Final Activity Report Summary - HYFIP (Hypertextual Film Presentation. Designing Digital Editions for the European Cinematographic Heritage) The HYPERKINO method introduces an innovative scholarly standard for film editions with hypermedial commentaries on DVD. It is based on the idea that every shot in a film calling for annotation or explanation is linked with an off-screen commentary text section. These sections we call 'footnotes' for the film. The main difference to current DVD commentaries is the presentation of the scholarly research: It happens not in an audio but in a written format which makes the commentary quotable. Every HYPERKINO DVD edition is tantamount to an introductory article about the film published. The film and texts about the film merge on the digital carrier. The concept of indexing a text, turning it into a network of interrelations and linking it with other texts, goes back to the philological tradition of editing scholarship but can be transposed to other types of objects as well. The classical footnote already served as a prototype of linking in hypertextual environments like the internet. The HYPERKINO method is based on this intertwining of textual criticism and hypermedia technologies. It connects the traditional principles of annotation with digital technologies and their mark-up languages, applying hypermedia principles of commentary to the linear medium of film. HYPERKINO annotations of a film are comparable to the footnotes and the commentary in historical-critical editions of texts, with the only difference being that they are comprised of various media forms (text, sound, pictures). The content of the footnotes comprises an analysis of the film, information about the reception and the historical background of the film. Hyperkino also emphasises the importance of presenting several versions of the film if they exist. With such an instrument, film students and scholars receive an unprecedented aid in their research as well as teaching. The original authors of the method HYPERKINO (2005) are Natascha Drubek-Meyer and Nikolai Izvolov. HYPERKINO ensures a scholarly quality in the presentation of films and film related material buried in the archives, it facilitates preservation and presentation of films in their authentic and multiple versions, access to documentary and non-fiction film material, providing all necessary information about the film copies and a thorough historical contextualisation of the film. In the Marie Curie project, we chose the first Czech avant-garde film by Alexander Hackenschmied, Bezúcelná procházka (Aimless Walk) (1930) for the DVD prototype of this editions which was co-produced by The Film and TV School Prague (FAMU) and the Czech National Archive (NFA). The commentary consists of 11 footnotes.
