Month: April 2015

With this week’s focus on “narrative”, I am relating to my personal experiences of creative writing as a media example. I have written creative stories since I was young, but I have hardly ever gone through the ‘rules’ of story telling that was discussed in the lecture. I think that the information that I have been provided with this week will be helpful for me, to create fictional stories. It has been a goal of mine since I was a kid, that I want to publish a novel one day. But I have always struggled with dedicating myself to one creative idea, with fear of becoming bored or stuck with the dreaded writer’s block.

However, with the skills that I have gained from this week’s lecture in Narrative, I feel that I have learned the essential and basic skills of story writing.

This week’s lecture was about “Narrative”, which I think is one of the most interesting things to study in media.

The seven basic plots points was a highlight of the lecture, as it is nearly impossible to find a single narrative media text that does go by this seemingly simple basic plot line.

This week’s workshop was mainly about figuring out how to start thinking about the project brief 4. As Trong was away in the previous week, we had to figure out a more firm idea that suited all of us. At this stage, we are still brainstorming, but will begin to meet soon outside of the workshops. I feel that there is no issues with the group so far, but hope that we are able to think of an idea soon. We were assigned to focus on “texts”. We feel that this is a broad area, and are currently having trouble with finding a clear idea that reflects the criteria of the brief appropriately.

This week focused on, essentially, media texts. I think that this topic is quite an extensive topic in media, but the discussion of the lecture was interesting. I studied year 12 media last year, and still recall learning semiotics and theorists such as Roland Barthes for the end of year exams. Nevertheless, it was still interesting to explore the ideas of the media theories again.

This weeks’ readings included Branston and Stafford. I thought that is reading was very informative. I was introduced to terms that I was not aware of previously, such as the term “intertextuality.” This means, essentially, that there is a number of different ways that media texts can interact with each other, and are not limited by remaining different from one another. However, this reading did included topics that I have previously studied, such as the study of semiotics. But instead of being bored by re-reading an already learned topic, I was fascinated by their explanation and examples of symbols.

My feedback included my use of stock footage. I had some difficultly finding high quality stock footage that would suit the video, and ended up having to make it suit the interview. There is one HD video, which is odd compared to the rest of the stock footage- which looks lower quality, especially in comparison to the one high quality video. This had frustrated me whilst making it, however- I could not find an adequate solution for it. I think this was also because I have not had much experience with using stock footage into producing a film. I also had some trouble finding suitable animal videos that would suit the video. As the stock footage of “animals” is so broad, I struggled to find videos that suited the interview, as well as the general look of the video.

Next time, I will spend more time researching resources regarding where to source more varied stock footage. I predict that this will be a trial and error process.

Reflection:
My interview subject for Project Brief 3 was my younger brother, Callan. Cal is 16 years old and is on the Autism Spectrum with Aspergers Syndrome. Everyone who knows him always comments on how lovely he is, and often reacts with genuine surprise when they find out that he has Aspergers. When he was younger, the world was very confusing to him, as people with Aspergers often view the world differently to you and I. Animals was something that would calm him down and bring him joy as a child, and still does to this day. He knows endless facts about animals and cares a great deal for them. I think the interview itself was successful, and I think there were some insightful and funny stories from him. But at the same time, it was difficult for him to answer in detail in some questions. Some sections of the film seem disconnected, but I think that this works in the context of the interview subject and the topic. I had some difficultly finding the stock footage, but I am rather happy with the finished product. My first footage of Cal walking towards the chair is intentionally slanted to show some small perspective on what it would be like to see the world differently, with the camera floating upwards to the trees in the sky to show how a different world can be made better with nature and animals. I think I can improve with using stock footage with the interview subject, but with the variety of animal videos online, many of them did not suit my original intentions with the video, which created some difficultly for me. The majority of the animal videos I came across were low quality, taken on a camera on a day trip to the zoo, and it was not the look that I was going for in this particular project.  Overall, I enjoyed using technology such as the ‘Zoom’ recorder, and would love to continue with this style of media making in the future.

This week involved learning brand new technology in workshop. I have never used a zoom recorder before, and was excited to learn how to learn about new and unfamiliar technology. We were paired off in groups, and were set to explore how to use it the recorder to create background noise by finding sound sources around the RMIT campus. We focused on a range of sounds, including the sound of a water fountain and the sound of cars on the road by the campus. Although it was relatively simple to use, I had some difficultly in recognising the appropriate levels for recording, in terms of recognising what was too loud or too quiet. However, I plan to borrow it for my project brief 3, as I like the idea of recording an interview for the documentary and then using the stock footage over it. 

I hope that the next project brief allows me to become more familiar with the zoom recorder. I did enjoy using this device, but am uncomfortable with it, as I do not know how to properly monitor the levels of it.

Media collaboration is something that I am nervous about, due to previous experiences with media projects. As I did media in high school, I was assigned to complete a group project to create a film. My group was not helpful from the beginning of the project, as they were not willing to hear any ideas- and the single idea that were decided one turned out to be quite unrealistic. I did try to negotiate with the group, but they were unwilling to co-operate, with several group meetings spent in complete silence. It was a tense situation, as some were offended that their ideas were not considered, and often, group members did not appear at group meetings. By the end of the project, group members had cancelled shoot days four times, and the weekend before it was due, we were unable to shoot again. This was all due to a lack of communication with the group, which I really aim to focus on early in the project brief. I am really hoping to change my experience with collaborative media projects, because I agree that it is an essential part of the media field. Without a willingness to collaborated in media, the media text itself suffers though its own poor quality. This is also because constructive criticism in a project is critical for producing great media texts, because no initial idea has ever been perfect.