Category Archives: Workshop

Reflection on the first Semester

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Coming into this course I kind of expected a bit more from it. Initially it was a very slow process where nothing much was happening. I wasn’t alone in felling this. I think the first semester of this course should be revamped because it is not extremely interesting or engaging. Knowing there is something better after this semester has pushed me on.

But I digress, this reflection needs to be more about me. Here are  5 posts that best demonstrate my engagement with the course:

Copyright Exploration

Over a few weeks I collated information from websites and books, then i put them into a short essay. The essay was in response to the lectorial where we learnt about copyright and the different aspects of it. I wanted to explore this in relation to the Artworld so i found some old and new artists to discuss about.  I think this post is exemplary because it shows that I can delve into deep research and write an essay showing multiple view points. This essay could also be translated into a Video essay.

Audio editing reflection of Project 3 ‘Head Trauma’

This post shows my engagement in the course as I show a high level of understanding in editing. The reflection also show the effort I put in to fix my mistakes. Ive realised from this that my creative process can sometimes be disruptive in its compulsiveness, as i put off larger more important things.

Avant-garde web resource Ubu: I now feel the sun

This post shows the depth of my reflective process. It also shows my individual initiatives which i explore. In this way, the idea of ‘remixing’ which was discussed in workshop, was to find important things in the past and bring them forward into new. Since writing the ‘Ubu’ post, i’ve found many more awesome artists and styles which has broadened by knowledge and want to create better. This post also shows my procrastinative side as i venture from one thing to another, getting deeper and deeper, showing my dedication to find ‘new’ and interesting things, going beyond want is necessary in the course.

Studio Lighting – Learning from Mistakes – Learning from the Interweb:

This post shows that I am doing things outside of RMIT which will help me develop photography techniques (For Uni and for life). This project was a stepping stone as I made mistakes but have leant from them. I now have a greater understanding of camera settings. I leant this from going online or just playing with my camera until I got it right. I think this process of trial and error is the best way i learn because it actual involved me asking ‘why does this work in this way’. This has made me realise that by creative process is more fluid and changing and that i cant just learn something off a youtube video, I actually have to journey my way there.

MORE of…

What i’ve learnt: 
Over the semester I’ve learnt how to be a more ‘professional’ media practitioner. I think one of the most valuable things i have learnt is to acknowledge that you’ve gotten someones message of email, but will get back to them soon. Too many times recently ive gotten a texts and couldn’t respond to them at the at time because of being busy with something or unknowing what to say. Its a really polite way of telling them i am not avoiding their message, and a good way of giving me some time to think and reply.

Ive learnt that writing about the process of making is actually important. Its a written account of why do do specific things, and how i develop. it means that when i am looking back i may be able to address my previous mistakes.

Ive learnt how to make a blog. Although I could have leant how to blog by myself, its just i wouldn’t have had the motivation.

How i learn:
Ive found that I learn with equal portions of reading/watching and doing. Of course you only truely learn how to do something once you do it, but by having a base understanding, eliminating some restrictions, and testing the waters without help, sometimes its easier to actually understand why things are done in a specific way.

What I found most challenging in this course
Ive found it challenging to be consistent. I also find it hard to write about things that don’t need writing.

What I discovered about my own creative practice
Its kind of the same as how I learn. My creative practice is a balance of experimentation and sticking to rules. I have a good base knowledge on editing, the way things flow, and what looks good. Using Picasso as an cliche example, he first learnt how to paint amazingly, whcih allowed him to be respected even when he pulled away from realism to abstraction. So i do like to challegne my curent skill base, but i never stray fully away from what is proven to ‘work’. An example of this is in PB3. I didnt want to display an ordinary interview because everyones would be the same. So i decided to experiment with a story which slowly developed like a narrative should. I added dramatic pauses and disrupted flows to challenge what a typical interview was.

In conclusion, i did like this semester despite the pessimistic views. It was important for the future studios as a benchmark.

 

How to organise file names

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I have a problem that was brought up the workshop. I fall into this trap of not naming by files properly.13339674_10154245568274464_8378515282316709017_nAs Seth explained, its actually very easy to organise things so they don’t become messy. If i just name things V1.1, V1.2… it avoids confusion when wanting to go back to older versions, or even telling which version is newer. He also brought up the idea of saving these files on teh cloud to save space on computer. its not like ill be wanting to look at old files anytime soon so i may as well do it.

Real developments this week

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After last weeks disagreements, I feel like our group is now back on track with Project brief 4.
At this weeks workshop we gained an extra member, Amelia. This has taken a lot of stress off Elise as she would have had to edit the audio with no previous experience. Even though I don’t know how good Amelia is at editing, I feel like we can trust her with editing the audio essay. She’s already brought some great ideas to the table despite only just joining. The others are a bit wary of giving her control of the audio essay editing because she did leave after the first 20minutes of our meeting in workshop, and missed 3 weeks prior or workshops and lectorials. So we will see how everything goes.

In this session we also sorted out what our project will actually be about, because until this day we had only a generalised theme of how children’s narratives are structured. We came to the question of “what makes a successful children’s narrative”. This question allows us to explore the way children’s narratives are built, with the three act structure, as well as using examples, such as Bridge to Terabithia, as a counterpoint to say this is not always the case. I also want to explore the backgrounds of why we associate children’s narratives to fairytales, and where they came from and developed. Im going to do some research on how children’s literature has evolved and become more like Adult novels.

In this workshop I rented a Zoom H2N Microphone to record VOX pops around the classroom. I thought this would be a cool and different way to introduce the topic of “what makes a successful children’s narrative” in the audio essay. I ask a number of questions such as ‘what happens in a typical fairytale’ or asked groups to discuss narratives which end differently to the expected structure. From this i think there is a gold mine of interesting quotes. Ive expressed to the others how we could use these recordings. I think the best way to edit these clips together is to start off clear then slowly layer them over each other to give the audience a sense of confusion. then when it reaches the loudness ‘climax’ cut it, and frame the question being answered. This will signify to the listener how broad this topic is, and that we are only focusing on a small section. Amelia will put her own spin on this which will be interesting to see.

So yeah, the projects going better than at our last meeting on Monday. I feel a lot more comfortable now

How to creatively respond to PB4

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To create a good video and audio essay our group needs to rethink ‘what an essay is’. So what is an essay? Its are internalised artifacts which are brought together to form a coherent message or observation. We cant just want summaries the topic we have chosen. we need to experiment and develope a model, remix it, and create something new. We have challenge ourselves with teh information we find. We have to go further with teh research so then we can pull back interesting and important info. In the lecture and Workshop weve been told to dig a bit further in experimentation of the form. So for our video we im goign to try and make it seem as though there is a three act structure; beginning middle and end.

In Nick Moores video he talked about how an essay is an individual expressionistic form. Its not a documentary, its an opinion which comments and connects research. We look to films to tell us a story. Essay films are not a buntch of ideas, but they are about ideas which are looked at from the 4th wall. An essay film knows its a film which allows it to be a playgroud for ideas.

This is one of my favorite essay films:

Im a bit worried

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So after today meeting i really don’t feel comfortable about our theme. Originally we were just going to focus on how films are structured compared to other mediums. Now we have narrowed the theme to “What make a successful childrens narrative”. I dont feel comfortable doing this theme because i feel like we’ve backed ourselves into a corner. But if Hannah and Elise are comfortable with this theme i’m happy. I trust them.

Feedback on PB3

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Red Hat – FilthyRatbag

  • I really liked
  • Flows very well. it seems like a conversation.
  • How can these works be refined

 

Green Hat Nigels

  • Really liked the found footage and how i tied in with the story
  • I really liked the tiling
  • The pacing felt perfect
  • But i feel like the level or tone of the film of the film didn’t really change, but then again it doen’t really need to change level
  • the comment on it, i felt like the level of the film kind of needed to change

Red Hat Jasmine Winecier

  • I found the video to be upbeat and made me feel happy that the interviewee was happy
  • I thought some of the shots were a bit noisy but it didnt really matter

 

Declutter of my blog

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Quick note not everything at this time is in their right categories and there might be double ups

Today i decided to take a few steps towards the future of my blog. In the workshops each week, we usually talk about the usability of our own blogs. For example adding tag Clouds to our blogs, or even the positioning of widgets. Up until now my blog was to represent the lo-fi qualities of our projects. Now that there is a heightened emphasis on the visual qualities of our projects, my Blogs visual qualites must change.

This was a procrastination changing the theme of my blog dont get me wrong (it took an hour, much longer actually), but i actually feel like it suites the web and now what i write will be matching the style of the blog.

Details:
Theme – Superhero
Background – Artwork by Giandomenico Carpentieri Italy (graphic artist and curator)
tumblr_mgxa5c075K1qzbl72o1_1280Sidebar – I added a sidebar for ease of access. Now every post is categorised
Tag cloud – Still a work in progress, from week 7 onwards i will update it
Bookmarks – need to get rid of some
yep.

It now looks more professional than the previous fluro writing and the tilling of the man in the ghost costume
tumblr_mvnfhcchtk1ree4l2o2_r1_1280RIP GHOSTMAN

Audio editing reflection of Project 3 ‘Head Trauma’

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This is a continuation of my reflection but focuses on the problems i had with audio editing.

Audio quality is a very important element in any video production, especially documentaries with interviews because they rely almost entirely on the clarity of speech.

The first problem i had with audio was at the recording location. I recorded the atmos track and noticed there was a small amount of noise despite it being a very quite room. I knew i could fix this in audition so dismissed it. I wasn’t  using a Zoom H2n and i should have borrowed one, but i thought using a friends new Rode shotgun mic would work just fine and cut most of the noise out.

When actually editing the audio I quickly realised the kerfuffle I was in. I captured a ‘noise print’ from the atmos track, then deducted the noise using the ‘noise reduction’ tool in Audition. Unfortunately by doing this it also cut out a lot of the harmonics and made the audio the sound as if it was being listened to though a long tube (like heavy compression on the internet). I applied a few different EQ’s (echoes as well) to beef up the low and high frequencies but it had minimal effect.

Screen Shot 2016-04-19 at 4.08.26 PM

As you can see in the above picture, the top right red audio wave was the before noise reduction, underneath is the is after reduction. The purple speckles have been totally removed giving ‘clean’ audio.

So i decided to hide the lost harmonics using music. I had always had the intention of using music to build the sequence but now it was even more important for ‘fixing’ the mediocre interview recordings.

Firstly i placed two music tracks (one ambient) underneath the entirety of the film. The music was integral to the pacing of the video as well as the delivery of the interviewees speech. As a result it would be hard to understand everything that was said on the first and second viewing of the film. I picked up on the illegibility while editing but couldn’t see the extent of it because I had been working with the same audio of many hours.

I did test the audio with headphones on and off  but i didn’t find the right balance between them. I could have added subtitles to the bottom of the video but it would have taken the audience out of the film instead of immersing them.
Reflecting on this project i wish i had of borrowed the Zoom h2N. In future projects i will record on two audio devices just so i have a backup recording

 

 

Head Trauma – Reflection – Project 3

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http://www.mediafactory.org.au/alexander-wilson/2016/04/19/head-trauma-project-3-documentary

In my last reflection I said I wanted to pull away from lo-fi aesthetics ad themes. I always had this intention. Now with Project 3 completed I feel like I have succeeded in making something a bit more beautiful.

So how did the portrait turn out? Pretty good.
I was happy overall and with the general flow of the film. It does have a certain momentum throughout. It has distinct peaks. It has a resolution. A climax as well. But one thing I will take away from this is a new profound respect for people who create documentaries. It’s bloody hard, tedious and tiresome. I spent so long going though the footage, cutting and positioning them to make sense of what I actually had.

Cuttings the easy bit. The hardest part is finding the best clip, out of the many. What makes it harder is that I have a particular OCD (self diagnosed but not that serious) with this kind of stuff I HAD to make sure I had the right piece of footage. I would often lose things throughout the premiere timeline and have to skim though every sound bite until I found the one that’s in my head.

Another thing I found hard, which I assume everyone else was experiencing, was trying to fit the story in 3minutes. I believe this is impossible to achieve (in most cases) if the story is to maintain its integrity. There were really important aspects in Ed’s journey that I couldn’t fit in. While the portrait still holds together, if I just had another minute of runtime the whole vibe of the video would be very different. But because there was such a hard constraint it forces your to decide what’s actually important, and what isn’t.

Seperate reflection on the audio composition

One thing I think I did well on the video was the incorporation of multiple storylines. There’s the story of the fish in the dirty tank then to the clean tank at the end, symbolising Eds positive outlook and reflection on the traumatic event. There’s the storyline of the invincible man which complements Eds story;

Zapped with electricity -> Eds seizure and coma

Waking up -> Ed Waking up

Confusion when waking up -> Eds confusion of the Clay woman

Indestructible man being helped to the bed -> Ed realizing the severity

I feel like harmony and closure of the plot was complimented thought this process.
I’m actually really interested in dream sequences so deciding to interview Ed was a no brainer (Disclaimer Eds also a good friend). For my VCE media video I tackled similar concepts of consciousness but because this is a real story I had to stick to it. I filmed all the B-roll in 60fps so in post-production I could slow it down to give it the ‘dream’ aesthetic. Fading the dark shots over each other and applying blend modes created some great transitioning. The RGB split represented Ed slowly falling into the coma. On all the shots I also added a blurriness to further the dream aesthetic

I purposefully didn’t show Ed talking till the pace shift (where the music changes). I wanted the audience to feel as though they were watching a story unfold. Then forced them into current time by showing Ed now, talking to the camera. I only revealed darkened glimpses of Ed in the bathroom to heighten feelings in the pace shift. I do worry that some of the narration is hard to understand and hear properly.

This project went a lot smoother than the last, mainly because I had to organise the interview at least a week before the deadline. I slowly chipped away at it. Although I spent all of yesterday working on this I am very happy with the outcome.