Examining Models

MULTIMEDIA DOCUMENTARY

Katherina Cizek, Out My Window

This digital narrative comes from the National Film Board (NFB) of Canada’s Interactive site. Out My Window was directed by Katerina Cizek, who has won both Webby and International Digital Emmy Awards for her new-media documentaries. Out My Window is one part of a larger project called HIGHRISE, a “multi-year, many-media collaborative documentary experiment” that “explores vertical living in the global suburbs.”

image

Out My Window, directed by Katerina Cizek and produced by the national Film Board of Canada. To experience Out My Window, go to http://interactive.nfb.ca/#/outmywindow

Reading the Genre

Question

1. Recall the steps you took to navigate through this “text”—where did you go first, what was the order of your movement through the site, and what were the highlights for you? What was unique about your experience of moving through this, and what was difficult? Share your notes on navigation with a classmate, and compare your pathways. Why did you make similar or different choices?

Question

2. Do you think that you explored all parts of this text? Do you feel like you are supposed to? How could the rules of “reading” a text like this be different from the ways you have been taught to read “normal” essays?

Question

3. Cizek calls this a “360-degree documentary.” What do you think this means? What does this documentary offer that traditional film documentary does not?

Question

4. Visit the HIGHRISE blog and read some of the posts (and multimedia content) about highrises and public housing around the world. Choose one blog post to comment on. Alternatively, you can go to the participatory section of the site, look at images there, and comment on one of them.

Question

5. WRITING: Many of the speakers in Out My Window comment on how they themselves are shaped by the home in which they live. Think about your own surroundings when you were growing up, and the view you had out your own window. How did these surroundings and views shape who you are today? Write a narrative essay.

Question

6. COMPOSING VISUALLY: Using pictures from your own childhood, create a photo essay about where you come from. You might consider making this essay interactive using Flash.

[Leave] [Close]