International media collaboration!

International Media Collaboration- This phrase itself proclaims the importance and successful nature of social and multicultural collaboration, put beautifully in the vast world of media. When we speak about multicultural collabs, the first thing which comes in my knowledge is the vital role of understanding the different people from different countries and essence of working with each other on a professional level, as they are our clients. It can be a bit challenging to deal with people from different habitat, but this is what this course was all about. Edward Haul suggests 2 types of collaboration- High Context and Low Context. Here for this project we use the Low context collaboration. He says a low context collaboration is task-centered, involves decisions and activities which focus around what needs to be done. He also states that it uses wide networking, compartmentalized relationships and is consciously organized (Beer, 2007).

Semester 3 started with Matthew introducing the Kuona Trust based in Kenya which has been in the forefront from 1995 to help and develop visual art in the country. It is an epitome of providing platform to the creative artist who have great talents to show the world. It has over 1000 artist from all over the country who are working together for a better future of art in Kenya. I personally looked up all the artists the trust is involved with and found sheer brilliance in each in every one.

During the intensive lecture, we were supposed to pick an artist out if the 4 given artist, and my group found Dennis Muraguri as I best choice. On further research we realised that he has an extreme love for Matatus (a form of public transport in Kenya). This inspired me to look for beautiful things in broad communities.

Our task was to make a promotional video or a Documentary for the artists of the Kuona Trust. My group initially involved of 4 people, Warren, Eimhin, Adil and I, but Warren apparently opted out of the course in the middle of the semester.  We 3 were playing quite important roles, which we were interested in doing. I was the Producer and Later Director (After Warren Quit), Eimhin was the sound technician and Adil was the editor. In terms of the roles, all three of us did our job very well provided Eimhin and I were very busy later this semester with our internships and Job.

Pre-production:

The pre production stage begin with one of our initial group meetings after the lecture, where we made a rough timeline of how we were going to proceed in the coming semester. I as the producer emailed Lynnet so as to arrange a Skype call interview (more like a getting to know more about the artist informal talk). The purpose of this call was to get an idea of what we are going to deal with the whole semester. I started by introducing myself and the team and demonstrating what roles have we been allocated. I had a few questions in my mind to ask Dennis of how he really is, as a person, whether he is more of a quiet, aloof and on his own kind of person or he is more of a vibrant personality, talkative, loud and full of energy. Unfortunately, the moment we started having a conversation, I realised that we are having a communication gap as the questions we were asking were not delivered in a proper way to him. I assume a language barrier and a social barrier was the cause of this issue. We put our best efforts in procuring the most information and getting a slight insight into what Dennis as an individual was, but we experienced lack of interest in giving out the information. I guess, this was our first learning for this course. As an international collaboration, we can’t expect the client to totally understand our way of going forward with things.

After the skype call, we were a bit disappointed. We emailed Lynnet after a week about whether we could again get a chance to talk to Dennis. My strategy was that our group should understand how Dennis is in a day-to-day life such that we can allocate the mood of the documentary we would make. We did not obviously get a chance to skype call him again as he was busy with his schedule. Next stage of this project was to send Lynnet a bunch of questions we would like to ask Dennis for his formal interview which a cinematographer will shoot and send it through to us. 

Production:

Santa, a camera person did a phenomenal job in shooting the interview of Dennis and getting us the information we needed for the documentary. With the script of questions we had also asked Lynnet to send us some B-roles such as Dennis riding or observing Matatus, cycling (as he mentioned that apart from matatus, he enjoys cycling). We unfortunately couldn’t get the desired B-roles but we had a plan B for them. Nevertheless, the footage we acquired was brilliant for editing and we were sure that the outcome would come out phenomenal.

Matthew and Jenny, in the beginning of the semester had informed us that Sabine had some footage of Kuona Trust when she had visited Kenya. We were sure that we would find some usable footage from her.

Post Production:

Adil started editing the rough cut of all the footage we received from the Kuona Trust of the interviews conducted of Dennis. We struggled initially to download the footage, as it was a huge file. We started editing the footage and we realised that whilst the interview, the voice of the person asking the questions was not in a best shape. It was a bit quirky and was a bad quality sound. We the decided that instead of putting the voice of the interviewer, we will blackout the screen and present the question in form of text to the viewer. This results in 2 things, one, the bad quality sound is eliminated and second, the audience gets a nice hold of the question asked. Here, we also made sure that the audience in Kenya might suffer to understand our accent if we dubbed our voice for the questions. So text was the best solution. Searching for B-roles was a tough task. We relied on Sabine for them but couldn’t manage to get the desired results. She had some brilliant footage but not much could be of use to us.

Later in the next week, Adil presented the rough cut in the intensive which is literally rouch and was 9 minutes long. Matthew suggested us some great ideas to make the documentary better like-

1. Cutting down on the duration of the video from 9 minutes to 5.
2. Organise the B-roles and make the best use of the limited resources we had.
3. We used some pictures of Dennis in the end of the documentary which matthew suggested us to distribute along the doco and increase the music at that the time to increase the production value of the film.
4. We did initially repeat a B role given by Sabine, where Dennis was sewing a bunch of toys together to make an abstract art, matthew suggested to not repeat that.

In our first presentation we made a 9 minute video which we steadily cut down to 5 minutes including the credits. Whilst editing we did struggle from one major part, that in the middle of the interview, there were a few disturbances in the sound on both the channels which we weren’t able to reduce or take out. We managed to get some pictures of Matatus and Dennis from the Kuona Trust official website.

All in all we managed to develop a beautiful documentary which comprises of all what the artist Dennis seeks in his life. More than the final product the process of getting the bits and pieces together made me learn a lot about working with different kinds of people from different communities.  I have learned a few major things collaborating this semester internationally-

1. Your Client is the King!
2. You need to understand the intercultural sensitivity.
3. More than being technically correct, it’s importantly to be ethically correct when dealing with international clients!

 

References:

 

• Beer, J. (2007). High and Low context. [online] Culture-at-work.com. Available at: http://www.culture-at-work.com/highlow.html [Accessed 19 Oct. 2016].

 

 

Task 7: Media Convergence

In the world, there are more than 4 billion internet users and at least 3 billion users are very active on social media. Earlier it was mentioned as just a new techie thing which will fade in a few years but it has been proved to be wrong. Social media is currently the most powerful medium to reach people all over the country just by 1 digital touch. Today, all the big companies rely on social media so as to get a true feedback of their goodwill. Similarly, I as a producer am way to influenced by the charm of social media. I love the fact that everything is just on your fingertips. Since there are so many users, your product gets maximum coverage. It is the best instrument to connect with the consumers, views and also industry leaders. I think it all funnels down to how well do you use this device of social media. Twitter updates are the best way to receive feedbacks on your current module and make changes if necessary.

Nowadays, whatever we make, the main aspect we consider is to broadcast it well. I would in fact even say that sometimes the original concept changes such as to match the industry standards. It’s all about technology and when we say technology, how it entertains the audience. For example- Star Wars: The Force Awakens trailer received 1 million views in 15 minutes. It was all possible because of the connectivity of the social media around the world. Jeje’s concept of virtual reality intrigued me so much towards it because of its social media aspect. It is easily accessible, with almost no or minimum cost and provides unlimited entertainment to the viewer. Another important aspect is the Two-Way communication directly from the viewer to the maker. Social media also gives an opportunity for the smaller companies and projects to be heard out loud.
My upcoming digital narrative has been challenged widely by the social media since it is a virtual reality and can be accessed by one of the major social media websites- youtube and facebook. We also plan to make a dedicated website where more information about the diving techniques and other prospects will be covered.

Social media plays an important role in engaging the audience to the film and the filmmakers. ANd when we talk about the film industry, it’s all about who, where and how is listening to your story! With a smart approach and tactic we can improve the outcome of our project and put it into a spotlight.

Task 2: Digital Narrative Idea!

“Spinning Dates”

– By Anurit Patwardhan

 

Genre- Urban fantasy, Experimental non fiction

Introduction-

This real life nonfiction, ‘Spinning Dates’ is based on the journey of  2 protagonists, Luis and Shailly, who go online through various dating applications and websites finding their life partners. This journey could be put into conflict when they end up meeting different types of people also wanting to find a true match for themselves. This experience may or may not end the way they want it to be, but definitely will help them realise how difficult it is to find true love in this real world and how people face the challenges while exploring and dedicating their lives to the social media.

The focus of this short documentary will be to investigate the global facts of online dating where they claim that 61% of the adults have declared online dating to be easier and more beneficial way to meet people. (Datingsitesreviews.com, 2016). The key reason behind obtaining 2 protagonists, a male and a female, also tests the frequency of responses for the 2 sexes.

User Interactive-

The audience will be able to access this project through youtube links, vimeo links and also the website. The website will play a very pivotal role as it will have the marketing blurb of the project and also the facts and figures of online dating. It will have some research work (if available) regarding the online dating applications and websites. The audience can simply go to the website, which will directly open the link to the video and they can also read about it in the resources tab. The website will also have a small form to fill regarding their thoughts on online dating.

Size-

This nonfiction is earmarked is to be sized around 7-9 minutes. Making a short doco does reduce the volume of filming but also challenges to bring out the best in those 7 minutes. It provides crisp and edge-of-the-seat entertainment.

Market-

This nonfiction is based on social networking and online dating. Hence, the best platform to present it would be on the social networking sites like Facebook, Vimeo, Youtube. This documentary also targets the millennials (18-30 years old) which are best accessed through the social media websites. It is an experiment to capture the real life experiences hence, the best way to market it would be using same footage to create trailers, marketing blurbs and it’s own online website.

Documentation:

Why I chose this idea of Online dating for my documentary is because of my research on this topic. There have been a few documentaries which show the vast industry of Online Dating. CNBC took out a television show called Love at first byte, where the presenter reveals the life of the online daters and how successful they are in such type of dating (CNBC, 2016).

Maximum facts which will be covered in the story will be adapted by the online site- www.datingsitesreviews.com. They claim many such facts like, majorly the most attractive men approach maximum women, online; about 57% women and 21% men, experience mental and physical harassment through online dating; about 48% males and 27% females got approached by fake profiles online also 25% single males and females turn a one-night hookup into relationships (Datingsitesreviews.com, 2016).

HBO also came up with a web series about online dating called- When Strangers Clicked, where they showcase 5 different stories of couples who met each other via some or the other online dating websites (HBO, 2016).

Story World and Aesthetics-

This nonfiction strives to reveal the real-life experiences of Luis and Shailly where they will meet different people, share dates and try to find the special one in their life. The setting of the whole film will have late night outdoor restaurant scenes with candle light dinners, soft ambient music and some urban romance. Starting off with introducing the protagonists and their backgrounds, them going online finding matches, going on dinners and lunches and followed by protagonist’s interviews and their date’s interviews where they will share their experiences. This nonfiction will be of the present time constituting of one week in the summer 2017 (since, we will produce it next year), references will be made about the current affairs and the production design, costumes and sets will be accordingly set.

Reference-

1. Datingsitesreviews.com. (2016). Online Dating Statistics & Facts – Dating Sites Reviews. [online] Available at: http://www.datingsitesreviews.com/staticpages/index.php?page=Online-Dating-Industry-Facts-Statistics [Accessed 2016].

Task 3: Branching video

Hey all!
This is my new video. Here Nikhil returns back from college and has to decide what next to do… Should he cook food?? or watch films??

Task 1: Digital Narrative Analysis

Hollow: An interactive documentary

Story elements:

Events: Hollow- is an interactive web documentary that focuses on the issues of losing population day-by-day through an eye of a person living in the Southern West Virginia. It is a story of McDowell County, W, VA which is famous for a place where more people leave than stay. It is a beautiful interactive non fiction which takes the viewer to the the actual world and places you with the 30 documented people, currently residing there. It starts with the history of McDowell County, when in 1960s, the population started decreasing by every second from 100,000 to barely 20,000. It shows pictures, paper cuttings and videos of the challenges it faced during that time. Everything was destroyed. The Pocahontas Theatre caught fire in 1978, the oldest US steel processing plant came down in 1980s, 1,200 jobs were lost, Bank of Keystones quoted missing assets of $515,000,000. The poverty rate increased to 37.7 per cent and drug abuse increased by 200%. It also signifies the massive floods in 2000 and 2001, also when the population came down to 30,000 only. The documentary has 6 parts to it-

1. The way it was
2. These roots
3. For each other
4. For the land
5. When coal was king
6. Around the Bend.

All these parts have an inclusive of about 30 documentaries of the people currently living there. They share their experiences and how they faced the challenge and came out of it. i t involves beautiful soundscapes, portraits, visuals, etc.

Actors: All the actors in this documentary are the locals living in the country. They have been documented such that the viewer gets an idea of how the residents have managed to cope up with the issues and how they sustained themselves in their rough patches.

Time: It is a rollercoaster ride which starts from the early 1940s and continues to the present. There have been honourable mentions of the future when the locals talk about the life they want their kids to have in this country.

Place: The setting is all bases in the Southern West Virginia’s McDowell County which was once the biggest producer of coal in US. When talking about the past, they have taken newspaper cuttings and old visuals.

Narrative elements:

Ordering: All the events in this doco occur in a chronological manner. It starts from 1940s and ends in the present. All the incidents of demolishing of the country are presented by well written facts and figures. Flashbacks, White and Black show reels are shown so as to give the feel of the 20th Century.  

Pace: This 45 minutes documentary (including the interviews) is pretty fast paced. It involves all aspects of emotions as well as facts and figures and conveys them in only 45 minutes.

Focalisation:  The viewer is brought to the homeland of the locals speaking about their lives in the country. It educates the viewer and henceforth uses the powerful tool of interactivity when the user can feel he/she is living the world from the character’s eyes.

Narrator: The main narrator is outside the country. He takes the audience with him to the destroyed land of McDowell County . He tries to speak for the people. To whatever he narrates is followed by powerful images, sound, music, videos etc. I think it adds more weight to the speech. There is also a speech by John F Kennedy from June 20, 1963 where he talks about how everybody including him is working towards making this country a better place to live.

Text: It is an interactive documentary. All the text used is graphically presented and narrated.

Traditional narrative features:

Linearity: It is a non linear non fiction but still has the traditional linearity as the story starts from the history of McDowell County from 1940s and ends in the present time. All the incidents are projected on a linear basis such that the viewer has a good grasp of the past of this country.

Series of conflicts that leads to a climax and resolution: There are many incidents, that puts this country in a conflict, like Burning of the Pocahontas Theatre, Steel plant closing down, Financial loss, Poverty, Drug Abuse, Floods, Lack of resources from 1970s to 2002 respectively.

Protagonist and antagonist: Protagonist of this doco is none other that the residents of the country. The antagonist is the conflict raised in the country which has made many lives suffer.

Three-act structure:

Act 1: Beginning – The diminishing history of the country. The past analysis.

Act 2: Middle- How the locals suffered this issue. How the life of the human being was on a risk.

Act 3: End- How the locals coped up with the mess. How they see their future and the next generations to come.

Heroe’s journey: The heroes are the witnesses of the calamity happened to the country. The 30 people documented are the heroes. The makers of the doco, show the life of a local there and how these people made their ways out of it.

Digital narrative features:

Numerical coding and Modularity: It is an interactive video. It needs a big team for graphics, sound, developers, editors etc. So I am sure the coding and modularity of the video is high.

Variability: It is an interactive video. The user can choose what to see and at what pace to move forward. The story of the country remains the same, so not much of a variable texture is given to the documentary.

Programmed elements: There were many programmed elements used like the user interactivity of scrolling the years down to know what happened in a linear motion. Many maps, animated visuals and characters are used.

Participatory aspects: It is a brilliant documentary in terms of user participation. It gives the user a free hand to skip or watch a desired documentary, flexibly move forward from 1940s to 2000s just through a scroll. I loved the participatory aspects of this interactive documentary.

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED TO ALL MY VIEWERS!

Task 5: Audience analysis

I wanted to make the non fiction spinning dates but after the presentation, nichole and I decided to collaborate with Jeje for her project, A bubble journey. So I will be doing the audience analysis for our new project- A Bubble Journey.

Q: Why are you creating this story? Goals, rationale, purpose, premise? What do you want your audience to experience or understand?

A: The ocean is vulnerable. What we do or don’t do will make a difference. As individuals, kids can make a difference.. Always start with somebody, an individual. It might as well be a kid (Cool Australia, 2013).

A bubble journey is an edultainment media which includes real life simulation. It will start off with a virtual walkthrough which will guide the viewers on how to experience this virtual reality. It provides a visual platform of the underwater life for the user to prevail over where fear of the open and wild sea and also it helps indulge them into something they have always missed out on. Another purpose of this project is to clear out miss conceptions regarding the sea life. Philip Linder quotes “There is no difference between real fear and virtual fear….The great thing about virtual reality is that you have the opportunity to recreate a real situation and expose yourself to something you expect to be stressful. And by staying in that situation, that discomfort begins to ease. Virtual reality is often used in Exposure Therapy where research proves it is an effective way to get rid of fears. There is even a new research on whether shorter exposures will help people experience fun things that they have previously missed out on and create motivation to change”.

Q: What is your story? In what way will it be original, surprising, human, passionate, truthful or relevant to your audience?

A: This adventurous virtual reality expereience has users as there protagonist who will expereince the story line stepping into the first person shoe. They will feel their physical presence in the real environment through their own fin moment, which is in the digital narrative is called the fourth wall. It does not have a particular story line but it includes beautiful exterior open sea visuals. The mood of the story will be brightly lit, with colorful reef, white sand, snorklers and divers. This is the non linear narrative that suggests virtual simulations of an abstract and light entertainment. It s in full relevance to the young demographic who have a fear of water or have very little underwater sea experience. It also includes sound effects (such as water bubbles, breathing etc), friendly and encouraging voiceovers and wonderful diving instructors.

Q:Where will you publish your story? What platform/s and hardware are suited to your audience? E-books, blogs, videos, photos, podcasts, tweets, status updates, apps, games, forums, websites?

A: This is an interactive virtual reality and shall be published on Youtube and Facebook  since they are free and easily accessible with 360 degree metadata. The audience either needs a VR tool like a google cardboard or a Samsung Gear VR or can access it through their smartphones on a 360 degree view.

Q: Who is your audience? Who is your target viewer/user – i.e. the group you will target in promoting the work?

A: There are 2 sets of audience which are targeted in this non linear media, first and the major ones being the young demographic- from 8 years to 16 years, and the second group will be the parents or guardians of the above mentioned group. We also earmark the kids who have a potential fear of water and have no or limited experience of the sea life.

Q: When will you create the content and start to engage your audience? What is the production process and publishing schedule?

A: We have already started the pre production of the project. Jeje is looking after the audio visual, Nichole and I are doing the market research and aspects of marketing. We have planned to give extra efforts to the pre production as we will finalize the cast, shooting schedule and other personnel. We will be starting our production soon after the 4th semester starts. Expected production time will be for about 1 week inclusive of all exterior shoots with experienced divers and snorkelers. Maximum time will be allotted to the post production as there are high technical skills required in terms of editing and specially colour correction.

Q: How will your audience participate in the narrative? Will they be able to contribute to the narrative, alter the narrative, respond to the narrative?

A: In this project, its all about the user interaction. The audience itself is the main character or the protagonist. As it will be majorly viewed on youtube, the viewer will have 2 options- either the Cardboard view (immersive view) or the 360 degree view. They can respond to the video by commenting on it. We may also make a Q & A section where they can know more about the topic as well as the developers.

Reference:

1. Cool Australia, h. (2013). Interview With Sylvia Earle, Oceanographer – Cool Australia. [online] Cool Australia. Available at: http://www.coolaustralia.org/interview-with-sylvia-earle-oceanographer/ [Accessed 25 Sep. 2016].

Task 4: Narrative Flowchart

Hey guys, this is the narrative flowchart for the non fiction, ‘Spinning Dates’.

Anurit Patwardhan- Showreel

Hello Guys, This is my production showreel!

 

 

Anurit Patwardhan- CV

Hey Guys, This is my detailed resume. Have a go!

anurit-patwardhan-cv

Prompt 6- Achieving my goals!

“I’ve always found that anything worth achieving will always have obstacles in the way and you’ve got to have that drive and determination to overcome those obstacles on route to whatever it is that you want to accomplish’’(BrainyQuote, 2016).

As I started this semester, I had a few objectives in my head like- Handful of new skills and expertise in a few already explored, a short fiction movie produced by me, a good working group of friends, and a powerful portfolio to look forward. But what I have accomplished is something way more than I expected. Not just my checklist but also in addition, I made a successful documentary, learned technical aspects of production like lighting, camera and sound, which I always struggled for and of course, a good team of students to work with.  I always wanted to excel in editing and I think I have come another step ahead to reach my dream. Thanks to all my tutors specially Louise and Patrick for giving me this opportunity!
Reference-

1. BrainyQuote. (2016). Chuck Norris Quotes at BrainyQuote.com. [online] Available at: http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/c/chucknorri332509.html?src=t_achieving [Accessed 10 Jun. 2016].