Photo restoration

So, these are the small steps that are long forgotten in the final part of a documentary. These small, time-consuming, yet worthwhile things like restoration of photographs. These shots of Fred Robinson were taken by Jon Rhodes in 1972. Stephen got hold of the negatives from him, we scanned them in and I've been playing with it in Photoshop this morning, trying to bring it back to life.

Each step of the creation of a documentary such as this one is almost like re-animating a time and a space that has long since passed, and in the case of this photograph, long since faded away. A few strokes of the Photoshop brush brings it back to life in no time.

A-ha?

Just had a wild thought that could be the 'missing link' I've been looking for to tie my argument together.

There's been a gap in my thinking/argument up until this point that I keep stepping over. In the first instance I've been talking about the not so successful digital repurposing of documentary and how it has lost its essence. Good fine but then I've been jumping to 'Flow theory is the answer' to the optimal documentary experience. It was a bit of a leap and everytime I tried to think how to link the two together ... well they didn't logically fit together.

SO, I began to think about other formats that have been re-purposed for the digital realm and then link the qualities that are in common between the traditional and digital formats. Games are the obvious answer. They are equally as engaging and successful in both traditional formats and digital. The two are different in their technical/physical qualities but similar in many other ways.

Then I began to list these common qualities that digital and traditional games have -

• play
• win/lose - clear goals and feedback
• challenges - requires skill and rules to play
• immersive - loss of self-consciousness when engaging
• transformation of time when playing

As i listed these qualities I recognised them all as being qualities of Flow and a-ha the missing link, using this case of games can be my bridge to discussing flow and then discussing flow in relation to documentary will assist in identifying the optimal experience in both digital and traditional environments.

A-ha! :oD

Organising the literature: an interview with myself

I'm content with the methodology chapter for now ... so moving on ... back ... to Chapter 2: Contextual Review and attempting to map out the areas that need to be discussed to contextualise this research. I know what needs to go in there but the puzzle is how to structure it to lay the best foundation for my discussion of the optimal experience of documentary.

What does the reader need to know first?

Documentary, how has it been written about over its 80 year history? Who are the main players? What are the main issues that have been addressed?

And then?

Digital documentary, what has been done and written so far? Outline the observed problem of it not being engaging. Why is this so?

Next ...

Digital media is different to traditional media with regard to its engagement of the audience. Traditional media does it this way ... and digital media does it this way ...

Yes, and then?

... shh, I'm thinking ...

And then?

So, we just need to swap the old traditional characteristics of engagement for the new digital characteristics and documentary will successfully move into the new dimension? Give examples of digidocs in action ... no it is not as simple as repurposing the characteristics of engagement.

So what needs to happen?

we need to open doco up and see what the qualities are that make it the optimal experience and then take these qualities and adjust them for the digital dimension.

Good, so there's your structure then!

Thanks.