Purely out of general interest and totally not trying to fill up my blog quota, I thought I’d go back and look at Monday’s lecture for ideas, and one that keeps jumping out at me, was the one regarding sounds we love. It’s fascinating how certain sounds, for seemingly no apparent reason, can greatly affect us. For example, personally I love the sound of rain and crashes of thunder, I find it soothing. In terms of sounds I hate or sounds that annoy me, not much phases me, I’m pretty chill when it comes to most things. You get that when you grow accustom to having an Age of Empires Builder as a father who goes on 14 hour angle grinding, spontaneous hammering and screaming sessions, however there are a few sounds that irritate me to know end, and one that you hear being emphasised in movies all the time. Sorry Wilhelm Scream, I’m not talking about you, even though you are pretty damn annoying, I’m talking about the sound of water/other drinks being poured. Why directors/foly artists feel it’s necessary for it to sound like there a freakin’ boom mic inside the jug/original vessel, I have no idea why, all I know is that I hate it. The one thing I despise more than that though, are mouth sounds. Not those ‘words’ things, I mean chewing, swilling, beat boxing, gurgling, smacking lips/gums, that weird licking sound – you know the one, all of them. Any guttural/mouth based noise is just ewwies.
I’ve told some friends about this before and they thought I was some sort of a sociopath because of this. How dare they? hating gross sounds doesn’t make me a sociopath, vivesection does. Geez, judgemental much?

Come join me and see how we can detract meaning from something seemingly poetic! Yay for perspective!

Also tune in next week for the cinematic version when I can actually post it without passing the upload limits on Vimeo.

To me, this video was less about what’s in the image, but more how the image is presented. Whilst I I try to offer things in my video which I believe to reflect my character, being a reflection of what I love, I wanted to portray my video in a way in which my ‘style, or personality, can be seen.
In order to display my love for cheesiness and the terrible, I had to make my video exactly that, and what better way than to give a Grade 3-personal-introduction-to-class’ type of video?
It was a lot of fun toying around with Premiere in the process of making this film, seeing just how bad I could make it. I owe a lot of it to the music which was composed by a good friend of mine after I gave him the inspiration of ‘70’s electro funk elevator music’, which I found suited the style of the video quite nicely.
Part of the terribleness I feel was heightened by the fact it was just me… in both a good and bad way.  I felt somewhat limited and frustrated having to constantly be setting up a tripod, sit down, pose, then see it as all wrong and try again, but I think it just adds to the cheap look I was after. Although, purely having static shots was not fun to work with.
In hindsight though, I do believe the process of my editing was rather rushed, even more so than the entirety of the project. In the end it didn’t quite get the right effect that I was looking for, close, but no cigar. It was bad, and not in the good way. I would have loved to have had spent more time on the project, but unfortunately compromises had to be made. Being so far away from my family, friends, and a large portion of my belongings, I found it difficult to think of some concepts, so I thought this one would suffice.
Though dissatisfied with the final product, feeling it doesn’t quite reflect me in the way I wanted it to (oops), ultimately I’m not disheartened by it, more looking to treat this as another learning experience.

In the words of not Jaden Smith (probably) “there are no earlids”, and by golly gosh is he right! (Although there is tinnitus, so watch out!).
We live in a world where we are constantly surrounded by sounds, and all of these combined do take a toll on us, consciously or not. Due to the fact that we don’t ‘have earlids’, even sounds that we may not be intentionally trying to listen to may still be heard. This can be anything from that one terrible neighbour you have who likes to mow his lawn at 5 in the morning, just when you got in bed from a Netflix marathon, to the chirping of birds on a sweet Spring afternoon, or even that little shrew Ashleigh in grade 3 who you accidentally overheard her talking about you on the bus (I HEARD YOU!!!). Though we may not actively paying attention to the aforementioned things, we still do hear them and they do take their toll on how we interpret things around us. This brings us to the identification of ‘listening vs hearing’. Hearing can simply be described as background noise, the ambiance track to our lives if you will ( probably doesn’t apply to Ashleigh, but still), whereas as listening is what we intentionally focus on, the foreground of our hearing, such as speech or music.
As I sat in class taking notes, I realized one of the secondary teachings of today’s lecture; some of us goof up and overlook non-diegetic sound and its value in the production of our pieces. It makes a difference. Let us rejoice in this wondrous knowledge bestowed upon us, let’s give them films some feeling, yo! Peace.

By knowing how sound works, you can gain a higher understanding of how to manipulate and use it to your advantage in media production. At least that is what I gathered from the readings.
Moving past the intricacies of this weeks readings, the parts that really  stuck with me mostly highlighted the importance of sound in all mediums that incorporate it, and the lesson that all budding media students should take from this is to ensure us to not underestimate its affects. In stating it’s importance, the texts go on to elaborate on the affects that it can yield; immersing the listener into new environments via harmonic ambiance, focus their sense of direction to sound and bring or detract focus from the spoken word/singing, or even control how the listener feels with inflections within music. ISN’T SOUND FUN!?
Having had to focus on sound production in previous works at school, I thought I had a relatively decent understanding of sound in film, at least for my level of working anyway, but following the readings and the lecture this week I’ll be sure to pay extra attention to my use of sounds and what elements I employ in any and all further projects. Good job, sound, thanks for being so dandy.

It’s always strange returning to something left untouched for so long. It has almost been a year since I’ve used Premiere but still I find myself being able to find my way around it again with relative ease, slowly remembering and the tricks and little things; remnants of knowledge from the many late hours I spent hunched over my computer desk fiddling around with effects attempting to something, anything, that I could.
In light of this I decided to go back and look at the last little side project I completed*, a parody of the season 1 American Horror Story introduction, and  I thought to myself “yeah, why not post it on the blog, it can warn people of what’s to come.” So with no further ado, I present the mess that I somehow managed to conjure up in 3 hours at 2 in the morning. Enjoy! (at your own risk)

Also, forgive me, this was a rush job done late at night by a younger, more naive version of me… so, long, ago… I’ve moved on now, forgotten that life and left it all behind. Now peer through the window of what was so that you may understand what is, for this is no normal parody, but a commentary on human nature and the existential crisis that we have come to know as consciousness. To you, will this be an image of something you despise, awe, or fear? Or will you look deeper into this piece of art and see that it is a reflection of your very soul?

This weeks class really got me thinking about the readings again, putting them in a new light and realizing the deeper implications of Gauntlett’s texts. Not only did the whole “learn through/with media rather than about it” begin to hit home a bit more, it also gave me another thought, a daunting thought, a horrying thought, one that embedded itself into my mind… “YOU NEED TO POST MORE BLOGS!”.
Not only is it crucial to that whole passing thing, or whatever, but what better way to learn than trial and error via observation!?…Well, actual practical practice would do quite nicely, but in the meantime this shall suffice. Although… it was nice to get behind a camera again and see what oddities I could come up this time. Remember kids! Experimentation can lead to new knowledge and artistic freedom!… or leave you in a gutter without your shoes and no clear memory of the night before, but let’s move past that!

I’ve really loved beginning filming and editing again; seeing what works and what doesn’t, then feeling joy when you find the right shot and time it right with another in post. It reminded me why I took this course in the first place, it reignited my love for the craft and the feeling of satisfaction in creating a piece of work that I can hopefully one day be proud of, or, as a worst case scenario, use its failures as another step in my education. Can’t wait to see how the final product turns out! best get back to it then!

“it’s about learning with media, rather than learning about media.”
This weeks ‘readings’ really accentuated the changing of media in modern day society. As media and the ways we communicate have changed, so too does the way we ingest and teach media. At least this is the matter addressed by David Gauntlett in his new book ‘Making Media Studies’.
Whilst “media studies today consists of a diminished blob of the old themes” the evidence for the change in media is in the very way that this has been presented to us now. The essentials of the practice of teaching media has stayed the same, however the content and delivery of said teachings has changed; e.g. me sitting at home with my laptop quietly studying, both reading online and watching videos, opposed to being in the classroom and typical learning environment of yesteryear.

Instead of doing a vlog, I decided to do with my media what I had to do to myself; strip away my image. Now only my voice remains, taking the viewers’ full focus with no other medium to distract. I wanted the audio aspect of this project to take on the ‘who I am’ part. 

In similar fashion to the pictures, though not quite to the same degree, I’ve taken these videos to give a bit of reflection to more ‘what’ I am rather than ‘who’ I am; just smalls snippets in my life.

My first video was is just a short (and exaggerated) portrayal of how I spend (too much of) my time when winding down and relaxing.

My second video I wanted to show a rather large part of my life, having in recent years partaking in musical theater.

My third and final video wasn’t really meant to reflect anything deep or meaningful, but merely my sense of humor and what I find entertaining.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/140889279@N08/shares/514sjy

https://www.flickr.com/photos/140889279@N08/shares/69985s

https://www.flickr.com/photos/140889279@N08/shares/69985r

https://www.flickr.com/photos/140889279@N08/shares/0kF34r

https://www.flickr.com/photos/140889279@N08/shares/0kF34r

https://www.flickr.com/photos/140889279@N08/shares/0kF34r

contrary to the audio logs, the pictures are meant to capture what I consider to be non-essential material goods that I hold dear in my life.  From family to just every leisurely activities in my day to day life. 

This week’s reading had us delve into the matter of media interpretation by exploring the comic ‘Blood In the Gutter’ by Scott McCloud. When referring to ‘blood in the gutter’ McCloud is giving an analogy of the act of ‘reading between the lines’ to construct meaning or ‘filling in the gap’. In his example, we see a victim being chased by a man with an axe followed by a frame of screaming above the skyline. We are not shown who is screaming, or even if the victim is struck by the axe, yet we know what has happened due to our relationship with iconography, and being able to recognise the signs of the impending action; our minds creating a full scene of action from just two panels via our almost instinctual ability of closure.

The basis and structural use of closure in comics in the West stays consistently present in similar forms among varying artists, despite being of different genres and styles. In reference to the cuts between frames/panels in a comic, the mode of cut appears in patters, and follows:
1)  moment to moment – slight differences
2)  action to action – larger differences in action  %65
3)  subject to subject – cuts between relavent items/people in the scene %20
4)  aspect to aspect – different views within the one scene (show reverse shot) %15
5)  non-sequitur –similar to aspect to aspect although  “not concerning narrative or story”*.

Although Japan follows a similar structure in its own comics, there are some significant differences. This is seen mostly due to their approach and view on comics.
In Japan comics are more than a mode of storytelling; it’s an art form, with emphasis on the ‘journey’ over the ‘destination’, unlike their Western counterparts.
This is attributed to Japanese culture and the upbringing of children in the Pacific compared to those in Western culture. Having been brought up among vastly different influences, mediums, faiths, food, and almost every other aspect of culture itself, the Japanese have come to hold different views, thus different interpretations of semiotics and the structure of comics through their own history and culture of iconography.
According to McCloud, “If visual iconography is the vocabulary of comics, closure is its grammar”, and like with any form of language, there’s always going to be translation errors.
If we extract this argument and similar statements from the example above, then we can see how semiotics have a large impact of everyday life the relationship between texts and various nations; each maintaining a different interpretation within their own cultural context.

Reference: ‘Blood In the Gutter’ by Scott McCloud.