During the first week, the class discussion was centralised on the characteristics of online spaces. In the last assignment, the production that my group had created, Time Out, can be argued to respond to the possibilities of the online spaces characteristics, which includes to contain nonlinear narrative. My group production was considered to contain nonlinear narrative due to the fact that our audiences are able to randomly select between two provided clips, which would lead them to watch the perspectives of how it feels to be isolated. Through randomly selecting between the two clips, the audience would still be able to understand and build the feeling and emotion that we expect them to build. In fact, during media exhibition on Thursday, one person noticed that my group used three different perspectives to portray the theme of the project and reacted as well as understand what the project was attempting to portray as she watched the clip that she randomly selected even before she followed the narrative pattern.
Moreover, my group production also responded to one characteristic of online spaces, which is interactivity. In the context of online spaces, interactivity refers to the act of deciding, scrolling, and selecting the provided options on screen in a way for the audience to understand and gain information from the production. Generally, the production that my group and I had created provided two clips within the interface as options for the audience to choose, which will lead our audiences to see three different perspectives as well as the story from the first, the second, and to the third scenario. Hence, our audiences were able to select the clips to finish the story, build the feeling of isolation, and to understand the message behind the production, which is part of their interactivity. Furthermore, the project of my group can also be seen to respond to variability characteristic. Lev Manovich (2002) stated that variability includes different forms of media elements within an online production (p.37). Indeed, this can be seen in the way my group portrayed three different forms of videos, which are the original video that was applied in most of the clips, slow motion video that was applied within the first perspective clip, and time lapse video that was applied as an interlude from the first to the second scenario. In addition, my group’s production can also be concluded to respond to the characteristic known as Modularity. The term modularity refers to media elements in an online screen production that are essentially in fragments and separate to each other (Manovich 2002, p.30). For instance, in the third perspective of my group’s production, which reflects the surveillance camera-like footage. As the video is playing, the audience will hear the sound of the glitch and the sound of a broken TV. The sounds, in fact, were not from the original video. Sem, the editor in our production, has to find the sound effects and added it together into one video, indicating that they are all separate media elements.
Through making this production, I learnt that online screen production is a production that people cannot assure to work smoothly. In order for an online screen production to work, aside from interactivity, it is necessary to rely on technology and the internet, which often happen to have technical issues. This, certainly, would distract the focus of the audience to create meanings and would eliminate their interest to continue to engage with the production. In my experience during the exhibition, as two people tried to engage with my group’s production using my computer, the video lagged and stopped playing, resulting the two people to wait for the video to resume. This would distract their focus to create meanings and build the feeling of isolation from our production. Additionally, as one person approached our table, she tried and selected the video from the computer that was attached to the TV screen, and the video stopped playing. As a result, she left the table and did not continue to engage with our production.
Throughout this semester, my group and I have completed four assignments that were related to online spaces. As we made these assignments, we were also answering some of the questions that were asked during the first week of class, including the question of “How is the production for a smaller scale project different from traditional media?”. As what I know, traditional media often depict linear narrative, making the audience to understand exactly what the media have portrayed. In contrast, our production contained nonlinear narrative and involved the necessity for the audience to be actively engaged with the production, resulting their interpretation to be flexible and would possibly be different from what we expected. For instance, in Time Out production, my group and I were focussing on the theme of isolation, and thus, we were expecting the audience to perceive the idea of isolation as they interact with our production. During the exhibition, four people interacted with our project and randomly selected the provided videos. After they finished, we asked them to fill a questionnaire regarding what they feel after watching the video. From the questionnaire, three people answered that my group production tried to portray the idea of isolation while one person answered that it tried to portray about sadness. Though only one person answered differently from what we expected her to answer, if we had more people coming to our table to interact our production, it is possible for some people to answer differently as well.
Lastly, the completion throughout this semester also answered the question of “how can we make engaging online production?”. For example, in Time Out and Isolation projects, we created these productions as a means of building the awareness of how it feels to be isolated. We used Korsakow software, provided options of the audience to select, and gave the audience some cues of isolation instead of being precise and mention the word “isolation”. Through giving cues and provide choices, the audience will engage with the production by selecting as part of their attempt to find meanings.
References
Manovich, L 2002, The Language of New Media, MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, London, England.
