The Death of the Story - Redux. Responding to Prof Ken Kobre

Prof Ken Kobre posted this on his site, which got me replying below.

Here's two paras of his post.

The Death of the Story?

"We've often said that videojournalists have much to learn from Hollywood when it comes to storytelling and creating dramatic narrative arcs.

But now it seems that even Hollywood is beginning to lose its way, according to this New York Times report about a new MIT Media Lab project called The Center for Future Storytelling".

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Hello Professor Kobre,

Very topical post and link.

I wholeheartedly agree that video journalism has a huge amount to learn from cinema-making and not necessarily in structure per se, but in production drawing audiences to their films.

We’re seeing some of the best VJs grasp that, but video journalism is still new territory for many and therefore a sizeable number of practitioners appear more susceptible to exclusively use TV’s lingua franca.

I just happened to have posted about this yesterday on Journalism.co.uk - Video Journalism is not a one-size-fits-all medium.

Hollywood’s dominance in story telling has consistently been under threat from one wing or another. Take for instance film movements such as French New Wave and dogme.

It was only the grand plan, the emergence of the pop corn Blockbuster, mega movie merchandising and TV/DVD rights sales that saved Hollywood from disappearing.

And then there was digital which has yielded youtubing, torrenting and outfits such as Onedotzero, Filminute, and a new wave of independent digital film makers [remember 405] making their mark.

DigiMania
Microcinemas, outdoor screens, urinal video faces, XTPs and a whole glut of platforms have been the interesting developments in disrupting Hollywood’s film going process.

Here, a new brand of marketers have emerged believing anywhere people gather or pause for a minute [holograms on cereal boxes one day –Minority Report] is an opportunity to show your wares.

In 2001 we (colleagues and I) contributed towards the thinking and short films/ adverts that would go on London Undergrounds Cross Track Projection ( XTP). That’s short ads on the subways, which have only recently come on stream.

Then we played around with non narrative forms such as this The Family, which I have been redeveloping into a form that is video hyperlinking, which subverts the narrative - reported by The Economist.

At the UK’s film representative body, The Film Council, whilst hosting their event in digital opportunities one company talked about its video jump system called Avalon.

Narrative mania
My opinion, I think the narrative will always matter.

That’s what we do, tell stories, whether here in the UK or indeed Ghana and South Africa TV whereo I has the pleasure of working alongside on a unique video journalism co-production.

It’s how fast we can arc the story, play around with its form and get into the exposition in our contracted time span that’s exciting [see film minute] and it’s here where spatial films spoken at length by Lev Manovich leads to the sort of work we’re doing here at the Smart Lab.

That MIT is doing this should come as no surprise given their pioneering work, Negroponte et al did in paperback movies and spatial data systems brilliantly captured in Stewart Brand’s The Media Lab Inventing the Future at MIT

Thanks for triggering this.

David
site: www.viewmagazine.tv & MrDot.co.uk

video journalism to cinema

David with VJs feeding back comments on shot

I had one of those eureka moments with a colleague of mine Steve May who runs e Script writing on the Masters in Film on campus.

The upshot of our exchange is that in a couple of weeks I'm pitching a film idea at a script session organised by Steve that includes producers from the hugely successful working title.

As Steve put it, you'll get some very good feedback, if you're up for it and I'd like to work with you on the script.

The brief is essentially a video journalism feature piece, but I'll be using tried and tested methods within video journalism to up the ante.

And in case you're wondering, the three act tale with arcs, so much a feature of film making has been part of video journalism for the best part of ten years, is one of them.

For about 20 minutes we stood in the court yard ping-ponging film talk at each other.

Steve: As far as scripts go, it's not one of the classic thriller script but what makes Bourne work is the editing and Greengrass' sense of tension. For classic thriller go see Marathon Man.

Me: Yes, but its his tagging and blocking - derived from documentary making- also a feature of video journalism, and dramas like Homicide that makes Greengrass's stuff edgy.

Steve: the docu drama look - if you look back at some of Cecil B DeMille's work you'll see this at work.

And so it went culminating in Steve asking me to come and speak to a group of film makers about the video journalism approach.

What we all share in common, I suppose is, character development and the metronome of story telling.

By the way when I say character development, it's in part a reference to the central characters in a piece and whether or not they're suitable for the piece.

Future Cinema @ EVA London 2008

Professor Haim Bresheeth's Clash of Civilisation

Boasting twenty four screens, is it the multiplex cinema of the future - the screens are all in the same room - or an endeavor in giving new meaning to artistic cinema?

"The films you are about to watch were made specifically for this screen" said Professor Haim Bresheeth, Director of the outfit, Matrix East Research Centre, which houses this multiplex, adding "if you're wondering why you're sitting on the floor that's because there is no prescribed way of watching the screen... we're still experimenting with the form".

And then eight shorts made their stand at EVA London 2008.

The film makers, some of whom have travelled from as far as Canada, varied widely in their styles; the audience ranged from preteens onwards.

At times we fixed our gaze, our line of sight intersecting with others.

Otherwise the film makers had a trick or two which forced us to one of the many screens.

Jana Riedel, a film maker and documentary maker based at the smart lab was hailed by Professor Bresheeth as the best film to make use of the form.

And I agree. There was a rubikness about the narratives folding inside and out of each other with various screens playing supporting roles to each other.

Jana has some new ideas to go a stage further. Watch this space, er screens.

Professor Haim Bresheeth, Clash of Civilisation - note the audience's line of sight

The professor's own eight-part allegorical interpretation of The Clash of Civilizations by political scientist Samuel P. Huntington, featured dancers Professor Lizbeth Goodman and Bobby Byrne working the scientist's political themes.

It culminated in a series of atomic explosions, giving Jana's piece a run for its money.

It's impossible to be too deterministic or even dismissive about this form - Sony have thrown their weight of support behind the venture.

And consider this thought: cinema is barely a hundred years old meaning hypothetically if you're grandmother had never been to the cinema in her life, she'd probably find one screen as exciting or equally baffling as twenty four.


John Frans Holder - two anime at opposite ends of the screen exchange poetic dialogue

You could argue that with the advent of painting or even the zoetrope, we've been accustomed to fixing on a single perspective point.

Equally you could argue in our multisensory, media age, we're forever stealing a look here, shifting our concentration there.

If you're a teenager you'll be able to testify to how many times your mum or dad have told you to either turn the TV, radio, computer, 360, off as you bone up on the next day's exams.

We've become peripheral sight-beings; we always were, but it's any wonder we don't have eyes around our heads. That's a job for evolution.

I have got six screens in front of me, though only four tend to be on at any one time and they're not all playing at once.

In 2001 a colleague and I attempted this multiscreen narrative, The Family, which you can play here, which was a finalist in Channel 4's Unleash the Talent mixed media competition, and led to a commission to write up the concept in Blue Print that august architectural/design magazine.

The Family, a finalist in C4's mixed media comp. which led to work with boxer Lennox Lewis

But I can see how a Rashomon (羅生門, approach to film making could have some currency for the screens. Yep I too have an idea, and if you have to you're encouraged to get in touch with the unit here

post script: Big shout to Tamarin Norwood and Taey Kim, both Smart Labbers, and all the other artists for their films and a good night out

Related links

Here for the film council's event I hosted Digital Opportunites. Thanks to Marcia Williams