Today, Alaine, Jess and I worked really well together. We brought all our materials together that we set each other last week. Even without Robbie today, we sat quietly in our groups and worked on our project. Jess showed us the edit to our website and it looks amazing, so much better than I thought it would. Now we just have to add all our stuff to it 🙂 Alaine found a great interview involving Rupert Murdoch, which we began pulling a part and manipulating to make it sound like a funny love letter. We realise the video itself may not seem relevant to media institutions, however our description as to why we have done it will make sense. I showed my article and timeline to the group which they liked, thank god haha! We also interviewed Phillip today, he provided such great insights to our topic, and the whole video is going to be a great asset to our project overall. Next week we should be able to start finishing up with everything, and start writing our reflections.

The lecture this week was one I was looking forward to as ‘institutions’ was the topic my group was given for project brief 4. Although I found the lecture interesting, it didn’t really give me any new ideas for the project. Which I guess is a good thing, it means Jess, Alaine and I were on the right track when dismantling the idea of ‘what is a media institution’.  The lecture discussed institutions as a term from sociology. It also encouraged us to consider the social, cultural, political, and economics relationships. As well as the principles, values, and rules that underlay these. As I said, the lecture didn’t change my mind on what to include on our website for project brief 4, however it was great to hear a little more about the topic before we really got into it. After this talk, Paul spoke to us about our work attachments, which we have to complete as part of this degree, usually in 2nd or 3rd year. It’s basically 80 hours of work experience with a company or institution of our choice. I haven’t started thinking about where I’d like to complete mine, however I’d like to make sure I get the most out of the experience that I possibly can. Paul offered his help (if needed) to find work attachments, I may use this in the near future.

Today we allocated tasks for each member to complete for next week.  I am to write an opinion piece on modern media and create a media evolution timeline. Alaine is writing biographies of institutions, and attempting a found footage video on Rupert Murdoch. Jess is looking for trending news twitter feeds, as well as the idea of hashtags and @ symbol. As a group we decided to interview Dr Phillip Dearman, as we believe he will provide really good insights to our project. After emailing Phillip, he agreed to meet us next Monday for an interview which works out really well for all of us. We sent him questions to ponder prior to our meeting, just so he is prepared and not put on the spot. Overall, todays workshop was again a very useful 3 hours. Now that we have a clearer idea of what we want our project outcome to consist of, we are on track to completing it over the next few weeks.

In today’s lecture we were shown a clip from Simple Men and talked about the  idea of music and sound techniques, and how that can affect audiences, while also looking at feminist ideals of the time this film was made. The lecture was particularly helpful for those focussing on audience for project brief 4, however I still found it really interesting. As an audience of media it was so easy to relate to the ideas presented to us throughout the lecture. It got me thinking about how certain artefacts viewed on the television influence me, even when you don’t initially notice it. I really liked the discussion on fans and fandom, and I have to agree with how emotionally attached some audiences get to a particular show. I cried when I watched the last episode of FRIENDS….

Today’s workshop was productive, even though we were missing Alaine, Jess and I spoke to Robbie who helped us get started. We were feeling pretty lost with project brief 4, however Robbie got us back on track, providing possible ideas for us to explore on our topic; institutions. On top of that, we figured out how we would present our project. We’ve created a website, “Institution Revolution”, the title comes from the idea of how technology has revitalised different media institutions e.g. social media blogs. Ironically, we are using Tumblr to present the project. We are young adults/teenagers after all, so why wouldn’t we? 🙂 I think my contribution to the project will be a written piece. I’m happy to submit an opinion-like article on social media platforms, if the girls are happy to create their own version. Overall, I’m feeling much more confident about PB4, and feel as though we will finish on time, as long as we keep in touch and up to date with each others progress 🙂

Narrative- the persuasiveness of story!

Today’s lecture was run by Dan who took us through different elements of story telling. We watched a few short clips, one in particular towards the end which was really interesting. It raised the question of narrative or non-narrative. Shannon, Cheyanne and I discussed both aspects, and decided it was a narrative because it had continuous music throughout as well as different stages which were titled e.g. ‘birth’, ‘in between’. On the other hand, the film had no expectations or script, so it was hard to consider as a narrative piece. Dan’s argument was that “story is everything, everything is story”, which after the lecture I’d have to agree with. Story is literally everywhere, words or voices aren’t always necessary.

Today was a very useful class, we were able to split off into our groups for project brief 4 and begin working together. Alaine, Jess and I plan to create a multimedia platform on institutions. In class we used a mind map to brainstorm ideas for our project, with our main focus being on the contrast between traditional media e.g. newspapers, and modern day media outlets e.g. social media such as twitter. There’s an interesting differentiation between bias vs freedom with media texts, and we want to explore that further in our project. We created our collaborative contract and organised our availabilities so we can work together outside of class as well. So far I’d say we are on track for project brief 4, and as long as we continue to communicate and contribute we should complete the task no problems.

The feedback from my group regarding my media portrait was mostly positive, and included some constructive criticism. Oliver admitted he would have liked more information on how Tom lost all these aspects of his life. However, he realised it would have been difficult given the time span of only 2 minutes. On the other hand, Samantha thought it was just enough to allow the audience to create their own assumptions and think about it themselves. Georgia said the visuals were timed well with the text, and liked the deeper side to the video. Everyone agreed the subtitles were effective and helped engaged the audience. The feedback given to me was helpful, and I will take it on board next time I create a video for Media Comm. 

Media Portrait from Alana Cooper on Vimeo.

For this media portrait project I chose to film my older brother Tom. Not out of convenience, in fact, he is extremely difficult to get a hold of. I chose him because to me he reflects a typical young adult male. Not only does he hold very ‘masculine’ considered characteristics, but the past few months have been very hard on him. Tom is not one to share his feelings, or express when he is sad, which is why portraying this side of him in my video was challenging. Tom actually didn’t like the final video, apparently it made him seem “like a loser”. I told him I thought it made him look human. Everyone struggles in their life, whether they show it or not, this media portrait gave me an opportunity to see things from my brother perspective. His life isn’t exactly easy right now, I know he’ll bounce back, but I think it was important to shine the light on his recent difficulties and hardships.

When producing the movie I had so much fun using the video camera I hired from RMIT. The quality was better than I have ever experienced, and made me feel like a real professional. The editing phase did take some time, but I think the final outcome is better than what I originally thought it would be. I created a story-like portrait of Tom, which I believe keeps the audience engaged. I used i-Movie to edit the video, and again feel far more confident and experienced with the program, and I am now excited to create my next film.