Marktollefson’s Weblog
doing the documentary thingArchive for dm8106
Butcher’s Post Mortem
After presenting the Butcher’s Penance project I have come to a number of conclusions.
First, the goal of the project was successfully achieved. From the beginning, my intent was to make amends to all the great movies I mercilessly chopped up for mercenary purpose. I feel purged now of the guilt. Many people who were involved in the original ad campaign have experienced Butcher’s Penance and they all agreed it was an appropriate punishment for the crime … and a diverting pastime to watch.
Which leads me to the second conclusion: familiarity with the subject matter will influence the viewers’ response. Most of the people I showed the project to had seen the ad campaigns before. When polled, their opinions were split on whether I should show the audience the ads before or after they had viewed Butcher’s Penance. Up until a few minutes before I presented to the class I had still not decided whether to show the ads before or after, or even whether I should show them at all. Right before the presentation I asked one last person (who had never seen it before) what he thought. This person believed I should show the ads first.
A third conclusion: the project is best viewed as it was originally intended, that is, at a viewing station by a single viewer. When the project was presented to the class, it would have been better to show it to one viewer at a time. Although it would have been possible to put it up on a big projector I chose not to. This was partly because I didn’t want to further burden DM 8106’s overstretched resources but primarily the reasoning was that the relationship between the viewer and the sensor works best when there is only one participant activating the player. When more than one person is present the sense of cause and effect is diluted to the point where it is no longer apparent.
A fourth issue: because of the constraints of time and the large number of people, nobody got a chance to spend much time alone with the viewing station. Heather put it best, I think, when she observed that it takes time to absorb all the media in a random narrative.
I think Steve had a very good suggestion for an alternative method of presentation. If I were to present again I would have two viewing stations in close proximity; one playing the media randomly triggered by a sensor, the other starting and stopping the media linearly with a different sensor.
In the end, I think the most important lesson is that you only have one chance to make a first impression with a public exhibition. As for the underlying purpose of the project I feel I have adequately discharged my contrition to classic cinema … using, ironically, decidedly non-classic new media as my vehicle of apology.
I probably wouldn’t do another project like this in my area of documentary work. Nonetheless, I believe what I have learned in DM8106 will be invaluable, particularly the research and network communication skills I have been exposed to over the past months. I am very grateful to Alex and Steve for their patience, good humour, dedication and passion for teaching.
editing for random narrative
For my “Butcher’s Penance” project I have created over fifty distinct audio/video files from the two television spots I used as source material. The observations made in the random narrative class were important considerations, especially the connectivity issue. For virtually every one of the files I had to fine tune the head and tail of either the picture or the sound so that it would more smoothly link up with other clips. When I present the project we will see if my work was successful.
A Butcher’s Penance
A couple of years ago I worked on an advertising campaign for pay-movie channels. These “image spots” were meant to give a flavour of each channel. I took tiny clips from hundreds of movies and re-arranged them to create new meaning, specifically a pitch to sell the pay-tv service.
The ads were quite successful; they won a number of awards and have been used at editing and marketing workshops as instructional tools.
However, I never quite shook a feeling of guilt at butchering these movies … many of which are personal favorites … for the sake of advertising.
I intend, with this project, to make amends by re-randomizing the deconstruction. I will create a viewing station which can sense the presence of an audience and then play the pieces of the movies in a new and random narrative. This will be the penance of the butcher.
screening of award-winning film
’Daughters of the Revolution’ will be screened Thursday July 3rd at the National Film Board (150 John St. corner of Richmond and John) John Spotton Theatre (2nd Floor) at 7 pm. I was lucky enough to participate in this great documentary. It’s about an Iranian dissident feminist and her children. At this year’s Yorkton short film and video festival it won best point of view doc.
uploading to flickr
I’ve been trying to put small video files from the shoot at the Media Reform conference onto flickr with no success. Some of what I want to post is already available in much larger files on YouTube but I want to focus on specific bits. If flickr wants to really be a tool for sharing I would humbly suggest that it needs work on its user interface. Right now it is less than stellar.
making a camera sensor device
What a day for Steve. He worked so hard making everyone’s devices start to function.
He seemed happy that my device was fairly straight-forward, “99 percent easier than the others” as he put it. By the time he’d got it to make the most basic response I’m not sure he would have described it the same way. Steve had to put in at least half an hour a project and I’m guessing he’ll still be tweaking next week. If anyone thinks he doesn’t deserve top marks on his evaluation I’d have to disagree.
Narrative in games
One of the primary distinctions that Alex made between online gaming (such as Counterstrike, Call of Duty etc) and Second Life is that the former have a narrative structure, a story that plays out. Second Life is just a big playground where a variety of endeavours … from the mundane to the sublime … can be enacted. There is not an inherent throughline of story in Second Life.
I have to agree that this is an important distinction, but I think there are subtle variables on either side … detail which Alex had no chance of addressing since most of us were busy goofing off in Second Life while she was delivering her lecture today.
Online games have objectives, but the teams of players who cooperate to achieve those objectives can do so in an infinite number of ways … and the elements of chance, human error, skill, luck and misfortune all play their parts. As an analogy, just because a football game has rules doesn’t mean that it is the same story every time. Once the game is completed, however, you can look at it as a story in hindsight.
So what about Second Life? There aren’t any formal objectives, and yet there is clearly a pattern of kinds of activities that are going on. So far, I have observed two basic things that happen in 2Life. People are hustling for money or looking for companionship. How successful they are depends on chance, human error, skill, luck and misfortune. How events unfold is never the same twice. And in hindsight, those events can be looked at as a story.
Therefore I would postulate that right now there isn’t that much of an actual difference between 2Life and online gaming. The big difference is 2Life’s potential to become something more.
yorkton festival award
A film I’ve been working on has just won an award at the Yorkton Festival.
DAUGHTERS OF THE REVOLUTION, directed by Aeylia Hussein, is a doc about an Iranian women’s rights lawyer and her family. It won best POV documentary.
I was post-production advisor and graphic designer.
steve’s overview of tech history
The timeline of tech development presented by Steve yesterday was quite thorough … although it would be impossible to include every aspect there is one I’d like to add because it is a pet subject of mine. Around the time of the Industrial Revolution another form of data storage and retrieval was invented. It was the player piano. Here’s a link:
benkler on peer to peer economy
anyone interested in an economist perspective of peer to peer interaction on the web should check out Yochai Benkler’s Wealth of Networks. for a really good overview of this book check out this link:
