UNIVERSITY OF CINCINNATI
DATE: March 7th, 2003
I, April Combs Mann , hereby submit this as part of the requirements for the degree of: Master of Design in: the School of Design of the College of Design, Architecture, Art, and Planning
It is entitled:
DESIGN AND DEVELOPMENT OF A NON-LINEAR DOCUMENTARY FOR THE WORLD WIDE WEB
Approved by:
Karen Monzel
J. A. Chewning
Kevin Burke DESIGN AND DEVELOPMENT OF A NON-LINEAR DOCUMENTARY FOR THE WORLD WIDE WEB
A thesis submitted to the Division of Research and Advanced Studies of the University of Cincinnati in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of MASTER OF DESIGN In the School of Design Of the College of Design, Architecture, Art and Planning 2003 by April Combs Mann B.A. Indiana University, 1990 Thesis Committee: Associate Professor Karen Monzel, Chair Associate Professor J. A. Chewning Associate Professor Kevin Burke ABSTRACT This thesis details the process, design and development of a non-linear documentary created for the World Wide Web about The Lotus World Music and Arts Festival 2001. This annual World Music event brings musicians from around the world to Bloomington, Indiana. The current advancements in bandwidth available to the average home Internet user allow a richness of interactivity and media to tell this
non-linear narrative on the World Wide Web. The website developed for this thesis, “Lotus Documentary 2001”, takes this local Festival event back out to a global audience via the Internet. Because the Festival takes place in eight venues simultaneously, no audience member at the event is able to see all of the performances taking place at any given moment. The “Lotus Documentary 2001” website encompasses multiple experiences at the same moment, allowing the user access to events that originally happen simultaneously.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Thank you to my committee, Karen Monzel, J. A. Chewning, and Kevin Burke, for their insights, ideas, concerns and criticism. I am fortunate to have had their extraordinary scope and energy put into my thesis project. I am honored to have had them on my committee. Particularly, thank you to my Chair, Karen Monzel, for her never-ending patience, time and encouragement throughout my graduate career. Her influence has been profound. Many professors and colleagues at DAAP have enriched my graduate career. Special thanks go to Yoshiko Burke and Mike Zender for their inspiring creative “mucho gusto”. Their strong visions clarified my concept for this thesis. Thank you also to Marty Plumbo, Dave Davis, Micah Zender, Sean P. Hafer and Diane Sod for their advice, expertise and goodwill throughout. A special shout-out to Jeffrey Bennett and Paul Mealy for their help and generosity.
Lee Williams and LuAnne Holiday deserve a tremendous thank you for their fabulous festival. What an inspiration! Also thanks to my generous volunteers: Steve
Cotter, Karen Combs, Janet Ivas, Linda Rosier, Robert Meitus, Carrie Newcomer, Tom Stio, Kevin Atkins, Levi Thomas, and Rick Dietz for your thoughtful work for this documentary. Thank you to my spectacular family, both Combs and Mann, for their support, creativity, and encouragement. Thank you to my two little girls, Lyla and Mia Mann, who never help me get my work done, but the joy they bring is immeasurable. I feel lucky to have them in my life. Most of all, I want to thank my exceptional husband, Michael Mann, for his support, commitment, and wisdom. I could not have pursued and completed my graduate work without his generosity, patience, and personal sacrifice.
- 5 - TABLE OF CONTENTS CHAPTER ONE: THE INTERNET DOCUMENTARY
1.1 Internet Technology 3 1.2 Non-linear vs. Linear Documentary 6 1.3 The Non-linear Lotus Festival Documentary 8 1.4 Comparison with other Music Festival Websites 9 1.5 Comparison with other Narrative Websites 10 CHAPTER TWO: THE EVENT 2.1 The Festival 13 2.2 The Musicians 13 2.3 Festival Visual Arts 14 2.4 Festival Name 14 2.5 September 11th Effects 15
CHAPTER THREE: PRODUCTION 3.1 Capturing the Event 18 3.2 Project Volunteers: Preproduction 18 3.3 Project Volunteers: Postproduction 19 3.4 Audio and Video Preproduction 19 3.5 Video and Audio Production 20 3.6 Video Postproduction 21 3.7 Other Resources 23 CHAPTER FOUR: DESIGN 4.1 Technical Aspects in Design 24 4.2 Aesthetics Issues in Design 25 4.3 Opening Video Loading Page 26 4.4 Main Interface Design 27 4.5 Section Introductions 29 4.6 The Event Section 30 4.7 Musicians’ Section 33 4.8 Background Section 34 4.9 Summary and Conclusion 36 BIBLIOGRAPHY 38 Books 38 Online 39
- 1 - LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1. Screenshot of the main interface image…………………………………………………………....25 Figure 2. Screenshot of ripple transition………………..…………………………….……………………………..26
Figure 3. Screenshot of the introduction video page…………………………………….…………...….....27 Figure 4. Screenshot of the main interface with the four sections delineated...……...... 28 Figure 5. Screenshot of the site pull-down navigation bar. ……………………....…………………....29 Figure 6. Screenshot of the Event section animated introduction. ………………….…...... …...30 Figure 7. Screenshot of the Event section timeline with journal rollover. …………..…….....31 Figure 8. Screenshot of an Event section journal entry. . ……...………………..……………………....32 Figure 9. Screenshot of the Musician section map with rollover. …………..………………...…..33 Figure 10. Screenshot example of the Musician section with a band chosen…....……….34 Figure 11. Screenshot example of the Background section with rollover…..………….….…35 Figure 12. Screenshot example of the Background section..…………………………….……………36
- 2 - CHAPTER ONE: THE INTERNET DOCUMENTARY 1.1 Internet Technology The Internet was initially developed as a tool of science. Universities, corporate research departments, and the military shared information across a string of computers networked through low-speed modems. These groups communicated with each other remotely using command line interfaces such as telnet and FTP. The World Wide Web, “the Web”, was introduced by CERN (The European Laboratory for Particle Physics). Made public in 1991, the Web used pages programmed in HTML with hypertext links that were viewable in a browser called
WorldWideWeb.1 This browser’s user-friendly display of text and images made the
Internet accessible to a wider user base.2 Combined with the technology to create a smaller, less expensive home-use desktop computer, the World Wide Web moved from a its original academic and researcher community to a wider mass audience. It was snapped up by entrepreneurs looking for new venues to reach consumers. The ensuing rise and fall of many Internet companies proved that the world was ready for the Web, but perhaps this technology was more suitable as a resource for information and entertainment than for retail profits. The World Wide Web transmits information along channels such as telephone lines and television cables. The speed at which this information travels is called bandwidth. Originally these transmissions were via modems with very slow data rates, or what is known as low bandwidth. When the Web hit big in 1996, newbies used to the personal computer environment naturally expected a certain level of sound and vision from the new kid on the high-tech block. Unfortunately, thanks to bandwidth restrictions, it just wasn't possible to display full-motion video with stereo sound over the Web. Some Web surfers … raised on television … wanted more. And they didn't want to wait
1 Berner-Lee, Tim. World Wide Web Consortium. [online]
- 3 - for it. …[But] moving multimedia through the Internet is like sucking a bowling ball through a garden hose.3
In the late 1990s, the Internet became popular with the average American consumer. Communication companies began to jump on the bandwidth issue. Phone companies developed ADSL (Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line) in response to the need for a high-bandwidth connection for home-use.
ADSL service works by connecting a pair of modems to each end of a telephone line, with one modem being located in the telephone company's central office and the other at the home or office of the user. Because ADSL operates over twisted- pair copper telephone lines, …the existing wires should not have to be altered. ADSL can transmit information 10 times faster than integrated services digital network (ISDN), which operates at 128 kbps, and about 50 times faster than a 28.8 dpbs dial-up modem. One hundred pages of text can be downloaded in 1.5 seconds using ADSL service.4
Cable companies have also developed television cable connections to the Internet: Using the local cable television network instead of the local phone network to connect to the Internet's main arteries, a cable modem hauls tons of data at high speeds -- theoretically up to more than 25 megabits per second (25 million bits per second, or 25 mbps), but in practical terms, 500 kilobits per second (500,000 bits per second, or 500 kbps) to 2.5 mbps. 5
As a result, bandwidth speeds have increased dramatically. As this increase in bandwidth becomes available to the average American household, download times have decreased. In 1994, Web and Technology Magazine Hotwired first appeared online:
3Powell, Adam. Adam’s Multimedia Lesson 1 “Historically Speaking, the Bandwidth Blues.” 1998. Hotwired’s Webmonkey. [online]
- 4 - In 1994, the audience coming to HotWired was split three ways: a third on 14.4 modems, a third in the 56-Kbps line/ISDN group, and another third coming to us on T1s.6
The future holds an even faster connection. “Internet2“ is already up and running: Today, 185 universities and research labs are breezing along on a parallel network to the public Internet called Internet2…. Internet2 is more than just a bandwidth banquet; it's the petri dish where tomorrow's Internet applications are being grown—from new ways to conduct surgery to virtual worlds where you can interact with colleagues across the continent…. The minimum connection speed is a blistering 155 megabits per second—a hundred times faster than a typical university lab connection and almost 3,000 times faster than a dial-up modem. 7
As more users have access to high bandwidth, also called broadband, the Web development industry is able to incorporate large audio, video and animation files into their sites without fear of losing their audience. Combined with the twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week accessibility the World Wide Web has always provided, the Internet is becoming a spectacular venue for far more than just text and images. Although streaming movies are available on the Web, few people will sit still in front of their computers to watch a non-interactive full-length feature film. The Internet is another conduit for video on demand, streaming delivery of television shows, music videos and other programming to home computers. There are a number of relatively new video-on-demand sites like Intertainer, CinemaNow and the forthcoming Movielink, an Internet video-on-demand venture from five major movie studios. But analysts say most viewers are unlikely to want to watch full-length movies on their computers or hand-helds. ''Consumers are more likely to watch short-form content,'' said Lydia Loizides, a Jupiter Research senior analyst.8
6 Veen, Jeffrey. “Bad Bandwidth, Good Design.” Oct. 19, 1998. Hotwired’s Webmonkey. [online]
- 5 - However, the Internet is an ideal venue for a non-linear narrative experience because the user can consume as little or as much of the content as he chooses and move about a site at his leisure. A documentary with multiple voices and no specific beginning or ending is a good fit with the Internet’s point and click interface. Users can rove about a site, watching video clips and reading text as they choose, creating a personal experience as hypertext links allow them to connect information in their own order. And, unlike DVD, a user has instant access to content because the Internet is a 24-hour access medium. The Internet also has the capability of presenting local events to a global audience.
The Lotus World Music and Arts Festival (“the Festival”) brings in musicians and artists from all over the world, yet it happens in the small Midwestern city of Bloomington, Indiana whose population is just over 120,000. “The Lotus Documentary 2001”, the project developed for this thesis, is an online documentary that enables viewers around the world to experience the effort and excitement of the Lotus World Music and Arts Festival beyond the two nights of its celebrated showcases. These showcases take place simultaneously in eight different venues. Not even the most dedicated and swift audience member could see every performance because of this scheduling. Yet they should be seen. The gifts these world-class artists bring to the stages are astonishing. Herein lies the beauty of the Internet as a resource for a documentary about the Festival. The richness and depth of the event can be explored on multiple levels on the Web, in ways that no book, video, DVD, or audio CD alone could provide. The Web allows all of these possibilities at once with the instant access only the Internet can offer. Therefore, the Web is a new medium for documentary with a grander scope of content and accessibility than any of the traditional formats.
1.2 Non-linear vs. Linear Documentary According to Michael Rabiger, Author of Directing the Documentary,
- 6 - At its best, the documentary film reflects a fascination with, and a profound respect for, actuality…. a film that invites the spectator to draw socially critical conclusions. The documentary exists to scrutinize the organization of human life and to promote individual, humane values… Of all the various non-fiction film forms… the documentary is by far the most significant as a force for change in society…9 Documentaries are based on reality; thus, they are inherently grounded in time and space and in cause and effect relationship. A story begins with one situation and after a series of events occur, a new situation exists. These types of stories are referred to as narratives. Narrative structure within the framework of documentary has been traditionally linear. The non-linear nature of the Web changes everything.
The documentary’s conventional distribution methods, film and television, are also inherently linear venues. A viewer can turn his television on or off and switch the channel, but he cannot change the order of the program he is watching. Stories have been told in a linear format since the beginning of communication. Historically, the earliest form of documentary would have been the passing down of information from person to person, a phenomenon referred to as the oral tradition: "The oral tradition, primary as a mode of conveying culture, experience, and values and as a means of transmitting knowledge, wisdom, feelings, and attitudes in oral societies.”10 As human culture evolved, handwritten and printed accounts of history would provide people with written facts. Figuratively, artists’ drawings and paintings interpreted the moment throughout time. Later, photographs followed by motion pictures were used to document an event. The most common method of distribution for documentary currently is film and television. Yet a less explored and non-linear venue like the World Wide Web is appealing as a venue for a documentary. The non-linear quality of the Internet provides the user with an autonomous experience unlike any of its linear counterparts. A user is
9 Rabiger, Michael. Directing the Documentary. Stoneham, MA: Focal Press, 1987. 10 Obiechina, Emmanuel. Narrative Proverbs in the African Novel. Research in African Literatures 24.4(Winter 1993):123
- 7 - able to delve into information that interests her and ignore any item that does not. In this respect, she is designing her own experience and ultimately her own connections and associations through the content. In this non-linear format, unlike a linear documentary, the director’s vision is less influential. As Bordwell and Thompson write in their book Film Arts: A documentary may take a stand, state an opinion, advocate a solution to a problem . . . documentaries often use rhetorical form to persuade an audience . . . the filmmaker controls the final editing of the images.11
Rhetorical film form presents an argument and then provides documentation to sustain it. Although a non-linear documentary designer does have control over content, she has less regulation over the order in which information and images are presented to the user. This dilutes the rhetorical form and leaves the director’s voice muted. In the non-linear version of the documentary, the user becomes an active participant in the content. Traditional narrative structure in documentary or narrative film is based on the assumption of a passive audience that willingly suspends their disbelief and briefly accepts the director’s structured vision as a filmic reality. As the user interacts with the online documentary, she subverts and supersedes this convention. The sequencing of images and exposition of events based on user decision challenges the traditional form of documentary storytelling and provides a new way of presenting factual information. The user makes her own connections, her own decisions and ultimately customizes her own documentary experience.
1.3 The Non-linear Lotus Festival Documentary For an event as multi-faceted, simultaneous and diverse as the Festival, a non- linear architecture is the ideal format and the Web the most convenient venue. In this environment a musician or a moment can be explored at the user’s discretion. There is
11 Bordwell, David and Kristin Thompson. Film Arts. New York: McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. 1997. p. 44-45.
- 8 - no political or social agenda to be examined which would need the voice of the director to develop. Unlike those attending the actual Festival, the Web user can enjoy experiences that were in multiple places at the same moment in time during the actual event. The very nature of the Festival is in some ways subverted by this more omnipotent access. Of course, to actually be at the event is an exciting proposition, but to experience otherwise unattainable moments, whether because the user was at a different venue or in Alaska at the time of the performance, is a modern technological luxury.
1.4 Comparison with other Music Festival Websites There are other music festival sites on the Web. These sites mostly contain information about the logistics of the event. None of them take on a documentary format. The following is a list of sites examined:
California Worldfest 2002, Grass Valley, CA: http://www.californiafestival.com/ This festival has a multi-venue set-up similar to the Lotus festival, but there is no interactivity or media on the site. There are a few photographs of the audience to give the user some perspective on what the event might be like.
Jazz Fest, New Orleans, LA: http://www.nojazzfest.com/ This website is also just informative, with no media or interactivity. Nothing to give the user an idea of what the festival is like.
Kerrville Folk Festival, Kerrville, TX: http://www.kerrville-music.com/
- 9 - This is a purely informative site. It contains no insight into the festival experience.
Monterey World Music Festival, Monterey, CA: http://montereyworldmusic.org/main.htm This site provides one writer’s version of the events in a nine-paragraph-long page. There are artist bios and a few soundbytes. There is a section called "Oasis of Sound" but it doesn't have soundbytes there, just text about sound. There is no other media on the site.
WOMAD, Traveling Festival: http://www.womad.org/od2/ This site has one VR tour. It also has a “diaries” section, although nothing is personalized. There is no sense of what it might be like to be at this event.
The overall use of the World Wide Web for music festivals is as a pre-event logistical resource for audience participants. These sites delineate what artists will perform, lodging information, ticket prices and event dates. There is little post-event experiential documentation that might orient the user to the type of experience these festivals provide.
1.5 Comparison with other Narrative Websites Ken Burns American Stories: The Shakers http://www.pbs.org/kenburns/shakers/timeline/ This is an interesting text-heavy site about the Shaker religion that accompanies Ken Burns’ Public Broadcasting Systems’ film. There is a text-based timeline that
- 10 - covers the existence of the Shakers and two short video clips. This site seems to exist mainly as an addendum to the film first broadcast on December 21, 2002.
The Story of Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony http://www.pbs.org/stantonanthony/ This is a compelling interactive site about Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony that accompanies another Ken Burns’ PBS documentary. Audio voiceovers make the narrative live, and animated photographs and text capture the era of the suffrage movement.
Lewis and Clark http://www.nationalgeographic.com/lewisandclark/s This is an historical site about the expedition of Meriwether Lewis and William Clark across the American West. The site calls itself the Lewis and Clark “online base camp.” This camp has a text-based timeline, a game, and kids’ activities. Photographs from National Geographic magazine, combined with quotes from Lewis and Clark and their corps, pop-up out of an interactive map. The information is rich and interesting.
These narrative sites on the Web are similar to the Festival project in several ways. They all have timelines to clarify the course of events and use photography and text to conjure up a moment in time. But unlike the Festival site, they do not have the high level of interactivity such as the Event Section’s interactive journal entries. Nor do they use the large quantity of video that the Festival site contains. But the main difference is that the events these sites cover are linear experiences. They cover a person in history or a way of life, a common thread in most storytelling sites on the Web. This site covers quite a different type of experience. The Festival, with music in eight venues all at once, is inherently non-linear, because there are multiple
- 11 - performances happening at any given time. The non-linear nature of the Web and this website allows the viewer to experience multiple possibilities of the same moment in time. This site exploits the advantages that the Web has over other mediums: its non- linearity, its instantaneous distribution, and its ubiquitous access to information. One needs never to wait for a program to appear on the Web, The user can simply navigate to the content of choice and immediately takes in the information.
- 12 - CHAPTER TWO: THE EVENT
2.1 The Festival The Lotus World Music and Arts Festival is an annual event based in Bloomington, Indiana. The Lotus Festival Organization, a non-profit group directed by Lee Williams and LuAnne Holiday, whose mission is to “create opportunities to experience and celebrate the diversity of the world’s cultures.”12 The Festival has run annually since its first inception in 1993. Bloomington, Indiana rock musician James Combs met Iranian musician Shahyar Daneshgar in 1992. A conversation about how much they admired each other’s music led to the idea of a music festival combining their very different types of music. Combs and Daneshgar approached Bloomington music promoter Lee Williams, and together the three developed the concept that became the Festival. Daneshgar explains the ideals that lead to the collaboration: Wouldn’t it be nice to have people from different backgrounds and cultures and ideas coming together and contributing to something meaningful? And that is what happened…with the Festival taking place. 13
2.2 The Musicians The Festival aims to create a diverse selection of culture and music with the World Music artists who are touring the United States in September. A few of the countries represented in the 2001 Festival included the Asian country of Tuva, Italy, Ecuador, Canada, Latvia, India and the United States. Many of these musicians are famous around the world. Simon Shaheen, an Israeli artist who is a virtuoso on both the violin and the oud, has performed with Sting and contributed to soundtracks for major Hollywood movies. The Wrigley Sisters from the Orkney Islands have performed
12 The Lotus World Music and Arts Festival. [online]
- 13 - all over the world and won major English music awards. Malian musician Habib Koité co-wrote a song with Bonnie Raitt that appears on her 2002 release “Silver Lining” on Capitol Records. Other artists are lesser-known but no less accomplished musicians. Urna, from Mongolia, with her soaringly beautiful four-octave vocal-range, was the talk of the 2001 Festival. Feufollet, from Louisiana, with gifted Cajun musicians ranging in age from 11 to 16, had everyone dancing. Tarika, a group from Madagascar, captivated the crowd with their lively music and unusual instrumentation, while Bill Miller, an American Indian, riveted audiences with his Indian chants, beautiful songs and storytelling.
2.3 Festival Visual Arts The visual arts aspect of the Festival is both local and international. Each year a committee of local artists creates mixed media backdrops for the stages in several of the larger venues. Over the years a variety of art projects have included street chalk drawings, t-shirt designs and photographic and video displays. Australian Aboriginal and African art has been on exhibit during the Festival.
2.4 Festival Name The festival derives its name from two different inspirations. The Festival is named partly in honor of folk singer, songwriter and musician Lotus Dickey (1911- 1989) from rural Orange County, Indiana. Lotus wrote songs inspired by his family, community, literature and religion. He was discovered by folklorists in the late 1970s and spent his later years recording his songs and performing at major folk festivals. He was declared an Indiana State Treasure and his spirit is embodied in the Festival’s mission. The Festival is also named for the lotus blossom, and uses the image of the lotus blossom as the graphic representation of the event. Flowering all over the world, the
- 14 - lotus plant symbolizes peace in many cultures. The lotus flower metaphorically conveys the power of music to communicate beyond language and culture. Over 6,000 people from all over the Midwest converge on Bloomington for the better part of the last week of September. For the 2001 Festival, the music began with a kick-off concert on the Wednesday evening. Throughout the week and weekend there were community-oriented events, such as a question and answer session with the musicians at the downtown library. The Festival also reached out to the Indiana University campus by sponsoring a free outdoor concert featuring Lotus musicians. In addition, Lotus artists had the chance to perform the sacred music from their homelands at the World Spirit Concert housed at The Buskirk-Chumley Theater. However, the showcase performances take place on Friday and Saturday evenings. Beginning at 7 pm and lasting until after midnight, international musicians perform traditional music from their homelands in eight separate venues scattered around the city. This is the thrilling part. Rushing from venue to venue, audience participants get caught up in the excitement of so much music and so little time:
• “It’s like when I saw Star Wars when I was twelve. I walked out and I couldn’t remember my name. That’s what happens at Lotus.” – Steve Volan, video interview
• “Artist showcases. Lots of artists. Lots of showcases. Too much. Man, I am freaking out!” – Amelia Leas, video interview
• “The Festival is (for me, at least) frenetic and exciting, and the acts rare and amazing." – Rick Dietz, journal entry
2.5 September 11th Effects
Lotus Festival 2001 took place eight days after the September 11th, 2001 tragedies of the terrorist attack on the World Trade Towers in New York City, the Pentagon in Washington, D.C., and the flight that crashed in Pennsylvania. In the wake of those attacks, most international flights were cancelled or difficult to obtain. Seven
- 15 - of the scheduled bands were forced to cancel their trips and performances. The Celtic Concert, which was to be hosted by National Public Radio’s “Thistle and Shamrock” personality Fiona Ritchie, scheduled for Thursday September 20th, had to be cancelled. Several groups scheduled for that event as well as Ritchie herself, could not make the trip across the Atlantic. The bands that were unable to appear were some of the biggest and most popular acts scheduled. From France, Paris Combo had been touted in Lotus advertisements as the “wonderful French band [that] appeared at the 1999 Lotus Festival. Since then, our most frequently asked question has been: “When is Paris
Combo coming back?” The acoustic group Vasen from Sweden, The Zulu-style a cappella group Black Umfolosi from Zimbabwe, the virtuoso flutist Altamiro Carrilho of Santo Antônio de Pádua, Brazil, and the brass and percussion group Gangb!é Brass Band from Benin, were other cancellations. Kila, an Irish folk-fusion band, and the Galician bagpiper Susana Seivane were the last of the cancellations. When asked about the artists’ cancellations, Lee Williams, Lotus Director, said, We lost six artists in a matter of three days and it looked bad for at least seven or eight other artists.... But people made huge attempts to come to the United States, flying halfway around the world under very difficult conditions, and they are here, and it is going to be a beautiful thing.... We lost seven really good artists. It was tough to take that kind of a blow, but we have twenty-five others, and that is always more than enough.14 Co-founder of the festival, Shahyar Daneshgar, believes the festival was more important than ever in light of the events of September 11th: We are the world; the Festival is the world. Bringing people together, learning from each other, and helping each other, teaching each other. These other people [the September 11th terrorists] are not. They are just the opposite of what the philosophy of the Festival is about.15
14 Interview with author. Sept. 19, 2001. 15 Interview with author. Sept. 19, 2001.
- 16 - A large-scale event such as the Festival brings the Bloomington community together with people from all over the world. By sharing the gifts of music, art and cultures created far from the Midwestern United States, this event brings the global to the local. This Festival documentary website then takes that local phenomenon back out to the world for the international community to experience on the Web. This type of exchange creates a deeper understanding of humanity and contributes to a positive global community.
- 17 - CHAPTER THREE: PRODUCTION 3.1 Capturing the Event On Friday and Saturday nights of the Festival, showcase performances run simultaneously in eight different venues from 7 pm until after midnight. As a result, there can be no collective experience of Lotus. Participants may come and go between songs during each performance. Therefore, audience members viewing the first half of a particular show may have a completely different experience from those who see only the second half. This makes each individual’s experience vastly different from the person seated next to him. Part of the thrill of the Festival is the knowledge that whatever spectacular music experience one might be enjoying at any given moment, something equally amazing is being missed.
3.2 Project Volunteers: Preproduction To capture the sporadic and nomadic experience of the Festival event for this project, it was essential to consider multiple perspectives. To do this, twelve volunteers recorded their Friday and Saturday evening showcase experiences. Each volunteer was asked to take photos throughout the evening and to write brief journal-style entries explaining the content of each photograph along with his or her personal thoughts about the event and the time and place. The volunteers were collected through four different resources. Four volunteers – Steve Cotter, Robert Meitus, Amelia Leas and Carrie Newcomer – responded to an emailed request. Lotus Festival Volunteer Coordinator, Lorraine Addison, contributed a list of people who were interested, from which three appear in the final documentary: Rick Dietz, Linda Rosier, and April Jackson. A third resource for volunteers was the official Lotus photographers: Levi Thomas, Tom Stio, and Kevin Atkins. Finally, two sisters, Karen Combs and Janet Ivas were cajoled into duty. This group reflected the demographics of the Lotus Festival audience.
- 18 - 3.3 Project Volunteers: Postproduction Using volunteers for this process was a mixed experience. Some volunteers took beautiful, relevant photographs and wrote interesting journal entries. Some wrote beautiful prose but took indecipherable photos, while others shot great images but wrote hypercritical or dull journal entries. A majority of the volunteers took a few too many photos of friends and family and not enough of the actual event.
3.4 Audio and Video Preproduction Video is the main tool used within the site to allow the user to get a taste of what actually takes place at the Festival. Through video clips of live performances the user is given a chance to experience the energy of the event. The footage, shot in noisy, dark barrooms and streets, orients the viewer to the type of scene in which at least part of the Festival occurs. Video cannot bring the viewer into the actual experience, but it can give him an impression of the sights, sounds and overall aura of the event. All video footage captured specifically for this project was shot on a Canon handheld digital video camera and recorded onto Sony Mini-DV digital tapes. Because of the Festival’s multiple-venue format, a small, portable camera that could easily be carried from show to show was an important asset for capturing the performances and on-the-spot interviews. Digital video was chosen over the analog format to prevent data loss when importing the footage into the computer for editing. (See Section 3.5) A directional shotgun microphone attached to the camera was used to capture the audio in the interviews and musical performance footage. This portable solution allowed for interviews on noisy streets and in crowded clubs, as well as capturing audio from the music onstage with a minimum of ambient noise, without the addition of an extra person focused solely on audio.
- 19 - 3.5 Video and Audio Production Lighting, good composition, clarity, and content are always important issues in video production. When shooting for the Internet, they become even more important. Video that appears on the Web needs to be compressed to the smallest possible but still legible size to deal with bandwidth issues. (See Section 1.1) This compression combined with the small size video window, here 160 x 120 throughout the entire site, requires a close shot of the action. Therefore, when possible, the shots captured for this Festival documentary website are composed almost entirely as medium close-ups and tight close-ups.
One person captured both the video and audio for the footage shot specifically for this project. Opportunities were used to gather video content from other community groups who were already under production for the event. (See Section 3.6) Running from venue to venue, the footage was captured “guerrilla -style”. The goal was to get the strongest footage of one song per performance. Slipping into venues to find the least disruptive spot with the best possible camera angle was the main goal. Because a large crowd is at each venue, there is rarely an empty seat. The footage was shot while scooting across the floor down in the front row, standing in the balcony of a church using the zoom feature on the camera, or holding the camera over the heads of a dancing audience. Some performances took place in lively theaters with footage shot in the midst of the action. Other performances took place in quiet, intimate venues. In these instances, the challenge was to capture the beauty of the moment without disturbing the performance or the audience. Audio coming in through the shotgun microphone was modulated manually using meters that appear on the video cameras LCD screen. From venue to venue, the sound level range was dramatically different, so an adjustment was made for each shot.
- 20 - In addition to the performances video, the site includes interview footage. This footage gives insight in to the artists’ ideas about their music and culture. For these interviews, the quietest and brightest possible locations were chosen in the brief moments when musicians were able to talk. Most interview footage was shot in relatively quiet, well-lit back hallways, dressing rooms, radio station studios, and on the street. For rhythm and continuity from interview to interview, the musicians were asked the same type of questions. Long interviews with multiple questions were not desirable because of the Web format. Only one or two well-conceived questions were required. Originally the interview question was, “When did you first start playing music?”, followed by, “What made you choose to be a musician?”. During the interviews conducted on Thursday at the WFHB radio station (See Section 3.5), these questions did not always bring about an interesting response. As a result, a new question needed to be developed quickly. An inquiry was then made to the office of Chris Douridas,
Vice President of Music at spinner.com, AOL’s music site. Among other things,
Douridas conducts interviews with famous musicians on a daily basis. A personal connection with that office made this request possible. This research concluded that Douridas frequently asks musicians, “What first attracted you to the type of music you play now?” This question was indeed more effective, eliciting longer, more interesting responses from the musicians at the Festival.
3.6 Video Postproduction Once the Festival event concluded, the postproduction work began. Using DV Firewire IEEE 1394 digital transfer, the video was logged and then the best moments were downloaded from the mini DV digital tapes. The footage was captured onto an Apple Macintosh G4 computer using Apple’s Final Cut Pro software application. From
- 21 - there the best footage of each performance was chosen, and edited. A black fade-in and fade-out were applied to each completed clip to provide continuity between all of the clips throughout the Festival site project. The files were then compressed in Media100’s Cleaner 5 EZ software application. Three formats are most widely used on the Web: Apple’s QuickTime,
Microsoft’s Media Player and Real’s RealVideo. 16 After researching and experimenting with the video compression, data rate and codec, a “best format for this project” was developed. Apple’s QuickTime codec was chosen because it looked cleaner and brighter than Microsoft’s Media Player files and had better synchronicity between audio and video. Real’s RealVideo player created a small file, but the video and audio were too distorted for enjoyable viewing. The files were encoded using Sorenson compression with a data rate of 15 frames per second. Qdesign Music Pro 2 compressed the audio in the files into 16-bit mono files at 22.050 KHz. Because of the large quantity of video in the Festival Website, the smaller 160 x 120 window size was chosen to make the user’s wait-for-download time shorter. These video files average about 4 MBs in size making them load relatively quickly across a high bandwidth (broadband) connection. The majority of the videos for this site appear in the Background and Musician sections. They play in JavaScript-programmed pop-up HTML windows out of the Flash interface. Leaving the video in Flash would require the user to wait for the download of video he may not necessarily want to see. Examination of video-heavy Flash sites such as pop-singer Madonna’s madonna.com showed that these sites also used the HTML pop-up window solution.
16 Marioni Reno. “Streaming Video for the Masses.” Jan.19, 2001. Hotwired’s Webmonkey. [online]
- 22 - The introduction video montage was treated differently. (See Section 4.3) Because this video introduces the entire site to the viewer, it plays within the project’s Flash interface. This orients the view to the framework in which the entire site exists. Flash MX compresses video using Sorenson Spark video codec. The video was synchronized with the Flash documents frame rate of 31 frames per second. The Flash introduction file produces a Shockwave file that is 1.8 MBs.
3.7 Other Resources The Bloomington Community Access Television Station, also known as CATS, videotaped all the performances that occurred in the Buskirk-Chumley Theater for the 2001 Lotus Festival. CATS Director, Michael White, allows the use of CATS footage for non-commercial use. The performances by Simon Shaheen, Avashai Cohen, Habib Koité and Bio Ritmo are CATS footage. This video was reviewed on videotape, and the most compelling moments of each show were captured onto a 60-gigabyte hard drive for editing and compression. The local community radio station WFHB “Firehouse Radio” broadcasts interviews and performances of all the musicians available live on the air from their studios. Interviews are conducted by station manager Jim Manion and by students from the Ethnomusicology Department at Indiana University. Excerpts from several of these interviews and performances appear on this documentary website.
- 23 - CHAPTER FOUR: DESIGN 4.1 Technical Aspects in Design The interface for the Lotus Festival documentary was developed with several major considerations: the visual aesthetics, the information architecture, and download speeds on the Internet. The challenge lay in developing a design that speaks of the richness of the event balanced with the technical realities of an online production. There are two formats for digital graphics: vector-based and bitmap. Vector- based graphics are mathematical descriptions of an image, allowing for easier scaling and storage. Vector images are resolution independent, meaning that the scale can be changed without affecting the files size or the appearance of the image. A vector-based graphic is always as good as it can be at any particular size. This format is ideal for the quick download speeds essential when dealing with bandwidth issues on the Internet. Because of the use of mathematics, vector graphics tend to have a computerized, technical feel. In contrast, bitmapped graphics are made up of individual pixels that combine to represents the graphic image. This pixel-by-pixel format allows for more detail and range within an image; however, these details create a far larger digital file than vector- based graphics.17 Larger files take longer to download into a user’s browser window. For this project, a mix of simple pencil drawings were scanned into the computer and digitally converted from their original bitmap format into a vector format using Adobe Streamline application. The goal was to achieve an overall low-tech visual quality that suits the nature of the topic (World Music) while maintaining relatively swift download speeds.
17 David Siegel. Creating Killer Websites, The Art of Third-Generation Site Design. Indianapolis: Hayden Books, 1996. p. 44-45.
- 24 - 4.2 Aesthetic Issues in Design World Music, with its ancient traditions and often hand-made instruments, lends itself to an organic visual language and texture. To achieve this low-tech feeling, a simple pencil drawing of a lotus flower is the main graphic that runs behind each of the four sections of the interface. Four different earth-toned colors designate each of the four major topics of the Website: Introduction, Event, Musicians, and Background. The colors and the sections that they represent overlap slightly with each other to mimic the overlapping of each part of the actual Festival. For example, the Background section is filled with information about how the Festival is created and fostered by the community. This overlaps with the Event section’s content that focuses on the community participants who wrote journal entries about their experiences at the Festival’s showcase performances. This overlaps with the Musician section, which gives in-depth information about each of the musical groups that performed at these showcases.
Figure 1. Screenshot of the main interface image: a hand-drawn lotus blossom. The color of each section overlaps with the others.
- 25 - Throughout the site a hand-drawn ripple animation appears whenever the user clicks an icon button or closes a window. The ripple’s meaning is multifold. The lotus flower grows in water, so this is an obvious connection. The ripple is also a visual metaphor for the way in which the Festival spreads itself across the community. By participating as volunteers or just going to this event, people’s lives are enlivened and enriched.
Figure 2. Screenshot of the ripple transition from the main interface to the in-depth content requested by the user’s button click.
4.3 Opening Video Loading Page The site opens up in a large 700 x 535 pop-up window developed in Macromedia’s Flash MX application. A large size window was needed to have enough space for the rich content of the site. A loading graphic appears to allow time for the 1.8 MB video to download. While the video loads, the viewer is given a context for the project she is waiting to view. A world map pinpoints the location of Bloomington, Indiana, USA, for any user uncertain of North American geography.
- 26 - Once the video downloads, it appears on the left side of the screen. The 160 x 120 pixel video sits in the Flash window. (See Section 3.4) The montage video is designed to quickly educate the viewer about the energy and diversity of the Festival experience. Clips of audience participants, as well as performance footage from a variety of musicians, orient the user to the type of content covered within the site.
Figure 3. Screenshot of the introduction video page. The status bar below the video orients the user to how much of the video has been viewed and how much is left to watch.
4.4 Main Interface Design The main design of the site’s interface consists of a large lotus flower drawing divided into four sections: Site Introduction, Event, Musicians, and Background.
- 27 - Figure 4. Screenshot of the main interface with the four sections delineated. Each of these sections takes up the entire HTML window.
These divisions clarify the content gathered at the Festival. The Introduction explains the way the site functions and what type of content lies under each button. The Event section covers the actual time-based experience of the main showcase evenings. The musician section gives an in depth look at the musicians and features a map that establishes the context of the word “World” in World Music. The background section gives the behind-the-scenes information about the Festival. It is the work that is done in the ‘background” that makes the event actually happen. Each section has its own color and large typographic name that delineates the content of the section. Three pull-down tabs at the top on each section allow the user to navigate from section to section. Each tab gives the user the option of going through the section’s introduction or navigating directly to the actual content.
- 28 - Figure 5. Screenshot of the pull-down navigation bar.
4.5 Section Introductions The Event, Musicians and Background sections each have their own Introductions. These Introductions can be chosen or skipped from the pull-down tabs on the navigation. All of the Introductions have the same sequence, so that the user, having seen one, will have an expectation of how it will run. The first frame is a short paragraph describing the content of the chosen section. Following a click of the “click to continue” button, a brief animation orients the user to the icons and imagery he will see within the section. Text appears with each graphic to give the user context for each icon.
- 29 -
Figure 6. Screenshot of the Event section animated introduction.
4.6 The Event Section Graphically the Event Section is developed as a timeline to elucidate the time- based nature of the scheduled performances taking place simultaneously in multiple venues during the Festival’s showcases. The icons on the timeline, tracking volunteer participants through their evening, give the user an idea of the flow of the event. Each volunteer has his or her own icon, a simple circle with a contrasting outline. These icons are placed on one of nine horizontal lines – eight representing Lotus venues and one representing “On the Street” to allow for photographs taken outside of the venues. As the user moves his cursor over an icon, a small pop-up box appears next to the icon giving the volunteer’s name, the time of the underlying photo, and a brief text snippet from the corresponding journal entry.
- 30 - Figure 7. Screenshot of the Event section timeline with journal rollover.
Here the user can decide if that excerpt piques his interest to click and see the entire entry and underlying photograph, or if he will move on through the entries until he finds something that does. Once the icon is clicked, a rippling window opens up to reveal the content of the complete journal entry and its corresponding photograph underneath.
- 31 - Figure 8. Screenshot of an Event section journal entry.
Each hour between six and midnight is represented by a vertical line, clarified by the time underneath (8pm, 9pm, etc). To navigate through the timeline, the user rolls his cursor screen left to go back in time, and screen right to move forward through the nights. The central area of the screen is neutral and does not move. The overall effect of these images, combined with the journal entries, offers an excellent portrayal of the Festival and the Bloomington community. The entries take the user to multiple locations and experiences, which occurred in the same moment, allowing him to experience the diversity of the event through multiple voices. This opportunity to experience multiple venues at the same moment is one that the actual Festival-goer does not have the luxury of experiencing.
- 32 - 4.7 Musicians Section The Musicians Section is represented as a world map. Locating the musicians geographically instantly presents the user with the real scope and variety of musical traditions represented at the Festival. The user can also choose to sort the musicians alphabetically in order to search for a particular name. When a name at the bottom is rolled over, a dot highlights the artist’s homeland on the map above.
Figure 9. Screenshot of the Musician section map with rollover.
Once the user clicks on an artist’s icon, a separate page opens, allowing for a more in-depth exploration of that particular artist. Text about the musicians, as well as links to video footage of a performance or interview, is available. These 160 x120 pixel QuickTime videos pop-up in HTML windows out of the Flash interface. A link to each artist’s homepages is provided if the user wants more information or to purchase music.
- 33 - Figure 10. Screenshot example of the Musician section with a band chosen.
4.8 Background Section The Background section of the site gives the user a behind-the-scenes look at how the Festival is put together. The icons on this section sit upon a still version of the ripple animation that appears throughout the site. Here the ripple’s metaphor of how the Festival affects the entire Bloomington community crystallizes, because the Background Section’s focus is on the community that creates this event year after year. When the cursor rolls over the icons sitting on the ripple, as in all other sections of the site, a pop-up window appears to give a short description of what lies beneath.
- 34 - Figure 11. Screenshot example of the Background section with rollover.
The icons lead to a variety of information about the development of the Festival. One link leads to a video interview with the Festival’s Executive Director, Lee Williams, in which he describes the history of the Festival and how the musicians are chosen.
- 35 - Figure 12. Screenshot example of the Background section. A selection has been made and the pop-up video interview is playing.
There is also a map of the venues, video interviews with a variety of Lotus volunteers, and a video interview with one of the original founders of the Festival, Shayhar Daneshgar. Footage of the late Lotus Dickey, the musician for whom the Festival is partly named, is also housed here, as is information about the radio station WFHB and the Community Access Television station (CATS). CATS’ footage from certain performances is used within this site.
4.9 Summary and Conclusion This thesis documents the design and implementation of a unique and new type of narrative, the non-linear documentary. The creation of this type of site expands upon the possibilities of what can be called a documentary. A user-customized experience of content creates a whole new possibility in the type of information covered and the impact it has.
- 36 - The Lotus World Music and Arts Festival brings a global experience of international music and art to a local audience in Bloomington, Indiana. The Lotus Documentary 2001 website brings that local experience back out to a global audience via the World Wide Web. This results in a benefit for not only the user, but also the event covered. The Lotus Documentary 2001 provides worldwide exposure for the Festival, the city of Bloomington, Indiana, and for the musicians who performed at the event. Exploiting the non-linear nature of the Web, this site allows a user to experience a single moment in time at the Festival from multiple perspectives and places. This media and content rich site immerses the viewer in an exciting event surrounded by the community that makes it happen.
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