DTC 354 - Digital Storytelling

Cinematic Language

To Do This Week

DUE Diagrammatic Narrative

Watch: An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge — the short film is available for $1.99 on Prime, Google Play, YouTube, etc.

Read: An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge, by Ambrose Bierce

Journal:

After watching the film adaptation of "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge" and then reading the short story by Ambrose Bierce, write a blog post about the differences between the two works. What was removed or changed in the film version and why? What techniques in film language — pacing, editing, shot composition — successfully translate the effects in the short story?

In Class

Diagrammatic Narratives — Presentation

Visual Narratives

One-on-one Zoom meeting (5%)

This meeting is to discuss your story ideas and the Final Project.

Set up a time between now and April 7th.

I am available on Zoom MTWTHF 11am–3:00pm or after class.

Key Terms

Continuity

Discontinuity

Viewing + Discussion

Discuss: An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge

An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge, by Ambrose Bierce

Continuity revealing information / building suspense

Chaos Cinema (post-continuity)

Montage

rhythm, metaphor, associational thinking, dream, intellectual argument

Discontinuous editing

fragmented montage, jump cuts, rhythmic cuts (on sound)

Continuity + Spatial Montage

Loops

Exact Repetition

short-term memory = under 20 seconds

Narrative loops — beginning > middle > end

Basketball loop GIF

Fractured narrative loops

Adam Goldberg Vines (archival links)

via GIFER

Montage loops

variable duration of each shot — fookedonhonix

Loops in new media

FilmText, by Mark Amerika

Zoe Beloff

Simultaneous Loops

Interactive Cinema, by Uda Atsuko

http://www.iamas.ac.jp/~makura/index_old.html

Sequential Loops

Interactive Cinema, by Uda Atsuko

http://www.iamas.ac.jp/~makura/index_old.html

Nested Loops

an asynchronous assemblage of nested loops offers a picture of fractal time;

simultaneous temporalities of different scales, rhythms and durations.

Workshop

Adobe Premiere > YouTube tutorial

In-Class loop activity

In small groups, come up with three ideas for narrative loops (10–20 seconds) in each category below. Shoot and edit together each loop using a phone camera (set at 720p) and then edit as a group with Adobe Premiere. Repeat the clips at least three times to show the loop at work.

Export the loops to .H264 format with a preset for 720p for YouTube or Vimeo. Upload to one of these and post the URL into a blog post.

  1. Continuity loop — Follow an action with a beginning, middle and end. The shots should follow rules of continuity: match on action, POV, screen direction, cut in.
  2. Montage loop — Create a dream sequence loop. The shots should be mostly discontinuous clips. Play with contrasts of distance, color, shape between each shot.
  3. Montage and Continuity — combine the two editing techniques into a mini story.

Video/Audio Narrative (10%)

DUE TBA

For this project, you are to make a 1–2 minute video using continuity and/or montage techniques. Edit together video clips, animation and/or still images, recorded audio, voice over and/or sound effects to tell the story. It is up to you how you “narrate” the story — through just images with sound effects, your own voice-over, text on the screen, or an interview with the subject. The images do not have to illustrate the spoken narration, but should relate and help reinforce the story. This project is about using multiple types of media to tell a time-based story.

Ideas

Workshop

Work on Visual Narratives DUE TBA