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.

This weeks’ seminar was strangely eye-opening; whenever I thought of a web-series my mind instantly thought of fairly average and straightforward series of short videos, and for some reason not factoring in any succession of videos uploaded to the internet, and forgetting of how many I actually watch. There’s an innate sense of freedom with web series; no strict rules on time, production value*, ratings or even restrictions of content due to a network constricted what can and cannot be shown. Thus, they can come in a myriad of forms and touch on countless topics in essentially whatever style they so choose. So today I thought I might share a favourite web series of mine, of which, whilst many disregard to be weird and fucked up for the sake of being fucked up, actually has a hidden meaning highly relevant to the topic of restriction and production of media over the last century. Whilst the deeper meaning is nice, the series is genuinely funny, being alluring in its odd styles.
I present, ‘Don’t Hug Me. I’m Scared’.

It’s a short series, consisting of only 6 episodes, so if anyone has the spare time, it’s worth the watch! (also every song will get stuck in your head for at least a week).

Sometimes it’s good to put your hand up for things you normally wouldn’t, it may allow you to gain more knowledge or experience or at least shed some light on a matter you previously weren’t too clear on… So that’s what I did! Sorta.
Following last weeks tutorial a group of us along with Jeremy took our class’s brief to the writing students to pitch our ideas* and guidelines as well as answer any questions they had, and what came up was quite surprising. Seeing how keen and inquisitive they were only made me more excited to begin work on their writing and storyboard and shoot it. It was also rather nice to see how many of them were keen on acting or least appearing in the works (something which would certainly help us; 1) saves us from having to find so many other people, and 2) who knows the script better? at least you’d hope they know it).

Okay, so first off this blog post is a little bit late, having already started uni a week ago and whatnot, but I plan to fix this broken schedule. (moving and such tend to get in the way, BUT I’M BACK!)
The first couple of classes of the studio got off to a cracking start. It felt both strange and nice to come into a class barely knowing anyone and getting ready for what was (is) to be a great semester, and what better way to get to know each other and immerse ourselves in the life of a producer than to tell other people what to do!? Creative Writing students, your scores are now in our hands.
But really, just sitting down and going through a heap of ideas and concepts of how we want to construct our coming videos was great, and I can’t wait to see what becomes of it.

It was a bit of a rough journey, but we’ve all eventually gotten here; the end of semester 1. So far this course has made me laugh, cry, angry and happy beyond all belief, and I wouldn’t have it any other way. Coming into this course was a bit of a far cry to what I was accustom to: having taken gap year to be able to move as well as completing units 3 and 4 of Media in VCE solo, it felt peculiar to be back in a media classroom again and back in a learning environment, though comforting nonetheless. It was during this time in which I had to make the majority of my adjusting to the course as well as the workload. It was also when I laid out my somewhat loose plans for the future of the semester: I wanted to take in as much information I could, to take my time with doing readings – not only wanting to comprehend them as they were given but to also apply my own level of understanding, my own interpretation to what I come across within the course, as that it come to shape me as a person and as well as a media practitioner, and subsequently the media that I will come to produce in the future. If I could do this effectively, in conjunction with completing the work to a high standard, and producing material of a likewise standard, then I just may have a chance of standing out in the field. But who knows, that requires work; an ethic of mine which I know had been greatly lacking in the past. And so this was what I set out to achieve.

As I became more and more  familiar with people, equipment, programs and techniques of the course I became more comfortable and was able to complete work not only in a shorter duration of time, but also of a higher standard. Unfortunately this improved ethic of mine began to falter around the middle of the course after the mid-semester break, falling slightly out of practice although I was able to get back to my ‘usual’ self soon after.
Having a plan as well as a goal, all I had left to do was actually work and learn, and learn I did.  Throughout the course of the semester I slowly began to learn identifying media techniques and elements , being able to then identify their effectiveness, both via the strong points and their faults. But personally, I found the most important thing I had learned was how to operate as a media practitioner; as an individual as well as within a group, knowing how to interact with surrounds and the industry. After all, success in the media industry isn’t solely based upon merit, but also who you know and how you present yourself to new people, being either the audience, new colleagues or new employers. I tried to pay particular attention to this note, as that I generally like to conduct myself in a professional and likeable manner (subjective), but now I knew that I had to be constantly aware of this, as that soon in my life I had to live and breathe media.
What I had learned thus far was all well and good, even surprising knowing that I had managed to retain a decent portion of what was taught, but unfortunately it wasn’t really my learning style. There’s something less engaging about merely reading something – if I’m the only one doing it and I’m just sitting still, then I tend to lose focus and give up sooner than I would if someone else was involved, say in a conversation for example. It is in this where the greatest difficulty of the course lies for me; blogging. Such a simple task should be easy to remember and complete, right? Well, not always in my case. Being easily distracted I often found myself going several days without posting a single blog, particularly any initiative posts of my own volition. To compensate I would then have to post multiple blogs in a single sitting in order to catch up and meet the requirements. For semester 2 it is my goal to blog not only more frequently but also to improve on the blogs themselves, whether they be more insightful, more in depth, or merely explore more personal interests (something which I had seldom done this semester).
It is for this reason why I look forward to next semester and working in the studios; I find myself to learn a lot faster and retain more information when amongst other people and being tactile in my learning approach – actually engaging with media, working with people and equipment alike.
Knowing what’s to come in the course, as well as having identified my past faults and future goals, I can’t wait to take on semester 2 and that comes with it!

http://www.mediafactory.org.au/cody-nelson/2016/05/02/week-8-workshop/

http://www.mediafactory.org.au/cody-nelson/2016/05/11/readingss/

http://www.mediafactory.org.au/cody-nelson/2016/05/09/god-damn-thats-some-tasty-vidya/

http://www.mediafactory.org.au/cody-nelson/2016/05/05/change-and-not-the-20-cents-kind-readings/

http://www.mediafactory.org.au/cody-nelson/2016/05/27/week-11-class/

FINAL BIBLIOGRAPHY POST, sorry for the clutter, everyone.

The Reinforcement Theory
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gYWPuG_u6gE
http://lessonbucket.com/media-in-minutes/the-reinforcement-theory/

This article and video focuses Joseph Klapper’s Reinforcment theory, explain and going into depths of its inception as well as its implementation in history, showing how it continues to be relevant in modern day society and how it has come to remain has as a dominant theory in the world of media and communications, stating that even now if “you find yourself nodding in agreement when you watch a news or current affairs program, it’s probably the Reinforcement Theory in action”, thus showing a professional within the industry to still share the beliefs and theories of Klapper, proving it to be relevant to current media form and attitudes.

Akin to my research into the Hypodermic Needle/Magic Bullet Theory, I delved into previous working with communication theories to find this article and containing video on the Reinforcement Theory to serve as the main counterargument for statements on the Bullet Theory itself. Again, due to it being a source I am familiar with, I trusted it to be reliable, also due to that it comes from a heralded site frequently used by several educators in Australia. Subsequently it came to serve as the basis for my following arguments in my closing statements, driving the contention of the passive audience being impossible to exist in the modern day world.

Am I the only one that think Orson Welles looks like a cross between Leonardo DiCaprio and Jack Nicholson? yeah?…okay then.

America under attack I: a reassessment of Orson Welles’ 1938 war of the worlds broadcast
http://search.proquest.com/docview/219597501?pq-origsite=gscholar

Despite not being a thesis on a communicative matter this article stilil came to be an important piece in my main argument adhering to the Hypodermic Needle/Magic Bullet Theory, proving as a valuable case study on the matter. Out lining the events surrounding the incident caused by Orson Welles’ War of The Worlds broadcast in 1938, this served as a key demonstrating of the effects of the Bullet Theory being used outside of the Nazi Party’s regime (being the most commonly drawn on example): causing widespread panic as over 1 million listeners believed the radio play to be an official broadcast of invasion, creating widespread hysteria and disarray.
This is also showed how the theory can be effectively applied in two highly differing scenarios, being viable in both a leftist democratic nation, America, and a tyrannical right dictatorship, Germany. Being a historical documentation there was no arguing its legitimacy as a source, and so it proved to be an apt case study. That, and I personally found it to add a dash of comic relief to the argument, finding it to be a humorous case study.

TOO MUCH SUGAR TODAY
#RestInPeaceCody’sDietThisWeek

Hypodermic Needle Theory.
http://mymediaproject.wikispaces.com/Hypodermic+Needle+Theory
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yd88H_5k-rY&feature=youtu.be

In collaboration with one another these two sources (being linked to each other) identified  and explained they key elements of the Hypodermic Needle/Magic Bullet theory, as well as showing its major uses (whom it was used by), examples of its use, as well as showing the period in which it was most popular. Being attained from the RMIT library as well as being able to be found via a simple google or youtube search, not only did this source present itself as not only a valuable and reliable source, but a popular one too, having a large view count on Youtube showing it to be trusted. Anecdotally I remember the very same video being shown for my VCE Media course, and so in recognition of this I came to trust it.

In conjunction with one another the two aforementioned links as one served as a great source of information in forming the bulk of my argument for a passive audience. It was this which started off my main body and further allowed me to then go on to counter said argument  with the opposing theories, such as the Uses and Gratification Theory as well as the Reinforcement Theory.