Project Design Brief 2

Posted on March 30, 2015 by Chrys

Project Design Brief 2 Self Portrait from Chrys on Vimeo.

For this project brief I tired to continue with the themes of travel and conversation I had in my first brief. I also kept the idea that I wanted to represent an older version of me rather than who I currently was as to show, how often I reflect and that I’m sentimental. For example the “padfoot jumper” within the video is my old graduation jumper and the conversation at the end is one I vividly remember having in year ten. I’ve also tried to create reflection through rewind at then end of the clip and using book endings of a tram ride as I often find myself reflecting, especially when a highschooler jumps on.

I tried to structure my video as a normal school day, starting with getting to class, being in class then leaving class with friends before returning to me now, sitting on a tram thinking about how things used to be then. For the getting to class part of the portrait i’ve tried to edit together a lot of clips to keep the audience entertained so they don’t have to watch a 30 second clip of a train moving.

The music I made for my video captures who I am and used to be like, because I am often in my head, imaging something more exciting than a tram ride or a school class.
While the voice clip at the start, is my mum talking about how she still dreams about highschool, which often makes me think if it’s just something you are going to constantly reflect on for the rest of your life.

Although I am rather happy with the video i’ve produced i feel that I’ve still chosen quiet a literal representation of myself; meaning that rather than people seeing me as reflective/sentimental they’re see just me doing work and hanging with friends. I tried to improve on this from my first project brief by changing my text and voice clips, to be more focused around high school without me blatantly saying, “I’ve been thinking a lot about high school lately”
With that said I am pleased with how travel and friendship/conversation has been expressed in my video, although next time i’d like to work more on editing to music and sound.

The Illustrated Auschwitz

Posted on March 28, 2015 by Chrys

Last week in cinema studies I was able to experience an Australian student film called ‘The Illustrated Auschwitz.” The film itself is a documentary, how ever it differs from other holocaust documentaries as rather using facts and figures, it shows obscure images (such as short clips from the ‘Wizard of Oz’) to the story of a holocaust survivor Zsuzsi Weinstock.

At first the images, may present themselves as odd, or lead you to believe they might subtract from the seriousness of the story. However it’s the combination of Weinstocks emotional story and images that hint at whats going on that forces the viewer to imagine whats happening. Like mentioned in this weeks reading, “to kill a man between panels is to condemn him to a thousands deaths” you can’t help but imagine the worst.

For example a scene that really affected me was the use of found footage (‘Wizard of Oz’) in combination with the story being told. The film marker uses the line; “There’s no place like home” and trims it to say “There’s no place,” as Weinstock speaks about knowing that she would return the ruins. She then goes on to say about seeing the Wizard of Oz and thinking to herself, that maybe she to would be able to return home and everyone would be there waiting for her and that it was a hope she kept with her for her entire journey home. The last spoken words of the film is again from the Wizard of Oz and it’s Dorothy saying “I don’t ever want to go home”. For me this only made me think of a young girl afraid that when she finally arrives the hope she carried with her would finally die out.

Like the reading suggests the imagination is a powerful thing, and is taken advantage of by many creative mediums. Through this course I think it’s important to recognise when to add less so that the audience can experience more.

View The Illustrated Auschwitz here

Blood in the Gutter

Posted on March 26, 2015 by Chrys

Some thoughts on the reading this week:

In an English class a teacher talks about ambiguity it’s the first time I’ve ever heard the word. He explains the ending of ‘Blade Runner’ as ambiguous, and praises it. He dismisses the ending of the Lord of The Rings, telling us, it leaves nothing up to the imagination. At first I shrugged the comment off, like maybe he really didn’t like ‘Lord of The Rings’ but after a while it started to make sense. Ambiguity when used properly is a great story telling technique. I learnt that in year ten english, however it never occurred to me until this weeks reading that comics implore a similar ambiguity between the panels.

During the week, while reading comics I’ve become painfully aware of ‘closure’ and just how much my imagination comes into play between the panels. For example when reading, one panel showed a boy climbing over a fence, while the next showed him standing on the ground. Without even realising it, I had imagined the whole fence climbing scene in my head.

Audiences’ Imaginations are important in any medium. When it comes to our second project brief, allowing the viewer to work to connect the ideas we are trying to convey about our self will help with presenting an abstract piece.

Self Portrait – Reflection

Posted on March 23, 2015 by Chrys

How did you represent yourself?

I was sorta afraid to talk a lot about myself, I choose to represent a past version of me, something I wasn’t anymore.I didn’t really talk about family or who I was, making it hard for people to give me feedback. I’m worried that without me really wanting to put myself out there a lot of people maybe didn’t understand what I was trying to go for. Other people weren’t afraid to get super personal. For some people I was able to see what they were trying to represent quiet well in there pictures, there stories only helped clarified a few things.
It’s uncanny how much a single photo or piece of audio can strum up a lot of memories, even though some of us really didn’t choose to share them.

Artefacts work like that, they are meant to invoke a sense of story and understanding. Nothing exists in a vortex, every piece of media you put into the world is representative of you so it’s important to understand how your artefacts present you.
For me, I felt like some of my artefacts were to literal, they were of me rather than a representation of me, which is something i’ll have to be aware of in the future.

Self Portrait

Posted on March 18, 2015 by Chrys

Lo-Fi Self Portrait

I am still unsure who I am at this moment in time, its a working progress. However I am painfully aware of the person I was. Identity in high school was a struggle, (everything in high school was a struggle) but if I didn’t suffer through the weird emo phase of year nine I don’t think I’d be who I am today. Through my self portrait I’ve tried to not only capture how grossly sentimental I am but who I used to be and how I used to feel

I was lucky enough to have a very willing friend to pose as me in a few of my media pieces, because of that
I was able to capture a few shots showing things like body language and posture of teenage me.
The station I took the photo at was close to my first real crushes house, I was shy as anything which I tried to capture in the photo.

Travel was also super important to me as a teenager, I found myself always on a tram or walking somewhere. It’s weird for me to compare the places I use to frequent as a teenager to now. Also note my partner who I was filming during the tram route I used to take to school, purposely inserts himself into the frame then asks am I in it at the end, which felt very high school media project.

These recordings were mostly just what I used to talk about on tram rides home or the type of notes that were passed. I think they captured just a lot of conversation really used to really start as guess what happened to me today.

5 astrological beans @StarrySailor · Mar 1
I can’t believe I have to make a blog and do something that isn’t shit post on it

5 astrological beans @StarrySailor · Jan 7
FUCKING. MOM SAID SOMETHING THAT VAUGLELY SOUNDED LIKE ITS UR SONG. I TOOK OFF MY EARPHONES AND THNKS FR TH MMRS IS PLAYING.

Text was just a few tweets I had posted recently that really made me reflect on who I used to be as a person, aka the kind of person who listened to fall out boy way to much and used to post emo poetry on a blog.

Ethics

Posted on March 17, 2015 by Chrys

When it comes to the ethics of consent there’s always an issue of what’s the researchers right to know vs the right of the subject’s privacy (Donovan, 2012, p.346). When researching toxicity in the game League of Legends, this was a big issue as I was worried that telling players that I was researching them would cause them to act differently which it did most of the time.
In media I was told to always get consent before filming someone. The solution to people acting unnatural; is just let the camera run for longer as they would soon forget that it was even there. When trying this with League of Legends I often found I didn’t have any control when it came to how long the games would run, so I was unable to wait for players to forget I was there. I resulted to deception, by telling the players I was observing them after the game, in the end.

Another ethical problem I encountered, was my pre-existing ethical stance. Through playing the game for many years before my research I was already biased. I already believed League of Legends was a toxic game, because I had experienced abuse and players intentionally throwing the game because of rage first hand. This bias meant I had to be careful in compiling my research, so I didn’t disregard anything that proved that League of Legends wasn’t as toxic as I believed, or toxic at all.

I think it’s always tricky when we try to work around something we love, because when we are expected to give the absolute truth about the subject it’s always hard not to let bias get in the way. I way to avoid this of course is to always be ready to step out of your comfort zone, and tackle something maybe you don’t know everything about.

Donovan, K, 2012. The ethical stance and its representation in the expressive techniques of documentary filming: a case study of Tagged. New Review of Film and Television Studies, Vol. 10, No 3, 344-361.

Tips of the Trade

Posted on March 17, 2015 by Chrys

You can only rely on your personal connections for so long. Eventually you’re going to have to face the nervous energy and look for something different.
You never know where your going to find someone who’s going to be able to share their stories.

Call people, don’t send emails, have your line/story. Don’t be afraid to ask them if they can point you in the right direction, give you other places to go.

Ask your crew how long they need, then add an hour, don’t forget to include coffee

Read your forms and make any edits necessary before you hand them out.

Anita Sarkeesian

Posted on March 15, 2015 by Chrys

During the week I was lucky enough to attend Anita Sarkeesian’s presentation “The F-Word”. In her talk, Sarkeesian took us through the level of abuse she had gone through over the past three years during her critical work in games.

It was hard to listen to, and when I was discussing it with a friend she noted that Sarkeesian had talked about the harassment in the way someone would talk about their scars, or tell you’ve they’ve lost their dog.
I had only seen this tone as professionalism, it never occurred to me to pay closer attention to her tone. That she had adopted a certain way of speaking about the awful things that have happened to her.

I was always aware how much people could people give away about themselves through tone and gestures, but it was never anything I made the effort to intentionally notice. After my friend had brought up her tone it lead me to think about how careful Sarkeesian has to be in her talks as not to say anything that could be misconstrued or make anyone feel uncomfortable.

This noticing is defiantly something I want to make a habit on in the future.

Noticing

Posted on March 12, 2015 by Chrys

During class we were sent to QV to notice all mediated interactions and communications we encounter;

On our way to QV we noticed:
logos of buildings
free tram zone painted on the floor

logo promoting free trams seen on floor

pass outs on the ground
signs on trees
trams
people observing protests
protesters

audio clip taken of protesters singing

At QV we noticed:
easter decorations

some easter decorations found outside an Eastern Tea shop

graffiti
a selfie stick
chatime and drinks on the ground
people sitting in small groups on the ground
art on the walls

#soundtracking

babies crying
orders being called out
t-shirt brands, bag brands and shopped bags branded

Jess’s Glue Bag

people having conversations while still being on their phones
star sign characters on our tea cups
different languages being spoken
billboards
cafe signs

“parma Fridays”

In our hands we noticed our use of:
Twitter
Facebook
Instagram
Texting
Google
Calling
Camera
Notes

What really interested me about this exercise was seeing how much branding is placed everywhere. I’d never noticed how easily I could spot a “priceline”bag in a sea of people or how many people wearing “superdry” t-shirts exist in the city. It’s one of those things you don’t even think about until you look for them, so now I’ll probably be noticing them a lot more before I learn to stop.

Selfies and Self Portraits

Posted on March 6, 2015 by Chrys

I personally find that theres nothing wrong with selfies. They’re a quick and effortless why to show how good my makeup looked before it sweated off or my immediate expression to when I found myself locked out of my house again. But selfies aren’t and they certainly don’t represent anything permanent. This is what I feel is the main distinction between a selfie and a self portrait. Take snapchat for example; its a app that allows users to share photos up to 10 seconds and unless they are screenshoted by the viewer they disappear. However even if these images are saved, are uploaded they are still lost and forgotten because there will always be another selfie whether it’s yours or the billions of over people posting online.

A friend linked me an interesting article (nsfw) about an artist who wove selfies used in sexts (inducing her own) into tapestries. These tapestries work to pull these selfies out into the public eye, and gives the viewer something to marvel at as it is not often that cross stitching is linked to anything sexual. This is what not only gives these selfies their permanence but transforms them into art, which is more widely regarded as a respectable form of expression.

But aside from their permanence or respect “self portraits” also offers the creator to express something abstract about who they are while the selfie demands that your face or body is always the subject. This is what I believe is the most important difference between the two.

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Monthly Archives: March 2015