Today’s workshop is so helpful. I feel relived after watching my peer’s PB2, because mine isn’t as shitty as I thought. (Phew!) The feedbacks I received from my peers and Hannah helped improving my PB2. I also found sharing the things we know about premiere pro with our peers very useful. Like adjusting audio’s volume, rendering video and overlaying images.

What I found challenging is giving suggestions to my table group, after all I am not a professional video producer myself. The suggestions I gave is just based on my personal opinion and may not be correct, and they may be subjective because there’s not right or wrong way to make a video.

I am sort of running out of idea of what to film or photograph to fill my gap in the second dream. I only have 2 still images at the moment and unsure if my ‘subtitles’ count as the one piece of written text.

I am feeling better that now that I am 80% finished and should be able to submit everything before 5pm tomorrow.

(Credit from: http://theocddiaries.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/BieHFWCCUAIa74E.jpg)

Still trying to wrap my head around Newport’s speech.

It contradicts from what my interpreting teacher, Emma, said back in 2015.

We had around 20 students in the Mandarin interpreting class, and when we were asked why did we choose interpreting, the answers were different. My friend Aaron said he wanted to improve his English, I am the only one who was passionate about helping people overcoming the language barrier, some mentioned about the flexibility of working as a freelance interpreter, others just bluntly explained because they get 5 extra points for their migration application.

From what I’ve known, only 5 of us who passed the test and obtained accreditation actually follows through and became interpreters.

I had a long chat with Emma one day after she spent her private time helping us with revisions and practice for the big exam, she said ‘It is not difficult to get students to study interpreting, it is difficult to get people who have passion for this industry.’

It’s true. I have never find myself studying so hard for a subject, and oddly enjoyable.

My typical Asian parents tried to pressure my younger brother and I to become lawyers or doctors, sadly (for them) neither of us listened to them. The piece of advice I gave my brother when he’s deciding what to do at University was ‘Choose something you like, because if you don’t, the next 3 years are going to be torture.’ And I prepare to give the same piece of advice to my daughter when she goes to Uni (around 10 years from now on).

We were told to go to the corner of Victoria Street x Lygon Street, and record what kind of media we have found.

(I really wished I had my sunnies with me, I usually wear them but forgot when we have task this week, ironic!)

Big banner hanging up on building, the big colourful banner on a cream building is hard to miss.

Advertisement posters

Advertisement at bus station

Magazine covers

Flag in the air for Melbourne Fashion Festival

In our hands:
We used Facebook to keep in contact with our new friends and google map to find our way. We have been using our mobile phone as cameras to take photos for this task.

It makes me realise how much time we spend on our mobile phones today and missing out on these daily media surrounding us. I think this also explains why most companies chose to do online promotions than to use the more traditional way.

I was the only media 1 student there, Seth and Nel introduced me to the whole class, which was a bit embarrassing.

Students in the Lentara studio said they wished they have studio visits too when they were Media 1 students. I found this helpful to understand what we are going to do from next semester onwards. I am sorry to say this, but I chose to visit the Lentara studio because it’s the only time suitable for my busy timetable (Introduction to Cinema Studies has no screening this week). It is a very meaningful studio helping asylum seekers which I met a few when interpreting for Department of Immigration, but at the moment I am most interested in the More Than Fabric: Fashion Films in the Digital Age studio, as my hobby is sewing. I wish to have a chance to visit this studio before we start next semester. It will be interested to combine my hobby and study together.

Here’s a video we watched in the studio:

(Credit from: https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/51ck6SaTf1L._SX321_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg)

In workshop, some classmates said that they thought the author wasted too much time on explaining how his first book became the one we were reading.

I personally enjoyed this part the most throughout the whole reading, I can related to it more because it’s an real-life experience comparing to those other very ‘lecture’ like explanation of what is media. And also interested to know more background about publishing this book we are reading now.

Prior to the reading, I thought media is only about movies, music, tv shows, radio broadcast etc., it turns out it is not correct. I like the way we call ourselves ‘Media practitioners’, it sounds so cool.

After knowing that as media practitioners we have power to influence other people, just like what Spiderman said ‘greater power comes with greater responsibility’.

I am also very curious about why lego is related to media.

(Credit from https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/51IjORMFLkL._SX329_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg)

I was surprised by what Newport said in his video. Throughout all those years people are telling us to follow our passion, follow our dreams, do not regret not doing what you love when you die, but he actually suggests the opposite.

In order to be proficient at what you are doing at the moment takes a lot of practise and time, and to gain confidence from your work that bring you the feeling of being successful or satisfied from it may not be possible at the start, which I think is the most common time people decide to give up and opt for another option.

This reminds me when I first decided to start interpreting. Yes I am interested, I think I am capable of doing so, but my knowledge of this niche industry is not enough for me to determine whether I am making the correct decision or not. As times go on, the more I understand, the more passionate I become. There are areas of interpreting I feel confident about, such as the medical area, with more than a year’s work experience makes me prefer it much more than legal interpreting. And this is how I try to relate myself to Newport’s theory.

Same with media, I had a hard time choosing what to study when I decided I want to go back to university, my understanding of media is very lacking, isn’t it all about the movies and television shows we watch daily? I still have so much more to find out for myself, and even watching our peers’ productions in class makes me feel my work is really shitty. If Newport’s point about people with no pre-existing passion or talent can still later become proficient at their current career, then there is still hope for me to be good at media production eh?

The time dividing method sounds workable for me. I have tried scheduling my time for couple of times, but most of them failed because I was not able to follow the schedule. Tasks ending up going over time and sometime I cannot be bothered to do what I have originally plan. I do not mind trying again but I really have to make sure I will stick really tight to it.

(Credit from http://jaredtendlerpoker.com/wp-content/uploads/cal_big.png)

I might have to look for Newport’s video again, and re-watch it with subtitles to gain a better and deeper understand of his points.

(Credit from: https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?SubscriptionId=AKIAINWTLHI2USOG4VUA&tag=bookrags&url=search-alias=aps&field-keywords=Understanding+Comics)
This week’s reading was totally different from last’s weeks reading.

When I first saw the reading printed from my printer, my first thought was I must have accidentally printed the wrong materials, because it’s not the usual long words after words we see, it’s a comic!

Turns out it is the correct one.

I have to admit that even tho I do not mind reading articles that are heavily word based, but I much prefer the comic style. It makes it more interesting with the illustrations and also easier to understand what the author is trying to express.

The reading gives me great inspiration, especially where we have to film our own self-portrat and a rough-cut of this video is due this week in our workshop. I was worried prior reading that because it seams like to me that I am always filming from the same angle and it is quite boring for the audience to see. With the different ways to editing videos explained in the reading, it gives me some idea of what can I do different this time.

haiku_bonitaleung_24032017 from Bonita Leung on Vimeo.

I have learnt how to apply transitions in between footages, go me 🙂

Background music worked well too because I think it sounds like rain dropping on the floor…sort of?

I have never heard of the colour hats system before. We had fun giving comments on other people’s project brief 1. I found it hard to give criticism but it makes me feel bad saying what I do not like about my classmates’ work.

Although Hannah said the aim of watching project brief 2 made by previous students is not to terrify us, it still makes me feel my rough cut belongs to the shitty category. I personally think they are really good. Every single one is better than my rough cut, thus makes me want to abandon my rough cut and start everything all over again, my random direction of my footage doesn’t help either. I have to film all my footages again, all in landscape this time.

I feel relieved after knowing that it does not need super expensive cameras to make good videos, because a mobile phone is all I have got.

pb2_bonitaleung_170324 from Bonita Leung on Vimeo.

My intention is to show how intensive my study/work/mom life is and how stressed I am. I cramped a lot of short footages and images together to create an effect of looking into my mind. I think it worked really well because the feedbacks I get from my peers reflected that.

I think the fade out effect at the beginning I used to mimic lights off for bed time worked really good.

My first dream about me working as an Chinese interpreter at a hospital starts in black and white as an inspiration from The Wizard of Oz (1939) we watched at Introduction to Cinema Studies, but the opposite way because my dreams are not always bubbly. I am worried about other people finding it boring. I included two sentences in both English and Mandarin to demonstrate what I do at work and my language abilities. The dialogues are based on a real family meeting where my patient was in ICU, and her husband was begging the doctors to save her life. She passed away the next day hence the use of sad background music. This happened months ago but it still makes me very emotional.

I usually wake up in between dreams, this is shown by the video with colours, and no background music for viewers to distinguish it being awake and reality. Again I used the faded out effect to mimic me closing my eyes and falling asleep for the second time. My daughter is in the background pretending to be sleeping but you cannot really see her.

This second part is a black and white dream about my studies. My classmates and teachers should related to this dream more because it shows a lot of our project briefs and deadlines. I paired this dream with a faster and more intense background music to create a stressful and rushed atmosphere.

The panting represents me waking up all in a sudden and catching my breathe. Then the sound of alarm clock ringing happens afterwards, not only it is time to wake up for school/work, but it also means most of the time I have trouble staying asleep and usually woke up before the alarm clock goes off.

In Introduction to Cinema Studies, I was in a hyper attention mode, as I am easily distracted by anyone using their mobile of laptop during the screening.

When I’m doing my readings for the course at work, I will be in a deep attention mode, where I’m focus on what I’m reading, and ignoring nurses and doctors walking pass me and ignoring their conversations.