Events
Short Circuits of Southeast Asian Cinema: Viddsee and the Project of Online Social Viewing by Dr Olivia Su-Lin Khoo
| Date | : | 17 Feb 2015 |
| Time | : | 4:00 pm - 5:30 pm |
| Venue | : | Asia Research Institute Seminar Room |
| Contact Person | : | TAY, Minghua |
CHAIRPERSON
Prof Chua Beng Huat, Asia Research Institute, and Department of Sociology, National University of Singapore
ABSTRACT
Referred to alternately as “micro-cinema”, “mini” films, and “light” movies, the short format film has been integral to the development of Southeast Asian cinema’s increasingly prominent international profile through the major film festival circuit. What is far less examined is the formation of a regional viewing community that is growing in parallel, online. This paper examines the role played by Singapore start-up company Viddsee, which promotes itself as an “online social watching” platform. Co-founded by engineer/filmmakers Ho Jia Jian and Derek Tan in September 2012, Viddsee was built when Ho and Tan struggled to find distribution for their own short film productions. Viddsee provides a targeted viewing experience by focusing on Southeast Asian short films and encourages social networking through an integrated system with Facebook and Twitter, allowing viewers to interact in their engagement with these films. Through an exploration of this model, this paper evaluates how online distribution and exhibition sites like Viddsee are responding to and in turn precipitating different audience consumption practices as filmmakers continue to seek ways of making and marketing films that have relevance beyond local audiences while at the same time building an active (online) community in the region.
ABOUT THE SPEAKER
Olivia Khoo is a Senior Lecturer in Film and Screen Studies at Monash University, Australia. She is the author of The Chinese Exotic: Modern Diasporic Femininity (Hong Kong University Press, 2007), co-author with Audrey Yue and Belinda Smaill of Transnational Australian Cinema: Ethics in the Asian Diasporas (Lexington, 2013), and co-editor (with Sean Metzger) of Futures of Chinese Cinema: Technologies and Temporalities in Chinese Screen Cultures (Intellect, 2009) and (with Audrey Yue) Sinophone Cinemas (Palgrave Macmillan, 2014). She is currently editing the Routledge Handbook of New Media in Asia with Larissa Hjorth. Olivia is a Visiting Senior Research Fellow at ARI for three months.
REGISTRATION
Admission is free. We would greatly appreciate if you RSVP to Ms Tay Minghua via email: minghua.tay@nus.edu.sg.