IM1 Film Essay

For this film essay, I have chosen to speak about the Korsakow film; “The Market” (2012), created by Xiaodi Fiona Liu, Danni He, Puteri Noor Amirah, and Sara Roberston. (Found at: http://vogmae.net.au/classworks/media/2012/kfilms/themarket/ )
As the name suggests, this film is an exploration of a market, investigating the different elements making up what a city market actually entails.

An interface can be described in a number of different ways, ultimately depending on the context it is referred to in. In relation to computing, the Oxford dictionary summarizes interface as: “…a device or program enabling a user to communicate with a computer” (Oxford, 2014).
For this particular film, the interface is designed and split into four quadrants.
The top left quarter is the moving image quadrant, the quarter in which we are to pay the majority of our attention to. The remaining three contains the thumbnails of those clips that relate to the moving image in the top left quadrant.

My interpretation of the setup of the interface is one that represents the ‘hustle and bustle’ of the market – it’s crowded and there is a lot to take in within a small space; just as there is in this Korsakow film’s interface – which is demonstrated through the tight positioning of the thumbnails and the ‘busyness’ of their content.  (http://www.mediafactory.org.au/rebecca-skilton/files/2014/04/Screen-Shot-2014-04-03-at-11.28.23-pm-1r6dvwb.png )

As shown in the above screenshot of the first interface provided, the opening clip is an external view of the market (top left hand quadrant) – an establishing shot for the audience to be able to position where they are. The remaining three thumbnails, while they may be positioned differently, they are the three shots always given on the starting interface, establishing a patterned adventure for viewers to embark on.

So what is it that these clips have in common? What is their pattern? Pattern is described as “…an arrangement or design regularly found in comparable objects” (Oxford, 2014).
In “The Market” Korsakow film, the ‘regularly found’ elements in the interface (the comparable objects) are mainly focused on fruit & produce (and the trading that takes place of them), faces, and the people who work and buy from the market.
The content of the clips differ depending on which stage the viewer is up to through the interface, though the content is obviously intertwined with the patterns that exist.
For example, the content of those clips which focus on produce range from panning over the food available to consumers, to focusing on individual pieces of fruit and vegies (http://www.mediafactory.org.au/rebecca-skilton/files/2014/04/Screen-Shot-2014-04-03-at-11.38.03-pm-xeldtw.png). With so many types of fruit and veggies however, the makers of this Korsakow film have taken it a step further, and grouped the items according to color range (http://www.mediafactory.org.au/rebecca-skilton/files/2014/04/Screen-Shot-2014-04-03-at-11.45.24-pm-23u9hox.png ).

This tends to gradually migrate to clips of trading money for the products, focusing on the arms and hands of those buying and selling (http://www.mediafactory.org.au/rebecca-skilton/files/2014/04/Screen-Shot-2014-04-03-at-11.45.44-pm-27z89ua.png ).
When the film in the top left quadrant displays footage of faces, the viewer is given a number of different thumbnails that represent clips of faces that range from those of young children to venture on to; http://www.mediafactory.org.au/rebecca-skilton/files/2014/04/Screen-Shot-2014-04-03-at-11.40.17-pm-1kh4zfn.png . This eventually leads into footage of workers and consumers around the market; (http://www.mediafactory.org.au/rebecca-skilton/files/2014/04/Screen-Shot-2014-04-04-at-12.02.27-am-190ro0d.png ).
However, I do believe it is important to note that when it seems a pattern has come to it’s end, the interface converts back to creating a pattern between striking colors within the frames, as demonstrated here with the darker shade or red/pink: http://www.mediafactory.org.au/rebecca-skilton/files/2014/04/Screen-Shot-2014-04-04-at-12.01.49-am-2024ed6.png .

 

So what is this film trying to convey? The Market film to me is simply a display of different aspects of a Market. I believe it is a tale of the types of objects that can be purchased, as well as the type of people you are likely to come across, including the type of work they do that you may encounter. The context is dependent on the pattern that is present. Although every viewer will interpret such a film differently, for me there is no strong, structured narrative story combining the footage, but rather it is the similarities between the clips that hold them together as a piece.

It is David Bordwell and Kristin Thompson’s reading titled “Film Art: An Introduction”, that I found myself making connections to for this Korsakow film.
As the week three reading suggests, an Abstract film is “…organized in a way we might call theme and variations” (Bordwell & Thomson, 2013). The reading also makes connecting points to this Korsakow film, explaining that an Abstract film “…will typically show us the kinds of relationships the film will use as basic material [in it’s introductory section]) (Bordwell & Thomson, 2013). In ‘The Market’, this is the Interface, which is presented in the first screen shot showing The Market entry, fruit and veggies, crowds and a sign.  The basic material the film will be covering is presented to viewers straight away.
“Then other segments will go on to present similar kinds of relationships but with changes” (Bordwell & Thomson, 2013). These are the narrowing down of patterns that we see throughout the film, that range from the color of fruit and veggies, to the looks on the workers faces. As Bordwell and Thomson state, the changes are only small, but to tend to build up so they are narrowing down from what was first presented in the introductory material.
External to the imagery, the project features a simple heading stating “The Market”, and each clip is pared with it’s respective sound, fully immersing the viewer in the Market’s atmosphere.

REFERENCES

– Bordwell & Thomson , D & K, 2013. Film Art: An Introduction. 3rd ed. New York: McGraw-Hill,
– Oxford University Press. 2014. Interface. [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/interface?q=interface. [Accessed 02 April 14]
– Oxford University Press. 2014. Pattern. [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/interface?q=interface. [Accessed 02 April 14]