Wednesday, 26 November 2008

Timecode

Timecode is a film made in 2000 by Mike Figgis, the film has 4 shots, and is shown in real-time. No editing, just 4 shots in which the viewer edits the film in their own mind by choosing which screen they follow. The film relates a lot to the video i want to make, by having videos play simultaneously and the viewer can choose which screen they go along.

http://www.imdb.com/video/screenplay/vi1493041433/



This Youtube video has been made by some American students in a case study referring to Timecode. They talk about readings by Lev Manovich. They talk bout his theories about new media and how media is evolving rapidly. They make a point that some cinema media is evolving and moving away from standard linear films. Thus referring to Timecode, they say that Timecode is based on a time code, and the fact that because in the film you see 4 shots of each time code the viewer chooses which time code they watch thus making their own edit and interacting with the film, the viewer see's what they want to see in the film, they see 4 shots as a whole but the attention is based on one shot, this is something which relates heavily to my work. Although this is a student project i found it very useful research and gave me some ideas to base my theory work.

Friday, 21 November 2008

Night of The Living Dead

I have decided to make my interactive music video a lot more interesting by giving it a twist. I'm going to make it a zombie movie. The story will be short and simple, but i want to give the effect of a zombie film. so I've been looking at zombie films to get an idea of filming styles and techniques that i need to use in order to make a effective looking video.
First i looked at 'Night of The Living Dead' by George A. Romero, the filming style is quite jumpy with lots of cuts and quick moving shots, i think this looks very effective and creates a good sense of style. I need to capture this style so my people will recognize my video as a zombie film, i wan to do this as zombie films have a very unique, yet slightly B-movie style to them.


I've also looked at '28 Days Later' by Danny Boyle. As a recent zombie films it still keeps the same style of traditional zombie films, with the fast editing and the dark shots, but i think it looks very effective and has an amazing style, a style which i hope to not replicate but have a similar look.

Dead Set

As research i looked at e4's dead set, which is a zombie style film set in the big brother house, I'm looking at this for filming styles, and ways to edit my video.

On the website i found this interactive video which is an advert for the show. You type in your name in the box and a video plays, the video is of a character from the show in the diary room, and she writes on the wall in her won blood "help me" and the she writes your name. I think the is very shocking and effective, as its very creepy to see some write your name in blood on a wall.


http://www.unseenscreen.com/

Monday, 17 November 2008

Andrew Cameron Dissimulations The Illusion Of Interactivity

In Camerons book he talks about narrative and its relation to interactivity. He says
"The form of the story permeates every aspect of our cultural life. History, politics, memories, even subjectivity, our sense of identity, are all representations in narrative form. Signifier's chained together in temporal, spatial and casual sequence. Narrative is a component of those deep structures with which we construct ourselves and our universe."
I think here Cameron's saying that what we experience as human beings creates narrative, we create narrative in what we see and here. This helps me in my creative design, as what I’m creating a narrative but as the user gets to apply there own feel to it as they change what they see they are interacting with the product in there own way.

Blu-Ray DVD's

For my multi-screen idea one way of making the product would to be using Blu-ray DVD's, using Adobe Encore you can set buttons so the user can change between the viewpoints.
although this is a rarely used option it does give me some ideas. The only problem with using this technology is will the user be happy with a drop down menu in the way of the screen as they change between shots, also how easy would it be to change shots compared to a Flash website

This link is to a website talking about the new technologies of blu-ray dvd's

http://www.blu-ray.com/info/

Wednesday, 12 November 2008

Arcade Fire Neon Bible Interactive Music Video

http://www.beonlineb.com/click_around.html

This music video works by the user clicking on the hands and head, each time they are clicked they perform different animations, the animation is broken up into segments so only certain movements work at certain times in the video. I think this video is made in flash with buttons activating the movies.
i think the video is very clever as it keeps the viewer interested throughout the video as it changes in animation.

Beyond Myth and Metaphor

After reading an article by Marie-Laure Ryan on narrative, and how it communicates the viewers emotions and actions i've started to get an idea on the work i want to produce.

http://gamestudies.org/0101/ryan/

Ryan says
"The most prominent reason for acting in life is problem-solving. It is therefore the most fundamental narrative pattern."

She relates narrative to being like a jig-saw, the viewer has to see the information and put it together and form a sense of understanding.
This text is helping me understand how to start on my designing, i need to create something that the user has to use their brain and mentally interact with the product. At this early stage my idea is to create a movie with a Non-linear structure, so when the user views the movie they have to put the narrative together mentally in there head, so there fore they are interacting with the media, and creating their own experience.

Ryan's text on relating to the narrative jig-saw

"the reader tries to construct a narrative image from fragments that come to her in a more or less random order, by fitting each lexia into a global pattern that slowly takes shape in the mind. Just as we can work for a time on a puzzle, leave it, and come back to it later, readers of hypertext do not start a new story from scratch every time they open the program, but rather construe a mental representation over many sessions, completing or amending the picture put together so far. "

Friday, 7 November 2008

Ident Evaluation

For this project I had bad time management, I left the animating stage of the process till the last two weeks when we had no teaching, so working without teachers was very hard. So when it cam to crit time I was given a lot of changes to make, and a lot of work to do. I created myself a list of changes that needed to be made; once I started working I began to slowly start ticking of changes on the list. After I made all the changes I finally finished my idents. With the changes suggested by the teachers and the client I had a product that I was happy with. I don’t think this has been my best project to date but it’s only the start of the year. And I hope to progress from this and do better things.