Tag Archives: Fiction Project

THINKING IN FRAGMENTS – Assignment 2 Development Pt.2

Individual Research Pt.2 + Fictional Project

Individual Research Pt.2

There are also some music videos that I found interesting on YouTube.

The way of how the storylines are combined and the use of split screen could be applied into our project.

The music video portrays the stories of two protagonists (from different perspectives) and shows it up at the same time by using split screen.

This music video mainly exhibits the real world life and the expectation of the male protagonist by using split screen intersecting with the singer performance.

These video enhances the idea of using the split screen in our project with the variation of showing only one perspective/detail of a scene at a time for leaving more suspense for the viewers.

This music video has 3 versions in total which released gradually.

The 1rd one is the female protagonist’s gaze/perspective from right hand side., which was released at first.

The 2rd one is the male protagonist’s gaze/perspective from let hand side, which was uploaded continuously.

The last/final one combines 2 sides and shows the entire and completed story, which was released lastly.

This videos inspires me of showing only parts/fragments of the story at first and reveals the whole story later on. Also, we consider using square frame or non-standard wide frame in our project.

 

Fictional Project

I experienced a fiction project called Salt.

 

It is imitates the process of swimming by pressing the space bar in keyboard while listening to the designed music. As the user keeps pressing, the story will continue with words showing on the screen. However, once the user stops, there would be an alternative version of the story.

Here are some advantages that I found out from experiencing the project:

  • The concept/idea of this story is attractive.
  • The particular music matches with the swimming story well.
  • This form of storytelling is interactive as the user has to keep pressing the space bar if they want to experience/know the story.

However, there is also a problem existed in my opinion, which is the storytelling pace is a little bit slow. Although the story outline and the storytelling form draw my attention and I am curious about the story, I did not end up with knowing the ending of this story due to the slow speed.

Hence, it would be concluded that the curiosity oriented creative form is important for an online media project. Nevertheless, it is also vital to keep in a certain degree. In other words, it is crucial to keep the user’s curiosity and leave an suspense, but it is also significant to do not use up/destroy them. The clues should be provided to the users in a appropriate time in order to their continuous experience.

Regarding to our project, it is essential to leave a suspense to viewers but give them clues at the same time. Also, in terms of interaction, it might be effective to leave some questions to viewers on Instagram Story.

THINKING IN FRAGMENTS – Assignment 2 Development Pt.3

Discussion

Sharing Session

There are some inspirations and reconsiderations about our project after peer’s share of a non-fictional project called Seven Digital Deadly Sins.

There are categorisations and titles for each stories or narratives.

As the storyline is nonlinear and everyone has their own short stories, it is reasonable to present each narratives or persons by fragments (shot clips) instead of putting them together and forming a story.

This project gives me the idea of naming each short individual video that we make.

In addition to that, it shows up the unique feature that exits in online screen media as viewers has the freedom to choose the contents that they like to know about. It is different from the TV series and film owing to they are linear dominantly, expect for skipping or speeding up, otherwise, it would be difficult for audiences to follow only one storyline/strand.

Discussion session

Non-Fiction vs Fiction

It is found that they are more non-fictional projects presented in online screen space comparing with fictional works. Hence, it arouse the thinkings and discussion about the reasons why and online screen media content.

The online screen projects are usually in parts/fragments. There are less continuous stories.

Non-fictional project could be easily divided into or presented as parts. For example, in documentary, it is difficult for the director to determine what the social actor is going to say, which is an open environment.  Sometimes, pieces of information or stories do not fit into each other. Hence, it would be easier to present as fragments than as a whole. Also, there might be remaining footages that cannot be shown on traditional screen due to the limitation of time. However, it could be fully exhibited online as those contents can be presented as individual possibly relevant parts that are categorised or tag accordingly without time restriction. The viewers have the choice to choose the contents that they would like to approach. What is more, in terms of the interactivity. Non-Fictional project enables better interaction with viewers due to the authenticity of the content and open structure of the story.

Nevertheless, regarding the fictional project, there are some restrains.

The story itself builds up in a new and precisely designed world which does not exist in reality. It is a relatively closed environment with its own operating rule created by the writer/director. Every plot is elaborately constructed and related with one another. Hence, it is hard to cut the story into pieces. Furthermore, there would be no space for the audiences to participate in or engage with in online screen. Otherwise, numerous new storyline would be created and the original world would fracture. Hence, there is a lack of interactivity for fictional project due to its limitation of content.

Peer session

As our project is fictional, it would be a challenge for us to keep the content in parts and interactive.

Here are some of our solutions:

  • Creating 3-5 different small stories which is individual but also relevant to on another as a whole.
  • Keeping/Leaving suspense/mystery at the end of each clips by cutting into black screen while sound effect still heard.
  • Posting/Leaving questions at the end of the clip.
  • Creating an mystic and horrible mood instead of presenting a complete story.

THINKING IN FRAGMENTS – Assignment 2 Development Pt.1

Non-Fictional Project + Individual Research Pt.1

Non-Fictional Project

The DNA Project

is an online interactive documentary that documents the production of the musician J.Views‘s album 401 days

It aims to unfold the elements of creating songs and communicate with his listeners during the process. The Project demonstrates some characteristics of online screen media, such as unregulated length, multiple media, interactive and episodic form. For example, in terms of multimedia, there are several art forms are combined into this project for allowing viewers to look into J.Views‘s creation of the album, for instance, video, audio and photography.

What is more, there are 3 different ways of experiencing this production process, which are timeline, tracks and the DNA. Take tracks as an example, the accomplishment processes of every single track from his album are shown from inspirations, production to final product by using personal perspective (POV).

In this project, every pieces of various art forms are composed to produce a final product, which relates with my individual research coincidentally about Instagram and has an impact on my group project.

 

Individual Research Pt.2

It is found that there are mixes of diverse art forms presented on Instagram posts. Here are some posts that I thought appealing from Margaret Zhang (@margaret__zhang):

 

Post 1:the combination of still image with moving video as background.

Post 2:the mix of photos and videos on the same post.

Post 3: split screen: the division of one post into two fragments for showing different angles and the silence of the video with subtitles for convenient glancing.

 

These posts are not merely single art form posts, instead, it incopporates with a variety of art forms to create an innovative online screen media experience, which is similar to The DNA Project to some extent. In terms of the characteristics, it satisfies the multimedia form, unregulated length, mobile, tag, commenting and sharing.

After experiencing and analysing this 2 project, I have an inspiration of creating an multimedia form project on Instagram. There would be a series of posts consists of either a single art form or a mix of different art forms, for example, there is only a piece of music on 1st post, a mix of photos and short clips on 2nd post, etc.

 

To be continued…

Project Development Pt.2