My project proposal is to play with the idea of a new media kind of thing that's heavily image based and nonlinear. Basically I want to try making a hyperfilm. The idea of translating film into the new media world is a really interesting one to me and I've been kind of thinking about how one might go about doing this for a little while now. While I'm not entirely confident as to the best way to make a truly "hyper" image medium, I'm willing to take a little preliminary stab at it.
In our reading, I've seen film described in one place as the last surviving form of linear narrative, and I think this is fair. Film is steeped in past storytelling methods and, just like regular print, it is highly linear. The viewer's experience is heavily dependent on the organization of the material, and the principles of linear organization apply here in a very real way. The sequence of the elements of the story play a key role in determining their meaning and filmmakers, whether on a conscious level or not, and the structure of the piece emerges as the linear sequencing of the encounter between the viewer and the elements of the film.
My proposal for a hyperfilm type thing would attempt to move away from the linear hierarchy of traditional narrative storytelling that film uses by constructing a more nodal experience of moving images. Thus, instead of a journey or sequence the user would experience a freer version of the film's elements. Just as with hypertext, some linearity will remain, and the work will involve some pre-defined sequences of images. However, my goal is not to limit too much the way in which viewers can interact with these sequences, and to leave them floating as in space to give viewers some choice in whether to view them and how. I want also to try and break the images out of the frame somewhat, and to create an immersive environment in which the images exist which viewers are more free to navigate. In order to counter the monopoly on information contained in the moving-image panels, I also want to create a network of text that exists in the same environment and relates some of the story that's being told through the video planes as well as maybe giving some commentary on the work itself and kind of analyzing it. So overall it would be kind of like a videogame environment you would walk through and run into these videos; the environment you would walk through would be, however, the one depicted in the video panels, so you could sort of like step through the image plane and be in the room, sort of, where things were happening. I would try to set up the audio sort of like the real world, where you'd hear it when you were close to the pane, and not when you moved away. Echoes, while cool, are I think are too hard to do.
Finally let me acknowledge a few shortcomings of the project. The point can be raised that this project does not fully apply the ideas of hypermedia to the medium of the moving image. It can be said that using really traditional film style video clips doesn't go far enough away from linear storytelling structures for one thing. Also, there isn't much real linking going on, at least not in the same way that hypertext links will take you from one thing to another. To a certain extent, the structure of the thing isn't as free and open as something filled with links, I guess, although I will try to structure everything so that one can move pretty freely and the path between rooms and so clips isn't too determined. The biggest problem that I see is my own lack of experience with using this particular game engine. While what I'm planning is largely pretty simple stuff in the grand scheme of interactive environment making, it still has the potential to be too complicated to really do, especially depending on how much modeling detail is necessary to make the environments interesting. Also, there's the problem of deploying this thing on the web. There is an old, old, web plugin for the Blender game environment, but I don't know if it still is around or works or what. Also, streaming multiple full-resolution standard-definition movies in one environment over the web is kind of a lot of data to deal with at once.
Anyhow, comments, questions, and open criticism are appreciated. I can elaborate more on any part if you want, just ask in the comments. Sorry this is so long; it makes more sense visually but I don't have any pictures yet.
this sounds really cool! i have a question . . . what footage are you going to use? are you going to film your own? or use "found" footage? either way, this is an awesome idea and concept. also, i am interested to know what your inspirations were for this . . . and do you see this as more of a game, or a work of art?
have you ever seen any of maya deren's stuff? she was an incredibly interesting filmmaker in the middle of the century who experimented with a lot of non-linear experiemental stuff (and was into voodoo, which i think is fascinating/scary) . . . you should look her up, if you want :)
This does sound tremendously cool, and tremendously complex. Can I make a suggestion, by way of simplification? In order to keep your focus on structure, on how the availability of interaction in film might affect the viewer's experiences, that you restrict your attention to the building of the hyper part of the film? Which is to say -- use already-produced film, whether your own or pieces from released films, and focus on the hyperlinking aspect of the project, so that you're not both having to produce the raw material and then to cut that raw material into a new format. Also, as we discussed, delivering the project to me on DVD is fine; avoid the web-streaming thing entirely. I'll look forward to hearing more about the narrative that you hope to construct, and what you plan to construct it out of...
Quite a concept...very exciting. It sounds technically very very difficult, but I suppose if anyone can pull it off it's you. You're definitely stepping into video game / computer game territory here, but there's certainly nothing wrong with that. How do you plan to distinguish this from a computer game? I suppose that just using a web of intertwined DVD menus as the linking technology isn't enough for you? It would still be New Media, even though not viewed on a PC, since tape or film could never produce the same effect as a disc.
First off, I'll be using a hacked version of the Blender Game engine; there's a version (for windows only, ugh) that's specially compiled with support for video textures (and lots of other cool stuff) in the game engine and there's also a plugin for the regular version that allows for the same thing, but windows only. I'll try to get a laptop on loan from ITS so that I can hand professor Fitzpatrick a working copy, and not a world of pain dealing with open source software and installing plugins on someone else's computer. Blender game engine, if you know blender fairly well, is simple and fun to use. Dunno how powerful it is in terms of user interaction (I think as powerful as you want to write plugins for it, honestly), but it's good for walkthroughs for one thing and the graphics can be pretty good if you work at it. As for using a DVD; I wanted something less forced where you could even just ignore the videos completely if you wanted and poke around, step out halfway through, whatever. Also I can throw in lots of text for you to interact with if you want and draw lines and stuff to link ideas and break things out of the film.
Anyway, all valid points; using pre-made footage seems very attractive to me come to think of it; this would save A LOT of time.. I think. I was hoping to save time on the modeling/surfacing end of things by using locations here and thus having easy access via digital photo to high-resolution textures and reference photos to model from (so I can just like slap them on something like Fight Club CGI style and not have to worry as much about the detail of the models for realism) but I have been playing off and on with ways to decrease the necessary detail/difficulty to make of the models, like using wireframes or not texturing them or something that still works in terms of aesthetic impact and soundness of ideas. *breathe* So I'm still kind of up in the air about what to do; it's just a ridiculous amount of work to shoot more than a few scenes and it's almost as bad to have to re-do reasonably good-looking models with nothing but low-res movie stills to use as reference/texturing material. Hopefully by the end of tonight I'll have made a decision as to which way I'm going. Ugh. Maybe I'll find a good little short film that was done on the 5-c's? Or maybe I'll use one of mine that has vague and dark lighting... yeessss...
As for Maya Deren, thanks for the recommendation. I think I watched part of a couple of her films on Youtube. I've heard the name before and I know I owe her more of my attention but I haven't gotten around to it. Maybe I'll watch some more on a break from doing the modeling work for this thing.