Media

This Ph.D. research explores interactive documentary and focuses on identifying how the affordances of video, computers and the network can be used to create a web of relations between shots within an interactive documentary that utilises the multilinear structure of the Internet. The aim of this investigation is to help practitioners who do not understand these affordances to learn what they are, and what is important when making an interactive documentary online. As an outcome of my inquiry I propose that documentary practice is transformed in this multilinear environment, resulting in a reconceptualisation of the term ‘documentary maker’. A practitioner who produces on the Internet is more accurately named a ‘documentary designer’, and I support this new role by outlining the affordances of ‘granularity’, ‘remix’, ‘indexing’ and ‘spatial montage’, and how they can be used to produce an interactive documentary online.

Keen, Seth. “Purrumbete Verandah, 2008.” Placescape, placemaking, placemarking, placedness, geography and cultural production, Barcelona, Spain: The Australian Studies Centre, University of Barcelona 11. (2013): 54–59. Print. www.ub.edu/dpfilsa/Coolabahindexvol11.html

Keen, Seth. “The Rumblings Ramblings of a Post-industrial Media Producer Maker.” PIMP 01: Post-industrial Media: Education? Ed. Adrian Miles. Melbourne, Australia: School of Media and Communication, RMIT University. iBook

https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/post-industrial-media-education/id537197385

Sketching video with a smartphone: integrating design methodologies into the media studio

The production of video content using a smartphone requires new teaching and learning methodologies to address fast-paced changes in technology and transformations in practice. The ongoing alterations occurring in camera phone practices emphasises a need for students to be provided with skills and knowledge, which enable them to work the affordances of video, computers and the network.

Moving imagery production is often taught using a traditional film and television model of pre-production, production and post-production. The traditional model of teaching generally relies on an industrial approach of clear demarcated practices and fixed outcomes. The historical development of previous cinematic films and television programs using this traditional model provide clear reference points for informing production processes. In comparison the production of video content with a smartphone that utilises the affordances of video, computers and the network, involves the creation of works in fluid contexts, which often do not have an established history of practice and production processes.

In this paper I focus on the development of a pedagogical model that uses design methodologies to produce video content with a smartphone. Design in this context can be considered as a process that responds to problems that arise through change, and this is why it has become a key feature of many of the practices associated with the fast–paced development of new media. Designers are problem orientated practitioners who integrate hands on skills with conceptual ideas, thinking though a making process to create solutions. I utilise design methodologies because it provides an agile way to engage with problems, and determine the strategies and practices required, to work in an environment that is undergoing rapid transformation.

Drawing on the experience of teaching a ‘mobile videography’ studio within the professional production strand of a tertiary media program, this paper demonstrates how a design methodology like ‘sketching’ is integrated into camera phone practices.
It is important to develop new approaches towards teaching media production at a tertiary level, as part of providing students with the aptitude required to work with changing technologies and practices. Media practitioners need to explore the nexus between media and design practices to work within the dynamic and technology driven domain of new media.

The presentation of the thesis comprises the Dissertation component (66%) along
with the Practice Component and the Practice Report (33%). In this Video Chaos
dissertation, through an examination of current video practices, I note an emerging
trend towards disseminating audio-visual content simultaneously in the form of polysequential narrative structures. I argue that this is a significant development within
the video medium, and that this is an effect of video new media artist-practitioners’
engagement with the relationships between art and technology. Two extensive case
studies are investigated and, whilst a number of issues come to the fore in this
research, exploring the issue of narrative structuration is the primary focus and
exploration of this dissertation.

Keen, Seth. "Video Chaos: Multilinear Narrative Structuration in New Media Video Practice." MA Thesis. University of Technology, Sydney. 2005.

This chapter proposes that interactive documentary needs to utilise the affordances of the network in a way similar to other online media. To help with this, documentary can use design methods to identify the affordances of the network to then connect media into a web of relations. Design in this context is also a process that responds to problems that arise through change, and this ability to negotiate change is key in the fast-paced environment of the Internet.

Keen S. (2018) The Documentary Designer: A List of Propositions for Interactive Documentary Practice Online. In: Miles A. (eds) Digital Media and Documentary. Palgrave Pivot, Cham

In describing his 2008 digital video installation, a continuous 3 minute five second loop, Seth Keen introduces a contemporary engagement with the historic landscape of rural Victoria witnessed by Von Guerard in his paintings of the 1850s. Bringing together a background in documentary practice and graphic design, Seth is interested, as a media artist, in using digital technologies to explore forms of environmental portraiture that document relationships between people and place. In this video work, he revisits the location and landscape painting, From the verandah of Purrumbete, 18582 by Eugene Von Guerard.

This paper offers an overview of the Australian film industry in the
1990s and tracks the shifts in policy that have affected
patterns of film production. The primary focus of this article is on
Australian feature films, although the associated television production
industry is also discussed.