Make Machinima!

Today we are going to have a workshop on making machinima (machine+cinema). We'll do a variation on the activity I do in my Language of Film course, which is to go into class, improvise a scene/short film in silent film style (so there is no pesky sound to record/edit/match in editing) with the props at hand, film it during class, and edit it later using our laptops. We'll go into Second Life, and instead of emptying our backpacks and pockets for props, look in our inventories. Instead of using the classroom and hallway for the set, we'll pick a sim in SL. Like in the actual world class film shoot, we'll be the actors, and can take turns (on my computer rather than through my camera) shooting.

I am very curious to see how this goes, whether it takes longer to do in SL (this is my hunch), because no one ever crashes in the classroom, or at least hasn't yet, and pulling a banana out of a backpack does not take any time to rez, or place, etc. BUT I have yet to see anyone fly in the Film Scoring hallway or make the moviola dance.

We can also think about the kino-eye, what Dziga Vertov hoped for, and what we can so easily do in making our machinima on our laptop computers. Theoretically, we could each shoot our own version simultaneously as we acted in them . . . would we gain anything from that? What?

What Is New Media?

Manovich Manovich Manovich I wish we could be in a version of Being Lev Manovich and go on a trip into his head, but reading The Language of New Media will have to suffice. I love the Prologue, that dips into the book to pull out pieces about Vertov, long an interest/obsession of mine. Our responses to watching Man with a Movie Camera last Thursday reinforced the importance of Vertov's work, and I am looking forward to bringing in my virtual kino-eye material next week as we connect cinema to virtual worlds and gaming.

In defining new media, let's consider this. Manovich writes:

PRINCIPLES OF NEW MEDIA (pages 19-61 of LNM)

1) Numerical Representation

2) Modularity

3) Automation

4) Variability

5) Transcoding

Let's look at Manovich's section on the myth of interactivity (page 55).

On Thursday, we will meet at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Please look at the museum website, because we will discuss and analyze it, and use it as an example of interface, database, transcoding, the use of digital narrative and forms in traditional spaces and contexts, etc. MFA

Playing with Time, Messing with Expectations

In this path in the garden of possible universes, the groundhog saw his shadow and there will be 6 more weeks of winter. Personally, I am hoping for a big snowstorm that is fun to play in, but that is another kind of play than what we will be talking about today as we discuss the film Groundhog Day and Katherine Phelps's diagrams of story shapes. So much energy in Classical Hollywood Cinema's preservation of continuity goes into the spectator knowing where he or she is in space; time is usually a given unless the film is deliberately playing with time (like Memento.) It is particularly interesting to notice how time is compressed in Groundhog Day, how the clock and a few music cues work to signal the passage of time, and what is necessary for us to know where we are in the day, and if we need to know that at all.

Props to Propp

VLADMIR PROPP: MORPHOLOGY OF THE FOLKTALE

1. Absentation: Someone goes missing
2. Interdiction: Hero is warned
3. Violation of interdiction
4. Reconnaissance: Villain seeks something
5. Delivery: The villain gains information
6. Trickery: Villain attempts to deceive victim
7. Complicity: Unwitting helping of the enemy
8. Villainy and lack: The need is identified
9. Mediation: Hero discovers the lack
10. Counteraction: Hero chooses positive action
11. Departure: Hero leave on mission
12. Testing: Hero is challenged to prove heroic qualities
13. Reaction: Hero responds to test
14. Acquisition: Hero gains magical item
15. Guidance: Hero reaches destination
16. Struggle: Hero and villain do battle
17. Branding: Hero is branded
18. Victory: Villain is defeated
19. Resolution: Initial misfortune or lack is resolved
20. Return: Hero sets out for home
21. Pursuit: Hero is chased
22. Rescue: pursuit ends
23. Arrival: Hero arrives unrecognized
24. Claim: False hero makes unfounded claims
25. Task: Difficult task proposed to the hero
26. Solution: Task is resolved
27. Recognition: Hero is recognised
28. Exposure: False hero is exposed
29. Transfiguration: Hero is given a new appearance
30. Punishment: Villain is punished
31. Wedding: Hero marries and ascends the throne

Propp also concluded there are 7 character types:

The hero — the protagonist (can be a hero or a victim)
The dispatcher — a character in the story who sends the hero on his or her quest.
The helper — helps the hero in the quest, appears at critical moment to provide support.
The villain — an antagonist, struggles against the hero.
The donor — gives the hero some magical object (e.g. talisman), frequently the donor is a supernatural creature.
The princess and her father — the King gives the task to the hero, identifies the false hero. The princess marries the hero, identifies the false hero, often is the object sought for during the narrative, or a reward.
False hero — a competitor, takes credit for the hero’s actions or tries to marry the princess.

Here is a nice hyperlinked list of Propp's narratemes.

SEE ALSO: Joseph Campbell's Hero's Journey, another structuralist approach to narrative, this time to myth:

I. Separation / departure
I.1 The Call to Adventure
I.2 Refusal of the Call
Acceptance of the Call
I.3 Supernatural Aid
I.4 Crossing of the First Threshold
I.5 Entering the Belly of the Whale

II. Initiation
II.1 Road of Trials
II.2 The Meeting with the Goddess
II.3 Woman as Temptress
II.4 Atonement with the Father
II.5 Apotheosis
II.6 The Ultimate Boon

III. Return
III.1 Refusal of the Return
III.2 Magic Flight
III.3 Rescue From Without
III.4 Crossing of the Return Threshold
III.5 Master of the Two Worlds
III.6 Freedom to Live