Category Archives: online video experiments

There was a scene where they took a picture of the current room for the listing. The next was a video of the past and what Martha and her children did in that room. I found that technical style worth learning. The use of found footages and current photos to emphasise the memories at that place makes it more powerful. So, I decided to do a continuous video of that style. I took past footages of my old high school videos and tried to recreate that style. I did a similar style in the past but in reverse.

The technical side seemed simple enough where you take found footages and use it as a flashback to let the audience know about the past memories of the room itself. I used the hallway of my high school and created a moment there. I felt a powerful technique to show reminiscence and memories of being attached to it. The interaction of showing the viewers the past helps them understand the sentimental value of the apartment. Hence, in this non-linear narrative, gives a good interaction to give the viewers the same feel of the sense of attachment just like Martha.

Participation does not just mean being able to click and and alter the narrative. It also means that you feel like you are there with the people in the film itself that makes it a sense of participation. It also has a feel of participation by using certain shot angles. For example, the first person shot gives a more powerful perspective that makes you feel like you are with the people in the film. The sense of being there has a participatory effect.  I immediately felt like I was opening the door for Martha or I felt like i stood next to her watching her unlock the doors. I went up the stairs with her in real time and I felt like I was listening to her talk as we walk up the stairs.

This sketch is to understand how first person shot helps enhance the participatory aspect. I felt that by feeling like you are the eyes of the person, makes you feel like you are experiencing and witnessing the situation in the film with the person.

This technique really helped me understand the feeling of having a sense of presence in the film. It is a linear narrative where the participants go through the story of the subject.

For this sketch, I was inspired by the apartment chapter. In that chapter, the participating aspect on looking around the apartment is by using a mouse to click left and right to show what Martha does at every corner of the apartment. I decided to try it on as a video format.

I decided to do a panning shot to show the apartment but I could not add people into it because it was a little complex in the editing aspect. I did a comparison with a panoramic shot as well.

I find this lacking in the element of participatory. I could not replicate the participatory effect in the video format. This sense of non-narrative is difficult to replicate in interactivity form.

Following the previous sketch. I decided to make a continuation to the participatory alternative narrative. During the walk up the stairs in 89 steps, Martha feeds you information to you while you walk up the steps. When you stop, she will tell you ‘her dog can do better’ or ‘we wasted enough time, let’s continue.’ I decided to replicate that idea into two comparison shots. I walked up the staircase slowly for the first shot and I ran up the stairs the next. Unfortunately, I could not record my audio so I inserted a text on where the audio should come in. The audio follows the way you continue the narrative. If you are too slow, someone will say to hurry up and if you are too fast, someone will say to wait for them. It makes it more interactive in a sense of you are there to experience it.

This one was fairly easy to do. Just run up and down the stairs at different pace. The only problem I had was starting the shot at the same place. To encounter this problem, maybe I need to have a mark so that I capture the angle. Other than that, this was an interesting aspect to work on.

From this, I realise that the audio really enhance the participation in the narrative. It feels like someone lags behind and calls out for you when you are too fast or someone tells you to quicken your pace when you are too slow. You feel like you participating because you feel a sense of presence in that short.

I decided to look at the participatory and technical elements of the interactive short. My biggest challenge was how to put it into a video format. I was not fluent in html and coding and I want to have similar experience through video format. I took some reference from other interactive commercials or web series to help me reconstruct this video. There was a part where Martha received the call from someone but I had accidentally clicked ignore. When I clicked ‘Ignore’, I was still stuck at the same spot, the story did not progress so I had more time to venture around to see other information pop-ups under the ‘Listing’ chapter.

I used an example from a commercial with alternate endings – Tipp Ex about the Hunter shoots the bear or not. Using YouTube annotations, the participants are linked to the narration of their choice. This was an easy concept as it was just putting text on a freeze frame.

From this sketch, I realised that even though you are given an interactive short where you get to choose the sequence of the video, filmmakers still have the ultimate control. The ending will always be the same as set by the filmmakers. Seeing that I could not progress with the story when I clicked ‘Don’t Answer’, it gave me a clear view that the filmmakers still have the sequence set but they just want participants to interact with it.