First off, I really enjoyed this project. Like we talked about in class, I thought it was a great opportunity to combine our academic and creative spheres.That said, I

— If anything, I would have liked to have seen the projects multiple times. There’s clearly a lot subtle touches in each one (I know there are in Brett and mine’s), and it would could be informative to watch each one through, discuss it, and then view it again for specific elements. Obviously there is the time constraint, and of course we can view these over and over again on YouTube, but there’s something to be said for examining it in a classroom setting as well.

— One of the project’s obvious drawbacks is that it is impossible for us to de-contextualize the footage used. This is a particular issue when asking the question, “could this project exist as a narrative entirely in its own right?” Many of us answered yes, but the fact is, it’s impossible for us to judge for we cannot disassociate ourselves from our prior knowledge (acquired having previously seen the film). I actually showed a friend (who had never seen The Prestige and knew nothing about the film) our project, and she said that she understood Sarah’s rise and fall as a narrative in and of itself, but did not pick up on the Borden/Fallon distinction. Clearly that is something that becomes much more clear having seen the film.

— One possible solution to circumvent some of the technical difficulties people experienced would be to pre-load the material for the class on a server for everyone to access. When I took Bee Ottinger’s Visual Language of Editing class, Bee had Dan Houghten pre-load material for the class to edit. That way everyone could immediately start editing and not spend hours wrestling with computers to capture footage, anyways just a thought.

Those are my initial reactions. Do people feel similar?

Also, on an unrelated note, how are people “refreshing” the narration08 page to be up to date (and not stuck at 10/23)? I know we talked about this in class briefly but I can’t seem to read any of the newest posts unless I go to each blog individually.