Narrative 2

I've looked at the following two sites to identify any narrative being used:

http://www.nike.com

In this website, I had to first select a country/language. Then number of graphical image appears on the screen, allowing the user to select different information. I think this uses categorical form- as each event doesn't contingent. This websiteis rather simple, mostly useing images to advertise the products. Though some sections do contain some texts, but seem to show rather personal (as the sentence starts with 'I')-thus I find this as an authorial point of view.

http://www.cocacola.com

Similar to the Nike website, this one also starts with selecting a country by simply clicking on the world map. But this website contains different information on different country. So unlike Nike website, the layout and the events differs depending upon which country the user select. At the beginning, I thought this is also using categorical form but perhaps this is more towards syntactic form. Although each country contains different events and each of these doesn't relate to one another, they are more organized in a way that seemed to guide the user quite well.

Narrative studies

I should have written this on to the blog long ago, but since i have problems connecting to the internet, i've finally had a chance to write my learnings from last weeks classes:

16th of October:
We were all split in a big group (Group A,B and C) to produce a story based on the objects that we as an individual has found on the street. Writing an instilation piece on the random objects on the street (i.e. mostly garbage) was hard to make and the biggest problem was we were in the big group, so it was hard to communicate with one another. The first thing we did was to pass around a piece of paper, each writing down what object each has found. After that we were in a big circle and has started to build a story. What we have come up was a journey that the viewer can experience through the random objects (that we found on the street), making this on a touch screen so that the user can easilly take on a journey depending upon which object chosen.
After we've decided on the main concept, we had to make them into reality (i.e. as a finished piece of work), so we then broke down to smaller groups and split the task. One group (4~5 people): were making dialogs and writings-basically writing the story in detail, another group was in charge of taking photos, and the last group creates the whole power point presentation.
I think we were doing fairly good in terms of dividing the groups and giving tasks.

19th of October:
In Narrative 1 class, we were divided in a small group of 4. Then we were each given a theme (which we weren't allow to tell the other groups) and we had to make a short film based on the theme given. We were to proof Jools's theory of us having a basic understandinf of using camera and the knowledge of showing the message across to the viewer, without having to learn technical knowledge. Our group was given a theme: 'Fighting compulsion'. So we did a short film of the students drinking alcohol and smoking but strying to resist (addiction), and eating sweets or doing lottery..etc.
I really enjoyed this seminar, it was really fun as we were co-operating really well and was a good team work. We got to think and share ideas and taking in each of the ideas and making them into a short film. After making the short film, we all looked at other short films made by other groups and wrote some feedback. The feedback that we got from other groups was useful and was helpful to know what the viewer found or thought through looking at the short film.
The importance of this exercise was: to be able to communicate, how to bring the message across, controlling the elements, understanding how to deliver information to the viewer.

Short Film

Short film= any film that has a duration longer than 1min and shorter than 15mins.

Website below is a short film that i've found on internet:

http://www.depict.org/cgi-bin/WebObjects/Depict.woa/wa/representation?object=5403

The key event shown here is the view from the glass elevator at the Marriott Marquis hotel in New York. The rise of each floor, reaching to the high sky gives us the feeling of going to 'heaven'. The director of this film, Myriam Thyes is trying to say that we are all aiming or looking for something that is high up. (e.g. achievements, wealth, holy figure or divine, and status) and this can be viewed by anyone, no blood, no fire, nothing affective.

The way the camera is looking outside gives the viewer feel as if he/she is actually in that glass elevator, which I think clearly gives what the director is trying to show. But the music we hear throughout this film doesnt really suit the view. Since the music is more like a horror or unpleasant type of sound, it gives a scary atmosphere.

There are no major importance in using a character in this film, as the view from the escalator gives enough meaning as to how we all want to drive for high things. By finishing the film with the view of a god-like statue (high up in the building) illustrates the feeling of 'heaven'.

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