research :: plusshorts   motivation :: found footage films and collaborative co-construction the movies of found footage filmmaker jay rosenblatt have been described as "fusing optical printing, hand processing and an abundance of found footage - public service films, lush technicolor pics and garish porn - in the service of a kind of cultural dream analysis, a place where "meaning" is found at the intersection of the mundane and the bizarre." [golembiewski 2000]. The films of rosenblatt, along with those of craig baldwin and bruce connor amongst others, are wonderfully compiled cinematic collages using material appropriated from a wide range of diverse sources. with the plusshorts application, i want filmmakers to be able not only to engage in radical rereadings of the shared content, but also to reveal the conceptual thinking underlying their work and the methodology governing it. by introducing an iconic mark up language, i want to engage filmmakers in beginning a dialogue with other producers/artists as they strive to interpret and reach concordance or create dissonance around the meanings of the symbols and the semantic structures they seek to define.   cinema and language in a networked environment this work also seeks to reexamine and reassess the relationship between cinema and language, in light of recent developments in networked communication, the proliferation of cheap digital video cameras and the emergence of distributed moviemaking/viewing. the plusshorts application will support the construction of many types of 'filmic utterances', in a straightforward process that questions the narrow definition of what constitutes a correct cinematic construction or a 'proper filmmaker', as espoused by christian metz. with the plusshorts application, i want to create an environment that exploits the notion of cinematic possibility - an environment that supports the paradigmatic contrast of shot use in a sequence - in deference to metz' claim that this was simply not possible with movies. reexamining and revisiting theories of film semiotics and cinematic language, originally derived from and applied to the traditional cinematic domain, in this emerging, open-ended environment is another primary goal of this project.   scope :: the plusshorts java application functions in a standalone environment or on the www as part of the shareable media system. the application allows a distributed group of users to contribute to, and collaborate upon, the creation of shared movie sequences constructed from user submitted movie clips stored in the central database/server. this application additionally provides a visual markup language, in the form of punctuation symbols that describe the conceptual thinking underlying the structure of the movie sequence. the application, although open to use by anyone, has been specifically designed to be used and evaluated by filmmakers collaborating together on the co-construction of movie sequences.   interface :: the plusshorts interface contains three main activity areas: the sequence navigation and selection interface, the sequence construction interface and the sequence playback interface. the figure below shows a screen shot of the plusshorts application, with each specific activity area clearly marked.     navigaton :: in the application, original movie sequences are conceived as "movie threads" and sequences submitted in response to these threads are considered as "movie posts". the user can use the navigation interface to trace the evolution of a movie thread, from its initial submission, through its multifarious iterations, by selecting and viewing the sequences constructed by all contributors in that thread. punctuation notation :: punctuation notation has been used to structure texts, to comment directly on the content of the text it is containing, and, as a metaphorical tool for learning. in my thesis i describe in full, the importance of the ability of the selected symbol set to represent all aspects of the ontological type it is seeking to describe. the punctuation symbols selected for use in the plusshorts application were chosen because of the applicability of their original function and purpose to metaphorically describe both spatial and temporal relationships between shots in a movie sequence. for example, david bordwell describes the presentation of action in such a way that it occupies less time on the screen than in the story, as elliptical editing [bordwell 1997: 283]. film directors can use optical effects such as the dissolve, wipe or fade to indicate that time has been omitted, or they can perhaps use a conventional shot change, such as the cutaway, which shows an event occurring elsewhere that does not last as long as the omitted action. the ellipses punctuation icon has an obvious correlation with this aspect of movie structuring. similarly, christian metz described the bracket sequence structure in his grand syntagmatique system as pertaining to brief, conceptually driven scenes in a movie. there is a direct iconic translation of this cinematic conceit in the form of the parentheses symbols. temporal editing techniques used to manipulate and control events in the story time can be represented using symbols 'borrowed' from numeric notation. for example, errol morris's the thin blue line (1988) intersperses present-day footage of suspects and witnesses, with flashback scenes depicting reenactments of the crime committed. they shoot horses, don't they? (1969) uses flashforward shots throughout the movie, which hint and allude to the film's final ending. both of these structuring methods for controlling the timing of depicted events in a movie could be represented using the 'minus' (flashback) and 'plus' (flashforward) icons.   in summary :: the plusshorts application, to paraphrase edith sitwell's description of the modern novel, allows users to break down predestined groups of shots, examine their texture and then rebrighten them by building them into new and vital shapes. this application presents a visual language for describing the structural breakdown of video sequences within an explorative environment that serves, in accordance with metz's definition, as an attention-focusing device. this research thus attempts not only to understand film, but, in supporting the collaborative construction and interpretation of movies by a distributed group of participants, seeks also to understand how film is understood.   references :: bordwell, david and thomson, kristin. (1997) film art: an introduction new york: mcgraw-hill fifth edition. golembiewski, emily. (2000) lost and found - the philosophical appropriations of jay rosenblatt in filmmaker summer vol. 8 #4   thesis :: plusshorts: using punctuation as an iconic system for describing and augmenting video structure read the full document here (pdf)