1w55 HTML5-driven Customisable Video

This new video for Arcade Fire’s We Used to Wait demonstrates the potential of HTML5 and emerging web standards.  A nice fusion of music, video and google maps, the easy to operate interface delivers a new type of experience to a broader audience.  The user is invited to enter the childhood address in exchange for an experience tailored to the submitted information.  Entitled The Wilderness Downtown the (required) Google Chrome browser utilizes the new HTML5 tags for audio, video and canvas tags to trigger a journey that takes you back to your own childhood and where it took place, seeing development and growth which can be felt in reflection, even on an individual level.

What I found particularly interesting was the way some of the images are presented in their own window, cropped images into another space.

Enjoy your own personalised experience at http://www.chromeexperiments.com/arcadefire/ or follow this link to download Google Chrome

1w35 Customisable Interactive Video

I’ve discovered that what I am trying to achieve is a customisable interactive video.  One that empowers the viewer to adjust variables/set parameters to play a video customised to their own decisions.  Although essentially driven by a database, I feel this ‘title’ better represents what it is I am striving to achieve.

1w33 Database Cinema in Politics

I thought this was worth a mention – the Lib Dems have utilized database cinema on their website to deliver their manifesto.  Electorates are invited to mix their video by selecting three topics from eight and are presented with a ‘personalised’ message.  Below is a screen grab of the interface, and you can mix your own video at http://www.libdems.org.uk/

1w27 SUPER 8 Database Cinema

SUPER 8 Datatbase Cinema is described as an interactive Flash animation.  The creator first advises us to watch the linear version of the film and also allows the user to make their own cut of the movie.  The film shows inspiration from the aesthetics of super 8mm film and uses a simple drag-and-drop facility to start the films.

The film can be found at: http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/505370

1w22 Soft Cinema

Soft Cinema – Navigating the database is a new media collaboration headed by Lev Manovich and Andreas Kratky, exploring the use of software in cinema.  Expanding on cinema as a traditional narrative form, the project introduces the digital computer as narrator by presenting films that are driven by a database.

Originally presented as an installation, Soft Cinema uses custom software and a media database that contains music, animations, video clips and voice-overs.  Manovich shot the videos were on his travels and collaborated with DJ Spooky on the music.

Every video clip in the project is assigned ten different parameters, semantic and formal, such as the graphical location, the amount of motion, contrast and brightness, the subject matter (for example city view, view from transport) and employs separate software to present the sequences of clips, matching common properties such as ‘pan to the left’,  to create on-the-fly cinema.

collection of short stories.  classical and experimental cinema, sharing common and content properties.

Due to the dynamics of the database, the voice over is repeated every twenty to thirty minutes but the composition, music and selection of clips is selected by software and could infinitely run without display the same narrative twice.   Influenced by Mondrian, the layout is generated by software and simultaneously displays multiple windows that are different shapes and sizes, making a more symmetrical layout.  Manovich explains that the project is also influenced by financial television, where different windows are used to present a multitude of information simultaneously, our visual culture, same techniques new advanced aesthetics, multiple streams of information, combining narrative with visuals.  the program randomly takes sentences from the current story and displays them on the screen. what is the connection between the visuals and the text, can be defined before hand but most are set up of the meta rules set up before hand , experimenting with more or less randomness depending on the story. specify connections to display the clips, as an artist

1w7 The Database

Having decided upon the use of a database as the delivery vehicle for my movie, I felt it relevant to make it the point of this weeks blog entry.  Although I have much to learn about the power of the database and the implications that it can present, I have dedicated my reading this week to the subject.

First off, I wish to express the reasons as to why I have decided upon this form to deliver my project.

As my film will ultimately be a collection of sequences representing elements of anthropology from around the world, and the fact that I am aiming to produce an example of pure cinema, it would be extremely difficult for me to present a definitive and structured narrative.  If I were to present my work in a singular narrative, it would essentially be a biased (and limited) observation.  Yet if the juxtaposition of the sequences were random and unlimited, than the viewer would be presented with a much broader scope of cultural diversity and identification, prompting more opinions, questions and potentially answers to some of those questions.

As there is limited academic observation and opinion on the use of the database in cinema, I will be heavily relying on the philosophies of Lev Manovic to contextualise and justify my decisions.  The first quote of Manovic I would like to present has to be…

“As a cultural form, database represents the world as a list of items and it refuses to order this list. In contrast, a narrative creates a cause-and-effect trajectory of seemingly unordered items (events). Therefore, database and narrative are natural enemies. Competing for the same territory of human culture, each claims an exclusive right to make meaning out of the world.”

This statement both influences and enforces my decision to utilise the cinema database as a means of delivery.  My observations of the world and their aesthetic ekistics have no formal structure whatsoever and certainly have no order of importance.  If I was aiming to represent the world through the eyes of one individual of a particular cultural ethnicity, than a biased opinion could possibly be valid, yet what I am striving to achieve is a culturally universal perspective.

Having been extremely lucky and blessed to have lead such a privileged lifestyle that has enabled me to see and experience the world first hand, I  endeavor to present an opportunity for others to make their own observations of cultures, lives and environments that are different to their own.  Although the choice of aesthetic subjects has obviously been my personal own, I hope that others will be able to benefit from my decisions.

…more to follow…