Resumé of my PhD study done between 2008-2012.

Saturday, 8 September 2012

Mobile video and visual narratives

Videos in my blog are connected to my PhD-thesis. Here I'm studying how single images or videos could be understood as a narrative.  A single video clip may last only a few seconds and still contain an identifiable subject, object of the action and result of the events. A mobile phone video clip lasting a few seconds is not necessarily the most exciting story, it may not be very entertaining even to the person who has filmed it – at least not for very long or after having been repeated many times. At its simplest, it reminds of the moment when it was filmed, the state of mind leading to the action of bringing out the mobile phone and filming the clip.


Image 14. Imagine the sound, imagine the story (Screenshot from  mobile video, Marjo Mäenpää, 2010)
I have a 21-second video in my cell phone: The image pans around in a pine forest, on the sinking moss tufts, and stops at a grayish brown trumpet chanterelle. In the background one can hear the sounds of a forest machine and falling trees. For the person who has filmed it the video speaks of a beloved forest and mushroom picking site and the forest machines that are threatening it. Is this the beginning of an exciting story which the viewer can build on and complete in her or his mind? It could also be a story of the crushing of one dream.



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