RMIT Media and Communications
Today we presented Project Three to a panel of four RMIT staff members. This presentation was most useful for generating feedback for the development of project four.
The primary feedback for us to consider:
#looping is primary to Vine’s creative effect
#shooting and “editing” with cam-phones
#Do not confuse your sketches: montage and collage blurs the objective
#Thomas Sanders as Vine creator was mentioned as a reference point in regards to pre-production preparation
DIALECTICAL MONTAGE – NONLINEAR VIDEO EXPERIMENTS
Working from an initial case study that examined an example of online video practice called #6SecondScare, an online video competition launched by Eli Roth and his digital horror network The Crypt through Vine, short-form video sharing service. Our group has developed an interest in nonlinear/montage video and thus plans to explore dialectical montage, more specifically, The Kuleshov Effect. Our objective is to examine how Kuleshov’s experiment is affected when it is processed through Vine. How does Vine’s constrictive nature affect the construction of Kuleshov’s montage experiment, and how does this affect how it is portrayed to an audience?
Short and micro online videos have recently emerged as a new form of user-generated content on social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram and Vine. Vine allows users record and edit five to six-second-long looping video clips to post online, re-vine, and share others’ posts with Vine followers. The videos can be published through Vine’s social network as well as on other popular services such as Facebook and Twitter. Vine’s app can also be used to browse through videos posted by other users, along with groups of videos by theme, trending, or popularity. The Vine platform, in particular, has become affiliated with the notion of creativity, as its 6-second time constraint was intended to inspire user creativity by allowing digital videos to take on entirely new forms. Vine has an innately fragmented, non-linear, montage-like construction.
Montage is the notion that a filmmaker can create a new dynamic hole, by putting two or more distinctive shot together. It operates on the principle that each shot illuminates the other. Russian filmmaker Lev Kuleshov believed these shots had to fall into a particular chronological order. Whereas Russian filmmaker and film theorist, Sergei Eisenstein, understood montage as a cellular structure: osmosis between the shots cause a transcendent idea to emerge. Eisenstein’s more sophisticated approach to montage catalysed greater complexities in nonlinear editing, though Kuleshov’s dialectical editing was the impetus for his developments. Dialectical Montage, according to Sergei Eisenstein, is the juxtaposition of two shots, as well as the progressive alternation, and consequent conflict, of images as a vehicle for abstract concepts to be understood by inference–the third unnamed quality when you jam two unrelated texts together. Kuleshov demonstration of dialectical montage became what is known as the Kuleshov Effect. He alternated a single shot of a mostly expressionless actor with shots of a bowl of soup, a baby in a coffin, and a sensual woman. Audiences were moved by the actor’s profound “responses” to each of these, though the actor maintained the same expression throughout the film. Alfred Hitchcock used Kuleshov’s technique to create one of the most celebrated murders in film history: a close-up of a woman in a shower screaming, her belly, a knife that never touches her, and blood running down a drain. This is a shining example of how people are hard-wired to make connections, draw conclusions, “fill blanks” and create meaning out of what they see.
Just as Kuleshov and Eisenstein introduced montage to a germinal medium, illuminating the importance of editing in cinema. “Vinemakers” are exploring a similarly new medium, digital video, that will catalyse new techniques and styles in video creation. Vine is challenging the basics of story form and structure through the creation of digital micro-stories.
The aim of our sketches is to explore the theoretical foundations of montage video, closely examined by Sergei Eisenstein, and demonstrated by Lev Kuleshov (the Kuleshov Effect), by deconstructing Kuleshov’s original montage experiment in Vine. We hope that by processing Kuleshov’s video through Vine we will gain greater insight into the defining components of montage video production and, more importantly, the processes and affordances of nonlinear/montage video creation using Vine.
The purpose of this sketch is to apply the collage aesthetic as a non-linear language to the film montage form (moving/video).
Sketch Eight: Collage https://t.co/5YIeqnk0U3
— notnica (@Clare_Nica) April 23, 2015
The concept of montage is paralleled in other art mediums; for example an assemblage of magazine clippings to create a whole new image. The Oxford English Dictionary defines collage as “a piece of art made by sticking various different materials such as photographs and pieces of paper or fabric on to a backing.” Like video montage, collage emphasises the importance of juxtaposition. Juxtaposition of multiple seemingly different things challenges the unity of conventional art forms. In this sketch, I have taken the original imagery from Kuleshov’s experiment and recreated it in collage form, as a video posted to Vine.
Sketch Six: Altering Man (Glue) https://t.co/UXQabbzzKt
— notnica (@Clare_Nica) April 23, 2015
Sketch Four: New Stimuli https://t.co/lIRElkE8ia
— notnica (@Clare_Nica) April 23, 2015
# VINE ‘STYLE’ – Challenging Vine specific creativity
Does the 6 second constraint lend to a specific kind or style of creativity?
Will lengthening Vine videos affect or diminish its originality as a specific form or video practise?
Record a 6 second Vine video – Stretch it (slow it down) to 10/20/30 seconds
# HASHTAGS – In relation to NARRATIVE STRUCTURE
Hashtags connect – Can they be used to communicate?
# JAIL BREAKING – Phone Hacking – NEW MEDIA only
Cannot HACK traditional media – e.g. TELEVISION (YOUTUBE ADBLOCKER–NO TV EQUIVALENT)
# VINE Specific DIGITAL MARKETING
Condensing marketing to fit one individual platform
#NEW MEDIA vs TRADITIONAL MEDIA marketing schemes/plans
# FLIP BOOK VINE
Combining individual VINE videos to create/complete a narrative
6 second narrative sections – IE one for ‘exposition’, one for ‘rising action’, and one for ‘climax’.
‘Things of Interest’:
Challenging Time Constraints – Vine’s six second limit on videos is seen as one of its creative strengths, as the restrictiveness of the six seconds is thought to be a driving force for creativity. What would result if we were to lengthen a 6 second Vine video to 10/20/30 seconds and beyond? Would it alter and/or damage Vine specific creativity? Are people currently hacking and challenging Vine’s time constraints?
Asynchronism – Asynchronism is the disparity between what is seen and what is heard. It is a technique of ‘discontinuity editing’ employed by filmmakers to create meaning through aural-visual dissociation. Vine records sound and video simultaneously, therefore we would need to explore various processes of video-making and uploading (to Vine) to achieve video asynchronism. What are these processes? Are they simple and/or effective?–considering Vine videos are limited to six seconds.
Dialectical Montage – Dialectical Montage, according to Sergei Eisenstein, is the juxtaposition of two shots (the Kuleshov effect). Eisenstein explored the progressive alternation, and consequent conflict, of images as a vehicle for abstract concepts to be understood by inference (visceral effect). How do Eistenstein’s theories on dialectical montage relate to new media non-linear/montage video practises? If I placed contemporary examples of montage video alongside Eisensteins earlier (1920s) examples of video montage would I recognise a difference in form and/or purpose? How has Sergei Eisenstein’s work on dialectical montage shaped new media software and practises?
‘Remix’ – Micro-blogging video service Vine is rife with unauthorised appropriation of copyrighted material, as it allows users to upload and ‘remix’ pre-existing cultural works for their own purposes. Explore remix culture in relation to Vine, as well as the copyright issues and consequent infringement ‘loopholes’ which arise from this.
Bordwell and Thompson’s teachings on ‘the concept of form in film’ are hugely relevant to our studios objective: exploration/deconstruction of narrative/non-narrative form in online video practice. Although Bordwell and Thompson refer specifically to film form, though their ideas cover narrative/non-narrative form across many artforms, and thus can easily be applied to online video practises. Artistic form relates to the network of elements that constitute a work: visuals, sound, cause and effect et. al. This system generally relates to the processes of human perception. A significant factor that inspires a work’s form is the way an audience may navigate the work. For instance, a succession of events may encourage a particular expectation in the audience for the events to follow. How this expectation is created and whether the expectation is gratified assists to define a work’s form. Furthermore, in relation to artistic form, the implementation or resistance of conventions structures the form. Most importantly, the form provides context for emotion and meaning. In relation to our course, it is interesting to consider the audience’s role in actively perceiving, though passively informing, form, because this relationship may have even more weight in online video practises due to the evolving role of the consumer.
Eric Booth encourages creative freedom when it comes to developing ideas and end products. His teachings define the processes in which our studio is expected to engage in throughout the semester. Instead of over-thinking, over-analysing and projecting ideas toward and result, Booth supports a playful, experimental approach to developing ideas. The idea is to just make, make, make, and allow the previous sketch to inform the next, and so on. This approach is new to me, as I usually jump (mentally) to an end product, rather than take small developmental steps toward and end goal. Although this process is somewhat foreign to me, it makes complete sense and I absolutely want to adapt my usual practises to fit this attitude. For example, for project 2 I spent a lot of time brainstorming ideas, though after I was satisfied with my research. I plan, however, to apply Booth’s method to project 3 as I believe it will encourage me to push beyond what it already known and ‘been done’ and, rather, shift my focus toward innovative ideas and “hybrid” texts–the course objective, essentially.
In this sketch we will explore one specific trend/convention of Horror narrative: isolated locations.
A common convention of Horror films is the isolated location. Typically, this was due to low production budgets, forcing the film to be shot in one place with a minimal cast. Primarily, the other reason for the isolated setting is to scare the audience: the feeling of being alone in a horrific situation enhances tension and creates audience suspense. After the film has ended, viewers find solace in the thought that the events in the film existed only in that one isolated location. Some of the most popular forms of isolation may include, though are not limited to, the haunted house visage, or teenagers stuck in the woods without their mobile phones. The purpose of isolation is to create an environment where the protagonists are inevitably cornered by their antagonists (evil).
This sketch was technically easy to achieve, and we found it to be a common technique among #6SecondScare applicants.
GROUP STATEMENT
Our group has chosen the online video competition launched by Eli Roth and his digital horror network The Crypt through short-form video sharing service, Vine. If we contextualise this work/project in relation to the studio activities so far (the mindmapping and personal case studies) it would be placed in the genre of microblogging video practice. We will produce a number of sketches which analyse the narrative/non-narrative form of this online video practice. Each of these sketches will focus on different aspects of the work/project as a way to understand how it has been made and how relations have been formed between shots to create a narrative/non-narrative structure.
Eli Roth, The Crypt, and the Competition
In October, 2014 Eli Roth and his digital media network, The Crypt, launched an online competition through short-form video sharing service, Vine. Vine was formed in June 2012, though it was acquired by microblogging website Twitter in October 2012, before its official launch. The service lets users record and edit five to six-second-long looping video clips and re-vine, or share others’ posts with followers. Some Vines are re-vined automatically based on popularity. The videos can then be published through Vine’s social network and as well as on other popular services such as Facebook and Twitter. Vine’s app can also be used to browse through videos posted by other users, along with groups of videos by theme, and trending, or popular, videos.
The #6SecondScare Vine contest, advertised via The Crypt’s website and a personal callout by Eli Roth through The Crypt’s Vine account, gave horror devoted fans the chance to win career-defining prizes. The contest was judged by some of Hollywood’s most reputable names. ‘Hostel’ director, Eli Roth was joined by Rob Lowe, Kid Cudi, Elijah Wood, Vanessa Hudgens and Quentin Tarantino in selecting the finalists. The grand winner was given the opportunity to develop their idea with Roth and Davis Entertainment, which has distributed such projects as the acclaimed 2012 sci-fi movie, ‘Chronicle,’ and the Golden Globe-nominated crime drama television series, ‘The Blacklist.’ The contest’s runner-ups received a variety of film equipment. The contestant winners were announced
Anyone had the opportunity to enter the contest by uploading their video to Twitter and/or Vine, and using the hashtag #6SecondScare. Those entering the contest were required to tag and follow The Crypt @fearthecrypt. There were no limits to how many entries people may enter, but Roth encouraged users to think outside the box.
“I wanted to create a global contest that anyone with a smart phone can enter. You don’t need a big budget or stars or makeup effects, and with the time limit you have to be creative. It’s not about being over the top or looking professional, whoever comes up with the most creative six second scare wins. The difference now is that your work will be seen by the amazing judges who have generously donated their time to support budding new filmmakers. It doesn’t matter if you’re from Iowa or Iceland, Brazil or Brussels, if you make a short on your phone for the #SixSecondScare we will see it. I remember the feeling of being 22 with a short film, dying to get anyone in the industry to watch it – that’s all you want when you’re starting out, and now we’re able to give anyone with a dream of directing that chance,”–Eli Roth.
View the competition callout here: http://www.fearthecrypt.com/6SecondScare
Visit The Crypt’s website here: http://www.fearthecrypt.com/