Samuelbarnes’s Weblog

Eighth entry. A retrospective entry for the video progress report. It has now been shot, edited, screened and graded. Not a good reflection on my wish to reform my writing habits, but writing in summary may give me perspective and brevity; the absence of which may have made writing such an unwelcome task in the last month.

At the storyboard stage the group had two ideas. Both grew out of the visual metaphor we concocted out of the Guess Who? board game. The first idea was to focus on a young girl who parts ways with an undesirable housemate, and then goes about finding a new one through much trial and error. It was intended to be a straight forward narrative piece presented with much humour. I imagined it resembling the music video for The Beastie Boys ‘(You Gotta Fight) For Your Right (To Party)’, with a sparsely-furnished studio substituting for all the interiors, a small cast playing multiple roles in ridiculous costumes, and lots of hamming it up. I think the group had other ideas though. It was conceived to be shot on location for one.

The second idea was conceived with the stresses of shooting a short film in mind. Assuming that we had access to a studio as well as a video camera, I created a scenario for two people set in a substitute environment similar to the one in the Beastie Boys video I described above. One person in a red shirt and one person in a blue shirt (perhaps with text identifying the room mate-seeker and the room mate-wanter respectively) approach a table set with the Guess Who? games. They take a seat and go through the interrogation process wordlessly, with the questions they are asking displayed in varying fonts across the screen. And with Sparks’ “How are you getting Home?” as the soundtrack.

Both ideas had their merits, and both had their drawbacks. Tania’s consultation only compounded the indecision, but her suggestions did incite a brief, manic period where the second idea threatened to become an amateur-film epic in the style of Michel Gondry. Eventually the decisions were made out of necessity. With the packaging assignment deadline coming and going, and the type assignment due the day before the video presentations, the group’s efforts were determined by how much time everyone could spare.

The video equipment was loaned for a single day and all of the shooting was plammed to occur on that same day. Knowing that by this stage neither idea would be possible I sketched a pared down storyboard for shooting. This storyboard was intended to serve as an introduction to the main content. One problem that we had identified with both of the original ideas was that they were designed more like short TV or online advertisements than the video progress reports that were expected. Steph was pivotal in reminding us all of this and in re-orientating the objective of the video so that it satisfied all of the brief requirements. Although we were all unsure of what form the video would take when we came together on the Thursday, we did know what information we needed to provide and any interviewees we required had been arranged.

The storyboard intended to show somebody looking for a room in the existing fashions (Readings window, websites) and then following through with the process of phone calls, refidex checking, travelling, inspecting, talking, rejecting, etc. All of this was supposed to be shot in fast motion, both for the sake of running time and as an attempt to communicate the frustrations of such an experience. It was used as a starting point, but the shoot quickly deviated from it as the realities of filmmaking became apparent to everyone. The Readings shoot was a success and due consideration was given to all of the possible problems that may occur in editing. Footage was also garnered of tram trip from a subjective POV for possible use in structuring the narrative later.

But scheduled interview times required us to return to the production offices (ie-Jess’ House). Whilst waiting for our subjects to turn up the footage of each group member giving a short presentation to camera was taken. And then we waited. And waited. And waited. The people we intended to interview were running late, so a surrogate interviewee was roped in and shots of building facades in the surrounding streets were taken.

As time passed and group members were required to leave it was decided that we should begin editing  what we had. Barring some temporary problems with the DV deck this turned out to be an inspired decision. Although we hadn’t shot a great deal of what we intended to, what we had shot was sufficiently informative. Each group member’s presentation to camera ran for approximately one minute, and there was a three minute maximum running time for the entire project, so the four individual presentations were hacked up and then pieced together so that it appeared like one continuous idea was being spoken by four people. These presentations were introduced by a short titles sequence constructed from the Readings footage and substantiated by our surrogate interviewee.

By this time the original interviewees were still yet to arrive. The day was almost over. And the prospect of doing it all again was distinctly unappealing. So me decided to go with what we had. We found an appropriate song for the soundtrack, we refined the audio and visual effects and we exported the finished product before dinner time. It was quite an achievement, and though I wasn’t sure how our video would compare to others, I could honesty say that I didn’t think it was bad. It certainly fulfilled most of the criteria and communicated the basic idea of what micasa represented.

This assessment was verified on the day of presentation. Although the very impressive production values of the first video probably made us all feel a little insecure, I think the micasa video compared well. We took a much more conventional approach, but our message was communicated clearly. We received generally good peer appraisals and the marks from Blair and Tania were very welcome.

That certainly does seem like an abridged version, but it gives a good overview of the video phase of the project. What’s next? 

Seventh entry. Personal confession. I have neglected this project. If not in thought, then certainly in deed. You need only look at the date of the last entry to realise that. Why is it this way? If I was to offer some excuses I would say it was the disruption of the Easter break; the short trip to Brisbane; last Wednesday’s storm devastating our home broadband connection (ongoing); the stress of other assignments. All valid, but unimpressive, ordinary problems. If I were more determined I would have found resolutions.

I think in some ways its the nature of the assignment. Its group-centricity for certain. Not to cast dispersions on anyone in my group. I don’t have a bad word to say about one of them. But the business of working as a group itself. No one person has control over the direction of the project. Or rather, I don’t feel like I have control over the project. And I don’t. And that makes it very difficult to engage with. Partly because I don’t wish to take responsibility for doing more than my share; partly because I don’t want to be percieved as taking responsibility for more than my share. And as such, I feel removed from… unable to affect the locomotion of the project in a way that I can when I work individually. That’s terrible phrasing, but its a difficult feeling to articulate.

For instance, in the weeks proceeding the Easter break the group as delegated themselves and performed perhaps the minimum amount of work required to satisfy requirements. I’m not being critical of that. I’ve been absolutely complicit. And I haven’t been procrastinating. The same obsessive drive that results in journal entries that appear like novellas to others has simply been directed at other studio assignments. Ones that are more tactile. Where a sense of achievement can be more readily gained. When we have come together in class we have continued to produce some really interesting content. But there hasn’t been a really concentrated effort towards a specific goal. We are all doing the same tasks, coming to the same conclusions, making the same mistakes.

I need to be critical of myself before the group though. There’s a convenient segue-way here into what we’ve been asked to write in response to the last two lesson’s worth of readings. The notion of the ‘genius’ designer. That resonated loudly in me. I’ve certainly been guilty of it in this assignment. I identified a problem based on my bad experiences finding a house and suggested a solution that would satisfy my expectations. The selling point of the entire project is that it provides people with a forum to say more about themselves, but in nearly every example we can see on similar sites, users seem to be content to enter as little information as possible. Might that not be a flaw in the service provided, but a characteristic of the user demographic? I honestly wouldn’t like to think so, but then I’m only me.

I do think we have an excellent idea. I still believe that a site that combines social networking qualities with share house finding facilities could be very successful… But I only have to think of our model, couchsurfing.com and when the last time was that I used it. When I was travelling. More than two years ago. I’m still an active member, but only because I believe its a service I might use again at some point. We have to recognize this. If something like micasa already existed I would only have used it at two times in the last two years.  At each of those times I would have used the site frequently, almost compulsively for at least a fortnight. But then it would have been dormant to me in between. I suppose other people will experiencing the same thing though. There is a constant need to be fulfilled, but perhaps an in frequent one. And does that diminish its importance?

I’m not suggesting that we abandon the idea… Where is all this solipsism leading? To a resolution. We need to redirect our research focus from competing sites and models and direct it towards the users. And not just to determine the content like we have done, but also the structure. And we really need to align our activities with the subjects of the course. Research methods, personas, etc. That hasn’t always seemed relevant to our purposes, but it certainly could help us refine the final outcome.

From a personal perspective too, it has seemed at times like: this is the course content on interaction design. And this is the project. And things like the readings appear to be a distraction from the latter. And perhaps occasionally they aren’t relevant.  But we in the group are not genius designers. I am not a genius designer. I am being reminded of that every hour of every day. The frustrations I have with software aside, it is occurring more and more frequently as my other assignments go on, as they get closer and closer to completion, that some fundamental flaw appears, something that was not considered in the initial stages, and it now threatens to render all efforts completely useless. You can mark it down to inexperience, and this is where the commencing student reasoning comes in, but if more research was down at the start, or if less enthusiasm was committed to conceptualizing an idea that might not be appropriate, or even if that enthusiasm was scrutinized with research, then I would probably be wasting less time.

My packaging assignment is a good example. I came up with a wonderful theoretical solution. I felt at the time that it was patent-worthy. But it looked terrible when constructed as a mock-up. It might have been able to be improved but not with the time and resources available to me. So I compromised and made a alternative out of paper that used the same principles. Again, a theoretical triumph. Possibly a minor aesthetic one too. But exorbitantly expensive to produce. Unrealistic, even for a high-end producer. And unnecessarily wasteful. The project will still be executed. And it still might be quite effective. But it is a failure. So: research.

I think thats enough blood-letting. If it serves no other purpose let us hope that it gets me back in the routine of writing more regularly. I did the readings on research but it was at the end of week 3, so I don’t feel like I have anything constructive to further add to that subject. Next time: reflection on readings and updates on video.