Transcript PowerPoint Presentation - Use of Digital Photography and

“More Than Just a Picture”:
Creating and using visuals in
social science research
Jennifer Cool
[email protected]
M.A. Visual Anthropology, 1993
Ph.D. Candidate, Anthropology
University of Southern California
www.cool.org/visualworkshop
1
Talk Outline
o
o
o
Workshop Purpose
Definitions
Representation Across Media
o
o
o
o
o
o
Rhetoric
Filmmaking
Informatics
Documentary / Visual Anthropology
Putting it all into practice: “Home Economics”
Practicum in documentary video
2
Workshop Purpose
o
o
o
The proliferation of digital technologies has
increased the ease with which graduate
students use self-made still, moving, and
interactive images to support their research.
Despite this trend, images are often added to
dissertations, presentations, and publications
as an afterthought.
This workshop will encourage us to think
critically and creatively when we use visual
images — moving, still, and interactive — in
our research by exploring the use of
photography, film, and interactive media.
3
Digital technology
Information
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
Stable, established
Mature
Relatively centralized
Formal
One-to-many
Top-down publication
Unified layers (bits linked to atoms)
Writing presented per publication
Largely mono-media (text) with
separate repositories for different
media/genres (pictures, artifacts)
Hypermedia
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
Unstable, emerging
Immature
Relatively decentralized
Informal
Many-to-many
Distributed publication
Discrete layers
Write once publish anywhere
Highly multimedia & intermedia
(text, image, audio, video,
multiple document formats;
multilingual, modular)
4
By “Visuals” I Mean
o
Photographs, film/video (sound and image),
any recording made with a camera as data to
be studied
o
o
Research media
o using (audio)visuals to record data
Still images, films, videos, PowerPoint
presentations, any visual media made to
convey or illustrate the insights and
analyses of academic research.
o
Rhetorical media
o using (audio)visuals to make argument
5
Research & Rhetorical Media
o
Can the boundaries be traversed?
o
o
o
Research media fall under methods
o
o
Absolutely. Two modes are mutually informative.
But important to consider each mode separately.
Generally, these are techniques, forms, and
norms of data capture established within
disciplines and sub-fields.
Rhetorical media fall under___?
6
Basic Premise of this Talk
o
No image is understood outside a discourse.
o
o
o
Discourse/Context may mask itself (art)
Discourse/Context may be explicit (newspaper)
The question is, how to craft your images so
they are consistent with the discourse in
which you operate?
7
Representation Across Media
o
o
As scholars, you already have mastery in
certain forms of communication, in particular,
reading and writing texts.
Whatever the medium, thoughtful acts of
representation begin with these basic
questions:
o
o
o
What do I want to say?
Who is my audience?
What is the best way to say it?
8
What do I want to say?
(Content)
o
o
What’s my main message, or thesis?
What’s my goal or purpose in making these
photographs; this video, slideshow,
webpage, or other media presentation?
o
What’s my investment in the subject?
o
With what authority do I speak?
9
Who is my audience?
o
o
o
What knowledge can I assume of my
audience?
What ideas/information need to be presented
explicitly?
What issues or objections might they have to
my argument?
o
What are their values, goals, and interests?
o
How do might these relate to my message?
10
What’s the best way to say it?
(Form)
o
Choose medium, genre, format:
o
o
o
o
o
Oral: lecture, discussion, informal speech
Written: essay, book, email, letter
Pictoral: photos, illustrations, diagrams, graphs
Mixed & multimedia: PowerPoint presentation,
film, video, website, other new media
Match tone & formality to audience & content.
11
My Frameworks
o
o
o
o
Rhetoric
Filmmaking
Informatics
Documentary / Visual Anthropology
12
Drawn from my experience
Visual anthropology
o
o
o
M.A. Visual Anthropology, USC, 1993
“Home Economics: a documentary of suburbia,” M.A. Film
“The Experts of Everyday Life: "The Experts of Everyday
Life: Cultural Reproduction and Cultural Critique in Antelope
Valley," M.A. Thesis
Film, documentary multimedia, Internet and web
production:
o
o
Synapse Columbus project & Computer Curriculum Corp.
Cyborganic, Netscape, Disney/ABC Cable Networks
Teaching film production, written, oral, and graphic
communication:
o
o
o
Assistant Lecturer, Freshman Writing, U.S.C.
Lecturer, Cinema Dept., San Francisco State
Lecturer, Information & Computer Science, U.C. Irvine
13
Rhetoric
Representation is a rhetorical act
15
Rhetorical
in a classical sense
16
17
Rhetorical
in a modernist sense
o
o
It’s never just a pipe.
The images you make are
not prima facie evidence.
Even the most straight
forward illustration involves
interpretation and
construction.
Although we often hear that data speak for themselves, their voices can be
soft and sly.
—
Frederick Mosteller, Stephen E. Fienberg, and Robert E.K. Rourke,
Beginning Statistics with Data Analysis, 1983, p. 234.
18
Rhetorical
in a postmodernist sense
Viewers make meaning
o
Reception, cultural construction
The treason of images
o
A picture may be worth ten thousand words,
but…
o You, the producer, don’t get to choose
any of those words
o They may not even be in your language
Power/Knowledge
o
All acts of representation are partial,
situated, interested, and occasioned
o Creating, using, and reading visuals in
social science requires attention to these
contexts
19
Filmmaking
Two parables, an aphorism, and three aspects
20
Kuleshov Effect
21
Cocktail Party Effect
o
o
o
The ability in perception to select one desired
sound from a background of ambient noise.
E.g., at a party, where many voices speak
simultaneously, we can 'focus' our ears on
one conversation and ‘filter out’ voices and
sounds which are equally strong.
A microphone cannot ‘filter’ noise from signal
thus and, placed at the party, records a
babble of sounds.
Perception is interpretation.
22
“You’ve got to have a reason”
“Rule 1: Never make a cut without a positive reason.”
— Edward Dmytryk, On Film Editing
o
Apply Dmytryk’s aphorism to every :
o
o
o
o
o
Cut
Frame
Shot
Choice of media (film stock, video, etc.)
Contrast with:
o
Laying down music and cutting to the beat.
o
Deciding you must cut to a new image every x seconds
o
Shooting footage without a clear purpose, shooting
everything in master shots, just “getting coverage.”
23
Intersecting Aspects
o
Technical
o
o
o
Narrative
o
o
o
o
o
o
Subject is in frame, in focus, and well illuminated
Camera, sound, and editing as crafts that support
narrative and aesthetic aspects.
Film time is not clock time. It is story time, time is
condensed, expanded, elided.
Narrative time is configured. Time governed by plot.
Plot: drawing a “sense of whole” out of a chronology
Characters: agents who both act and suffer
Classic Three act structure: beginning, middle, and end
Aesthetic
o
o
o
Technical craftsmanship does not detract from message.
Form and content work together
Be especially aware and reflexive of the aesthetic to
which you appeal.
24
Informatics
Tufte: Scientific principles of
Information design
25
Edward Tufte
o
o
Professor emeritus of statistics, graphic design, and
political economy at Yale University
Expert in informational design & graphics
1983
1990
1997
200626
Information Graphics
Greatest Hits
27
Tufte: clear and precise
seeing, thinking, saying
“if displays of data are to be truthful and
revealing, then the logic of the display design
must reflect the logic of analysis.
Visual representations of evidence should be
governed by principles of reasoning about
quantitative evidence. For information displays,
design reasoning must correspond to scientific
reasoning. Clear and precise seeing becomes
as one with clear and precise thinking.
— Edward Tufte, Visual Explanations, 1997, p. 53.
28
Tufte: Scientific Principles
Displays should be documentary, comparative,
causal and explanatory, quantified, multivariate,
exploratory.
o Document sources and characteristics of the data.
o Insistently enforce appropriate comparisons.
o Demonstrate mechanisms of cause and effect.
o Express those mechanisms quantitatively.
o Recognize the inherently multivariate nature of
analytic problems.
o Inspect and evaluate alternative explanations.
29
Documentary &
Visual Anthropology
The documentary tradition
Ethnographic film
Image ethics and epistemologies
30
The documentary tradition
o
o
o
o
Some of the first films were ethnographic
(1890s-1930s)
City symphony films (early 20th century)
Portable Sync Sound 16mm (1960s),
technology gets smaller, more automatic
Cinéma verité, direct cinema
31
Ethnographic film
o
o
o
o
o
Positivism & scientific films
Observational cinema
Anthropology’s Crisis of Representation
Reflexivity, beyond observational cinema
Ethics
o
o
o
Rights of the subject
Questions of audience, royalties, etc.
Politics and epistemologies of representation
o
The New Ethnography and “New Wave” in
Ethnographic film.
32
New Ethnography
o
o
o
o
o
Dialogism, dialogic relationship between
ethnographer and informant(s)
Ethnographies of the particular (present
ethnographer and subjects as specific
individuals in specific social contexts
Reflexivity
Subjects speak for themselves
Conscious focus on narrative structure (e.g.
Geertz’s “fictions”, anthropological
representations are made not found)
33
Putting it all into practice
“Home Economics”
34
Home Economics
as response to “Crisis of Representation”
o
Choice of subject
o
o
Subjects addressed, not described
o
o
o
o
the domestic and everyday, rather than the exotic other.
No voiceover narration, no explanatory titles
Filmmaker’s questions included
Real time takes, no “cut away” shots in interviews, whole
replies included, not sound bites
Authorship acknowledged
o
o
o
Reflexivity (inclusion of filmmaker in the frame)
o “Slow down I want to get the billboards”
Clear narrative arc (constructed nature of representation)
Montage (portraits and landscapes)
35
Home Economics
Picture/Camera
o
o
o
Filmmaker in the frame, but off to the side, not at
the center
Framing of whole bodies in the environment
Set camera up, off to the side, so anthropologist
and informant can talk face to face.
o
o
o
o
Keep the equipment in the background
Create casual atmosphere, kitchen conversations
Juxtaposition of interview (portraits) and montage
of the build environment (landscapes)
Hand-held shots of home interiors, emphasize
domestic, everyday life.
36
Home Economics
Sound
o
o
Inclusion of long takes presents subjects as
“expert witnesses”
Music played in model home sequences is
the actual music played in the models.
o
o
“Hard” cuts on audio in these shots.
Music played in scene of low-income
housing was actual sound from the footage.
o
“Hard” cuts on audio in these shots.
37
Home Economics
ethics & politics of representation
o
Key informants saw final cut of film before they were
asked to sign release forms
o
o
Permission to film models and construction site
came from the housing developer
o
o
Goes against what they teach at the Cinema School. It’s
risky and can backfire, but also builds trust.
Workers not asked to sign a release
“Guerrilla filmmaking”
o
o
Billboards shot without permissions
Low income housing in long shot, reflects social distance
between filmmaker and these subjects
38
Home Economics
as a work in the Anthropological Tradition
o
o
Examines the ideals and norms of
homeownership
Explores specific cultural meanings of home
o
o
“What the native thinks he’s up to” (Geertz)
Seeks to show the logic and validity of a
particular way of life
39
Home Economics
as Cultural Critique
o
Homeownership in contemporary American
society is often achieved at the expense of
the very values a home is said to represent.
o
Informants as expert witnesses who testimony
show both the values and meanings of
homeownership and the ways those values are
undermined by commuting, work, and other
structural forces of the society.
40
Home Economics
Asch’s Ethics of Ethnographic Filmmaking
Applied (in some way)
• Know your subjects
• Reflexivity (backgrounded)
• Shoot whole events
• Support film with
documentation
• Seek feedback from subjects
• Seek feedback from sample
audiences
• Distribute film properly
• Publish guide/monograph to
distribute with film
Not Applied
• Reflexivity (foregrounded)
• Make an uncut version for
scholarly research
• Make royalty agreement with
people filmed
• Shoot whole events (focus was
on discourse, not events)
• On-going commitment to
indigenous population
41
practicum
Documentary Motion Pictures
42
Pre-production
o
o
o
o
Crew or one-man band?
Practice. Video tape is cheap.
Choose a cinematic subject
Audience, genre, format, medium
o
o
The more you know about the final destination,
the better you can shoot for it.
Camera (and other equipment) size and
“footprint” in relation to filmed event and
logistics “in the field,” or “on location.”
43
Shooting
o
Focus, exposure, and composition
o
o
o
o
o
o
Use a tripod whenever possible
o
o
o
o
o
These all need to be intuitive
Auto-focus: “set and hold”
Play with focus, exposure, composition.
Fold out LCD screens are great for composition, but no use for
exposure or focus.
Frame your subject tightly enough so it’s clear where the viewer
should look. Crop out moise.
Camera movement can be hard to intercut.
Other benefits? (Face to face communication)
If shooting handheld, bone-to-bone contact or shoulder brace?
Good sound (professional mic)
Always shoot for real.
44
Shooting
o
o
o
o
o
Let takes run long, heads and tails
Log and label all footage on the spot
Let moving objects exit frame before you cut
Practice as though tape were cheap, shoot
as if it were very expensive.
“Hang around and shoot a lot of film.”
o
o
o
Invisibility via ubiquitous presence (of camera)
Don’t try to sneak shots!
Do put tape over red “camera rolling” lights
45
Editing
o
o
Creating film time and space
What one thing are you trying to say?
o
o
o
Images denser and more concrete than text.
Story and character
Build your story in sound and image (rather
than voiceover and inter-titles).
o
The clearer your aims in shooting, the easier this
is to do in the editing room.
46
Examples for Discussion
47
Miles Coolidge
• Safetyville
• America by Numbers
• Garage Photos
• Associate Professor, Studio
Art, U.C. Irvine
48
Michael Wesch
o
o
o
o
o
o
YouTube video by Anthropology
Professor
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6g
mP4nk0EOE
Wired Rave Award
http://www.wired.com/culture/lifestyle
/multimedia/2007/04/ss_raves?slide=
18&slideView=7
Entirely word-driven
Cut to music
49