multimedia - the leading edge Interactive Movie Making presented by Chris Hales

Interactive Movie Making

Chris Hales presents his interactive film/video works, discussing their production and screen presence as interactive works:

"I'm an artist and certainly not a film theorist or a filmmaker. I think what I'm trying to do is a little bit of everything anyway … there's a terminology with film, video whatever. Filmed with a video camera, whatever you want to call it. Things like interactive film, art film: it possibly could be cinema, it could be movie."

Interactive Movies, 1995-2000

The Concepts:

I make experimental interactive movies that are generally experienced as an installation for galleries, or a cdrom. They are live-action works in which the visual metaphors for interaction, and the structures chosen, differ according to the type of story being told. Because the movies are conceived from a visual approach, scriptwriting is not involved in its traditional sense, and at the same time the ideas and content are more important than the technology.

Interactive Movies

*JINXED!

Explanation: An interactive comedy film based on the slapstick genre. The central character is a 'Loser' who needs to attend an interview, and without the user's interaction he will simply get ready and leave. Objects in his appartment are however 'jinxed' and by clicking on them it is possible to painfully and comically hinder the Loser in his attempts to prepare. Mike Williams initiated this piece.

Interaction: Jinxed objects appear to 'bend' when they can be clicked, and there is an audio cue. The comedy doesn't always happen immediately (e.g. the soap or the iron).

*THE TALLINN PEOPLE'S ORCHESTRA

Explanation: Activities in the main Square in the old town of Tallinn, showing local residents going about their business, children playing, tourists, pony rides, car traffic.

37 different elements of the scene have been isolated and assigned a short musical 'leitmotiv'. The computer chooses up to 5 elements at a time to place in the empty square, which becomes animated again with the same people it was when filmed. However they now appear in any order and with a musical motiv, to produce a kind of deconstructed jazz ballet based entirely upon real-life activity. This piece shows the aesthetic beauty inherent in day to day activities, many of which are repetitive.

Interaction: The computer does the work in generating the Tallinn people. In its own right this has aesthetic value and pleasure, but you CAN interact by clicking on any of the moving parts of the screen. This simply turns that element off. Doing this enables new musical and visual combinations and can enable some of the larger characters to appear when they may not otherwise be able to.