This week’s reading highlights how difficult it is for theorists to classify K-films and the idea that they are a cross between fiction, non-fiction and experimental films. Through the author’s research, many interesting points are raised about what makes the up the essay film which we can relate to K-films.

One of the main points raised is the personal, subjective and reflective voice of the author that comes through these films. As K-films are first-person observations, the personal idea of essay films can be applied in this way. It demonstrates the author’s critical reflections on a problem and doesn’t close an argument but provokes thought. This is true for K-films which don’t explicitly state the author’s argument through voice-overs like other documentary style films, but provokes thoughts, ideas, and meanings that the audience interprets in their own way.

The text suggests that essay films aren’t anonymous or collective, but represent a single authorial view. This is interesting as it picks up on a point that Adrian has been driving home since the beginning of semester; that when making K-films you should be making it for yourself rather than having the audience in mind.

Lyotard’s view that “there is no truth, just truth-making” is interesting as it reflects the idea that essay films and K-films alike shouldn’t be explicit and tell the audience the truth, but should allow the audience to take their own interpretation of the author’s version of ‘truth’. The text also mentions that the meaning of the essay film is constructed through the dialogue between the author, film, and spectator. It is also heavily reliant on the spectator’s subjectivity as they can take their own meaning from it. This can also be said for K-films which allow authors to convey their observations and ‘reality’ through the way they convey meaning through the patterns between their clips, and allows audiences to find their own meaning through their interaction with the film.

Good says that essay films “aim to preserve something of the process of thinking” which suggests that while K-films may not be able to be defined by genre, they most certainly are a snapshot of the author’s observations, the meaning they take from their footage, and the thought provoking interest that allows audiences to interact with it.

Through their use of partial framing, and focus on the movements of hands; the makers of the 2013 K-film ‘Hands: Thinking Out Loud’, demonstrate how important our hands are in our everyday lives, how they are used to communicate with others, and how they can reflect our unconscious emotions.

The patterns within the film and that link the clips together include; the gestures that hands make during conversation, during eating or dining with friends, and washing or cleaning objects. The makers could’ve used a combination of different in-keywords and out-keywords to create their SNUs. They could’ve chosen to use keywords that describe the actions or scenario of each clip such as, ‘conversation’, ‘cleaning’, ‘washing’, ‘social’, ‘party’, ‘friends’; or could’ve chosen to distinguish between the ages of the people being filmed, ‘young’, ‘old’, ‘middle-age’, ‘teenager’, etc; or even a combination of both. While the keywords used create clusters of clips with similar SNUs; there are some key clips which would have multiple out-keywords which can branch off to different clusters. For example; the clip showing a man’s hands washing a sponge leads to a cluster of a young person sketching a drawing, an old lady looking at a picture frame, and somebody reading a book. Key clips such as these ensure that there are links between clusters so that the flow of the film isn’t broken; creating a dynamic viewing experience, and emphasising the links between the content, the patterns the makers have found between the clips and how they work to reflect their observations of hands as a communication tool.

There is no starting SNU, meaning that you can begin the film wherever you like and each time you watch it you can have a different experience. While most clips lead to new and different clips due to a variation in out-keywords, there are times when the clip leads to previews on the interface that have all been watched already. A solution to that problem could be to have more than one out-keyword per clip so that they have more opportunities to link to other clips.

Another pattern that occurs in the film is that the camera always focuses on the actions of the hands and doesn’t frame the person’s face, giving them an elusive quality. Each clip captures a portion of the whole scenario, a part of a conversation, a part of an action or behaviour; so a pattern may be that they demonstrate a candid part of everyday life.  This leaves the meaning and emotions that are demonstrated through the actions of the hands shown up to the viewer, as only a portion is shown in frame and isn’t shown in its full context.

When the K-film first opens, the main frame is large and shows white text ‘HΔNDS’ which each individual letter flashing on and off rhythmically to the soft guitar music playing. Eleven smaller preview black and white thumbnails are positioned underneath the main frame. These thumbnails become videos when the mouse is rolled over them, giving the viewer an indication of what the clips will entail. The video previews available mean that you can select what clip you want to watch next, which can be both a positive and a negative. It is beneficial in that it gives viewers the feeling of more control over their interactivity and enjoyment of the K-film, but can be negative in the sense that it makes the viewer more subjective in choosing some clips over others and not allowing for a natural flow to occur. Unlike some other K-films which use different shaped thumbnails as their previews, this K-film doesn’t. The use of square, black and white thumbnails gives this K-film in particular a more sophisticated and professional look, and combined with the close framing on the hands, they demonstrate the intimate observations of the use of hands.

Once you click on a clip to begin the film, the interface changes. A grid of four same sized clips is shown (2X2), with even the main frame being the same size as the thumbnail previews. The main frame is always positioned in the upper left part of the interface and is shown in colour, compared to the black and white preview thumbnails. The preview thumbnails are larger than others I’ve seen used in other K-films, which in my opinion is a positive as you can get a real sense of the film by hovering over the clip, making you feel more immersed in the film. However, having the main frame the same size as the preview thumbnails is a negative, as it becomes difficult to focus all of your attention on the main clip playing. Having a slightly bigger main frame than the preview clips would give the viewer the opportunity to notice more detail in the clip.

The same music loops throughout the entire film which assists the flow and ambience of the film. However, the clips played in the main frame don’t loop. This is a hindrance to the K-film as it requires that you give each clip your full attention as you can’t replay the main frame unless an out-keyword of a different clip brings you back to it. If the clips were looped, it would give a continual sense to the K-film, rather than a pause which can bring the viewer out of the interactive experience and not make them feel as immersed as they should.

The content of the K-film includes partial framing of people using their hands; whether it be in conversation, washing or cleaning, or eating. Some of the clips shown include; a woman conversing with other women as she cracks her knuckles and moves her hands and fingers anxiously, an old woman’s hands tapping a table as she is in conversation, a young man eating, a woman stirring a pot of food, a man rinsing a sponge, a young lady holding a coffee, young people with technology, elderly in hospital, etc. Due to the framing choices made by the filmmakers, sometimes it is unclear as to what the hands are doing. This makes the film interesting and abstract, as it invites the viewer to interpret the clips in their own way. The variation in content as well as framing choices, camera angles and movements mean that the film is never boring.

The clips present a part of an action, behaviour, or conversation where only some of the conversation is audible. Even if some words can be made out, the conversation can’t be understood in context so the viewer’s attention is shifted from what is being said to focusing on what the actions of the hands are. This means that the viewer can use their own perception to interpret the clips, what is happening and how the person portrayed is feeling. For example; in the clip which shows a woman anxiously moving her fingers and cracking her knuckles while conversing with other women, the focus on her hands means that while we don’t know what she is discussing, we understand that she feels nervous about the topic or situation. This allows the audience to interact further with the film and draw their own meaning of the authors’ observations.

Most of the clips shown are a snapshot into the everyday life or activities of ordinary people and don’t appear to be staged. However, a couple of them do seem to be staged which breaks the flow of the other clips and their observational and natural sense. For example; in one clip a young boy is shown static, handballing a footy to himself over and over directly at the camera. If the camera was following him in a documentary style shot, or there was more camera movement, this clip wouldn’t seem as staged. These types of clips can bring the audience out of the experience as it breaks the patterns of previous clips that are shot in a natural style.

The sophisticated, observational framing and shooting of the content combined with the minimal and understated interface choices by the makers, and the clusters and pathways the patterns provide for the audience, highlights the poetic nature of the authors’ intention to notice the way hands are used to communicate.

The K-Film ‘Nostalgia’ uses editing to emphasize elements or the mood of each clip. While not all clips are edited, the ones that are, highlight a bright or coloured light, or integrate a editing filter to demonstrate the mood being portrayed by the makers.

This is the first K-film I’ve seen that has used editing within the clips. The makers make use of the natural lighting, colours, and abstract elements of what they are filming and then emphasize them through editing techniques. The variation between the non-edited clips and the edited clips provides an interesting experience as you aren’t bored by the clips. Some of the clips are in focus, some are out of focus, they use different lights, time of day, locations, framing, camera movement and sound, which makes it an enjoyable film.

While I did enjoy the variations between the clips, the captions that accompanied them made even the lighter and more optimistic clips seem depressing. The captions are possibly song lyrics that describe someone’s struggle to get through life. These give the audience the perspective that the clips are to be viewed in a dark and depressing manner, which does negatively affect the experience of watching the film. This is because the audience is being manipulated to view the film in a certain way, rather than viewing it from their own perspective.

The main frame doesn’t loop, which isn’t much of a problem for the longer clips, but for the much shorter ones it is as it becomes hard to remember or pay attention to them in such a short time span. The music also only plays for the duration of each clip, which hinders the viewing experience as it means there is a break in the film. If the music continued to play even after the clip finished, it wouldn’t feel as disjointed and a reminder to click another clip.

The use of editing in this K-film will be something I think about in terms of my own clips, and how I can use framing and camera movement to make my clips more interesting.

This week’s readings by Ryan and Bogost discuss the topics of narrative and how to perceive it from a transmedial point of view rather than the classical form of narrative; and lists, in terms of how they contrast narrative.

According to Ryan, the term ‘narrative’ has become so popular in recent times that its meaning has become “diluted”. When one thinks of narrative, they think of the classical form and structure that presents itself in fables and the like. The issue facing a transmedial study of narrative is finding an alternative to the language-based definitions of narrativity that are present in classical narratology.

She quotes Abbott’s belief that narrative is a combination of story and discourse, where story is the event or sequences of events and narrative discourse is how they are represented. In this view, narrative is the textual actualization of a story, whereas story is narrative in the visual form. Ryan continues on from that saying, story is a mental image and cognitive construct that concerns how entities represented relate to each other. Narrative discourse can be distinguished from other text types in the way that it evokes images to the audience or reader’s mind. The reader can recognize the text’s intent to evoke a story in their minds, and depending on the reader’s intent, its message from the sender is either gained or misinterpreted by the reader.

From this text, we can say that while a K-film is a non-narrative film, the narrativity that an audience creates with their own mind through interacting with the film means that it contains some narrative elements, whether accidental or not. The patterns that are formed between the in-keywords and out-keywords of different clips and how they link in the final product, means that the audience will use these patterns to create their own sense of narrative to the film.

Bogost’s description of lists demonstrates how it is different to the way in which language works. While language uses signs to represent things as having definite relationships with each other,  lists divide the things they include, only having the relationship of accumulation between them. While language connects things, lists describe disconnected elements. Because they are so inexpressive (unlike language), lists allow us to represent things in their simplest form without complication.

While this text describes objects/things on a list as not having any relation to one another, the use of Korsakow means that these things/categories are linked to each other to create a pattern. The ability to input your own in-keywords and out-keywords which are then linked by the program to create links between your clips, show that lists, when used in this way, can create relationships between seemingly unconnected things. In order to create as many links as possible between the clips, the challenge is to find the simplest definition of a clip you can, that is common amongst many of your other clips, so that they can be linked by the program. This supports Bogost’s argument that the fact that lists are so inexpressive is a benefit to us.