Entry 4

 9-20-12

RTF 344M Blog Prompt #4

Duck Hunt SNU feedback – Transition between game and reality is rough, clean it up and match frame, use audio. Re-time victory audio for hunters. Use game capture footage, introduce early. Ending should have video game dog laughing. Two players possible?

Thoughts – I agreed with pretty much all the feedback I got from this SNU. Audio is the trickiest part, but the rest is pretty easily done. I just have to watch it a few times to get a feel for when audio should be used. It's pretty important too; the only way the viewer will understand the point of the SNU is with audio. I also think I want to re-watch the hunters footage to see if there are any better takes. I don't think I'll find a Duck Hunt game with two players along, with or without good quality and steady camera, but I'll give it another look.

War Games SNU feedback – Add a beat at the end of the interview. Bring down the gamma to fix lighting issues. Audio out of sync? Bring up interview audio.

Thoughts – I didn't really think of any of these fixes so they are valuable pieces of feedback. Adding a beat at the end fixes the abrupt ending, and gamma fixes lighting. I didn't notice the audio being out of sync, but I can take a close look at it and see if it's true. The interview audio sounded low to me watching it on the projector, so I can pan that one up. Someone asked me how I got the shots to be steady if I shot on an iPhone. I said, “flat surface.” It seems so simple!

Korsakow is a neat tool, but it has it's limitations. While you have technological affordances in control over how the SNUs are shown, it really is just a presentational idea. The story comes from organization, and it unfolds through user interaction. But, by default, it isn't very different from just putting all the SNUs in a timeline and playing them back-to-back. And nothing new is coming from the footage itself; it's still a traditional scene. The good thing about Korsakow is that it provides interactivity without the stigma attached to modern video games (I often hear people think the learning curve of all the buttons turns them off to playing entirely). So this system is geared to a larger audience, but has a smaller following.

As we viewed the SNUs, my mind began to create the web already. I made connections between the individual pieces, not just one connection but several. I'm starting to think the best way to organize a Korsakow project would be to print out thumbnails of the SNUs and lay them out on a table. This way you can visualize the structure without having to keyword, play, keyword again, play again. I still want a 'three bins' structure that has some point to it as a project and not just as an assortment of clips loosely affiliated. If that's what I find my project turning out to be, I'll either have to blame myself or the clips. But the clips are pretty good, and by making associations early on, that's a sign that they will work well together. I just haven't figured out what the larger point is yet, or rather, how to convey that point. It is definitely harder than it seems, partly because the clips are static and I can't control them. Everything relies on structure.