A single-scene movie
These are strategies for Exercise 2a, creating an animated text within a
single scene:
a) Place two short blocks of text on the web page, and then—using the
timeline—animate one of them so it moves to a different location (for
example, make it move from the right-hand to the left-hand side of the
screen). Try this exercise several times, extending the range of what you
do: for example, put three blocks of text on the screen and animate two
of them. How does changing the position of the texts transmute their
relationship to each other and consequently the meaning?
b) Make one block of text disappear from the screen, and then reappear in
a different position. Look at how this affects the meaning and design on
the screen.
c) Place a word on the web page and using the timeline, make letters dis-
appear or change in order.
d) Make words, letters or blocks of text invert or rotate on the screen.
e) Combine some of the above strategies so that the meaning of the words
is constantly ‘on the move’.
f ) Using the morphing facility, place two ‘handwritten’ words on the
screen and morph them into each other. Expand this process with
larger numbers of words.
A multi-scene movie
Once you have made several individual scenes, string a number of scenes
together to create a complete movie (Exercise 2b). You can sequence the
screens so they play one after the other, but you can also add hyperlinks so
that the reader/screener can jump to different parts of the movie.
As you work with these blocks of text, try to think in a fragmented and
fluid way, rather than necessarily in terms of a unified poem or story.
Shuffle the scenes in different orders and allow sequences to develop that
you would have been unlikely to anticipate before you started. This
way you will be fully interacting with, and exploring experimentally,
the possibilities of the medium.
SPLITTING, FRAMING, LAYERING
Exercise 3 concentrates on different ways of working with the screen, such
as creating split screens, frames or layers. First, you have to decide whether
246 The Writing Experiment