Comments

From CS219

There were about 150 videos, whose total length is 100+minutes, covering the Library, the Roof, the Cafe, the CENS lab, and the Court of Science. Some took a while to be uploaded, but by mid-Tuesday all had arrived.

1. The vcaps software in the phones seems to have worked fine. You may know more at UCLA, of problems etc, and I would be grateful to hear of them.
2. The server and display seemed to have no problem keeping up with the uploads, probably 100 of which were in the 11:45 to 12:15 half hour.
3. I have now looked at the videos, and the following observations seem crucial. In sum, I am going to have to learn to "direct"-- None of the issues are foreign to home moviemaking over the last 70 years.
3a. People have a tendency to move the camera, panning rapidly or moving rapidly. In effect they "hose down" the scene, as my cinematic arts colleagues call it. Now if you look at motion pictures and the like from professionals, most of the motion is by the actors and in the scene, with very careful use of dollying, following with a Steadycam, etc. It is very important that people hold the camera steady, or even better lead it against a solid support (wall, etc)--
3b. There is too little time on any one aspect. We need more lovingly detailed examination of scenes, or even just sitting there and letting things happen. If there is a crowd, let the crowd do its moving, and the camera might stay put. By the way, zooming is often unhelpful. Quiet empty places need a kind of curious exploration. I recall many of the experimental films of the 1966-68 period, and also foreign and some Hollywood filsm, being good at going slow (often painfully so).
3c. People did not know what to concentrate on. They did not choose for themselves, for the most part.
3d. Clips were probably too short. Two minutes is better than 35 sec (the average length). Again, little camera motion, let the world happen in front of you.
3e. Sound picked up was often very interesting, and provided a kind of quiet continuity (vs. all the camera movement, visually). No one thought to interview people, or ask them to show what was happening in this place, this lab, etc.

From my point of view the experiment was very valuable. I learned lots about the problems of documentation, about the fact that untrained documentors are very different than myself in their understanding of what they are doing. I find it comforting that the technology was up to the occasion, and also that future displays might be made more flexible so we can arrange the videos for easy comparison in space and time.

If we do experiments this summer with summer students, I will want to develop a fifteen minute talk to help train them. It will reflect what I have said.

Again, thank you,
Martin