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Interactive Documentaries
Mar. 8th, 2007 10:17 pmSo after the classic tour of campus during the open house, I attended the session called Make an Interactive Documentary. "Who said documentaries have to be linear? This workshop shows the basics of how to structure and create an interactive documentary using DVD software."
We got to see a documentary on Austin history. You could choose to explore by geographical area (clicking on maps drawn by a famous local cartoonist) or by chronology or via an index of subjects. For many facts, you could click to read more or see a video.
I learned that there are two wildlife sanctuaries in east Austin. I learned that the east and west edges of our fair city used to be marked by East Avenue and West Avenue. East Avenue is now the access road for the interstate highway that goes through town and West Avenue is still West Avenue, but it's east of the other north-south highway that goes through town.
The great things about "interactive documentaries" are that you can explore the areas that are of most interest to you and that the documentary maker can include all the cool things they have collected.
I have decided I much prefer regular documentaries. With the interactive type, I have to try to guess what will be most interesting whereas with regular documentaries, the filmmaker does all the work for me. Sure, I might have picked different things, but I really don't enjoy slogging through what would otherwise have been on the cutting room floor to find the treasures.
Half the time when I see a documentary it's on a subject in which I have no interest. The whole point of documentaries is to show you how very interesting the subject is after all. So getting to dig deeper into the parts I find more interesting generally means I won't dig at all, because none of it looks interesting.
**
I have been enjoying work the last couple of days. I've been getting loads of stuff done. I've been attending various meetings and workshops and thus getting to socialize and learn new things. And I have been an awesome problem solver.
For example yesterday someone wanted to figure out how to count certain kinds of study-abroad courses as courses taken in residence for the purpose of fulfilling our requirement that 24 of the last 30 hours must be taken in residence. My first two reactions to that were a) you can't--that rule type doesn't have a place for you to specify course type and b) that's a university-level rule and you can't just go allowing extra things to count for everyone. But I didn't say either of those things.
Instead I said I needed to do some research and I discovered that the courses that the person wanted to count should be counting already, but they were coded as transfer courses by the transcript evaluators. So I had him contact them and they gave a few explanations and are now working on their system so they don't keep messing up.
I love it when I find non-obvious answers like that which are absolutely the best and most right possible answer.
(Problem-solving hint--when someone describes a problem, ask about the specific case that showed them there was a problem. They may be misinterpreting the problem. If you have the original facts, you can investigate it and answer their real question even if their actual question was completely different.)
We got to see a documentary on Austin history. You could choose to explore by geographical area (clicking on maps drawn by a famous local cartoonist) or by chronology or via an index of subjects. For many facts, you could click to read more or see a video.
I learned that there are two wildlife sanctuaries in east Austin. I learned that the east and west edges of our fair city used to be marked by East Avenue and West Avenue. East Avenue is now the access road for the interstate highway that goes through town and West Avenue is still West Avenue, but it's east of the other north-south highway that goes through town.
The great things about "interactive documentaries" are that you can explore the areas that are of most interest to you and that the documentary maker can include all the cool things they have collected.
I have decided I much prefer regular documentaries. With the interactive type, I have to try to guess what will be most interesting whereas with regular documentaries, the filmmaker does all the work for me. Sure, I might have picked different things, but I really don't enjoy slogging through what would otherwise have been on the cutting room floor to find the treasures.
Half the time when I see a documentary it's on a subject in which I have no interest. The whole point of documentaries is to show you how very interesting the subject is after all. So getting to dig deeper into the parts I find more interesting generally means I won't dig at all, because none of it looks interesting.
**
I have been enjoying work the last couple of days. I've been getting loads of stuff done. I've been attending various meetings and workshops and thus getting to socialize and learn new things. And I have been an awesome problem solver.
For example yesterday someone wanted to figure out how to count certain kinds of study-abroad courses as courses taken in residence for the purpose of fulfilling our requirement that 24 of the last 30 hours must be taken in residence. My first two reactions to that were a) you can't--that rule type doesn't have a place for you to specify course type and b) that's a university-level rule and you can't just go allowing extra things to count for everyone. But I didn't say either of those things.
Instead I said I needed to do some research and I discovered that the courses that the person wanted to count should be counting already, but they were coded as transfer courses by the transcript evaluators. So I had him contact them and they gave a few explanations and are now working on their system so they don't keep messing up.
I love it when I find non-obvious answers like that which are absolutely the best and most right possible answer.
(Problem-solving hint--when someone describes a problem, ask about the specific case that showed them there was a problem. They may be misinterpreting the problem. If you have the original facts, you can investigate it and answer their real question even if their actual question was completely different.)