Month: April 2018

In respond to the features of interactive screen media, our work covers modularity and variability. Firstly, our main interface contains eight pieces of media, with one main video and seven thumbnails. The main module is the playing video, below are the thumbnails, which are preview of the other videos. They have their individual contents but are unified in form. As a result, the work embodies the feature of modularity. What’s more, there are multiple media in one interface but each module can be played separately. The main module would be played automatically as long as viewer enter; and when the mouse move to any of the thumbnail, it would play a two seconds preview of the whole video. The thumbnails are hyperlinks; they accesses viewers to a different interface when they click them. Each of them represents a genre, with different music and different visual response. This reflects the characteristic of variability.

Through this project, I explored deeper in terms of online screen production. I didn’t know how to use Korsakow at first, after the exercise and watching the tutorial, I gradually familiar with it. This makes me developing my online production skills further. Also, this work is better interactive than my previous work. My last production is a video, which probably lack of interaction with audience since the video is unique, audience cannot make a choice within. Instead, this project is selectable, audience can choose any video they want to watch, or skip the one they dislike, and they can experience the same music as the performer in those video.

There are some changes throughout doing this project. I originally wanted to make several dancing video response the music; then it finally change to a more daily thing — making breakfast. The thumbnail is another concern. We were thinking about whether words or images is better to be a thumbnail. The former would be viewer respond to the music genres we gave; the latter would be viewer guess the music genres as well as respond them. Finally we made the latter one. Besides, we decided to make still images of facial expression as preview but finally found dynamic versions would be better. And we were thinking about whether we should add the descriptions (keywords) of each genre but after receiving the feedback, we decided not to put them on so that viewer can guess what is that music genre, and give out their own expressions.

After finishing the project, there are some unexpected problems. One is that the effects of the sound preview doesn’t present in my expectation. The preview video sounds a bit messy if the mouse scrolling on different thumbnails. I personally consider the preview could be played silently. In addition, I think our work is too simple, with limited contents. In Thursday’s presentation, we received some good advice that I think we can extend the content, not only making breakfast, but also showing a day, three meals. It would be various than the current work. Besides, I think it is better to leave a space to let audience write down their feeling on each music, but I didn’t figure out how to achieve this in Korsakow, so I want to learn more about it.

(overview of the interface)

Click here to access the work

 

For further development, I did some research about how the background music influence audience’s emotion and behavior. Caldwell and Hibbert (2002) indicate highly arousing music is defined as loud, erratic, and difficult to predict, with a quick tempo; while music with low arousal qualities is soft, monotonous, very predictable, and with as low tempo. In our project, we have both highly arousing music and lowly arousing music. The versions of piano and musical are low arousal music, which have slow and soft rhythm; the genre of action, rock, game, horror, rap and EDM are high arousal music with an intense, unpredictable and fast rhythm. We can see that most of the genre we did are high arousing music. The reason is that it is more interactive since audience would make more reactions when they hear the high aroused one rather than the low aroused one. But we put both kinds as a comparison. Human’s emotion affects their behavior, our video can show the performers’ behavior when she receive different music as the stimuli. Her behavior is depending on her emotions. Our work can show the relationships between music and emotions, and reflect on behavior.

Below is an app that gives me idea. The app is called Tik Tok. Users can upload songs or use the existing songs to make video themselves. Users can perform differently for the same song, and viewer can “like” any videos they prefer there. A lot of video are creative and interesting, I can see that one music can be present in thousands of ways. Different representation gives different feeling for one song, but those contents can miraculously match to the same music.

 (click the pic to view the example)

Reference:

Caldwell, C & Hibbert, S 2002, The influence of music tempo and musical preference on restaurant patrons’ behavior, Psychology & Marketing, <https://doi.org/10.1002/mar.10043>

In the discussion on Monday, we have summarized the characteristics mentioned in Matt’s reading (2014) , including spatial montage, algorithmic editing, intimate work, multilinear narrative, articulation theory and linear films lie. I found that Korsakow is a typical online media platform depends on its features. The summary gives me further understanding of Korsakow. I think it is a good platform to explore online media production through practice with Korsakow as a beginning. Although it is a small-scale production, it contains multiple pieces of fragments within one interface, as well as the use of thumbnail (hyperlink) for accessing more media. We can choose to build either linear form or nonlinear form; fiction or nonfiction. Furthermore, it is very interactive. Viewer is not passive audience, they can choose to respond to any piece in Korsakow. It also provides a space to mix different types of media, such as visual image or audio sequence.

In Thursday’s tutorial, we have shared our thought and what we have done with Hannah and another group, which gave us a good development. The feedback we received was that instead of making visual thumbnails, we can make them like a timeline under the playing video, as long as the mouse scrolling on it, each thumbnail play different musics (only the pitch of each music version). We can hide the visual images and let audience become more curious about the content of each thumbnail, guess what emotion depend on the sound first, then click them to discover. I still need to decide what should be the overview of the thumbnails, maybe some representation words of the music or still the facial expressions. What’s more, we might add a starting video at the very beginning of entering our web, might be the video with the action without any background musics. 

(this is the imagination of what the web page looks like)

 

After telling my thought in class to my group mates, they are interested in music as well (more than me). We preliminarily decided our theme of the project is how different versions of music apply on different actions/emotions. Sam will redo eight different genres of a song, which are piano, musical, action, rock, game, horror, rap and EDM. Those different genres represent different emotions, sad (piano), romantic (musical), dramatic (action), excited (rock), funny (game), scared (horror), relaxed (rap), and science-fictional I guess (EDM). And these feelings will be presented by Michelle, by doing the action of making breakfast. She will listen those musics and makes different reactions depending on the types of music. Finally I will make the web page through Korsakow. Each video would last for 45 sec. The good thing is, we quickly confirmed what we are going to do, as well as quickly assigned everyone’s role. For me, the hard thing is the use of Korsakow. I have tried it in practicing, but I could not export my work successfully… I think I need to ask Hannah for help. The main significance of our work is to figure out how the music impact audience’s emotions. If the vision does not have background music, it would be very dry, and audience can hardly interact with it.

Manovich’s reading (2001) indicates two key characteristics of online making, which would be modularity and variability. To achieve those functions, the main module would be the playing video, and we will make several thumbnails beside the main module. The thumbnails would be still images, which would be viewed as the screenshots of the visions (maybe the key facial expression of each video, for example excited or sad). In addition, we will use thumbnails as hyperlinks that as long as viewer click any of them, it would turn to a new interface, present the video of the selected versions of mood. It seems to be interactive as well because viewer can experience the same music as Michelle (performer) and give response.

As the start of the third project, we need to use Korsakow to make our own webpage in regards to the characteristics of online screen media we have discovered. First of all, we saw the Korsakow examples through the database, and the work “It’s s bit of a bugger” (http://bugger.korsakow.tv/) drew my attention. This web contains eight still images and one short video in the middle of the screen, when the mouse touch any of the image, it start playing the video. There is a modular web function that combine different fragments within a space. As long as the mouse move, we can hear the monolog of the object, which is a platform contains multi-media. When we click one of the still image, the web page transfer into different pieces of images but the same theme and object. This function applies the characteristics, variability by assessing to different pieces of media. It is a non linear media that each piece of work can show the buggers’s life, but it doesn’t have storyline. 

It is a good example of making our own project. The web page is not complex, but contains multiple informations, which is clear and useful. I feel I am interact with the object because I can choose which piece of media I prefer to watch. Also, it records the reality, which I found good to make in our work. I want to make a easy-understand but includes various contents in an ordered form. I originally think about making a web that has similar overview of the above, but the content is different kinds of dance respond to different music. The still images would be the overview of the dance, and when the mouse moves to any of those images, it begins to play two or three sec; if click the image, it turns the a new page that is the whole dance.