After deciding the documentary title to be Friday In Melbourne, the constraint of filming 36 fragments (10 second each), and inspired by the thought ‘Simple is best’ raised by Sem’s group in the work-in-progress consultation, we came up with two different ideas of the Korsakow interface, which could be defined as a temporal montage and spatial montage respectively.
Idea
1. An Interface that shows all four videos of a specific time simultaneously, three previews that let viewers switch between each person’s Friday life, with two small previews that lead them to the next and the pervious clip of that person’s day. (Spatial)
2. Showing each person’s day in Melbourne separately, a timeline for each of them that contains nine previews of his/her all nine videos, then link these four timelines together by using different keywords. (Temporal)
The sketch of these two plans
Temporal or Spatial?
In between the above two ideas, a temporal and a spatial montage, to present all the videos at once or reveal them step by step, which approach could create a more interactive, a more attractive documentary that entertain viewers but also convey messages?
Temporal montage could refer to the kind of montage that juxtaposed scenes in a linear sequence to convey information; Where readings of the pass three weeks had explained us that spatial montage simply means placing clips of different places in the same screen, (such as the split screen effect in certain videos), ‘a logic of addition and co-existence’ that aims to rein-scribe the difference of those pieces and the relationship between them. In our project, the spatial montage technique could show the contrast of Friday life between people living in the city and suburb area in each specific time, that instantly demonstrate viewers the comparison between them.
Conversely, the idea with temporal montage seems being a showcase of each person’s life with no intersection, where on the technical level, each interface also hardly to be connected, therefore, we chose to further develop the other idea.
Is narration really needed?
For a documentary, narration in different forms (such as verbal and text) could be utilised to explain the idea of the film, and to clearly describe the story in specific scenes. Is narration really necessary for our Korsakow work, or the design of interfaces and the use of thumbnails would already be well enough for us?
After discussing in class, we had decided to place the previews of other person’s clip right under the SNU window that took almost half of the screen, and the two smaller previews for the next and previous video at the top right corner, in order to indicate viewers their different level of importance by its window size and position. Meanwhile, we had created a unique set of thumbnails for each person to help viewers differentiate between them, where preview thumbnails in the same style, could guide audiences to the next clip of the same person. In addition, we had delayed the appearing time of the ‘next’ and ‘back’ preview window, to give viewers a sense that their function are distinct from previews under the SNU.
How the interface eventually looks like