Scholarly record

THE FRICTION OF AESTHETICS AND NARRATIVE TAXONOMY IN 360? FILMS

A. Ceplitis

Abstract

The fundamental raison d'être in the production of immersive technologies is the attainment of an absolute psychosomatic and physical embodiment, which Chris Milk, the founder of WITHIN application and a touted master per excellence in 360° video production, provides through his global digital platform where a sense “as if being there” is played out by many world’s VR creators. The hitch, however, for films shot in 360° space, is that their current narrative system as well as their visual configuration oppose the very type of an experience they strive to deploy. To crack the code of narrative schemata that would render 360° films to be truly immersive, a number of 360° video prototypes are tested against the backdrop of Seymour Chatman’s model, in combination with covert observational and grounded theory techniques in order to gage the extent of embodiment in a variety of 360° narrative configurations. Chatman had outlined five principle relations between story time and discourse time that govern the duration in film: summary, scene, omission, pause, and stretch [1]. Classical films are edited elliptically, although cut and omission are demarcated in cinema, with cut being a mere ellipsis derivative; they are also keen on freeze frames to pause for a pure description, and frequently accompanied by a voice-over. In 360° cinema, all three-ellipsis, cut, and pause-do not operate properly. When 360° films are viewed on portable devices, the effect of discourse time and pause is closer to that of reading, whereas in community mediated setting for 360° cinema, pause and ellipsis begin to fuse. In favoring immersivity as the propelling engine of its narrative experience, 360° cinematic preference for here and now (scene) is further boosted by its resentment to montage. Unless made as a collage-pastiche spherical video installation, and accepted, at face value, with no particular narrative present, immersivity is lost, which leaves not only the application of summary but also the use of stretch rather moot in 360° space. Finally, in testing frequency, another potential tension between narrative time and story time for 360°, it is important to note that a singulative narrative representations of an event (describing once what happened once) remains the principal narrative device in 360°, with “repetitive” representations deployed rarely, merely as special effects, or as a patterning device in flashbacks or thought-form sequences through the post-digital editing style; ideally, not deployed, at all, if the embodiment is the key. Repetitive sequences appear particularly displeasing in 360° films, when the content is viewed with VR optical glasses, instead of desktop computers. The 360° video prototype simulation addresses a few fundamental concerns as to whether montage is detrimental in 360° film, what types of story material and genre are more suitable for 360° cinema, and how do we gage the level, residuals of embodiment, as a result.

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