video creation.....a BIG FAT collage!

Howdy! Hope all is well in blogger land :D A note about the video in my previous post...

If you have never created a video before let me tell you, it is SO FUN! Although it can take a lot of time there is a system to it, as I am learning, and if you are a seasoned internet surfer you are already one step ahead of the gang. I learned in the process of making this video that having background knowledge about the internet and its wealth of knowledge can make collecting materials a tad bit easier. I have also learned that my issues with being verbose definitely carry over into video world...I found creating detailed story boards (with paper and pencil ;P) to be very helpful. For some videos it may work to just start putting things together but my personal experience was that I spent a lot of time looking with nothing to guide my search. It does help, of course, to browse the internet and other sources for materials that are available prior to the storyboard because it will give you ideas and hopefully spark something grand ;) Browsing (and collecting while you do so) is also great for loading your arsenal of amazing things to piece together your message with; something that you find interesting but you think may not be useful could very well be...you just don't know it yet! Other than technological issues (e.g. lighting & organization) these were the main things I took from this draft. Most importantly, allow the video to ebb & flow as you go through the process...keeping rigid guidelines will only hold you back!

This particular video is the first part of a larger more comprehensive video looking at theory (i.e. symbolic interactionism, looking glass self, and media ecology), development of technology/media, impact of written media and the history of anonymity as an aesthetic ideal and a cultural motif. With this first part I was hoping to shed light on the fact that symbols are more than we tend to think they are, from complex to simple, symbols are how we create our world. Understanding symbols in this role is essential to understanding everything else in my video. We communicate through symbols, construct our identities through symbols and since symbols are subject to interpretation there are endless possibilities for the creation of "the self" and how others respond to it. Enjoy*

What I'll do differently? For the final I will cut down this part on symbols, leaving enough to emphasize my point of course ;) I would also clean up the images and make them flow a little better, using the timing to highlight parts of the message (which I kinda did here but now that it's done I see room for improvement :) The "Lego scene" will have to be shot again due to the low quality most likely caused my bad lighting. When I shoot it again I will have better organization skills and hopefully a bigger table so that there is some consistency with how objects enter and exit (this will also for better effects when editing). The audio is in need of much help...the two main things are that I need to come up with a delivery method that doesn't sound so scripted (there are lots of quotes I was reading) and I need to incorporate verbiage using the word symbol so that the first part is better connected to this part. Any other suggestions kids?

THANKS!

"a digital ethnography of everything!"

(get it..."a digital ethnography of everything" because everything is a symbol and symbols are everything? taahaa!)*

video script to the best of my ability ;)

As indicated by my previous post, a new dimension has been added to my project piece...THEORY! woohoo \(^o^)/ This is definitely exciting because I love theory and find it essential to understanding anthropological works (amongst many other things ;) and I am happy to see that our project will now have this valuable component. While at the same time I am a tad bit overwhelmed at picking up such a loaded topic more than half way through the semester. As of right now I am currently undertaking two tasks simultaneously (i.e. gaining a better understanding of the relevant theories while at the same time determining how to share them through video format...with a vast audience...comprised of varying backgrounds). What I have included in this post is an extremely rough draft of where I see this video heading as of now. It lacks the details of a typical video sketch but it is my hope that it still paints a picture of the approach I am taking; keeping in mind it is difficult for me to know what imagery I want to use right now because I don't have a firm grasp on all of the theories just yet.

A quick note to help you make sense of my video sketch: Basically what I have been doing is gathering as much data as possible regarding the theories I'm covering (i.e. "looking glass self" & media ecology) as well as other relevant data such as historical references to anonymity as an "aesthetic ideal" and a "cultural motif". I have been toggling between this and gathering tools to make the video. Ranging from a multitude of audio/video clips, sound effects, music, and the like I hope to compile a video that pulls from these different areas (and more) to present each message in the most effective way possible. It is my intention to pool as many of these resources as possible so that over the next couple weeks I can manipulate it in a fashion that is well suited for my project piece.

Introduce "Symbolic Interactionism"

• As an opening scene this section will be colorful, energetic, and move quickly (but not too quickly ;)
• Taken directly from the three bullet points in the previous post under the "symbolic interactionism" heading.
• Using well known concepts of symbols prominent in Western culture (e.g. good/bad, ketchup/mustard, smiley face, heart, @ symbol, green check marks/red X's, etc.) I want to highlight this concept at the beginning here so the rest of my project piece, especially the theory, is not done in vain.
• A short portion of my project piece, this will be represented by the audio/image/video that I am able to find to support the message. I will be looking for audio/imagery/video that is playful and can present the message in a light hearted way, before I hit them with the theory.
  
• The lead in to the next section will go something like this: "Our communication and understanding of the world through symbols penetrates every aspect of our lives, we can't escape it. One area that is most relevant to us is how we use it to communicate with others. This has a host of implications that are often overlooked in the buzz of our every day lives."
  

Cooley's "Looking Glass Self"
Mead's "The Self As A Social Emergent"

• These two sections will be demonstrated using the common craft style so that the profoundness of the message does not get lost within the media presenting it
  
• Materials used will include "stick figure" drawings and a few other simple illustrations compliments of Microsoft clip art (e.g. mirror, props to represent development of self, etc.)
• The ideas presented in the previous post under Cooley/Mead's section will be the guiding framework.
• This section will begin with a blank tabletop and a simple voice over.
  
• One individual stick figure slides onto the table top` "This is you. But you don't know it's you. In order to know who you are there has to be other individuals around you."
• Other individuals slide onto the table. Voice over continues as each individual is 'given' a mirror` "Each individual that you interact with serves as a mirror, which bounces back the perceptions you assume others have about you."
  
• Cut to 1st individual alone again with thought cloud. Inside thought cloud simple illustrations of what people say about him/her. '
  
• "From these assumptions you begin to build your individual self" Shot of individual dressing up/acquiring props to define who they are as a person. '
• Mead's ideas of "generalize other" and "I"/"me" will also be incorporated in the same fashion to provide more detail to the skeleton above. I still need to pull out the main points to keep this portion clear, concise and effective. This will come to me as I continue my research on this portion of the video.
• Lead in will happen at the end of this section to Media Ecology theory.
• Shot fills with the 1st individual and piles up with the many individuals that he/she ends up interacting with to create his/her self. ` "How do you do this, though? How do you interact with others in a way that is meaningful enough to produce such profound change on your human existence?"
• Voice over continues as the people spread out and diminish as to represent only one social interaction taking place at a time. Props are added to the frame to represent various types of media (i.e. phones, letters, bicycles, etc).` "You produce meaningful social interaction through the use of media. This media is represented by both the simple and the complex. Anything that fosters relations may be considered media." Individuals leave frame and more types of media inllustrations enter (writing, airplanes, radio, TV, roads, factories/assembly line, computers).
• [Transition to different style could happen here. I can't decide if I should keep the common craft style or move into a different style using imagery found on the web and video/audio clips ]
  

Introduce Media Ecology
Media's Biases
Bring It Back To Cooley & Mead

• Keeping with the idea of a new style for this section, I plan to use a lot of audio clips from Marshall Mcluhan and Terrence McKenna amongst a few other random people I found through YouTube videos. The exact audio is unknown as I need to filter through the many minutes to find exactly what encompasses the message I want to present.
• The main idea here will lead in from the last voice over "Anything that fosters relations may be considered media." And this will begin with the idea that media function as environments, using video clips to represent this by making analogies between media environments and environments as we are more used to thinking of them. If audio to suit this in unable to be found simple text may serve the purpose of introducing this idea.
• This will lead into the biases of media. This part is tricky right now because it is one I am still trying to mentally grasp. As of right now I think it is important for each bias (i.e. intellectual/emotional, spatial/temporal/sensory/, political, social, metaphysical, and content) to be presented in the simplest way possible. It is my hope that these ideas can be represented through imagery with "talking head(s)" laid over it. I think the best way to obtain this audio in the form I want it will be through individual conversations with classmates, Professor Wesch, and personal friends.
• After these images and audio are compiled I want to bring it back to Cooley and Mead's ideas by doing a fast forward of the imagery/audio used, fast forward through some of the social interaction taking place between the stick figures, and freeze on the 1st individual there all alone once again on the blank table top. During this fast forward the audio will say something related to "All of these biases together add up to different epistemological biases and different ways of relating to one another. Since we know ourselves through our relationships with others, new media create new ways of knowing each other and therefore ourselves."
  

Other Cultural Factors?

• More data needed here to formulate how to relay this message. Most likely finding video footage of cultural relativism in action, that people can relate to and are somewhat familiar with, would be most effective for demonstrating that our project is accounting for this.
• This section will be short and sweet delivering the message of cultural relativism quickly while still allowing the viewer to ponder the idea that the circumstance we are presenting are variable depending on the context.
• I feel this section will be most effective if done with bold imagery and simple text.
  

Introduce Technology

• Introduction of technology is best demonstrated by what is familiar (e.g. assembly line, cell phones, computers) and then moves into technology as people don't usually think of it (e.g. politics, religion, etc.)
• As another connecting section, I want to incorporate the same idea of moving quickly with bold images and simple text.
  
• Getting across the point that these things (i.e. religion, politics, etc) are also media and that they are extremely important to consider when trying to see how media influences cultural change.
  
• Leading in from the previous section of cultural relativism it will be helpful to demonstrate this "other" type of technology/media as it relates to multiple cultures. Showing numerous images/videos that demonstrate the technology/media and the cultural change that followed.
  
• Nazi Germany and the techno/media used by Hitler and the nationalism it produced. The Industrial Revolution across Europe and how media such as the assemble line/mass production resulted in profound cultural changes economically and socially. The Renaissance and impact the printing press had on revolutionizing scholarship with its "typographical fixity".
• More examples will included but the latter will remain the latter so that it gives a lead into the next bit on written media.

Medium Of Writing: The 1st "Context Collapse"

• Leading into the next bit on written media I will use the Renaissance to put the spotlight on the medium of print (I will also discuss writing in general but the focus is on print).
• To depict this portion of the project I want to use "talking heads"/audio/images/video
• I will first present the idea of writing creating the possibility for the communicator to be separated from the communicated and thus allowing for a collapse in context.
  
• The concept of "context collapse" will be illustrated here using visuals of face-to-face interaction and pointing out the "herculean social calculations [made] almost unconsciously in the micro-second gaps of communication..." This can be accomplished by playing a video then freezing it on a frame and using editing tools to draw little pointers & add text to define how communicators are using the context to make adjustments to how they are presenting themselves in the interaction. Doing this two to three times for a given video (I will probably only use 1, maybe 2) and using the freeze frames not only to point out how they use context but also to predict how they will adjust accordingly. For this reason very basic, stereotypical interactions will be used (e.g. girlfriend catching boyfriend kissing another girl and him trying to weasel his way out of it).
• Leading in with this idea of using context to adjust the tone of a given interaction then presenting the idea of it collapsing by keeping the last frame frozen and having it shatter and the pieces fall to the bottom of the screen.
• After the screen shatters I am considering having the word "ANONYMOUS" or "ANONYMITY" being what is left behind with a voice over "leaving us with the ability to be anonymous".
• Highlight how printed items, and this ability to be anonymous, gave rise to the idea of "authorship".
• This may be a good place to throw some footage of the printing press in really quick like to demonstrate the exponential increase of sharing ideas across time and place. Nothing special, just some video clips/imagery of the printing press, what it produced, and who was taking advantage of it with voice over about the concept of this exponential increase.
• This is a good lead in for anonymity as an "aesthetic ideal"
  

Anonymous Communication As Expression: The "Aesthetic Ideal"

• Voice over: "With the increased ability to share information and ideas some sought the refuge of anonymity to express beliefs that fell outside the social norms. Others sought anonymity for different reasons." Jump to images that support different reasons.
• Using a similar idea to my tag cloud with the zoom in effect to depict the different reasons why anonymity becomes an "aesthetic ideal" and incorporating other images relating to the words in the tag cloud.
  
• This may run over a bit from uses of anonymity for good/bad so this will be determined once production has reached this point. It may be more effective to be brief in the earlier section and save being more explicit for this section.
  
• Using images of written works that went the opposite direction of anonymous expression (i.e. authorship) to demonstrate drop off in anonymous writings seen in the 20th century.
• Revitalization in "authorship" and recognition comes in opposition to the "aesthetic ideal" and this can be show as mentioned above in a format that at first balances the amount of the two and moving into the late 19th century begins to drop off in terms of anonymous writings. I want to figure out a way to make my own "graph" of sorts that is positioned above a time line and as the voice over talks about this drop off we can visually see it as the graph adjusts according to the time period.
• "What is essentially happening here is a shift from anonymity to individuality. What is more interesting than the shift in and of itself is the driving force behind it." BAM! Hit em' with a big fat image of modernity...most likely a stereo typical image of the Industrial Revolution (IR) (as a lead in to the following section).
  

Modernity = Increased Anonymity

• Images of cogs in the machine, large factories, mass amounts of people filing into buildings, assembly lines and the like create a feel for what was happening during this time period. No audible or visible words, just powerful music that encompasses the feel of the Industrial Revolution.
• Fade in with random voice overs regarding the IR and its many "virtues".
• So there is an opposition going on here...the voice overs are talking about how "wonderful" the IR is and how it will help society achieve progress while the video and imagery are saying the opposite, they are emphasizing a "forced anonymity"...anonymity as a "cultural motif"
  
• As music gets quieter and random voice overs fade out there is a fading in of what the IR has brought in terms of an increasing sense of anonymity. Most likely this will be conversations I have collected myself and they will explicitly talk about the lack of recognition individuals get when they are constituents of mass production.
• The quote from Henry Seidel Canby describing the longing for “escape from the deadly anonymity of modern life,” which generates the, “passion for nonanonymity” in the “general man who feels his personality sinking lower and lower into the whirl of indistinguishable atoms to be lost in a mass civilization.” is more than appropriate here.
• This pervasive experience of anonymity will be contrasted with the choice to express one's self anonymously, thus demonstrating the desire for individual expression. How to do this...not quite sure yet, I'm thinking repetition of what has led up to this point (i.e. images used to depict how anonymity was initially embraced, voice overs, etc.) in a mash up to demonstrate the conflict between authorship and anonymity as an “aesthetic ideal”.
• Slow fade in and out of text "Many authors confront this anonymity by seeking fame and recognition."
  
• fame & recognition = individuality
  

Individualism
Anonymity As An Experience: The "Cultural Motif"

• Voice over: "Individuality had already been increasing with the invention of the printing press," (making reference to 1.123 [social biases based on different types of social situations created by physical form ] and the ability of print to increase a sense of individualism. Imagery depicting solitary individuals reading printed materials and jumping to their thought processes resulting from this. Possibly different scenes related to whatever they're reading and withing each one emphasizing the "ME" mind-set by adding simple text to the image "ME here?", "How do I feel about this?", "Does this affect ME?", etc.
• Quick depiction of fundamental differences between "categorical" thought of writing and face-2-face interaction. Something here with still images flipping back and forth from written communication>F2F. Mostly images focusing on solitude and relationships.
• Come back to idea of anonymity as a "cultural motif" via the isolation of the IR. (i.e. work more, media of assembly line is biased towards individual focus and communication that serves as a means of production, not relation) Depicted via the images from IR introduction and then slowly phase into how people are combating this...so a movement of imagery from the "cultural motif" to the coping mechanisms. I am debating whether I want to stick to my large expanse of historical time periods or if I should use this as a segway [am I using this word correctly?] into the rest of our project. I am leaning towards the latter because I think it would be a good transition but I am going to peek at what kevinmonster is doing over there :P
  

brief outline of what my video wants to be when it grows up`

Identity Formation:

-Symbolic Interactionism

• Kenneth Plummer notes: What distinguishes humans is their extensive and creative use of communication through symbols. At one level symbols may seem fixed, but the symbolic interaction perspective emphasizes the shifting, flexible, and creative manner in which humans use symbols.

• Herbert Blumer's (1969) influential summary: People act toward things based on the meaning those things have for them; and these meanings are derived from social interaction and modified through interpretation.
• Thus, human interaction is mediated by the use of symbols, by interpretation, or by ascertaining the meaning of one another's actions, therefore "defining" each other's actions instead of merely reacting to each other's actions

-Charles Horton Cooley's "looking glass self"(1902)

1. We imagine how we must appear to others.
2. We imagine the judgment of that appearance.
3. We develop our self through the judgments of others.

• "...a person's self grows out of society's interpersonal interactions and the perceptions of others...society is an interweaving and interworking of mental selves."
• Gordon Marshall (1998) reiterates Cooley: "Just like the reflections in a mirror, the self depends on the perceived responses of others."
  

-George Herbert Mead's "generalized other" & "I"/"me"

• "The self is something which has a development; it is not initially there, at birth, but arises in the process of social experience and activity, that is, develops in the given individual as a result of his relations to that process as a whole and to other individuals within that process"
• "taking the role of the other": a means of self-actualization and development of empathy for others
• the "generalized other": "an organized and generalized attitude" (Mead 1934) with reference to which the individual defines their own conduct.
• The "me" is the social self, and the "I" is a response to the "me"

Media Ecology:

-Media as environments (Casey M.K. Lum)

• 
  

-How media shapes social relationships (Joshua Meyrowitz)

Anonymity as a "cultural motif":

-Affect of the Industrial Revolution
-Idea of forced anonymity