From Scroll to Codex
Introduction:
Ancient writers sound very different than their modern counterparts. They write in longer more complex sentences, make grand declarations and rarely quote other sources. This has puzzled me for some time and was initially addressed in the sixth chapter of Writing Space. After reading that section, it got me thinking about how technological change can influence the culture and psychology of reading and writing. This documentary traces the technological and social transition from scroll to codex.
Production Style:
Because this topic was focused on material and cultural practices far removed from modern viewers, my first thought was to avoid putting myself or material from the modern world into the video. This meant modern recordings aside from re-enactments couldn’t be included. It also needed to be focused on visual primary sources of text. So to properly display the topic, I needed a lot of images of ancient readers, writers and texts. Once I had those, I chose to use a web-based video production service. I considered using Powtoons, but quickly felt it might not capture the correct feel of a documentary with its stop-motion technique. Instead, I chose Wevideo which provided a good range of video editing tools that fit with the images I used. I then needed a script.
Recording the whole script in one try and get it perfect was unlikely. To get the best recording, I used by cellphone’s voice recorder. I recorded sections of the script multiple times until I got a take that sounded correct. I then cleaned up and pieced all those audio files together using Audacity to create one audio file. With a single audio file, I synced the images with the audio in Wevideo and made a few slides by screen-capturing PowerPoint slides and inserting them as images. With narration and images, the documentary felt complete.
Overall, Wevideo proved to be an effective tool for the production of an image based documentary.
Challenges:
With the eighty-six images, citation was a little challenging. Under Fair Dealings, section 29, images used for educational purposes must be cited. I used APA for this and included at the end. It was a time consuming process but was a good protection to have.
The style I used was time consuming as well and led to the need for images. I initially believed that I would need an image every ten seconds or so. However, when I began working on the video I quickly discovered that looking at an image for more than about six seconds or more got a little tiresome. Five seconds seemed to fit well but in some cases more or less time fit the needs of the project. Overall, I spent much more time searching for, arranging and cataloguing images than I expected.
Successes:
Wevideo worked out really well as a tool. I was actually a little surprised by how effective it was. I learned how to get the fade-in and fade-out to work well and appreciated that it could pan across an image giving the illusion of movement. This made the documentary feel much more like an actual documentary than a series of slides.
The topic was probably the biggest success. I never really thought about how reading and writing developed. I thought people had always just read silently and privately except in certain situations. The research changed my perception of writers from Herodotus to Aquinas and I now appreciate the struggle they had writing much more.
I hope you enjoy the documentary.
The Video:
Script, Storyboard and Citations
Featured Images:
Greek woman reading [online image]. Retrieved June 28, 2015 from https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Musa_reading_a_volumen_(scroll)-cropped-2.png
Thomas Aquinas [online image]. Retrieved June 28, 2015 from http://i0.wp.com/listverse.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/09/friedrich-herlin-reading-saint-peter-1466.jpg