Yes. But why would we want to create?

Just finished reading Clay Shirky's Cognitive Surplus. I was hoping to find more. I was hoping to find out why we would want to create media, create our own digital documentaries. Instead I found a lot of other useful information concentrated on our desire as social creatures to share and communicate with others.

I suppose creating something is communicating but I'm not sure the desire to share what I've created is the total reason why I would want to create a digital documentary. That's a good end result, the fact that I can share it with the world but what about the process of actually doing it? Flow is all about process, being in the moment of doing something. Do we go see a movie for the sole purpose of talking about it with others later? I don't, perhaps others do?

I guess sharing on facebook is about being in the moment, sharing on facebook is the process, the flow experience of facebook is in the sharing, whereas  documentary is all about story (and doco can't exist without story no matter what the delivery platform) and it is the story journey that is the process. In traditional doco the only way to get into the flow of the story is to watch whereas the flow of digital documentary can be to watch but also in the creating ... and the experience can be extended again through sharing.

Chapter 3 'Motive' began to examine why but still it was brought it back to 'The motivation to share is the driver; technology is just the enabler' (2010, p.79). I think I need to go back to the literature on creativity to fill in these gaps on what it is about creating that creates a flow experience for us.

Edit. Day One.

While I wait the 22 minutes for my poor little macbook pro to render I thought I'd catch up here. It's been about 6 weeks since my last entry.

In that time I've been writing, re-writing, and re-re-writing the script for the doco. This has been a 6 month process. 6 months! Worth the time though because now I feel like I've done the hard work, laid the path and it's just a matter of assembling it. Just like a piece of IKEA furniture; well designed, looks good but underneath is particle board timber. So hand me my allen key ...

So I recorded a draft of the voiceover on the weekend. I've never included a voiceover in any of my productions before. I've always used text in its place but as a viewer, text is laborious, exhausting to read. This doco is looking like it is going to be around 30 mins long, too long to be constantly reading!!

And I've certainly never recorded a voiceover before. As I was doing it I found myself wondering how it should sound. There's the traditional 'voice of god' style which I couldn't do if I tried. I also don't like the stiffness of the traditional journalistic approach, it's too cold and detached. Then there's the more contemporary style that sounds is more relaxed, monotone and conversational. That's more how I talk anyway so I think this voiceover probably fits into that category. I'll probably have to end up doing most of it again but it is acting as a good track to guide the doco as I begin editing.

I'm right on schedule in beginning the edit today. I wanted the script done by end of July. The next milestone is to have the documentary, or a complete draft of it, done by end of September.

So first thing was to lay down the voiceover which has filled the timeline up to 32 minutes! Man, that's a seriously long production. I'm a bit concerned that it's too long. As I go I'm going to be looking for parts of the VO that I can replace with more succinct visuals to shorten things a bit.

The beginning of the doco contains lots of little bits from all over the place so I've been sourcing them and putting them on the timeline. Sound effects of tones, projectors, wind whistling. All very easy to source on the www. I visited youtube to source the old film and kodak ads ....

... wait ... rendering is done so back to the editing.