Monthly Archives: April 2014

Korsakow: Text Insert

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Dear Adrian,

I have trouble with inserting text to my Korksakov movie. I tried putting the text in both the “insert text” and “preview text” in SNU Editor but when I exported the movie nothing comes up

confused?

Dear Confused

The one you need is insert text, and you add the text in the SNU editor. To have it appear you need to edit the interface/s you are using, and place the insert text widget into the interface/s of your film. Where you put that widget is where your text will appear. You can also modify some of the features of the text using this widget (font size, colour).

Korsakow on Windows

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Can be a pain. (Welcome to windows.) Three simple rules. Do not run the installer from the desktop, it won’t install properly (apparently a known windows issue). Secondly if you’ve installed it and you’ve got problems, try running:

http://korsakow.net/tools/qtjavahelp.jar

Thirdly, when you install QuickTime on Windows the default is to not install QuickTime for Java, so when you install it tick the install Java option (or go back and reinstall and tick this option). This solves the generic “Korsakow won’t run on windows” problems. Often helps. After that, we need to get into specifics, these are two known generic issues.

Uploading to the Web Server

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What is being uploaded to the web server is a folder that is named firstname.lastname and inside that folder is the index.html and data folder that Korsakow export. Do not export your .krw file (the Korsakow project file) or your original video and thumbnails. They are not needed, and potentially a 10 or 20 minute upload will become a 2 hour wait if there is lots of high definition images and videos being uploaded.

ALL YOUR PROJECT NEEDS TO RUN IS THE INDEX.HTML FILE AND ALL THE STUFF THAT KORSAKOW PUTS IN THE DATA FOLDER.

On Ryan (1)

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Grace finds the reading tough (welcome the realm of narratology), but remains unsure if, as Ryan argues, the best definition of narrative requires the context of its receivers as that which trumps anything else. Interesting problem. Is that mountain there a ‘narrative’ in this sense? If I’m a geologist? No. I can explain its presence, but explaining isn’t a narrative or story. However, if I’m indigenous and there is a story about how and why that mountain got there, and is what it is, then yes, it’s a story. In Ryan’s sense. Imogen discusses the Ryan stuff on narrative and Bogost on lists.

Symposium 05 Catch Ups

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Emily on thumbnail points from the questions. Sam discusses, positively, Thalhofer’s The and the Greeks example that was touched upon. Troy muses about what experimental films might offer, and I’d suggest more broadly being able to develop ways of ‘experimenting’ – however that might be – is a simple and valuable way to develop a creative practice (it is hard to be genuinely creative if a return on investment is the primary motivating factor to what you do). Tony has a well considered post about interpretation and the experimental, and nicely considers that in a Korsakow film is a way to build different things from the same footage.

Reading 06

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The next reading is hot off the press (the book came out about two months ago) and is by Korsakow research leader Matt Soar about Korsakow. The reference is:

Soar, Matt. “Making (with) the Korsakow System: Database Documentaries as Articulation and Assemblage.” New Documentary Ecologies Emerging Platforms, Practices and Discourses. Ed. Kate Nash, Craig Hight, and Catherine Summerhayes. Palgrave Macmillan, 2014. 154–73. Print. (Get the PDF.)

Symposium 06

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Intriguing list of questions from the Thursday 4:30 class:

From Ryan reading:

  1. What is the point in redefining narrative as anything more than ‘cause and effect’?
  2. Ryan notes ‘we can never be sure that sender and receiver have the same story in mind.’ Korsakow films allow for greater freedom of interpretation. Do you see this as a positive or negative? How can the filmmaker control interpretations?
  3. Ryan argues that sender and receiver will always have a different story in mind. Would this be a negative for us when trying to convey a story or meaning with Korsakow?
  4. Do you believe the meaning of narrative has been diluted through its descriptive use in society?
  5. What is the difference between the components of story and discourse?
  6. When considering non-linear narrative, how important is Ryan’s sixth criteria for identifying narrative; the notion of ‘closure’?

From Bogost reading:

  1. Apart from reminding us that narrative is made up of ‘everyday stuff,’ what can lists achieve as a literary device?
  2. Why and to what end are we to be freed from the ‘tyranny of representation’?
  3. Bogost writes ‘lists do not just rebuff the connecting parts of language but rebuff the connecting of being itself.’ How do lists do this?
  4. If a list was to be created through a random non-human selection is a narrative still created?

Adrian: A 2010 K-Film Explaining How to Make your K-Films

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I’ve made a k-film that is very linear. Well, not linear, you can listen and view the clips in any order you like, but it is not so much a k-film as using Korsakow to collect some screen casts together where I go over some things to think about in relation to making your k-film projects. This was made using Korsakow 5.0.4, and I’ve included a playhead in the interface which shows you where in the clip you are. The advantage of this is that it immediately tells you how long a clip is, since if the playhead progresses very slowly then you know it is a long clip (and vice versa). Continue reading →

Adrian: Korsakow Interfaces and Screens

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In the final k-film projects you have the freedom to design an interface to your own delights. However, keep in mind that some basic principles of good design still apply (just as when making a film you might be able to write your own script and storyboard and film it however you like, but basic compositional rules about good framing and composition remain). While you are not design students, your teachers can give a lot of feedback around these elements of your project – and as an interactive work the interface is a fundamental part of the experience of your project.

More formally, within your interfaces you can now experiment with:

  1. background – think about using a different colour to black. Or perhaps a photo? How? Why?
  2. Korsakow supports a continuous background soundtrack, do you want to use one? How? Why?
  3. how many thumbnails do you want to use? Why? (Imagine a wall of thumbnails, perhaps a link to a template that is only thumbnails…)
  4. should you use video thumbnails? Perhaps at a different frame speed (imagine 1 frame per second so they sort of stutter). Should the video in the thumbnails have sound? Why? How could I use this? Imagine an interface that is only video thumbnails.

These are some of the elements that make up your palette (or tool box) for your projects. Each provides choice but that also means decisions that affect how you can think about your work and how others experience it. Good work chooses to work with a small set and for these things to make sense in relation to the project. What I mean by that is you don’t use everything just because you can. That is like using every visual effect possible in edits because they are there. This looks bad, and comes across as, well, lacking the ability to judge and express discernment. You fade because a fade is good here, it works. You dissolve for similar reasons. But if you cut here, dissolve there, fade next, barn door wipe after that, iris in the next time. Well, already it will look and feel like a software demo, and not a film. Same with your interface. Just because you can use everything usually doesn’t mean you should.

You can also edit the index.html file, after all it is just a html page. If you open it in an editor there are things there that you shouldn’t change, otherwise the project will break, but you can easily add text or edit the existing text. Perhaps add the title of the work here? A copyright notice? Something else?

Finally, include a credit screen or sequence in your project. It might be the opening film (which should be a jpeg, unless you nominate a video clip as a start film). This is where you can also show the title of the work, and the names of the people who made it. These works will be viewed by others, not just your classmates, so have your name on there, let people know it is yours.