Category Archives: Week 7

An Experience

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Last night I was dragged along to a Spanish Film Festive with a friend to see the movie: They are all Dead.
Not only was the movie enjoyable but I was able to sit in on a Q&A with the films star, Elena Anaya.
Here are some of the things discussed that I thought could be helpful for me in the future:

– when asked if the year the film was set in was chosen for a particular reason “every story is different, it depends on the moment and for [They are all Dead] that moment was right.

– one first time directors and actors they are so pure and have been waiting for so long, theres something so genuine about that

– the house (where the movie was mostly set) it’s self was another character, if you’re going to have a busy set: everything tells. – know your set, know when you have to take away, when something is going to distract from the scene rather than enhance it.

– “when it’s real it’s easier, it helps so much when it happens” – don’t skimp on authenticity because everything it ties everything together for a more genuine movie.

– “we went through things over and over, but everyone thanked her [the director] for making them work so hard” -it’s good to know what you want and don’t ever slack off.

Textual Analyses

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Source

In class we did a textual analyses exercise with this advertisement:

Denotation (literal meaning) : people going about their day at a local train station

Connotation (cultural or 2nd order meaning) : urban jungle, (lion is in the certain of the photo, the photo has a very urban look about it), adventure (train station with no name and lion), pride (also a symbol of the lion), skin heads (working class)  real experience (the photo is shot to be candid rather than posed it feels more truthful) phantoms (something scary and exciting)

Codes: Isn’t a place to go for luxury but rather adventure, This is a place to go for the working class man as an escape, people looking for a thrill rather than to sit poolside.

I was also able to come up with a lot of these analyses, because this image was shown in contrast to another advertisement which showed a father and son playing by the pool. It was from comparing the two images I was able to draw a lot of the adventure vs luxury, get away from the urban grind vs the urban lifestyle comparisons. 

Breaking Down a Sound Scape

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In this weeks lecture I was introduced to the concept of sound having two crucial codes. Perspective and social distance.
Perspective ‘hierarchies the elements of what is represented’ into the three categories:
figure – the focus of interest
ground – the setting or context
field – the background/ambient space

While social distance ‘creates relations of different degrees of formality between what is represented and the listener.  For example relations of intimacy/informality and formality.

What really interested me this week was how we as a class were able to breakdown a photograph through ‘perspective hierarchies.’  Even though we couldn’t hear what was going on in the picture we were able to imagine what the figure, ground and field sounds of the scene would be.
Not only did this make me aware of the codes around sound, but made me think of how important sound is in media production as we are so easily able to imagine it and the fact that we are around it all the time.
For example; what does silence do for a film where we as a society are more comfortable with a constant white noise and field sound.

Peer Feed Back

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Emily

– I really enjoyed how Emily used camera shots to capture her subject. She focuses on shots of the hands, eyes and lips to capture body snippets of body language and character rather than letting it go unnoticed. This allows a more intimate relationship with her subject resulting in the viewer to more readily connect to her story.
– With the footage Emily used I felt that because she had a lot of stuff recorded and found, she wanted to use it all. Her film wasn’t overly cluttered or hard to understand, but could have been tightened up with a little bit more self editing.
– Otherwise I really enjoyed her film and the story she was able to capture.

Georgina

– I was effected by the powerful juxtaposition of the clinical images and the homely family conversation at the dinner table. I thought it was a powerful way to capture both sides of the subject and the situation.
– The sound was sometimes distracting as it would cut out at times and bits were louder than others but that’s something that can be improved on over time.
-I really connected emotionally with the story being told and thought she did a great job.

Project Brief 3 Media Portrait

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Maria from Chrys on Vimeo.

At the start of this project I found myself apprehensive about working with the Sony MC50 video recorder. I think my inexperience shows as I knock the camera a few times and shaky cam rears it’s ugly head. In continuing in this course I would like to get more comfortable around the equipment I am working with and become more confident holding a camera.

I tried using a tripod to limit these  errors however I found it better hold the camera across from Maria, chatting like we usually do. Not only did it make her feel more comfortable but it allowed the piece to become more of a conversation rather than a questionnaire.

I chose Maria, for this project because whenever we talk I can’t help but listen to whatever she has to say. I thought this was an important quality to capture in my piece. I achieved this by using found footage to enhance her story rather than distract from it and using a series of close ups to really draw attention to what I felt was the most important parts of her story, focusing on her mouth.

The found footage I used was a mix of old animations and burlesque. Burlesque not only being something my subject was very interested in, but I felt fit the themes of sexuality. The old animations I used, helped me show things I wanted to be less literal things like fluidity or the act of vomiting. Overall I am mostly happy with my combination of found footage and actual footage to tell a story.
I also found myself experimenting more with sound this project, using music over vocals rather than being to timid to combine the two in project brief 2 and editing with things such as volume and fade ins/outs. I am pleased that I have spent more time working on sound this brief even if I still have a long way to go.

A big challenge that came with project was how much footage I had, and choosing when I had to cut back. This is still something I need to work on as portraits need to really speak volumes about a person and by adding to much footage your best pieces can get lost.

I also want to improve on titles and credits in my next piece.