. Much like documentary form, abstract form allows filmmakers to present their point of view, however this isn’t always the case.

Associational form suggests ideas and emotions to viewers by assembling images and sounds that have no logical connection. This form forces audiences to look for an association to connect them. Associational form steers clear of portraying an explicit perception or message; rather allowing the audience to use their imagination to make relations between images and form their own perception of them. This is most similar to K-films as filmmakers are encouraged to create an interactive series of clips that don’t have any connection and doesn’t portray an explicit meaning. It may mean nothing at all and may simply just be a series of images and sounds.

There are two types of documentary form; categorical form, and rhetorical form.

Categorical documentaries group things around us based on a commonsense, practical approach or an ideological view of the world. Categories and subcategories may provide a basis for organizing the film’s form and patterns of development are usually simple. Thus, the challenge for filmmakers is to introduce variations and make us adjust our expectations, otherwise if the expectations are satisfied so easily it may be boring. This is true for K-films as well which may choose to organise clips in a categorical way but may not be able to maintain the audience’s interest due to lack of variation. These are some ways to maintain the audience’s interest: 1. May choose an interesting or new category which can present many possibilities. 2. Patterned use of film techniques. 3. Mixing in other kinds of form. 4. May take a stance on topic – bring in rhetorical form.

Rhetorical documentary makers’ goal is to persuade the audience to adopt an opinion about a subject matter and possibly act on it. These films try to make an explicit argument. This doesn’t apply to K-films so much, as the format of the particular interactive documentary doesn’t require the filmmaker to argue their point or opinion. However, incorporating some of these ideas may create a more versatile ‘i-Doc’ rather than sticking solely to the categorical form.

As a reflection on the constrained tasks, I decided to watch a K-Film from last year called ‘Eulogy to Suburbia’. The authors maintained that they didn’t want to portray suburbia in neither a negative nor positive light, rather to just show it the way they see it.

The clips show the exteriors of different houses in a street or block accompanied by the sounds of passing cars, birds chirping, and trees rustling in the wind.

In the beginning, I enjoyed the clips as they showed what the authors described – the way they see suburbia. However, most of the clips showed exteriors of different houses in the area and there wasn’t much variety. I expected to see the local school, park, milk bar, kid’s playing in the street, etc. After many repetitive clips of house exteriors, there was a clip of garbage bins strewn on the front lawn. This provided some variety to the tiresome clips before it.

This K-Film demonstrated to me that while having some connection between the clips provides an expectation for the audience, it can also become tiresome. Variety between the clips is needed to keep an audience interested in watching the following clips.

Influenced by the introduction of the revolutionary 16mm film technology; 1948 French Filmmaker and critic Alexandre Astruc predicted a breakthrough in patterns of production and distribution in the moving picture. He envisaged the birth of new cinema aesthetics drawing on experiences of the avant-garde. His ideas were published in an essay where he discussed the cinema aesthetics used by Orson Welles and Jean Renoir and compared them to recent 16mm technology and television. He predicted that everybody would have a projector in their house, hire films (of any topic) from the bookstore and that there would be many more cinemas.

He believed that cinema is just like literature; not just a particular art but a language which can express any thought. He had a vision that educational audio-visual media would be prominent, however this isn’t the case today as entertainment content is overwhelming. He successfully predicted that television would pose a threat to the cinema. Astruc believed that the dominating film industry didn’t make the most of the opportunity they had in distributing media products to millions of people daily as the content lacked film language and culture.

Astruc came to these conlcusions:

1. New technology provides new means of expression. Film medium develops from being exclusive and privileged to a common and publicly available form of expression.
2. Opens space for a more democratic use of the medium.
3. Opens up new possibilities for modern (contemporary) and different forms and usages (avant-garde).

The evolution of technology has allowed amateur filmmakers to purchase and use high-quality equipment and distribute their content to wide audiences. However, this wasn’t always the case. Video production technology was only available to those in the industry as it was so expensive, bulky and also was made of a highly flammable nitrate base which limited production and distribution. The introduction of VHS-VCR technology and videotape recorders allowed amateur filmmakers to create their own content. However, there was still a quality gap between ‘real’ film and television productions and family home videos created by amateurs. At this time, amateur videos weren’t shown in the public space, rather being shown to family and friends. In the 1980’s, broadcasters began using amateur videos (eg; Funniest Home Videos) but not open access media.

The most recent developments between amateur and professionals was the transition from analogue to digital format and the emergence of the Internet. Digital recording technology became available for the consumer and was even packaged with personal computers, for example, Apple iMovie was bundled with the OS X operating system, giving consumers access to advanced editing technology. The Internet and broadband access across the world gave the everyday person the opportunity to distribute their content online from their personal computer.

The concept of the public sphere was discussed by Habermas in 1962. The development of the relationship between society and the individual in the 20th century has been actualized with the introduction of the Internet as a communication channel. The public spheres which first emerged in Germany and Austria during inter-war years were organized in response and opposition to the dominating public space. The American avant-garde movement of the 1960’s and 1970’s used this concept however it was marginalized to small audiences. The 1950’s British free cinema documentary movement was only shown on six occasions to small audiences but influenced public debate about documentary and feature in Britain.

Online audio-visual culture has inspired a new public sphere dubbed by Kellner (2000) as the “site of informations, discussion, contestation, political struggle, and organisation that includes broadcasting media and cyberspaces as well as face-to-face interaction of everyday life”. The invention of YouTube which allows users to upload videos for free gave the everyday person the ability to produce content for a mass audience. It allows networks to be established with viewers subscribing to particular users and watching their videos as soon as they become available. The problem with YouTube is that there is so much content that it is hard to compete so that your video is seen by the largest amount of people possible. This illustrates Habermas’ worry of the public sphere having a loss of focus in the sea of individual content.

The case study of YouTube user ‘geriatric1927′ – a 79 year old British man using a single camera to deliver monologues about his life experiences to a mass audience shows how technology has allowed the everyday user to produce audio-visual media content. It also demonstrates how the community that YouTube provides allows for content producers to use viewers’ feedback to make their content better. This collective support and individual presentation contrasts with Astruc’s idea of individual driven content without collaborative feedback.

i-Docs use interactive digital technology to document real life. Unlike traditional documentary filmmaking which only allows users to view a perception of reality from the outside, i-Docs allow users to participate and construct their own version of reality. 

i-Docs have evolved and are being used widely by all different types of authors and for different purposes. TV networks are incorporating them more to allow their audiences to be a part of their programs and feel involved. i-Docs are being produced for mainstream audiences and are no longer considered a niche form. They are being used in independent productions, in the gamine world and even in university research.

There are four main types of i-Docs; conversational, hypertext, participative, and experiential.

Conversational i-Docs use 3D technology to give users the illusion of navigating freely through a documented world, for example; gaming worlds.

Hypertext i-Docs (like K-films), use exploratory links that lead users to various clips which construct a perception of reality.

Participative i-Docs involve users in the production process. For example; they may edit the i-Docs online, shoot video to be used in the i-Doc or be a part of the distribution process.

Experiential i-Docs use mobile media and GPS to record testimonials in a particular location which can then be accessed by users who visit the same location. It brings the users into physical space and challenges their perceptions.

Audiences consider these aspects as being important to their i-Docs experience; they should appeal to their emotions, personal gain (should feel benefited from the experience), limitless self-expression, and should appeal to the greater good.

While audiences want to be active in the creation of i-Docs, a problem may arise if it inhibits the author’s artistry. While a user may want to be involved in the process at an early stage as it would benefit their experience in participation, the author will then have less control over their i-Doc which may in turn affect their experience.