Through the interactive video platform Eko and the social media tool Instagram, our short film had responded to the following qualities of online media: interactivity, multi-perspective, automation and cross-platform (also modularity, which may not be discussed in this post).
In week 9 & 10’s reading, the author had cited the four different interactive modes that suggested by Davenport and Murtaugh (1995), as being discussed in development 4.1, I think this work had fallen in between two of them, the conversational and the hypertext mode. To further increase the interactivity, I had attached the Instagram account of our project (behind-the-scenes) in the poster , which viewers could leave us comments after they watched the work, provided them a medium to interact with us (the production team).
An example of choice point // The skipping function mentioned in Development 4.1
Furthermore, our short film had offered viewers two possibilities (whether the protagonist transform or not) to explore in several scenes, unlike traditional screen works that functioned in a single path where audiences could only perform as a receiver while watching it, they could perceive multiple perspectives of the same scenario, taking control of what may happen to the protagonist, as a result left them a deeper impression due to that novel watching experience.
For the interface of Eko, the principle of automation could be used to describe the interaction between the platform and us (creators), ‘automation’ refers to new media tools that could automatically works by its own after users instructed it. In order to make a video in Eko, what we have to do is to merely build a tree diagram to indicate the connections between all clips we have uploaded, then create clickable buttons for viewers to interact with, the rest work of putting all fragments together into a single film according to the diagram would be done by the platform itself. As well as, the platform would compose a low quality preview for users to share, which had reduced the loading time for users who watch under a slower internet connection.
Apart from Eko, we had opened up Instagram accounts for each character (alter) for viewers to discover, which the two platforms had been linked through placing the hyperlink of the Instagram page as one of the buttons at the end of the film, for viewers who intended to know about the ‘everyday life’ of those fictional characters. To extend the connection between these platforms, we initially planned to place a link under each character’s account that direct audience to the point of time where they first appeared in the video, however, Eko doesn’t have a function like YouTube to generate hyperlinks for specific starting time.
During the planning stage, we first intended to use the same approach as the Eko film We Need To Talk that direct viewers to distinct endings depends on the path they choose, but since we had drafted certain amount of choice points, the story will eventually have more than 10 endings if we implement it in the same way, therefore, we had separated the story into sections, where each chosen path would return to the beginning of the next scene. Also, this method had brought out a message of alters is sharing a same person’s body and they are in peace with each other. Moreover, different from the making process of linear narrative, it is challenging for us to find the best way of arranging all the fragments (except the opening and ending scene), whether we should put scenes of the same alter together or make them all interlaced. Incidentally, this problem had been solved due to the clashed schedule between group members, which we decided to delete two scenes afterward since the video length of rough cut was already long enough as we supposed viewers to watch the film twice out of curiosity. Even though, it still makes me again realised the importance of constructing the plan in detail before getting into filming, including the location, list of shots and the interactive interface, in order to avoid being at a loss once faced unexpected event.
Why is there such a big interest in online content?
Compared to screen media a decade ago that always centred the content of the work and messages behind it, these days due to the emergence of online video platforms, which viewers could completely control what they watch and when to watch, user experience had also became one of the main focus for content producer, therefore, to let viewers felt being engaged with the media work had turned into the main task for online content producer, which is also the reason why most platform nowadays had striving to increase interactive features to make users being the centre of the product/video, such as the poll and info card feature on YouTube for creators to communicate with their audiences.
How is the production for a smaller scale project different from traditional media?
After making several online-based projects during this semester, to me, the major difference between the production of traditional and online screen work would be the approach of interaction. For traditional media like movies, the main interaction method would be actors in film breaking the forth fall to communicate with audiences, but when it comes to screen works online, creators could have endless possibilities to interact with viewers, including in-video communication and films with viewer decide plot. Therefore, each project work (even a YouTube video) has to find out the suitable (or seamless) ways to involve audiences in it without making them feel uncomfortable, such as repeatedly asking them to subscribe the channel in the same YouTube video. To find our more potentials of online video making and my own video interaction approach for future career, I am planning to launch a YouTube channel in the near future, for producing videos on topics I interested in with involving different interactive functions.