Tag: First Semester

Semester 1: A Curation of

Alaine Thompson on

This semester has been an amazing experience. So here are the light-bulb moments:

1. My first project: “Self Portrait: Naive and I know it.”  For me, each piece of this assignment was a piece of myself that had just been building up, waiting to burst forth onto some kind of medium, and I finally had that opportunity, so I wasn’t going to waste it by doing something that wasn’t worthwhile or meaningful to myself.

2. “John Cage: The Art of Noticing.” Looking at John Cage’s work in class and then later at home, I felt inspired to try and experiment not just with content but the way in which I present my content, that is the very essence of the medium itself, as each story has and needs a different aura and therefore aesthetic feel to it, and therefore should be presented in a different way (kind of like a Wes Anderson movie).

3. “Integrating Theory and Practice: Editing.” I’ve always been incredibly intrigued by the practice of editing and yet at the same time stifled by the theory and ideas behind it as well. For me, listening to Liam Ward’s guest lecture and then going and exploring the idea’s of editing really helped, and inspired me with tying the concepts and practical nature of editing together.

4. “Zoom H2N Sound Recorder Practice.” This semester (especially the first and second projects) have for some reason fostered a fascination within me surrounding sound and the creation of deep and complex, layered soundscapes. This workshop activity really showed me the versatility of sound recording and the use of sound as a creative outlet.

5. “The Remix and the Glitch: Breaking Things Since 1930(ish).” This lectorial was especially intriguing for me. I found the readings incredibly provocative and interesting to read, and I wrote a lot about it in my blog post for the week. It was very interesting hearing about the new wave of art coming from computers and the internet, and it inspired me.

Semester 1 Reflection: Time Just Flies By

Alaine Thompson on

This semester has been an experience of constant growth, as with each class, reading and task I feel as though not just my skills are evolving, but my way of thinking about and approaching certain issues, as well as my knowledge base, have all developed. I feel that I’ve learned a lot more about media in a very broad sense, through many practitioners and an exploration of the self to allow me to explore and develop my own understanding of what creativity and film-making is, especially in terms of my own creative process. I have learnt a great deal about the basics of high quality video production and sound production, as well as the importance of sound and editing to create meaning. I have also learnt a great deal about editing video and audio both literally and laterally, as editing is vital in the creation of meaning.

Throughout this semester and the many various tasks, readings and lectures we’ve had I’ve found that the best way I learn is through just simply doing, that is participating, doing things I normally wouldn’t and noticing things around me that pertain to my practice/interests as a media practitioner. I also find that I learn well from looking at other people’s work and analysing what makes it click, and what makes it fit into that certain category/genre, so I can set myself a sort of list of conventions to possibly include in my work.

Even though I knew my way around an editing program pretty well from year 12, I still found that I couldn’t quite create the meaning I wanted through editing. I found it difficult to create these mental links in my storytelling, even if I was only creating an experimental piece expressing an emotion. I feel as though through each of the works I have created this semester I have grown better at this though, and with the help of Robbie and my fellow workshop members, I was able to straighten out my thoughts and create some great pieces that I am proud of. I also feel like one of the most challenging parts of this course for me has been keeping up to date with the readings and the blog posts throughout the semester due to my medical condition, but I found that towards the end of the semester I was able to keep up with the workload and take more on as I began to adapt to university life and leave the old habits and ways of thinking from high school behind me.

Through the production of many different kinds of products in many different kinds of forms; progressing from the self portrait with separate mediums, to the self portrait with combined mediums (as a video), to the portrait of another person with found footage, to a multimedia website utilising as many forms as possible to explore and convey one single idea; through this logical progression throughout the semester I feel I have been able to develop and explore my own creative process, learning about my own creative style as well as learning about how best to express and create through a visual medium, as well as many other kinds of mediums, as I have mainly written previously.

Here is a learning graph I made to represent how much I feel I’ve learnt, not just from the course itself, but from the findings ideas within the course have led me to, as well as the philosophical ponderings upon such ideas:

Learning Graph (1)