ASSIGNMENT 4 – TIME OUT

[click the photo above to experience a day in the life]

After long thought process we have finalised the concept and structure for our project work for Assignment 4. As mentioned before we are sticking to the our concept of Isolation from the previous assignment however for this upcoming one, we are taking a more moulding/ refining approach to the project.  So our aim for this next assignment is to create a multi-linear narrative in which will consist of 3 distinctive scenarios and within these scenarios we’re planning on experimenting on perspectives, 3 to be specific. We will have 9 fragments in total and will be incorporating more audio recordings and sound effects that will intensify the feeling of the scenario.

To elaborate further, the first perspective will be a point of view shot and we were considering using a GoPro camera to really embody the fact that it is the subjects POV instead of maybe a second person holding the camera on top of them and following their every move. The second perspective will be what our subject perceives her reality to be. This will give the audience and insight to whats going on in her head, an example would be that even in a room full of people, she is determined that she is alone. DUuring our discussion on the second perspective, I think it would be fun to experiment and film it as we sometimes made twisted psychotic jokes about the scenario that possibly could work? The third perspective however will somewhat act like a CCTV surveillance camera and will show what reality really is.

We decided to choose 3 accessible and simple locations for our 3 scenarios as the location scouting in our previous assignment was too time consuming. However we did think less of the location and needed it to also be able to reiterate the theme of isolation in them. The 3 locations we chose are in a classroom, walking in an alleyway and at home, we figured these locations are relatable and identifiable with other students.

 

This weeks reading (9-10), “Interactive Documentary: Setting The Field” by Judith Aston & Sandra Daudenzi discusses the 4 essential modes of interactive documentary, mainly in online spaces one of them being “The Experiential” mode. This mode as Aston and Gaudenzi elaborates that it is used to bring users into physical space and creates an experience the challenges their senses and their enacted perception of the world. When I read this bit of the article it made me think about the what we wanted our audience to achieve of their experience in our project and how they would feel throughout each fragment and the project as a whole.

In assignment 2’s blogpost, I wrote about my experience with an online documentary that was in the form of virtual reality (VR). My partner and I back then explored very briefly the level of interaction VR can produce. VR has the ability to transport users into a re-created duplicate version of a space and time without having to physically be there and this increases the level of interaction, which I thought we could consider incorporating into our next assignment.

In context to developing the level of interaction for our next project, during out assignment 3 presentation, we mentioned the possibilities of us venturing into other multiple platforms to reach out to wider range in audience. However we are still unsure about what software/platform we will be using for assignment 4.

As week 8 comes to an end, we did not waste any time and got started on discussing our next assignment and project work. We took into account all the feedback given by the panel during the assignment 3 presentation and seeing how we can incorporate it into our next project work. We came to a conclusion of sticking with our original theme of ‘Isolation’ in assignment 3 but of course discovering ways to improve the user experience.

In our precious project work we did not really emphasize much on audio and limited ourselves to only having an audio track playing in the background. However after several comments were given to us by the panel about how we could explore sound in terms of recording what our subject is hearing in her head, the surround sound she is experiencing.

Another aspect of our previous work that we discussed to develop further was the fact that we just shot multiple clips at random that we thought would depict our theme and then uploading it onto Korsakow. It could possibly be the lack of experience of the software (Korsakow) but we didn’t take as much consideration into designing the narrative arc as we should have. Perhaps we will think of more ways on how to create that flow of the experience from start to end. To add onto that a question that rose during a discussion was how we would we make the experience more engaging and motivate user to click on the next SNU.

As we discussed on how we could develop our project a definite agreement was that we wanted the overall experience to be more cohesive with an overarching structure.