Film-TV | Analysis & Reflection 3

The advantage of shooting with editing in mind is that it allows for more control over the final edit.

Multiple takes, different shot setups, and different lighting allows for more options in the edit, as well as being able to be more selective with cuts and shots that might not be optimal to the narrative, or style of the film.

It also allows for control over how time is depicted in the final, and rather than filming long shots, filming shots to be edited together maintains a chronology without unnecessary filming.

Weekly Response | Week 3

The extract from Bordwell and Thompson’s Film Art book I had already read last year as a part of my Cinema Studies course. Nevertheless, it’s concepts are certainly applicable across many disciplines, though in relation to Integrated Media and the study of Korsakow films we are undertaking at the moment, the ideas are something you have to construe a little bit to grasp in terms of multi-linear media.

The main points in the reading concern the most basic of narrative devices: time, space, the order of both of those, and arguably the most important, cause and effect. The question is how these will translate to films that cannot rely on a single narrative thread to be compelling; where traditional film has concrete motivations to proceed a story, non-linear media relies on the user to decide on these motivations.

A game I referred to much last year in the Networked Media course was Dear Esther, which is exemplary of a kind of non-linear storytelling, where the story is told in fragments, and delivered at random at certain checkpoints. The pace is thus dictated by the player, who can meditate on one area for as long as they like, and then choose where to proceed next. Of course there are many criticisms of the game, most regarding it’s supposed linearity, nevertheless it upholds an ideal of a story that is not reliant on linear time or space.

The extract from Film Art eventually moves onto experimental and abstract film. At a glance of course these hold very little narrative, but the text explores the use of visual and aural relations to create a kind of rhythm, that can be interpreted into a story. It mentions a particular film called Ballet Mecanique that seems to just show random images over several minutes.

Both the traditional techniques and the one shown in Ballet Mecanique showcase how relations are made between shots to help build the narrative, which – provided your aim is to create a narrative – is how multi-linear films such as Korsakow can achieve a narrative.

ACMI is a great example of contemporary non-linear storytelling though, and it’s permanent exhibition Screen Worlds is a more physical form of the non-linear narrative, where participants can explore a mediated history of TV, film, and video games in an open plan space to compose a narrative. The space relies heavily on the relation of space (you can follow a loosely built chronology of media) to give a sense of time passing.

‘The point of interactive film’

I wrote a thing on how the interactive film works best in terms of what it achieves on my main blog, thought it might be good here too for sharing. The original post is here.

I recommend having a look at this Korsakow film before you go any further, The Border Between Us; of all the ones I’ve watched so far this one is exemplary of how the format can be used. Many others come off as very vague, and don’t seem to grasp as any particular narratives.

I really love the idea of a form of documentary that asks the viewer to navigate through the content themselves, allowing them to choose what or what not to watch, and in which order to watch it. The segmented style of each nugget of media is odd, but it opens the opportunity to play more with sound and photographs rather than straight up video and sync sound.

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