Ways of Being: The Spectator and the Spectacle

A seven month research project that operated alongside the orchestration of EYES and which culminated in my undergraduate theoretical dissertation: Ways of Being: The Spectator and the Spectacle.

The paper was praised for its originality, progressive thinking and received the highest mark that has ever been awarded to a Film and Screen Studies dissertation at Bath Spa University; as well as being awarded the Media Futures Research Award!

As my guiding tutor and primary marker, Dr Suman Ghosh, commented: "The mark of 85 is an exceptional mark, rarely awarded, and only to work of exceptional quality. I am pleased to say that both examiners agreed that this was the case with your work."Additionally, the Head of the Film and Media Department, Dr Terence Rodgers, commented that: "This is certainly one of the best FL dissertations I have read for many a year".

The paper is a consideration of the epistemological, ontological and metaphysical downfalls of film theory’s understandings of the spectator and the spectacle; with particular emphasis directed towards the neurobiological implications of the spectator’s body.

The thesis argues that these shortcomings are representative of wider ranging issues of complacency engulfing the film industry and film exhibition as a whole. Furthermore, the fundamental disruptions of the digital upgrade of cinema, and the expanding means through which film content can be experienced, are explored in relation to the pressing need for film theory to reassess itself.

Drawing on a plethora of empirical and non-empirical research, the dissertation is a highly progressive expression of how film experience has always been about transcendence and, as a result of its digital re-birth and diversifications, it is now becoming even more so. 

Other materials pertaining to the project can be viewed in this Google Drive folder.

On top of EYES and my other final year projects, getting Ways of Being up to the standard I wanted was a tall and exhausting order!

 
As a result of my enthusiasm for the project, I unearthed so much data that the first draft I wrote warranted a request for a larger word count submission. As such, the primary content I eventually submitted totalled just fewer than 15,000 words, with the Appendix and other supplementary material bringing the overall word count to 30,000 words! Furthermore, I still had additional ideas and data that would have allowed me to write more!

This research project had a huge influence on EYES and vice versa; in fact, I refer to EYES as being the practical expression of what I explored in Ways of Being. I believe the high marks both projects were awarded are testament to their mutually beneficial relationship to one another.

As of June 2013, the research started in this project is ongoing and I am building a website to host it: www.ways2interface.com. I have been very fortunate to stumble into an area that is not receiving much research interest and I am very keen to build up a network of interested parties to change this. Therefore, please contact me if this is an area of interest.

EYES Facebook Page

Quite early on in the development of EYES, I made of point of getting the project's social presence established; my thinking was to use the social platforms to work for the project. However, I underestimated how much time and forethought a successful ongoing social media marketing campaign would require. Therefore, the twitter account and more so the facebook page have fallen by the wayside.

EYES Facebook Page

If you're reading this then you should like the Facebook page!

However, now that the project is coming to a close I am actively changing that; my thinking now is that the social media platforms can work for the projects after it is completed, if I put a little bit of work into them every now and then. Over the past two years I have learnt a great deal about the Internet through my participation in it with my blogs and my overall online identity. Now, I feel that I am in a better position to effectively exploit the reach of the EYES social media profiles. My reasoning for making the entirety of the EYES project available online via this blog/portfolio is so that I can share it with other people and expand its audience.

Useful Resources

While I was orchestrating the EYES project, the following resources were invulable in helping me achieve the project's success. I would highly recommend each of them!

The writer's guide to making a digital living

IPF Marketing Guide: How to Build and Audience for your Web Series

ReelSEO - The Online Video Marketing Guide

Getting Started in Transmedia Storytelling

Visual Storytelling: The Digital Video Documentary

Directing the Documentary

Directing: Film Techniques and Aesthetics

The Filmmaker's Handbook: A Comprehensive Guide for the Digital Age

The Digital Filmmaking Handbook: The Definitive Guide to Digital Filmmaking

Vimeo Video School

Youtube Creators

EYES Vlog Update 23 - Influences and Intuition

Updated Blog/Portfolio Banner Graphic

The updated blog/portfolio banner graphic.

As I am in the process of bringing this project to its conclusion, I have updated to the banner to include slightly more information than was on the first one. I believe all the information I have included on this new banner graphic is enough to get any new visitors off and running in relation to what the EYES project entails. It still retains the slightly disjointed aesthetic of the previous banner, as this dis-jointed aesthetic is an integral component of the entire EYES web series concept. As I was not able to build a separate website to act as the project portfolio, the blog now fulfills that purpose and, as such, the banner graphic has also become a hybrid of the 'EYES Web Series' and 'EYES of a Storyteller' components and identities. Ultimately, I am pleased with this result.

I did also receive some feedback that the banner graphic was too tall and occupied too much of the screen; therefore, making it difficult to tell when a new page on the blog had loaded, because the graphic appears on the header of each page. While I did try to re-crop the image, it remains (mostly) the same dimensions because compositionally it just did not work any other way. In this case, I have reverted to and trust the photographer mindset I employed when I first photographed this self-portrait back in October 2012. However, to counter the problem of someone not being sure as to whether the page has changed, I have included "scroll down to find out more" in the bottom left hand corner, as an incentive and reminder to scroll down.

The previous blog/portfolio banner graphic.

Rise: A Reflection on Being Enterprising

What follows is essentially my final reflection or plea, if you like. I have put a great deal of work into this project and its holds a great deal of content. I will now allow it to speak for itself.

My attitude this year can best be summed up in the following image.

'Deshi Basara' means Rise.

I would also like to take this opportunity to direct your attention to a resource that has had a huge impact on the project and changed the way in which I think about storytelling as a whole and my attitude towards making a living from that venture.

Synopsis:

The writer's guide was developed through the Australia Council's Story of the Future project to explore the craft and business of writing in the digital era. It includes case studies from Australia's rising generation of poets, novelists, screenwriters, games writers and producers who are embracing new media and contains audio and video content from seminars and workshops, as well as extensive references to resouces in Australia and beyond.

The Writer's Guide

The Writer's Guide has been my bible while undertaking this module and formulating EYES.

Another resource that as had some impact on the project and my thinking in storytelling in general is Getting Started in Transmedia Storytelling. While the guide's strong emphasis on transmedia is not something that I have completely incorporated into my project (it was a strong component in the initial planning stages), you will see that it has still had an impact on my vision for the EYES web series. 

While my approach can be considered slightly messy, it is highly intricate and progressive.

By understanding the fundamental influences these guides have had on my thinking, you should be able to understand my intentions for the EYES project and my personal approach to the business aspects of the Creative Enterprise Project module.



 
My iPad ran out of memory while recording this, hence why it suddenly cuts off. However, I feel that it says enough and acts as a good introduction to what I have done artistically with EYES...



 
...as well as my intentions for doing so, from an enterprising point of view.




Collected in the notebook below are the online resources I've looked at in an effort to improve my professional image in relation to the module.


This seven month experience has been utterly exhausting, but undoubtedly rewarding!
 

My enrollment in the CEP module has been out of a desire for self-improvement.

I believe I have risen a great deal in the last seven months.

The End User: Target Audience Considerations

As I've noticed that the Creative Enterprise Project module has a strong emphasis on target audience, I felt that it would be good for me to present what I feel is the target audience for EYES and the research/reasoning that helped me deduce this.

As I said in the vlog, I term my target audience as being in the 'mostly young adult' demographic (mid teen - pushing through the 30s). 

To understand the type of content I am trying to create for that target audience, see Rough Cut 2 - Reflective Commentary.

Below are the research and resources I spoke about in the vlog. These were invaluable in helping understand what a target audience is, how to identity one and how to create content designed for a target audience. 

ReelSEO - The online marketing guide. This is quite literally a toolbox for young creatives like myself.

IPF Marketing Guide: How to Build an Audience for Your Web Series - a step-by-step guide for doing just that. However, the time window of the module would not allow me to follow the guide through and through, but the guide has made for good referencing in times of need. 

Here are links to the two television shows I mention in the vlog: Twin Peaks and Being Human.

EYES Facebook Group

For the project I knew that I needed a single location where I could keep it relatively organised and keep the other members in the loop as to what was happening. I have found in the past that when all the members are not kept in the loop it can lead to problems and, certainly, I think this is one of the main problems Matt's organisation of Remember This suffered from!

However, a Facebook group seemed like a safe bet, as I had been part of a Facebook group for my second year short film submission and I had found it to be a highly useful communication tool. Another great thing about Facebook is that everybody is always on it, which means that I would be able to reach people fairly quickly and get replies just as swiftly. 

The EYES Facebook Group.

EYES Facebook Group

As I knew whatever I ended up doing as part of the Creative Enterprise Project module would require a great deal of my time and energy, I created the group on the 10/10/2013 and the group been continuously active since then! 

Initially the only people in the group were Matt Coot (co-producer), Letitia Ringshaw (Production Assistant, 'Ella') and myself. It was only after Christmas that I added Mykell Elledge ('Boris'), Claire Rowbotham ('Lianne'), Daniel Tapper (Sound Designer) and Kate Pullinger (my project tutor). 

The group members.

Before Christmas the posts and discussions in the group largely consisted of ideas I had for my project and online resources I had come across. If you want to see how the EYES Web Series evolved from a very vague notion into the web series concept proposal it is now, then look in the Facebook Group (and on this blog). I would say that I have done more communicating and organising via this group than I have done in the real world!

The group has a search function - the magnifying glass next to notifcations and the settings button!

I believe my use of the EYES Facebook Group is also the reason why my multitasking skills have improved, as I would often be communicating via the Facebook Group while
simultaneously doing other tasks. The group has also enabled the whole project to be much more collaborative for all involved and if you want solid evidence of where I have been enterprising in my project then the Facebook Group is a solid bet!

I consider the EYES Facebook Group to hold just as much weight as this blog and, as such, the Facebook Group forms appendix materials. 

Online Presence: The Other Online Profiles of EYES

Pretty much close to November time I started pushing EYES online to spread its presence to build up a preliminary following. The IPF Marketing Guide was really the influence behind this use of other online platforms and my initial plan was to use the other online platforms as precursors to the website. Ultimately, I think I was too premature and ambitious because the other online profiles have largely gone to rot. However, the EYES twitter account still gets the occasional seeing too, as does the Facebook page. 

Below are links to the other online profiles for EYES.

Twitter
Facebook page

Pinterest

Google+ page
YouTube

EYES Pilot - Rough Cut 2 - Reflective Commentary

Mock-up: A Trailer to Sell the Idea

The EYES mock-up trailer was a component I was very keen to implement into the project, as I felt it would help to strenghten the overal presentation of EYES being a web series proposal package.



The purpose of a mock-up trailer is akin to Kickstarter campaign video - to get funding!

Black Dynamite is a comedy homage to the Blaxploitation films of the 1970s, the film was released in 2009. Below is the original mock-up trailer followed by the trailer made from the finished film.

 

 


Prototype is a film currently in production thanks to the funding its mock-up trailer managed to secure. 



Below is the initial vision I had for the EYES trailer material:

EYES Season 1 Trailer - This will be produced and exhibited online and two versions will be produced: a standalone one (2 mins), that would feature footage from the Pilot, and one to fit on the end of the Pilot (30 secs). I'm keen to do this because it would allow me to hint at what happens in the rest of the first season and would demonstrate that EYES has a story that can continue beyond the Pilot. Producing a mock-up trailer is also a very current concept and demonstrates an understanding of advertising and a completely different style of editing. My plan is to write a trailer script based upon the treatments of the other season 1 episodes and then film this footage alongside the Pilot. Likewise, the two edits of the trailer will be edited during the same period of the Pilot.

Overall, the development of the trailer really just suffered from lack of time and my inability to invest any real attention into it, as I said in the vlog it became apparent to me that it would require an equal amount of time as the Pilot.

The Trailer was something I was very keen to do.

I had many Ideas for the trailer, its contents would have been comprised of snipet-scenes of significant turning points in the first season. However, this plethora of material was part of the problem - I just didn't have the time to sit down to work my way through these ideas and structure them into a form that was aesthetically pleasing. You can read all that exists of the script here.

The trailer would have opened with something like this.

More time would also have been required to insure that everything that was in the trailer synced up with what was in the Pilot episode. This is was even more problematic when you consider that I was rewriting the Pilot at the same time. Therefore, on top of the Fencing documentary and my dissertation, I think I made the right choice in disbanding the trailer.

However, after we completed production, Daniel (EYES' sound designer) put the following video together to showcase some sound design he had done and to demonstrate a possible idea for a teaser trailer.

While a trailer created from the Pilot's footage did interest me, it was something I felt I wouldn't have time to do and I have been proved right. Ultimately, a trailer was an embellishment too far and something that will have to be tried another time.

Video-centric: The EYES Website (that nearly was)

Initially the EYES web series concept proposal was going to be hosted on an original website that would demonstrate the EYES web series franchise presence on the internet and how it would engage with my intended target audience.

 

As I knew building an original website would take up a considerable amount of my time, I started work on it back in November. Following a meeting with the University's Publishing Lab, I invested in a domain name eyeswebseries.com (and got another one free eyeswebseries.co.uk) and a web hosting package through 1&1, it was a special offer package that gave me 6 months free if I signed up for a year.

My original 'Video-centric' plan sketch for the website.

However, due to my other work commitments and devoting the whole of the Christmas break to researching my dissertation, I was not able to devote any substantial time to the website before Christmas. Therefore, the actual building of my website did not begin until the end of January. In addition to hosting through 1&1, I started to build my website on Wordpress.org using a wordpress theme I had purchased on themeforest.net.

The way that I kept describing  my vision for the website was 'video-centric' and, as such, the design of the website would need to place the pilot episode and other video content at its center, as the episodes of the web series is its primary content. While searching for website templates to use, one in particular caught my eye. 'This way' is a theme that epitomises the term 'video-centric'. 

I was always prepared to invest some money into the website.

Below are images of the template's operations as a demonstration website. 

 

'This Way' enables video content to be the body of the website.

As shown above a video is the background of the website.

It has a playlist function that gives the template a Blu-ray main menu feel. 

It has a popout menu, again adding to the Blu-ray menu feel.

Other pages/sections of the website appear as modules over the main video.
Again, like a Blu-ray main menu.

The template's are customisable.

I saw the EYES concept working very well within the 'This Way' theme! The whole aesthetic of the 'This Way' template and its alignment with my video-centric stance was something I really liked. 

A Blu-ray menu with the film playing in the background.

The Blu-ray menu feel of its presentation ensures that the content is always playing and always present; this has an awful lot in common with my vision for the narrative of EYES as being cognitive and something that is continuously very active and always moving. Also, It would have nicely fulfilled the marking criteria for my website:

Website: show good awareness of target audience through the site design; website design should reflect the content of the project, so that the two things work together to tell a story.

Below are slideshows of the some of the Posters and Visual Design Elements I prepared for the project and which would have been incorporated into the website. These images together with the images of the 'This Way' theme should give some idea of what the eventual website would have looked like. 

Additionally, I have some items stored in my EYES Website notebook.





Ultimately, the reason why I was not able to complete the website was due to problems installing the 'This Way' theme into wordpress. I spent a great deal of time trying to solve this problem on my own; when that didn't work, I contacted the chap who made the 'This Way' theme via his forum. He was able to provide me with instructions for how to fix the problem, but it would have required a great deal of re-coding and time that I didn't have. Therefore, I believe I took the right decision in abandoning the website. It was an instance where an element wasn't working in the current paradigm - therefore, I discontinued it. 

However, I did briefly toy with trying to build a simpler website from a free wordpress theme, to fill in for the 'This Way' website. 

This is closer to my original sketch for the website.

Again, though, I abandoned this concept because I was having trouble changing the mechanics of what is essentially a basic blog template into something that is closer to being video-centric. While I was able to engineer this particular theme to look something like my original website sketch, I was not able to make the operations of the website work the way I wanted them to function. Again, this would have required a great deal of coding!


While the loss of the EYES website is disappointing, ultimately, it has worked out rather well. Firstly, I haven't yet completed a final cut of the Pilot and I'm not going to showcase a rough cut on a fully polished website! Secondly, I can use my web hosting package to build a website for myself! This is actually something that I've been wanting to do for a while and something I had put in my initial submission of the EYES Planning Portfolio: 


Professional Profile - This is not something I have to necessarily get marked on but it would be a nice side result of my project. At the moment, I have various online profiles scattered about all over the place and I've always wanted to make an About.Me style hub page that I could integrate all of my other profiles into. Basically, an online CV/professional identity page that would go beyond and be more personal than a LinkedIn profile. Providing I pull it off, EYES and the CEP module would act as a nice testimonial to all the skills I am going to flaunt on this page.


Therefore, the website has a longevity that will persist beyond my participation in this module and, surely, that is the point of the module!

EYES Vlog Update 13: The End of the Website?

EYES Vlog Update 16: Target Audience

The Truth about Online Content

Came across this while I was doing some research for my dissertation and it certainly made for an interesting watch. It only goes to show that the online content definitely has a future. It is also encouraging to know that an audience is much more accessible via online means, opposed to having to promote  project and source your audience from the real world.