VOX POPULI

20-08-2004, Stefano Bocconi

Introduction

This document is explaining what are the possible directions for phase 2 in my research. Phase 1 was about a mechanism to put together single video sequences with a communicative goal, in my case persuade or give the impression some opinion prevails over the opposite one. Phase 1 was about local coherence, where local means that the scope is limited to the combination of a few video sequences. This cannot support the generation of longer presentations, because there is no evolution in the presentation. If the act of communicating takes place in a story environment, the story must have a narrative development.

As a remark, the local coherence problem is not completely solved, but local issues will be examined in the light of the more global ones, which now have higher priority.

Narrative

I will like to present my case but hopefully also give some ideas for the other projects concerned with narrative.

Need for a change

As pointed out in "Directing the Documentary" by Rabiger, narrative is not only considered important for fiction film, but also for documentaries. This is necessary to keep the audience's attention to what the documentary has to say. From a research point of view we have to concern ourself with Narrative, if not for the sake of studying it, because we are generating presentations that must have an audience.

Rabiger stresses the need for changes during the exposition of the topics, stating that documentary is not in less need of change than fiction films. Change is achieved when there is some some dramatic evolution in the story, generally defined as a sequence of moments of tension and release. Using a dramatic curve from classic Greek tragedy, a dramatic evolution can be described as:
The dramatic curve rises from Exposition to Climax and falls down to the Resolution. This is analogous of (or the same as) Freytag's triangle, which is based on Aristotle's concept of unity of action.
Probably no real documentary has such a simple structure, but the dramatic curve is nonetheless important because it can be used as an analytic tool (even on the scene level, if not for the whole documentary) and because we need a structure that our application can use to produce narrative change in the generated presentation. The fact that an application can produce such a dramatic triangle, is the basis to produce more "geometrically" complex dramatic shapes.

The Exposition

In the same text, Rabiger says (page. 9) that "Consciously or otherwise, every film signals how it means to treat its audience and under what general premise. This I think of as a "contract" struck with the audience. Like good storytellers, the better films set their terms in the opening moments so that the audience faces the enjoyable prospect of suspense and promise."
Rabiger's contract is about how the film will treat the audience, e.g. as someone to convince (propaganda films), someone to inform (balanced documentaries) or someone to stimulate to think (some documentaries as well as fiction films).
In the Exposition the characters of the story are introduced; this part is important because whatever they say or do in the following is interpreted in the light of their first presentation.

The Resolution

This phase is also important because this is the final word on the story, especially if the film builds controversy or ambiguity, at this point the viewer is expecting some explanation to resolve the open questions.

How to use this

VOX POPULI's  goal is to edit video interview material to give the impression that one opinion is stronger than the opposite one, like "this war is good" versus "this war is bad" (according to Rabiger, this is the least respect the documentary maker can tribute to the viewer :-) ).

VP is aware that particular issues like war have two opposing positions and it can generate sequences where one of the two positions is attacked. In doing that it uses a simple mechanism based on the formal transcript of the interview's audio track, basically the interviews are selected to contradict each other. VP also uses pictures to attack a position.

Another way to weaken a particular opinion is to choose a speaker that the viewer will not believe or judge non authoritative, using the Ethos. This can be done in two ways: the first is to select persons the user does not like (according to the user model) or present them in the exposition in a way that the user will not like them. The first method relies completely on the annotations, while the second one relies also on the editing. I do not know how to realize the second method yet, and I welcome suggestions. In the following I assume I can do that, and show some further possibilities, talking about the visual story.

Visual Story

"The Visual Story" from Bruce Blok talks about how visual characteristic in films are like a cast of actors that play a visual story mirroring the narrative development in a film.
Visual characteristics according to Blok are:
  1. Space ( for ex. flat or deep)
  2. Line and Shape (vertical, horizontal, curves, squares)
  3. Tone (bright, dark)
  4. Color (saturated, desaturated)
  5. Movement (how objects move, how the camera moves)
  6. Rhythm (slow, fast)
These elements are described considering how they contribute to create a sense of affinity or contrast in the viewer, like for example putting in the same shot a deep space and a flat space increases contrast, and in general deep space is considered more intense and contrast-inducing. An example of deep space film is Citizen Kane, according to Blok.

This contrast/affinity balance should mirror the dramatic development of the story in the film. In the book several diagrams are drawn representing the story intensity in the y axis and the time on the x axis. In the Exposition for ex., where according to the classic drama arc the situation is quiet, affinity should prevail over contrast, while in the climax contrast should prevail. The point is that what visual characteristic will be used to give this sense of contrast or affinity is not specified a-priori, but depends on the director's choice. This choice is made explicit to the viewer in the exposition.

Blok says (page 187): "The director, cinematographer, and production designer can use visual exposition to introduce the visual components that will remain constant or change during the story. The visual exposition (the Exposition in narrative terms) is the place to define the visual rules that will support the story. A story begins: "Once upon a time there was a happy family." But we would add to that: "Once upon a time there was a happy family who lived in a flat space." Now we have story and visual exposition. We have set a rule for photographing the family and we have given the audience a definition for "happy family". Although the audience can't define it, they will unconsciously recognize flat space and associate it with the happy family..... Ideally, the story and visual exposition should be revealed at the same time. In Steven Spielberg's Jaws, the story, musical, and visual exposition occur simultaneously..... In the film's opening shot we hear the ominous musical notes that become the shark's theme song, and the handheld underwater camera that is the shark's point of view. " From that point on, the audience associated the shark to the music and the underwater point of view without seeing the shark and this automatically triggers fear.

Putting this to work, if the engine can present a character which the viewer will not like, associating him with some visual characteristics and then use the same visual characteristic to present all people supporting a certain opinion, the viewer might not like them all by association and thus disregard the opinion.

Editing and its limits

The free choice of visual characteristics is limited by two factors:
  1. In general, documentary are often not completely under the control of the director
  2. Most of all, we reuse material, we cannot stage it.
This limit already the choices, e.g. we can not use deep space unless it is already in the material. Considering this and assuming enough material, the required visual characteristics could be found by selecting appropriately the material. In this case we would have an "editing by selection" case.

Many effects can be achieved by editing (bright color, filtering), but fewer by editing on the fly like SMIL does. This is a list I could come up with of editing effects:

This can support the following higher level editing strategies:

Realplay format

Real uses some extension to the SMIL standard that could be used to generate some effects, like transparency.

Metaphors or genres

VP can also influence the viewer by using a stereotype narrative structure like the journey or the one day in the life metaphor. Knowing where these structure tend to have their resolving moment, the engine can put the opinion it wants to support in those point. This is analogous to giving the interpretation in the resolution, as explained when talking about the resolution in the Narrative chapter.

How to link to the software

What Annotations

Next Step and Conclusions

I really need to do some scenario by manual editing, I read enough clues as how to define at least the visual part, all now depends on trying to see what works from the bag of editing tricks. The narrative is still undefined in content (as it is meant to be, because the approach must keep some domain independence) but the drama arc can be implemented using for ex. rhythm for the more intense parts. Domain independence is still a goal and I must investigate in how far I can achieve it.

Stuff not digested yet, for internal use


What about Logical Fallacies?



Time and Structure
  1. Chronological Time and Structure
  2. Nonchronological Time and Structure
  3. Subjective POV Structuring
  4. Inventory Structuring
  5. Metaphoric Journey Structuring
  6. No Time Structure
Understanding Poetry, by Dr. J. Evans Pritchard, Ph.D. "To fully understand poetry, we must first be fluent with its meter, rhyme, and figures of speech. Then ask two questions: One, how artfully has the objective of the poem been rendered, and two, how important is that objective. Question one rates the poem's perfection, question two rates its importance. And once these questions have been answered, determining a poem's greatness becomes a relatively simple matter. If the poem's score for perfection is plotted along the horizontal of a graph, and its importance is plotted on the vertical, then calculating the total area of the poem yields the measure of its greatness. A sonnet by Byron may score high on the vertical, but only average on the horizontal. A Shakespearean sonnet, on the other hand, would score high both horizontally and vertically, yielding a massive total area, thereby revealing the poem to be truly great. As you proceed through the poetry in this book, practice this rating method. As your ability to evaluate poems in this matter grows, so will your enjoyment and understanding of poetry.


 What it means Exposition: strategies
What it means Resolution: strategies
What happens in between?
Strategies for strengthening and weakening, addressing the structure or the form
How to plan Story Intensity