August 27

Project 3 – Making the granules

granules granules1

 

 

Above is a diagram of how myself and Ven are organising our granules for the Korsakow program.  We are going to be sticking to the thematic question “What does cycling mean to you?”  Then we are going to ask questions that relate to how they answer the main question.  We plan to have all the granules consistent with each other and have a similar timeframe.

I have been watching a few interactive documentaries but the one that I was most impressed with was ‘Journey to the centre of coal’.  This was an interactive documentary that was like a choose your own adventure that let users explore the lives of miners in China.  It was a great way to experience which direction you wanted the journey to take.  The documentary had the feel that you were playing the role as journalist and gave you the power to decide which aspects of the mining industry you wanted to investigate.  Each section gave a choice on what direction you want the story to take, what questions you ask the miners and residents, and which location you want to investigate.

After watching a few k films there seems to be a general lack of information on what is actually on each granule.  I feel there has to be at least something in order to want the viewer to choose a particular granule.  Otherwise it just seems pointless to click on images that the viewer doesn’t even know what they are related to.  It could also seem a bit boring to click on these images just for the hell of it.  So instead of random image clicking we thought it would work better to have text on each granule that includes information.  Ven and I decided we will have a small profile information on each rider in text and have the questions visible on each granule.  This will give the viewer the power of choice in which question he/she would like to click on and feel some amount of control in the interview process.  It would also be non linear as the viewer has the choice to pick questions in no particular order.

I think that the information will give a better narration to the viewer and will grab their interest more to click on what is contained in each granule.  ‘Journey to the centre of coal’ was successful in leaking out small information that made you want to pursue on where the narrative was taking you.

Here is a demo of a granule without the audio in it.  The password is bigal.

www.vimeo.com/137360104

 

August 4

Droning at the Botanic

DCIM100MEDIADJI_0010.JPG

 

Today I went to the botanic gardens to do some aerial shots with my drone.  I started flying it around and capturing video footage for my second project.  I was trying to find bike riders to follow so the footage somehow related to the topic.  A guy that works at the gardens as a park manager came up to me and asked if I had a business card.  I asked him politely what it was that he was interested in doing.  He introduced himself as Mike and said that he was interested in getting particular aerial shots of certain plants within the gardens.  Mike mentioned that the management wants to survey the whole park with aerial footage and show the specific locations where certain rare plants are situated.

We started talking and I discussed with him how I am currently learning Korsakow.  I briefly mentioned what the program is and how it works.  Mike was very interested in the dynamics of the program and thought this technique could be applied to the footage that he wants to capture.  So we swapped details and he asked if I could send a few demo shots to his email.  Mike said he would send information via email of what the management wanted.  Hopefully this could be a breakthrough in my aerial photography career with Mike officially being my first drone client.

 

August 1

K – films

During this week we were encouraged to purchase the Korsakow program to incorporate our videos and edit in this program.  Korsakow is a program designed to be interactive with the audience where they have the choice in which direction the narrative takes.  The narrative is naturally non linear.  I bought the program and had a quick look into it but haven’t had the opportunity to learn much yet due to moving houses.  I am patiently waiting for my internet to be connected so that I can watch the tutorials to learn this program.

But to be honest I am also wondering whether learning this program will be recognised as an asset from future prospective employers.  I’ve never heard of the program before this course and I can’t find any documentaries that have had great commercial success using Korsakow.  The program has been around for a while now and to my knowledge doesn’t seem to be used much in mainstream media.  It might make some interesting non linear programs but can money be made out of this?  At the end of the day to pursue making k films as a money earning career seems an unpalatable concept.

Maybe I’m looking at this from the wrong perspective but I don’t see many jobs out in the market requesting Korsakow as an essential skill to have.  Although it could be utilised as a specialist skill as there wouldn’t be too many people that knowledge of this program.  It could be a unique skill that gives you the edge over the next person in line.

 

korsakow-where-narratives-are-naturally-nonlinear_design