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Week 11 Reading

May22

This weeks reading focuses on discussion around documentary, data and the effect of the internet on such things in todays day ‘n’ age. It also talks a lot about the project film: We Feel Line.  ‘Still live, We Feel Fine still impresses for its innovation and for its realisation, bringing computer science, data visualisation and storytelling to bear on content that is unlocked by tapping into the common metadata structure of blogs.’

As usual, here are some quotes and notes I took from the reading:

‘The affordances of networked connectivity offer the potential to re-contextualise documentary material through mobilising the enormous co-creative potential of human discourse captured in the web. The challenge in these marriages of mass media form and rhizomatic network is to find new ways of shaping attention into a coherent experience. To do so we have to re-invent the social praxis of documentary, creating new visual and informational grammars.’ 

‘In 1926 John Grierson defined documentary as ‘the creative treatment of actuality’. In using the term ‘actuality’ he was referring to a specific form; the newsreels – short film observations of topical events – that were shown alongside features in cinemas then. The snatches of self-expression which are Harris’s raw material, can be seen as ‘actualities’ of the Information Age, units of content reflecting the world which can, with a creative treatment, be fashioned into a documentary artefact.’

‘Documentary presents us with arguments about our shared world, propositions about the world that are made as part of a process of social praxis. ‘ – Nichols

‘Video content ‘of the web’, live to the affordances of networked connectivity, has particular attractions to the documentary producer. It has the potential to introduce different voices into a linear text, to offer in-depth investigation of particular sequences, and to re-contextualise documentary material through mobilising the enormous co-creative potential of human discourse captured in the web. It offers the potential for new ways to construct argument and bring evidence to bear in documentary’s attempt to shape our shared world.’

Week 10 Reading

May16

Plotting The Database 

So with this weeks reading I focused on the notion of Plot and the way in which it is used within a database interface. Below I have listed some of the statements/quotes that I found most interesting..

‘Plot arranges events to take shape in the mind as a single entity; a contemplative whole made of structurally related parts: cause and effect chains, points of tension and release, beginnings, middles and ends.’ 

The entire section on ‘entry points’ within an interface plot I found to be really super interesting and helpful, as it relates completely back to my groups Korsakow Film. This is reflective of the way in which a viewer is able to enter at any point (however constrained that point is by the creator) and bounce around form place to place within the interface, but also having it all related to tell a non-linear narrative. – ‘A user chooses when and where to exit a database narrative; where a user enters, as with most narratives, is usually through a designed portal. Certain types of networked, distributed or transmedia narratives do have multiple entry points, where an encounter with a narrative segment leads to a maze of other segments. But the opening interface to a database is a staged entry and may offer a broad, restricted or randomly generated set of files and paths. Entry points can establish narrative frames, metaphors for navigation , genre motifs, present views of data sets, describe elements of plot, character, setting or theme – or withhold any and all of these. However the interface is designed, the entry point prepares the user for interaction and most importantly the desire for interaction.’ 

.‘An interface is more than a map. It is a map that changes with the user’s navigation in time, offering multiple interpretive paths and levels of abstraction. But a plotted interface – to a database narrative or fiction, for example – withholds as much as it reveals. A plotted interface provides micro and macro views, but also limits and delays access to those views. ‘

…….

I apologise for the lack of clear intent with these reading blog posts. I write them along while I do the reading and just take notes on the things I think sound good or interest me. Sometimes it’s hard to find such things when I don’t fully get the main idea of the reading, but I just wing it and write about what comes to mind haha. So yeah, sorry, but enjoy!

Week 9 Reading

May8

Shields is a creative nonfiction writer, and this is a fantastic book. Why are we reading this? Because it is all about what in film is called editing, and in Korsakow might be thought of as linking via keywords. What Shields thinks of as collage. Could have been written for this subject. – Adrian Miles

So this weeks reading was a lot easier to read for me than the previous ones, however I have failed to grasp the exact meaning or intent of what the reading is supposed to be telling us. This is why I have placed Adrian’s explanation of why we are reading it above, as this has somewhat helped my understanding of the readings intent.

‘The law of mosaics: how to deal with parts in the absence of wholes.’ (317) – This statement was highlighted, so I feel like it’s kind of important. Once read along with Adrian’s comment about ‘editing’ and Korsakow’s keywords, the statement makes a little more sense. Then after reading further down through the reading, it becomes apparent to me that this reading is quite insightful into the way narrative and ‘collage’ style narrative relates to what we are trying to accomplish with Korsakow. It talks of rhythm and arranging material in narrative, and this plays in with the whole concept of Korskow and how a non linear narrative can still flow through rhythm and movement and pattern and relation.

Week 8 Analysis & Reflection Q2:

May3

Out of the readings from week 5-7 I enjoyed most reading about film crews and ways of developing a film crew in the most effective way (week 6 reading). This reading stated that in a low budget film, the crew needs to be committed to the project, stating ‘a low-budget enterprise needs optimal unity because much will be done by few. Belief and morale really matter.’ (P.386) This really made me think to my own groups project and how we have all been working together, believing in ourselves and our film, in order to get things done the best we can. Another section of this reading I found to be interesting was the part on the Camera Department of a film crew, and especially the Camera Operator, as this is my role in my groups project. I have never really done any professional camera work before, so going into this short film project has been a little daunting to me, however I do really love learning and working with the camera. In this explanation of a good camera operator, the reading talks of how they are fairly quick to learn the signs for an actors movement, to be able to follow that movement smoothly. It discusses how a director views the scenes action in front of, or sometimes behind the camera, whereas the camera operator views it through the cameras lens, seeing it in its framed cinematic form. So this made it really clear to me that the director and camera operator have to trust each other and work as a team to capture the shots in a particular way. ‘The director must be able to rely on the camera operators discrimination,’  as the reading states. (p.396)

Reading week 8

May3

This weeks reading informed me on the different ways documentary film relates and interacts with its viewer/audience when lists and categories are used. Here are some quotes/statements front the reading that I found fascinating and/or helpful:

‘Certain documentary projects use non-narrative form as a way to prompt dialogue between the spectator and the work. ‘ p. 137

‘As Kate Nash describes the form, particularly in relation to webdocs: “the temporal ordering of elements is less important than the comparisons and associations the user is invited to make between the documentary’s elements” (2012, p. 205).’

‘For Bordwell and Thompson: [a]ssociational formal systems suggest ideas and expressive qualities by grouping images that may not have any immediate logical connection. But the very fact that the images and sounds are juxtaposed prods us to look for some connection — an association that binds them together. (2008, p. 363)’

‘In associational form relationships are created through conceptual alignment, emotional impact, visual similarities and territories of gesture. A poetic application of associational form creates relationships between elements that are more often felt than thought.’ P. 139

‘Often structured around unifying themes or existing categories and classifications, the list can also inspire thought that follows the structure of memory, impulse and flashes of association.’ P. 141

‘It is an emergent structure that is only revealed as users work their way through a site, exploring originating material, user generated content and perhaps adding their own contributions.’ P. 142

Week 6 Reading!

Apr10

Reading by Matt Soar.

“I think what the web offers is an opportunity to examine and understand very small everyday details of our lives.” – Cat Kizek, the NFB’s filmmaker in residence has stated. This quote from the reading got me thinking about Korsakow and the sketch tasks we have been completing weekly for this course. I agree with the statement, and think that it rings true not only in film, or more so documentary film, but in all aspects of the world wide web. I know that this reading is majorly about Korsakow and documentary filmmaking with such a program, but I really want to try and expand on this idea that the internet allows us to ‘examine’ the smallest details form our everyday lives. With documentaries like the sketch films we have been working on, it is for sure apparent that this is the case. Speaking form personal work, my sketch film is a good example of this, as it is a non linear documentary that is mostly portraying very small aspects of my life.

However, it is not only documentaries like Korsakow films that offer this opportunity to share and understand details of our everyday lives, it is all networking and social media available to us on the internet at provide this opportunity too. Places such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Vine etc all provide a space to share bits and pieces of our daily lives with the rest of the world, or the small portion of the rest of the word that actually look at our posts. There is not one day that goes by that I don’t see at least one post on instagram of someone’s breakfast, lunch or dinner – and this is just one example of how these sites and apps allow us to share small details.

So although this weeks reading was all about Korsakow, I feel like for me, the biggest take away point is that the internet plays a huge role in providing the world with a platform to document and share their small scale, and also big scale, daily moments and details. It prompted me to think more about how this individual sharing of information and facts and images and text all combine to make mini documentaries each day, where people all over the world become interactive documentary makers of their own happenings.

Reading 5!

Apr5

Paul Arthur proposes: “Galvanized by the intersection of per- sonal, subjective and social history, the essay has emerged as the leading non- fiction form for both intellectual and artistic innovation.”

According to Giannetti, for instance, “an essay is neither fiction nor fact, but a personal investigation involving both the passion and intellect of the author.”

 An essay is the expression of a personal, critical reflection on a problem or set of prob- lems. Such reflection does not propose itself as anonymous or collective, but as originating from a single authorial voice.

So this weeks reading was all about the ‘essay’ and the ‘essay form’ of documentary making. I do feel like it was quite a long reading and I didn’t completely take it all in when reading it, but in saying this there were some interesting ideas presented. The above quotes/extracts from it are just some things I found interesting or useful to my understanding of what I was reading. I really like the statement by Gianneti – ‘an essay is neither fiction nor fact, but a personal investigation involving both the passion and intellect of the author.’ I think that when creating documentary it is the directors passion that drives the story, and this statement embraces my view on essay films – that the information presented is a ‘personal investigation’ on a topic or situation rather than a bunch of facts being thrown at the audience.

 

Reading week 4: Ryan!

Mar25

Not gonna lie, this weeks reading for Integrated Media by Ryan kind of confused me a little. Maybe it’s that I’m reading it late in the day when my brain is already tired and not focusing properly, but reading this just gave me a sore head. In saying this though, here are some points that I took away from reading it, either because I understood and agree with it, I was confused by it, or just simply because it gave me some good information.

. ‘Events are the raw material out of which stories are made.’

. ‘Story is a mental image, a cognitive construct that concerns certain types of entities and relations between these entities.’

. ‘I am not saying that life “is” a narrative, but it can in certain circumstances suggest a quality that we may call “narrativity”.’

. ‘We can never be sure that sender and receiver have the same story in mind.’

Screen Shot 2014-03-25 at 4.40.40 PM

 

Further reading about the reading.

Mar22

I found Bec’s notes on this weeks reading as recommended by Adrian to be helpful in my further understanding of the reading. Her discussion of the way new technology has enabled such change for film and film style can be found Here: http://www.mediafactory.org.au/rebecca-mylonas/2014/03/16/week-3-reading/ 🙂

Week 3 reading….

Mar20

We can consider a narrative to be a chain of events in cause-effect relationship occurring in time and space. A narrative is what we usually mean by the term story. 

– David Bordwell

As a Cinema Studies student I am familiar with this reading and with the concept of ‘Narrative’, however looking over this reading once again was not a bad thing for me to do. Narratives are made up of various elements, including plot, time, space, and Openings, closings, and patterns of development. These narrative elements occur again and again throughout film/cinema and play a major role in an audiences understanding of a narrative.

From narrative comes documentary film, and experimental film – and as was said in the post with this reading, all 3 of these particular topics  are going to be incorporated into our own Korsakow films. Experimental films have their own way of telling a story, as do documentaries, but they all still use the same varying forms and conventions when it comes to actually making the films.

In particular I fin the associational form of experimental film to be really interesting, with the fact that images and sounds are put together and juxtaposed to force us, the audience, to look for some kind of connection. This intrigues me in relation to korsakow and how visuals and sounds can be put together in an interactive way.