INTERACTIVE MOVING IMAGE WORKSHOP
COURSE WEEK WORKSHOP IN ENGLISH OPEN TO ALL STUDENTS
Lecturer: Chris Hales (SMARTlab, UK) local host: Ruttkay Zsófia (KTL)
This is a self-contained
workshop about the 'interactive moving image' involving the design and actual production of a prototype in which interactivity
and video imagery are combined. Lectures and case-studies at the beginning of the workshop will
provide background about the ways
in which moving images have
been, and could be, made interactive - and why.
During the workshop,
students will be expected to present
a concept for an interactive film in response to the
techniques and ideas shown in the
lectures, and several of these will actually
be produced as functional prototypes. Depending on the
class size it will be possible
for a student to work as
an individual or in a small group.
Video cameras will be used to create
footage which will be digitised and prepared and subsequently combined with interactivity.
Adobe Director will be recommended, demonstrated and fully supported as a suitable authoring
software tool, although students are welcome
to use other
programmes such as Flash, DVD Studio
Pro or Quartz Composer. Interaction technology might involve audio input, sensors/Arduino, keyboard, fiducial markers, or video imaging. Basic instruction will be given in
using cameras, basic editing and preparation of video scenes, and in the use
of the software programming
environment Director, and where appropriate, in the technical
implementation of basic sensor technology.
Web site: http://create.mome.hu/ruttkay/mi12
Precondition: Communication in
English. Knowledge of an interactive
software programme would be
an advantage, as wouldexperience with filming, digitising and editing video, but none of these
are prerequisites.
Outline of Schedule
Day One: Introduction, Lectures showing many examples
(good + bad) of works made from the history of interactive moving images. Examples of Chris’s work and his concepts for
“rethinking the interactive movie”. Presentation and explanation of the required task
and the big variety of outcomes that are possible.
Day Two: Further lectures, looking at various
possibilities for interactive movies. Summary and advice to participants. Examples of workshop-made films.
Afternoon: Individual presentations
of concepts/proposals from each participant.
Discussion and development
of ideas.
Project development
and planning. Further screenings (where relevant to the
student's proposals).
Day Three: Meetings with project groups, with help
and advice. Advisory lecture on filming, editing and digitising (if necessary). Filming and digitising takes place. Editing and preparation of scenes for the programming
stage.
Day Four: Lecture on how
to use Adobe Director software. Filming, digitising,
editing, postproduction continues and the software authoring stage starts. Project authoring with constant help
from Chris. Late evening session if required.
Day Five: Morning: completion of prototype authoring. Afternoon: Final Presentation of projects.
Dr. CHRIS HALES
INTERACTIVE FILM/VIDEO ARTIST,
WORKSHOP-TEACHER and RESEARCHER
Research Group Leader
/ PhD Supervisor (0.4 FTE) SMARTlab
Research Institute, UCD, Dublin.
For many years Chris has been internationally renowned as a specialist
of the ‘interactive moving image’, as practitioner, educator and researcher. The interactive films that he creates
are often influenced by experimental
film and by videoart, rather than by
traditional dramatic narrative forms, and are usually one-man
productions with all aspects of filming and use of technology carried out by the artist himself.
Based since 2006 as an academic staffmember of SMARTlab, Chris is
involved with running the doctoral
and master's programmes and
supervises several PhD students. Under the banner of SMARTlab he has set up
interactive film installations
at London's Science Museum
and at Trinity Buoy Wharf (in
the London docklands). Through SMARTlab Chris succesfully carried out an AHRB-funded research project to rediscover the
'Kinoautomat' from 1967 - the world's first
interactive movie, created
in Prague - and to publish the
findings and make an interactive DVD of the film itself.
Before SMARTlab he taught full-time in UK higher education for many years
in the crossover
of art and design with computer technology,
and studied MA Interactive Multimedia at the
Royal College of Art, London. His PhD “Rethinking the Interactive Movie”, which developed the concept of ‘movie as interface’,
was successfully completed at SMARTlab
in 2006.
Around 1995 Chris began producing cdroms and installations of his interactive films, including a touch-screen installation (showing a dozen or more films) that was presented
in Seoul, Helsinki, Warsaw, Nagoya, San Francisco and
Sydney (amongst other places) and was included in the
landmark 2003 ‘Future Cinema’ exhibition curated by the
ZKM. In summer 2008 he exhibited a retrospective of most of his films in a 9-room exhibition as part of the Prague Triennale
of Contemporary Art. More recently,
either
alone or with a Finnish
colleague (under the name 'Cause
and Effect'), he has shown interactive films as a live
event in cinemas and theatres in the form
of a programme of different
short films with which the
audience can interact together in a variety of ways.
Chris has published
widely in the field of interactive
moving image, including several book chapters,
and given numerous conference presentations. In a freelance capacity he has taught over 100 short workshop courses in many institutions
throughout Europe, usually to students of film, art and
design, and new media.