The media consultation is really interesting because it provided us a chance to look at other studios’ work so that I have a little idea that what I might be interested in or choose for next semester. The studio called ‘Photography’ is interesting because the photos the students showed to us are beautiful and I love the patterns the photos have, it seems like there are some stories happened through the pictures.

For the show time of our group, I was glad that there were six or seven people came to had a look at our project. The general feedbacks were: Cool! Interesting! Most of them found the cluster of ‘hands with sounds’ has the similar actions with the cluster of ‘hands in landscapes’. ‘The imitations of hands were interesting and the sounds are really cool! This makes me immersive! Did your group shoot all videos? So amazing! I love the scenes you created! You win!’ one of the viewers said. We are so proud of our project!

For our group’s interactive screen media project, I think it is fully responding to the online spaces. Based on the point of media tool, the project is achieved by using Korsakow, which is the media platform intends for creating multimedia presentations, not software applications (Matt 2014). In another word, the project can only be displayed on the web platform, which is the reflection of the characteristics of online spaces. Moreover, when we submitted the project via Korsakow, it is published online and the website page for the project was created. The Korsakow film is the internet platform that allows for social interaction through sharing, which is another possibility offered by online spaces. As our project is an interactive project, the interactions with the viewers are supposed to achieve when they experiencing the project. It is free to share the website page of our project to their friends or other internet platforms once the viewers like it.

The final project is totally different from the third one. In the third project, we put the scenes to the specific locations in real life and more focusing on the interaction between the viewers and specific spaces. However, this project is more engaging in content if links to the online spaces. This project allows viewers to generate sensory imaginations by introducing visual and auditory effects. The landscapes are not the limitations, hands imitating things in life are more like an abstract art. Although it seems strange, it does not limit the imagination of the audience.

In addition, our project achieved the possibility of collaborative workspaces. As we filmed multiple short-time videos, Korsakow allows to displays them on the same screen with or without audios and the images are available to set up as the thumbnails as well. The multiple media tools, which are audio, video and image can collaborate on the screen at the same time. As Lev Manovich suggests that spatial montage ‘could involve a number of media, potentially of different sizes and proportions, appearing on the screen at the same time’ (2001, p. 322).

I think our project definitely can be considered to be web-specific. As I discussed above, the possibilities of ‘website’, ‘internet platform that allows for social interaction through sharing’, ‘engage in content’ and ‘collaborative workspaces’ are the reflection of online spaces of our project. It is necessary to use the online platform to export the Korsakow film and displays online. This project is more like a way we express ourselves to the audience by shooting and expect to get different responses from them. The online space is the best way to spread this project because it allows users to share with each other and it provides a great media tools when making projects.

Through the projects I did in this semester, I learned a lot about online screen productions. The online screen producers do not necessarily need to be professional, like our students can be a producer of online screen projects and others as well. It does not require the experience and qualifications of the project to be created like a film or TV dramatist. The online media project producer is anyone because this is a web-sharing platform and there are no strict restrictions on the content of the project.

Especially the last two group projects taught me a lot and gave me huge hints about online screen production. Most of the online screen projects are nonlinear, it can be described as the characteristic of ‘multilinearity’ as well. The content of the project does not need to be coherence, even not to be happened in true, the content can be everything. As our projects, they are non-linear projects because there are no logical or narrative stories as the background, every media materials are displayed at random. Moreover, the online screen productions do not have strict requirements like other media projects. For example, unregulated length of the production is allowed. When we shoot the videos for our project, we did not have a strict length requirement for each video, most of them only just 25 seconds and then cut them to 10 to 15 seconds. Although the time of these clips is short, they make sense of the project finally when combining together. The qualities I mentioned above are the reasons that I prefer the online screen productions because of fewer limitations of content and producers.

At the beginning of this semester, there were few questions we came up with when we talked about ‘online screen media’ for the first time. To be honest, it was my first time to have a formal understanding of the online screen media, even if I contact it every day.

• How can we make engaging online content?

For this question, I think the answer that made me experienced a lot is ‘interaction’. The last two projects I did both are interactive projects, which means it is necessary to make the interaction with the viewers. For the third project, we encouraged the viewers to click the scenes they interested in different landscapes, so the possibility of the appearance of next video depends on the viewer’s choice. For the fourth project, the viewers need to continue to look at the scenes until the preview of ‘end’ shows, then the questions will display once they click ‘end’. However, if they still want to continue watching, it is also allowed. Therefore, the content of the project and the time it ends depends on the choice of the audience. If the background and clues of the entire project are set by the producer, then the whole project will become boring because the audiences do not need to pay effort into it and no interactive happened during the whole project. Thus, in order to attract the audiences’ attention, to make interactions with them is the most crucial point that engaging online content.

• Why is there such a big interest in online content?

As I mentioned above, there are many qualities of online screen media productions and in my opinion, the qualities that most attract me is the fewer limitations on online content. There are no strict limitations on the content of the project, which means the characteristics of the project could be everything such as entertainment, niche, controversial, educational, even no fact checking. Compared to traditional media projects, it does not have strict requirements on the authenticity of the content, language, and length of time because it will not be played on traditional media tools. Online media platform is the place for everyone to share, it could be their feelings, imaginations or daily life. I think the diversity of content is one of the main reasons to attract people to pay attention to online content. I experienced this when I did the previous two group projects because our projects are both nonfiction projects, one has happened in real scenes but another one is not. Each scene is not related to each other but they created the entire project and allowed to publish online.

All in all, I am glad that I chose ‘Thinking in Fragments’ as my media course. Although I did not clearly understand what does ‘online screen media’ means at the start, during the whole period of learning and practicing, I know more about it now. Moreover, in this course, I gradually became familiar with the use of media tools such as tripods, video cameras, and recorders. The most valuable thing was learned a new online media tool, which is Korsakow. The ‘in-keyword’ and ‘out-keyword’ are exactly difficult components, but we always solve them finally. Nagini is really good at it because she always has a clear clue of the editing and helped me a lot when we did the editing on Korsakow. Mia’s creative thinking is what I respected, she is good at coming up with fresh ideas. I need to pay more attention to tiny things around us in daily life and open mind, do not restrict on the real life. The use of media tools is what Taras does well in, especially Adobe software applications. She is really good at using Premiere, Photoshop, and Indesign and thanks to her taught, I learned how to use Premiere to change the size of videos, use Photoshop to do the images for thumbnails and use Indesign to create the poster. I am so proud of being a group with Nagini, Taras and Mia and thanks to their effort, we finally have done the projects!