WEEK 12: Building Cinema Stories (April 9)

To Do This Week

Develop your Final Project idea

Video Essay assignment due next week.

Watch:


Video Lectures

No talk this week, just watch the short video above…


Friday Class (Zoom)

Story Structure and Planning


Notes

Scripts, Shot-lists and Storyboards – Story Structure

https://www.celtx.com/ – free script writing app
script examples

storyboard templates  
storyboard examples

 

Building a Story

“every great audio or video story has two elements: an anecdote and a moment of reflection.” – Ira Glass

“An anecdote is the sequence of actions that builds the momentum and raises questions to be answered. Stringing together a series of actions (this happens, and then this happens) makes the audience feel that they are moving toward a destination.” – Ira Glass

‘A moment of reflection is the point when someone clearly says, “here is the point of the story.”’ – Ira Glass

“Your job is to be ruthless and to understand that either you don’t have a sequence of actions that works or you don’t have a moment of reflection. And you are going to need both. In a good story you are going to flip back between the two… and that is the trick of the whole thing is to have the perseverance that if you have an interesting anecdote that you also can end up with an interesting moment of reflection that can support it…and that together it will add up to something that is more than the sum of its parts.” – Ira Glass

Three Act Structure

  • introduction / complication / resolution
  • find concrete details  (visual evidence) to express and/or find the central idea of a story
  • continuity editing (anecdote – one thing after another) 
  • a unexpected event (that changes direction of a story) produces a reaction within character(s) and the viewer. this reflection can be spoken or unspoken
  • “closure” at the end should address the questions raised, does not necessarily provide answers

 

Hourglass

  • best for video journalism – start with a mini-inverted pyramid, a frame of the issue or central ideas,  then expand into storytelling (3 act structure)

 

Database/Networked Story

  • micro-narratives in a network – website or searchable database
  • random access, shuffle media elements
  • social media / transmedia (multiplatfom, dispersed story) 
  • branching structures, interactive cinema, hypercinema
  • aggregation/ crowdsourcing – collaborative cinema

Database Narrative:

Peter Greenaway, The Falls

 

Branching Stories:

Kinoautomat (1967)
“At nine points during the film the action stops, and a moderator appears on stage to ask the audience to choose between two scenes; following an audience vote, the chosen scene is played.”

A Toast to the Flash Generation
Hypertext > Hypermedia > Flash 

Bandersnatch 

YouTube annotations:

 

Haptic/ Mobile App 

Student Work:

http://www.dtc-wsuv.org/cmdc/gallery/archives/05.18/finalhypervideo/index.html

http://www.dtc-wsuv.org/cmdc/gallery/archives/05.18/veldridge-final/index.html

http://www.dtc-wsuv.org/mbarnette15/Final/index.html

HTML5 media
<video>
<audio>

HyperCinema Templates:

hypervideo template 1 | demo  

hypervideo template 2  | demo

 

Final Project (30%)

Assembly Cut Due April 23rd
Rough Cut Due April 30th 
Final Cut Due May 4th

With consideration of the assignments, readings , screenings and class discussions, create a final project that explores/exploits at least one feature of “digital cinema”: looped video, glitched video, composited video, networked video, hyperlinked video, database video, etc.  You may create a fictional, non-fictional or abstract project. However,the project must be made of video (moving digital images originally captured as video), incorporate cinema language (thoughtful continuity editing and/or montage) and you must engage with the class ideas in the conception of your project. Your grade we will be based on the quality and effort of your creative work as well as its conceptual foundation.

Some suggested ideas:

  • a mini documentary
  • a profile of a person, company, product or institution
  • a fictional short video
  • a video essay
  • a Youtube web series
  • a series of video loops
  • a work of hypercinema (HTML5)
  • a mashup or series of mashups,
  • an experimental video that creates a hybrid space with composting, spatial montage and other effects
  • a multilinear database narrative

Group projects are possible.

 

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