art 250: writing with video

Writing to Video Assignment

This assignment asks you to think about the processes of media translation, specifically the process of translating descriptive and conceptual writing into a video piece.  There are a lot of components to this assignment you will be required to complete - please read and follow the descriptions carefully.

For the project, you have two ways to begin:

1) Select a piece of descriptive or conceptual writing by another author that will ultimately inspire a video you create.  From there, your main writing assignment will be an analytic essay that critically discusses the elements/themes/concepts you find in the writing and contextualizes them more broadly, both to your project and how this writing and its concepts fits in with a larger body of media production and culture.

OR
2) Write a descriptive or conceptual piece of writing of your own that will ultimately inspire a video you create.  This will be your main writing assignment for the project - description below.

For either essay, the initial draft length should be at least one page and the final draft lengths will be 3-5 pages.

 

Self-Authored Essay, or What to look for in a Previously Authored Essay:
Write a descriptive essay that invokes a conceptual/affective understanding about the subject(s) you describe.  In other words, the description should somehow suggest or summon concepts/ideas/meanings/emotions.  The subject matter and style (e.g., using a linear narrative, etc.) is open - however, your writing should employ sensory detail and description.  These same guidelines for writing an essay should help in the selection of previously authored work - the writing you select should evoke conceptual/affective understanding about its subject and employ description you can work with. 

Possibilities for essay subject matter:  recall an experience from memory or observe an experience from your everyday life.  If you're stuck, begin to write about what is going on around you to gain experience at writing in a descriptive mode.  You might also consider looking through photographs, listening to music, or engaging with other media forms to help you think about subject matter.

Video Sketch #2:  Adjective Assignment
What happens when representational writing is transformed into representational video?

- Choose three adjectives and represent them with video (think about representing them both auditorily and imagistically).  These probably won't be lengthy pieces - I've seen some that are only ten to twenty seconds that have been incredibly effective.
- Optional:  When you bring the footage into iMovie, add the adjective as text at some point in the footage for two of the clips:  one at the beginning and one at the end and then we will attempt to guess your last adjective.  Consider how you might construct our experience of the video footage with the text placement you choose.
- Optional:  While you are welcome to choose any  three adjectives to consider the process of translating text to video, you may consider pulling three adjectives that appear in your essays (particularly ones that will be important or carry through to your video production) and attempt to consider their video representation in this sketch assignment.

Storyboards
Using the template I have provided you, storyboard any six scenes that you plan to shoot for your video production.  Include a sketch of some moment in the scene that illustrates camera framing you will employ and below the sketch, include the following:
    * the passage from your writing sample or extracted/abstracted concept this scene explores
    * indicate the audio that will accompany this scene
    * indicate the action that will take place in this scene
    * indicate the camera direction for this scene employing the terminology for shots you have been provided

Shot List
Create a list of six or more scenes you want to record for your video using film terminology. Generally speaking, shot lists can be helpful for filmmakers to function as a detailed "footage to capture" list while filming.  During filming, however, ideas or circumstances for new shots can always arise.  Therefore, the list does not have to be in the order in which you think they will appear in the final video and does not have to include all scenes.  An entry in a shot list may look something like this:

-    Tracking shot of main character walking down hallway until she stops at her locker.  Zoom focus into close-up of the lock as she enters combination.  End shot as the lock snaps open.

Reflective Writing: 
In this reflective writing, please describe the process of extraction/abstraction/translation you underwent to move from your writing to your video by addressing the following: 

• Identify the abstracted concepts or themes from your video and analyze their broad significance.  You might consider the shared cultural understanding of the concepts your writing and video explore.

• Discuss how you decided to represent these concepts in your video, articulating the technical choices you made to construct your representation (e.g., use of narrative, editing effects, point of view, etc.) and how these connect to the conceptual exploration of the piece.  What happened in the process from "translating" writing to video.

Minimum length:  the equivalent of one, double-spaced page.
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Assignment Due Dates:

Draft of Essays (Analytic or Creative) Due At Beginning of Class 10/7

Video Sketch #2 Due 10/9

Storyboards, Shot List, Final Draft of Essay Due 10/14

Video Due 10/21

Reflective Writing Due 10/28

Excerpt from Bruno Schulz

Translated from the Polish and excerpted from The Cinnamon Shops (or, as it is sometimes translated in the English, Street of Crocodiles), "Mannequins":

The mournful greyness of the town encircled us from all sides once more, the dark lichen of the dawns and the parasitic fungus of the dusks blossoming in the windows, and maturing into the downy fur of the long winter nights. The wallpaper in the rooms, blissfully unrestrained in the former days and receptive to the coloured flights of those winged assemblies, sank back into itself and grew tangled, winding up in the monotony of bitter monologues.
    The lamps blackened and sagged like old teasels and musk thistles. They hung dejected and acrimonious now, quietly tinkling their glass crystals whenever anyone passed gropingly through the murk of the room. In vain, Adela inserted a coloured candle into every arm of those lamps, an ineffectual surrogate, a pale reminiscence of the magnificent illuminations with which their hanging gardens had so recently bloomed. Oh, where was that twittering budding, that rapid and fantastic fructification in the bouquets of those lamps, from which those winged phantasms had risen up as if from magical, parting layer cakes, splitting the air into magical packs of cards, scattering it into coloured rounds of applause, pouring out thick flakes, sky blue, peacock and parrot green, and metallic sparkles, drawing lines and arabesques in the air with the shimmering traces of their flights and wheels, unfurling coloured fans of flutters which hung long after the flight in the rich and spangled atmosphere? Even now the echoes and possibilities of colourful flares were hidden deep within the greyed air, but no one penetrated with a flute or tested with a drill the clouded grain of the air.

Larger text this excerpt was drawn from available at this site.

Project Deadlines for Class

Please be aware of the following deadlines for your major projects.  The additional coursework you are required to complete for the class (including video sketches, essay drafts, tech presentations etc.) have always been listed on our Class Schedule.

If you want additional project details about any assignments before they have been discussed in class and posted on the class website, then please talk to me during open lab time, meet me during my office hours, or schedule an appointment to see me.

October 2:
Motif (Part 2) Critiques PARTS 1 AND 2 OF PROJECT DUE

October 7:  PART 3 OF MOTIF PROJECT DUE

October 14:
PART 1 of Writing to Video Due [Storyboards, Shot List with Technical Terms, Final Essay]

October 21:
PART 2 of Writing to Video Due

October 28:
PART 3 of Writing to Video Due

November 20
Part 1 of Representation and Argument Due [Final Project Proposal]

December 2
December 4
December 9
Final Video Critiques / Part 2 of Representation and Argument Due
We will schedule your final project viewing time before we commence for Thanksgiving Break

December 12- Part 3 of Representation and Argument due, including any additional work for the course must be complete and posted on your wordpress site by Friday, December 12th at 5pm.

Upcoming Video Contest and Motif Inspiration

Here are links to a few upcoming video contests or inspirations related to the assignments we have or will complete for class:

Democracy:  Your Voice.  Your Video.
Deadline:  Jan 31, 2009
http://www.videochallenge.america.gov/

Jeff Scher, contemporary artist, has a piece, "While You Were Sleeping" that someone emailed to me since it reminded him of the motif project.  You may be asked to register with nytimes.com if you choose to view this link, but this does not cost anything.
http://scher.blogs.nytimes.com/

Motif (Part 2)

steps 1 and 2 due Tuesday, September 30

step 3 due  Thursday, October 2

In the first part of the motif assignment you edited a one minute video that isolated a particular concept or theme from raw footage.  After reading the Latour selection and our class discussion on processes of purification and hybridization, would you consider your motif an example of purification or hybridization?  What created the purified or hybridized motif? - the overarching theme? your editing choices? the context you removed during the process of filming or editing?  How could your video be hybridized?  What might still have to be left out?  How does one make these additional choices about what to highlight in contextualization?

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1.  On your Wordpress site, write about your initial video motif in terms of purification/hybridization and address some or all of the questions above.

2.  Hybridize the Motifs:  Create a new one minute video by pairing up with one other person in the class and hybridize your motifs together.  This may entail not merely combining your original footage, but will likely entail shooting new "bridging" or "synthesizing" footage. Creating this kind of hybridized motif emphasizes the notion of multi-perspectival or collective rhetorical production.

3.  Write a new justification for motif (part two) on your segue site.  Since you will be working with a partner, this document may be joint-authored, but please post a version of it on both of your sites in which you do the following:

a) identify the new motif and explicate its larger meaning/significance
b) discuss a few shots/scenes/technical elements from your new motif video; discuss their meaning and how they individually exemplify or communicate the new motif
c) evaluate the process of moving from two motifs to a new one (consider invoking Latour's terminology of purification and hybridization here)

Critique Process

The critique process may be new for some of you in the class.  During critiques we view a student's video and respond to it together as a class (or sometimes in smaller groups).  The value of the critique process then, is that you get to share your work and receive feedback from viewers who are coming from different backgrounds and perspectives (disciplinarily, technical proficiency, and otherwise).

During critiques you may open discussion up for general comments but if you have particular questions or concerns about your video you may direct us to your specific concerns.  For example, say you altered some of the clips in your video to black and white but kept the rest in the original color - you could ask us to consider the particular rhetorical effectiveness of this aspect of your video piece.  Another way to put it: the critique process is limited by time, so be sure to direct and use your critique time effectively if you have specific questions about audience response.

Just as when we workshop our writing within groups, vague value comments such as "the video is good" or "your editing was bad" don't really help the video's creator or the audience understand what you are critiquing.  Attempt to focus your comments and be as specific as possible when speaking.  It is  often more helpful to evaluate particular examples or techniques used in the video rather than attempting to evaluate the video as a whole.  In making comprehensive comments, consider commenting on how the editing, audio, light, etc. for the video as a whole piece works rather than making a general statement that the video "is really creative" or "works well."  Since this class explores the relationship between technological practice and their connection to the rhetorical communication of meaning, I highly encourage comments that discuss technological elements of the video in terms of what meaning(s) it communicates and how effectively it communicates them.

The possibilities for what we can discuss about a video during critiques are wide-ranging and they certainly best arise from the context of the video itself, but the following elements below are some topics you could potentially explore in your comments to your classmates:

- Sound considerations:  effectiveness of audio, quality of audio, meaning/relationship of audio to moving image (also considerations about how using popular music or lyrical music from another source may heavily influence the reception of meaning for the piece)

- Video Point of View:  how is it established through camera work and editing

- Awareness of the camera person:  situation of the video creator within or outside of the piece

- Framing/Composition of the Clips in the Video:  type of shots used and their effect in communicating meaning

- Use of Lighting:  its effect in establishing tone or mood of video; its relationship to clarity

- Use of Narrative, Linearity, or Non-Linearity in Video and its effect on meaning

Motif 1 Project

motif :: Part 1

prewriting and video due by the start of class Thursday 18 September
written justification due by the start of class Tuesday  23 September

mo·tif n
- a distinctive feature or dominant idea in an artistic or literary composition.
- an important and sometimes recurring theme or idea in a work of literature.
- a short prominent sequence of notes forming the basis for development in a piece of music.
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1) Edit video footage down to a one minute piece that communicates a clear motif - a theme that makes the piece feel organized and cohesive. The possibilities are infinite - they can be formal motifs (recurring shapes, repeating movement, head shots of people, etc) or conceptual motifs (for example, I created one called "women in the integrated circuit" about women working in the technology sector).

2) Create a section on your wordpress site for your motif project.  In this section, what writing will you compose around your motif to help you construct it and explain it to others?  Write a justification/explanation (see below) and at least one other kind of composition around your project (below are some ideas, but you are not limited to them).

[- Before shooting, you may want to compose a shot list or a brainstorm of possible motif ideas and what shots might accompany them.

- During or after shooting, you may want to journal about the shooting experience. This could range from general experiences to specific notes about what lighting, tripod, or shooting conditions worked or did not work for you.

- During editing, you may compose clip lists of the order you want your footage to appear.]

- After shooting, you will want to write a justification or explanation of your motif.  Focus on why you chose your motif and contextualize the motif within its broader conceptions. Also, identify some of the visual and auditory elements of your edited piece that exemplify the motif (perhaps focusing on the most or least successful moments in terms of what came out during class critique). 

Minimum length:  the equivalent of one, double-spaced page.

Video Sketch #1: Video Manifesto

We discussed in class last week some of the common features that manifestoes contain and share with one another.  Although a manifesto does not have to include all or any of these features, they are often most recognizable as manifestoes when they do. 

These features included,
- statements/sentences are short, often general, and usually declarative
- they state their intentions very clearly
- they are mostly opinion, research or other critical support to "back up" claims are not required or even featured prominently
- they may be descriptive in its claims about its particular topic, but they are also often prescriptive, in that they take a strong position or side about how one should view or interact with the particular topic at hand

Video Sketch #1:  Video Manifesto
For your first video project, create a short video (please don't feel required to go beyond one minute of production) that presents your manifesto for video.  In other words, use the medium of video to make a statement about what you think video should be doing at this particular moment in time.

Two questions may prompt the response contained within your video:
1)  What do you think video should be doing right now?
2)  What do you think is the role of videographer at this particular moment in culture (either conceived nationally or globally)?

Video sketches (of which you will complete three over the course of the semester) will be viewed by class, but, as sketches, we won't view or evaluate them in terms of their technical accomplishment.  Rather, we want to focus on the ideas presented and how the videomaker chose to present them in such a way.  Accordingly, you won't receive a letter grade for your individual sketches - rather I consider it (and the conversation our class has after viewing them) as part of your participation grade for the class.