Last workshop of the semester! I can’t believe how quickly it has all gone.. Now I have nearly two months of holidays (after I complete PB4). In this workshop myself and my group spent the beginning finishing up the final pieces of our video essay rough cut so Brian could take a look and give us feedback on how to improve it. I personally really like our video essay and think it flows really nicely to the area we are focussing on (representation of gender in superhero films). For the rest of this lesson I started my learning graph which personally I think is a bit of a strange task because i’m not sure how accurate it will actually read…

This up coming week I really need to focus on getting PB4 completed and each little task we had to do leading up to the completely video essay and audio essay such as the AV script and collaborative contract etc… I think myself and my group will only need one more meeting together to finalise everything but other then that I am feeling really happy for timing and everything that needs to be completed.

Im quite excited to see the studio options for next sem as I didn’t quite understand what it meant until this workshop but I think it’ll be beneficial for me to focus on an area of media/communications and look into it more in depth.

Yesterday our meeting went really well! By the end of it we had completed majority of our rough cut where we all did different things in order for the Video to be put together. We decided that Margaret would be best to record because she is a very confident speaker and speaks very passionately about our topic. She went and recorded the voice over for our video whilst myself and Ainè looked for videos on YouTube that represented what we were talking about. This was not an easy task at first because as always, there isn’t a video that is EXACTLY what you want. What I ended up doing was picking apart different videos and editing them together to portray at a more easy understanding view of what we were talking about.

So far I am really happy with what we have done but there are a few pre production things we need to get on top of…

Over the weekend I was quite sick with the flu, so I took the time to enjoy some movies which I realised I haven’t watched a really good film until now. Over the past few days I had been watching ‘The Revenant’ with Leonardo DiCaprio. This was one of the most epic films I have seen this year and it really branched away from what I usually watch e.g. a horror film or a romance (lol). I looked at reviews of the film and I actually couldn’t believe that this was the only film that Leo had got an Oscar for… Like, what about the Titanic? That is 100% one of the best films of all time but he didn’t get an Oscar for it. Like I mean he was really good in The Revenant and played the part really well especially with the bear attack which I could barely watch but that was NOTHING in comparison to him in the Titanic. This was so interesting to see because in the media there was a lot of twitter posts and blog posts which agreed about this and how Leo had so much more recognition for this film compared to there films he had done. Leo is clearly loved in the Media and barely a bad word is ever spoken about him because he is such an amazing actor, and outside of that he barely does a bad thing wrong like other movie stars out there. The Media looks at him like he is a King and that he couldn’t harm a fly because he’s so handsome and executes every role he is given. It is unfair sometimes that even though a movie star can work so hard for a role, and then maybe does something bad in their personal lives then this over comes what they have achieved and is seen as all they are recognised for. I feel like it would be such a hard job being an actor or actress and having to not be yourself in order to successful. The media sometimes ignores this huge effort they put into their jobs and cover it buy incidences in their personal lives and make them more well known through social media and internet culture then they should.

Gosh, there is such a fine line in social media where one thing can become so public and over dramatic. I really idolise Leo because he keeps his personal life as private as he can to his career and in that light nothing bad is ever really seen about him. I do see the side in which why movie stars shouldn’t have to hide who they are, but for them to be recognised in a positive light I think what needs to be understood more is that the Media is trying to find out every possible thing and sometimes that can overcome your achievements and the success you have brought in your career.

Today my group have met up to work on our rough cut for our Video Essay. After getting feedback from Brian for our Audio Essay, we now know what we need to do to improve the Audio Essay and will do so after we have the basis of our Video. What we have done in the past week is researched different perspectives of gender in Superhero narratives such as the male gaze and the changing representation of women e.g. wonder women. I thought that this was a good idea because they are more visual ideas, so in our video we can do less description through our voice overs and focus more on giving a clear image for the audience to see and understand what we are talking about when it comes to gender and specifically women in Superhero narratives.

What we have decided to do for our Video Essay is just have one person speaking because then this gets less confusing and has the same light hearted but informative tone throughout the video. I think this works well and differentiates from our Audio Essay which is more communicative between all of us where we are each speaking it a more conversational type. Although there is some over lap of information between our audio and video essay, I think we are covering different perspectives quite well so far where now we just need to piece it together with clips and sound effects to make it more flowing.

Naughty me didn’t quite make it to the lectorial this morning because I am still sick and haven’t moved from bed all weekend… I was lucky enough to see there was quite a few notes about what was discussed in this lectorial about what we need to do for the final part of Media One and the plan for the studio use next semester.

What I have started to look at is the reflection that we need to produce for the end of the semester. What I decided to do was go through my Media One blog and look at the depth of all my posts and see which ones included more critical thinking then others about different topics we have looked over the past 12 weeks. I then copied and pasted them into a document so when it comes to the time when I need to write my reflection I want to be able to link to the posts that are most reflective of my learning and show the development of my understanding in the media industry. Personally I am quite happy with my Media One blog and I think I have produced some good posts which easily explain what we have learnt, and even my own understanding on some parts of it.

Before I focus on this, I need to get a move on with my part in the PB4 Video Essay and think about the angle of the area of focus I am going to look at. For the audio essay I looked at how women in superhero films reflect women in society and I want to continue along this same path for my contribution to the video essay, but I think that in order for it to work in the video essay I need to look at it in a more visual way rather then expressed through words. Some of the ideas I have for this is to look at specific Marvel characters that show this portrayal of an image of women and use video/visual effects to portray my argument. Also another possible area I want to look at is how society automatically represent women in superhero narratives to be sexualised, for example if you were ever to think about super women or cat women and for say dress up as them, you are always expected to wear minimal clothing and dress as a ‘sexy’ image rather then a masculine image that saves the world. I will talk to my group about this soon so I can get started on researching into these ideas and develop them a bit more.

There were 2 areas of this Lectorial I was a bit shaky on which I will need to talk to Brian in the Workshop which was the learning graph that we need to produce and what happens next semester with the media studios. I get the concept of the learning graph but not actually quite sure how to produce one accurate to what I have actually learnt. Also with the studios I understand the idea that we split off into different learning areas and we need to put our preferences in for that but i’m unsure when this takes place and about the thing we have go and listen to on the 9th of June.

I am now going to look in depth into PB4 and talk to my group about what I can do in my part to make this successful.

I was unable to go to the workshop yesterday because I woke up with the most awful sore throat and spent the whole day in bed. Luckily one of my group members was in class and was able to show Brian the rough cut of our audio essay. We had a few issues with recording this at first as when I used the H2N Zoom Recorder, nothing I said was recorded… So I had to re do that which was a bit annoying. What Brian said was:

• Move underpants interview to the front- exemplary textual snippet

• Become more interactive with one another/ more playful tones/ mix up our voices

• Fade in between scene dialogue and self talking (makes more texture to the audio essay_ use dialogue as background music (don’t let this to be intruding).

I think this feed back will help us because we have the content of what needs to be addressed in our audio essay but how it is presented/what it sounds like needs to be edit more to be more flowing. I think in order to do this we all need to sit together and edit the sounds because I know I personally have issues with audition and find it very difficult to use so would struggle to piece parts of this together on my own.

So far I am really happy with how our group works together and think that we have the potential to do quite well in this. I think for now we are going to focus a bit on the video essay to get started on that rough cut, so we have both and then we can edit them each in more detail so they over lap in some areas but also do not share the same information.

This lectorial learning was focussed around the ideas of Mediums and Technologies. Brian emphasised that medium through is very board and a hard topic to cover because every media platform has its own possibilities and limitations. Mediums can all lead to different experiences, but what they all have in common is that they are informative and share information even though the environments can be very different. For example, reading a book and watching a film is different mediums but share similar informations.

The part of the lectorial that really stood out to me was when Brian talked about Marshall McLuhan whom was one of the most influential and controversial medium theorists. The idea that stood out to me was that McLuhan saw media together as forming a sensory atmosphere in which we all move. We do not realise their existence unless we stop perceiving them of some reason.  This really made me think about media, and I believe this quote is so true. Media has become a part of societies everyday lives to the point where we don’t even notice it anymore, and if we want to notice it we have to stop retrieving it. For example, when I get home from Uni I will go onto my computer and automatically open Facebook, if I want to stop consuming this platform of media I have to think about NOT doing it as now it has become a subconscious thing.

In our lectorial this week Paul Richard came to talk to us about our work attachments which requires:

• A minimum of 80 hours of work by the end of Media 6

• Can be via one or more different attachments of media

• It is expected that you talk to the careers officers before you begin your attachment so you head down the right path

• The attachment must be supervised by a media profession

• At the end of the attachment in media 6 you must complete a 1500 word written report about what you felt you learned in terms of professional development, skills, networks etc…

This made me think, I really need to start getting my priorities straight about media and think of a particular division that I might want to get my work attachment from. For example i’m not sure which area i’d particularly like to focus my studies if that is Journalism, advertising or whatever. What Paul advised us to do was research the kind of organisation that we would like to work in and write a list of preferred attachments (about 6). I think another idea I could look at is work back in New Zealand over the summer break as I feel more confident about finding work back home then here in Melbourne at the early stages of my degree.

Im going to update my CV and what not over the mid year break, and start to put some ideas together of different media attachments I might want to focus on so when I come back I can start to plan and get on top of it before it gets on top of me.

So the second reading that we had to do for Media One this week didn’t really make sense to me and I couldn’t exactly wrap my head around what was being said, so I thought I would discuss another reading that I had done over the weekend which was in relationship to my 4th assessment for Popular Culture in Everyday lives. For this assessment I am looking about misrepresentation online and fake profiling. I first became interested in this when I watched the movie ‘Cat Fish’ which is about a guy called Ned and he builds a relationship firstly with a girl over Facebook and then her whole family, but when he goes to meet them it is nothing at all what they claimed to be. I thought that this would be an interesting topic of internet culture and social media platforms to look at as people underestimate the effects of putting all your information online, and the dangers of creating relationships online. I read an article about this which was about introducing your online and offline identity. What was said is that your offline identity is who you really are, what you cant change mentally and physically about yourself, it is the way you were born and a part of you that you have to accept. Your online identity is one that you can manipulate to the image you want people to see you as, or the image you believe represents yourself more effectively then who you truly are.

In this article there was a diagram which showed three different types of versions of yourself: What I think I am, What I think people think I am and What people think I am. These three versions can be so different and today with the development of social media and internet, the ability to manipulate these images is becoming so easy. This is the issue with misrepresentation online, it in a way can be beneficial to the person conducting it because you are able to show yourself in the way you believe is correct, but it can also lead to more harmful versions where you effect other people by getting involved with them and they fall into believing you are someone you really aren’t. There are so many positives to media platforms, but this is particularly one issue that people need to be conscious of as technology is developing at a rapid pace and people are becoming effected by this.

I think it is an important reminder for people to take a step back, think about who they associate with online and what they share with the public community because there are a lot more fake profilers out there then you would realise. It is so crazy to think someone can be so genuine, but behind the computer they are making it all up. I am really excited to keep researching about this because it is an area I think that gets covered up in the media world because it is secretly growing without the attention that it needs.

The first reading of this was a discussion about the relationships between culture and technology. These two mediums have a close connection now in the twenty first century because of the way technology has taken over our everyday lives to retrieve information and produce it. One quote that stood out to me in this reading was “The computer is an extension of the brain”. I find this very true, people continue to argue that we depend to much on technology, but it can be so useful and help us function to a better ability of our everyday lives. This also particularly contrasts with the media industry. Without technology, media itself would not be able to grow at the rapid pace that it is. It is a given that the media industry is one of the most dominant in society today where it grasps the attention of society all over the world in, and without technology platforms it would not be able to do that. Back to the realtionship of technology and culture, in this reading the writer made it very clear that it is hard to define the meaning of culture, but it focuses around the idea of human activities and what people do beyond their basic necessities. This is shown to relate to technology because it is “used to transform their natural environment”. It is easy to understand what technology means, and what culture means but to put them together I find is more difficult to people to understand. What I got from this reading was the idea that technology helps put our cultural identity into works, for example as I said before culture is about how human activities, and technology helps us do that. These two areas have a close bond where cultural activities are becoming dependent on technology. A key example that they used in this reading was tourism. Tourism has become the world’s biggest industry because of technology, and this is also a culture because it is something that people do beyond their basic necessities.

What I think was important to take away from this reading was about the realtionship between culture and technology and how it plays a huge part in peoples everyday lives. If you think about it carefully every decision or move someone makes plays a part on the culture you are personally involved in, and in some point you will rely on technology to develop that. I found this reading really interesting because I always look at the two as separate, but really they feed each other and societies everyday lives