What a week it has been; from a guest speaker to group work, and even to Tyler and Cody doing the summary! It sure has been exciting. But that’s a little too vague.
Beginning our week we had the good fortune of having Evan Munroe-Smith as a guest speaker for our Monday seminar, elaborating on his experiences as a media practitioner. Beginning as a cinematographer then to become a practitioner running his own studio (working on such things as Sammy J’s Playground Politics, which is pretty damn nifty), Evan served as a perfect example as to how your career can take several turns, not always as expected, but usually for the better. He also told us the importance to become involved with what’s around you; volunteer, join a team, gain employment, it doesn’t matter, experience is experience.
Moving onto the workshop things came to be a bit hectic; casting, group meetings, script development, casting, storyboarding, shot lists, CASTING! It all seemed like a bit much to take it, after all, for several people it was their first time being able to explore their surroundings and scout out locations with their full team. Which was certainly lovely.
Suffice to say though, we certainly have our work cut out for us. There’s much to do and cover in the following week(s). Time to get cracking!

Remember, kids, media is magic.

Personally I believe this assessment served as an excellent activity to look deeper into the production of what we watch. So often do we watch visual media and not put in any thought behind the production of said text, often taking it for granted, whether it be not having appreciated for great technical feats, or appreciating the subtlety of low tech shoots and being able to make the cheap look good. This series of skits here proved to be a great example of this, having a remarkably low crew and small set, being inspiring to the point where I thought “wow, even I could do that (given the time).” The show’s rapid success may be partially attributed to the timing of its release, being the time in which digital media was on the (exponential) rise with platforms like Hulu, Stan, and Netflix, and according to studies by Steinar Ellingsen, it was during this time that ” YouTube remained the largest televisual platform on the web, and vastly outplayed any other digital distributor.”* And so, due to this period, several television based media practitioners flocked to YouTube to spread their material, much like Pete Holmes did with his ‘Ex Men’ videos, finding mass success, (part of this success may also be attributed to his role in YouTube comedy giant channel CollegeHumor, who placed Holmes as the starring satirical role of Batman in their ‘Badman’ series, another mass hit).

On the topic of editing style, D. Williams says that “Many web series find success because of how different they are from traditional TV shows.  They can feature choppy editing an over-the-top acting, deal with topical subjects almost instantaneously, and are usually forgiven for mediocre production quality – aspects that usually are not acceptable in traditional media”.  ‘Ex Men’ flaunts this perfectly as that it intentionally strives for this effect; both downplaying production quality to distinctively separate itself from traditional television, as well as playing on the stylized humour of the skit itself; matching low quality of its characters to the production itself, as well as making the show much more dependent on the wit and characterization of the actors and how they portray their characters. Learning this has prompted me to further take this into account in all future productions, showing that how it has made can also convey it own messages and integrates itself with plot, subsequently (and rather drastically) effecting the tone of a film. Furthermore, the series helps in saying to not be afraid in making the most with what you have: being a less popular ‘Late Show’ with a much smaller audience that its competitors (resulting in its cancellation later on) The Pete Holmes Show had a much more limited budget, (particularly in comparison to Holmes’ later work with CollegeHumor), and so had to make do with what was available. The result? A much loved, witty and charming piece of comedy.

Pete Holmes Ex Men #1 Wolverine, Describe and Analyse.

Okay, due to a messed up time schedule the next few blog posts are going to be a wee bit out of order, but oh well, I’ll get there.  (why am I writing like anyone’s reading? Stuff it, here goes).
Suffice to say, yesterday’s masterclass with the Creative Writing students was certainly interesting to say the least. It was genuinely fascinating to see into the world of script-writing and how peoples writings’ are then developed and further adapted until a final goal in their product is achieved. But unfortunately to me and quite a few fellow students it was nothing more than that. Don’t get me wrong, having Robyn Winslow come in and share her journey regarding her most recent writing success was absolutely fantastic, and she seemed to be brilliant (genuinely, reading those scripts was fascinating. Felt cool to actually hold a legitimate script, being all formal and fancy and whatnot), it’s just that I don’t believe that the masterclass was aimed at the media students at all. This is understandable though, after all she IS a writer, not a media practitioner, but still, very little of it seemed relevant to us in the media faculty. Whilst it may have been, (don’t want to say a waste of our time), less productive and constructive as we had thought it may have been, regardless I had a blast.

Strangely enough I think that both the scene that worked well and the scene that needed improvement were one and the same; being the scene in which we reveal Emily to be swapped out for Adrian. The reason for why it didn’t work I think was mostly due to the fact didn’t and couldn’t prepare for it and it’s subsequential tonal shift. Had we had known of Emily leaving prior to filming we could have worked around it more or at the very least shot the short in a similar light and humour to the shift. On the other hand I believe it quite aptly displayed our style of humour, being nonchalant left of field quirks, and for that I believe such a stark and sudden change in the scene worked in our favour. However, if we were to approach this film again, despite its length, better planning and an idea of how we wanted to look would be preferable.