Category Archives: online video experiments

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Reflection: Week 10a – Pitching Ideas to Seth!

  By weiyunsoo • May 12, 2015

This session was a self-directed session again. I gave my two cents on my past sketches and what I felt it was a first person perspective when Seth thought it was a third person perspective. It boiled down to the fact that I should still give more actions that may look more believable as a first person perspective. When someone watches that particular video, they should instantly get that they are being in the shoes of the observer. It was a good insight and I will remember using it in my future sketches which would lead to my final and confirmed prototype.

YouTube Doubler was the main theme in my mind, cutting out all other narrative ideas. This was a bad idea because of limiting myself. Peter and I decided to take a step back and listened to Seth’s advice.

We put a couple questions to prompt us as we answered each of them.Naturally, the first questioned we asked was “What is the first person narrative?” So, what happened was we went through films like Cloverfield, recommended by our peers during our brainstorming session in week 9. We paid close attention of the camera angle, shot, length and edits. How they used first person perspective in cinema. That had led to our next few questions on the techniques of shooting in first person perspective.

We came into class with a little bit more knowledge about how to produce first person perspective and tried to get more feedback from Seth. After the feedback, we had some fragmented ideas (which we won’t know if it will work unless we experiment on it). Seth had mentioned going back to our case study, as usual, and think about how they used the apartment room space, the complexity and dynamics on first person perspective and trying to experiment on things to make viewers experience the entire space without being in the location itself.

 

So far, my ideas I got:

filming yourself and different reaction. Then, creating three different scenarios to allow viewers to choose which event comes first based on the person’s reaction.

PANEL A: Your face like you’re vlogging (with several expressions/emotions)

PANEL B: 3 different scenarios in one video to allow viewers to choose which event should be played when they see the person’s reaction.

 

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Reflection: Week 9a – Commencing Project FOUR!

  By weiyunsoo • May 4, 2015

Week 9 was just right after completing Project three and presenting in front of the panel of judges. So the first session was probing us and pushing us into the smaller specifics of our experiment. Not many attended the session because it was self-directed so Peter and I did not get much suggestions from our peers. However, the criticisms we managed to get were constructive and definitely very helpful.

According to Seth, we still do not fully understand the concept of ‘First person perspective’ from the sketches we made in project three. I have been jumping between first person and third person perspective. The sketch was unable to allow the audience to grasp distinctively that it was a first person perspective. After that discussion, we started picking out which sketch interested us the most to get started on our project four. Peter and I chose YouTube Doubler after hearing the judges’ suggestion on using a simple tool like YouTube Doubler to create a complex narrative. Due to our time constraints, Brian and Seth were absolutely right about keeping our experiment simple with a complex narrative.

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After a quick brainstorming with Seth my peers, we have our project four probe!

What happens to linear first person perspective video when it is re-appropriated into a parallel narrative using YouTube Doubler or other tools?

What Seth had mentioned during the discussion had been on point. I had double checked and watched through my previous sketches and tried to pinpoint the problem. What I found out was that I was aimlessly walking around the streets that I did not bother with people walking in front of me that it did, indeed, look like a third person perspective. I should have created an action like maybe checking the phone or check my watch to show that I am in a first person perspective.

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Reflection: Week 8a – “I am being Judged! THEY’RE JUDGING ME!”

  By weiyunsoo • April 27, 2015

Yes, I ripped it off from Lilo & Stitch… Anyways moving along to the main point! Today, we cut down our presentation from last week to 5 minutes tops. The presentation went off with a breeze. After the presentation, we had to sit on the “let-the-judging-begin chair”! Peter answered most of the questions because we showed his sketch on the Korsakow non-narrative sketch. We were pressed for time so we did not present the YouTube Doubler narrative sketch.

Presentation was better than expected as I set up the case study and the first person perspective to the judges and let Peter explain his sketch. Unfortunately, the judges were keen in viewing the YouTube Doubler sketch but I had not been able to present it. The bright side, I did not stumble over my words! I managed to man up (I mean woman up) and deliver my speech to the panel. Their nods and appreciation to what I have said only encouraged me to speak up. The number of presentations we did during the studio session definitely helped me on my stage fright. I still have a lot to work on but it definitely is a start. Questions were asked regarding “gamification” as it was an interesting topic but couldn’t quite put into an online video (unless you have super awesome coding experience) and so we were given effective criticism like using simple techniques to make a complex narrative. The panel suggested to go with the YouTube Doubler. I think that would be our next probe then.

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Presentation Notes for the Panel Judges

  By weiyunsoo • April 25, 2015

Just to get some facts down and have a copy of it on my blog.

Framework:

– introduce our case study = 89 Steps
– our ideas from Project TWO
– set up First person perspective
– our list of sketches
– show one sketch
– our plans for Project FOUR

YUN:

Our case study is the non-fiction interactive documentary of 89 Steps by Uniondocs who created the interactive short with elements of gamification(?) about Martha’s apartment in the neighbourhood of Brooklyn. The elements that we were genuinely interested in was the non-linear narrative of the location where we had to scroll through the street looking for Martha and you can’t look for her at the first try so you need to go back and forth. I also like the linear structure of ascending the stairs with Martha in real time. If you stop moving, Martha will tell you a story of the neighbourhood and then after a while she will say we have rested long enough and urge us to continue.  (*remember to insert pictures of the 89 steps*)

so, with those idea in mind, we had come across an interesting sketch from our project two, which was first person perspective. I liked how the interactive short was all in first person perspective as it allows viewers to put themselves in the narrator’s point of view. It gives a sense of participation when you are in the person’s shoe, observing what they see. we wanted to use this to give a stronger effect on interactivity. In project two, we were not very focused on exploring the narrative and non-narrative structure. This time we wanted to use our different online tools and services available to allow us to create a different angle on interactive online video.

 

First person perspective re-appropriated through online tools and services

 

PETER:

Here are a list of the sketches we have done for project three: (put in slide)

Due to time constraints, we will show one of our best sketches: Peter’s Korsakow Non-Narrative

The sketch I will be highlighting is the use of a flash-based interactive film creation tool called Korsakow. Designed for non-programmers to easily input film clips and link them together based on keyword connections, the creators describe Korsakow as a tool to create database films that are interactive and rule based.

In our usage for this sketch, we aimed to create a Korsakow film that highlighted a demonstration of non-narrative structure in first person perspective. Utilising clips that Wei Yun had shot on her journey through the city one afternoon, I generated a korsakow film based on connection by numbered keywords, (e.g.. 1, 2, 3, 4.) The aim above all of this sketch was to test the ability and strengths of Korsakow to demonstrate whether it had an effect on the outcome of the portrayal of this short non-narrative film. I think its fair to say that whatever service you utilise to create a video will have an effect on its portrayal.

PETER:

Future plans, we would go with youtube doubler or korsakow. we enjoyed finding new ways to show interactive videos. the choose-your-adventure style has been overused and we want to try and bring in a new style of interactive video. Hopefully for project four, this new angle of interactivity would be brought to light. We are wanting to develop our portrayal of first person perspective further and hopefully by exploring these services to their maximum we will perhaps

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Reflection: Week 7b – “Project THREE Presentation Day!”

  By weiyunsoo • April 24, 2015

Today was the day of presentation for our project three. All my efforts finally paid off. We presented within the time frame. We explained our case study, followed by four of our sketches and ended with our suggestions for project four. However, we still did not articulate our process as well as the others because Seth had to keep asking questions about our findings and relations to the case study. Errol and Nathaniel asked a fair amount of questions as well during our feedback session. Nonetheless, we are getting there to achieve the studio prompt.

 

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Project THREE: Presentation

  By weiyunsoo • April 24, 2015

In this question you are bypassing interactivity which opens up your exploration and does not tie you to interactive video (only) – what is important is the first person perspective and how it is conveyed – working with online video and potentially online interactive video tools and services.

The contribution you are making is to nonfiction documentary online video practices that aim to profile an individual’s story. You are seeing how the linear first person perspective is altered when it is re-appropriated into tools and services that have certain constraints and  narrative/non-narrative structures.

 

From 89 steps, we decided that we liked the user interaction style so we had the idea of exploring the different narrative/non-narrative structure in first person perspective. We incorporated the location as well as ascending stairs idea and create our own spin of narratives. There are a lot of repetition and reusing footages in these sketches as we wanted to compare the alteration of narrative and non-narrative structure through different services of online videos.

 

 

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Project THREE: Sketch SEVEN – Narrative with YouTube Doubler

  By weiyunsoo • April 24, 2015

Screen Shot 2015-04-24 at 7.59.11 AM

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The idea I had while filming this narrative sketch has finally came to life! So, this is the parallel narrative I had reflected in my previous blogpost. I used the YouTube Doubler to show this parallel story come together. They are actually the same person getting knocked down twice during the day. However, with the first person perspective, you can’t really tell if the person is the same (other than the voice). I used this to my advantage and made another sketch that allows viewers to time the narrative by themselves and be their own editor of the story.

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Project THREE: Sketch SIX – Narrative YouTube Annotations

  By weiyunsoo • April 24, 2015

 

Since I did a non-narrative one with this boring old YouTube annotations, I decided to test it with narrative. By linking two narratives, that could be a narrative by itself, together to create a series of a klutz I was. This was inspired by the first sketch on the narrative when I found the similarities of running into the same person. Due to the lack of information given out to who the person was behind the lens, I thought it could be split into two narratives.

Above is the video of the first half. The second half is linked with annotations. (as boring as it is, this was actually my first time using YouTube annotations)

Filming this was a little difficult because I had to gauge and try to recall where do I normally look when I walk up the stairs. A little problem with not being able to use both my hands at the same time but the experience of being a first person bystander and the first person character is different. Maybe the technique in camera positioning could have been better.

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Project THREE: Sketch FIVE – Narrative With Conversation

  By weiyunsoo • April 24, 2015

This is the actual narrative for my narrative sketch. I had originally planned this out as a full story of going to class and going back from class. I skipped the entire scene in between because I wanted to focus on the going through doors and climbing stairs just like in 89 steps.

Through this sketch, I realised that both narrative can be individual narratives or it could be switched around.

 

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