We often forget the importance of audio within a narrative. Having spent much of my waking life observing sound, I’m frequently frustrated by filmmakers depriving my senses. Today we were reminded that sound is something that cannot be overlooked. We learned about the different components of sound in film such as, delay, reverb, panning, looping, texture and silence… the latter, I have a particular interest in. In film, silence is often used to create tension and suspense, in podcasts, in can be seen as a time for momentarily a reflection; in art, one could consider the casting of space as silence like in Rachel Whiteread’s work.
Rachel Whiteread
One of my most favourite uses of silence in music is of a Deep Purple song entitled Child In Time. The sound moves beautifully from mayhem to sultry with a brief bar of silence being the crucial segue… and if you have an issue with rock and or roll please tune out now!
On Monday 16th of March, we had the chance to critique our work by playing ‘hats’ which is a game that removes the personal element and replaces it with subjective opinion. ‘Hats’ is a great way to avoid that internal apoplectic rage the simmers behind the eyes of ‘the judged’. It bypasses ego and scorn to become mutual discourse and because it is a requirement… you have to do it!
The way it works is that you wear one of four imaginary hats, each of which have a different colour representing your feelings about a piece of work; i.e. what’s good about the piece, what was your initial reaction, what doesn’t work about the piece and how could it be developed further.
My class mate showed me some of her pieces to which some were so damn good that I was clutching at straws to find something wrong with them!
This class activity proved to be a useful exercise that I will definitely use for future projects.
We then moved onto an iMovie ‘power editing’ session where the class was again divided into groups and given a theme to create a short film using found footage from the archives. Our group had been assigned the theme of movement.
The piece that I have imbedded is short story about the big dreams of a snail.
Guest speaker Anne Lennox gave a presentation on copyright beginning with the 101 basics. Anne reminded the group that copyright is automatic, there are no registration requirements in Australia and ideas and facts are not protected. Rights of ownership, duration of copyright, infringement, fair dealing and music were also points that were explored. I was particularly interested in the rules and complexities of copyright law with regard to social media, specifically, with Pintrest. About two weeks ago, I was politely asked to remove a pin by a British photographer.
Another interesting fact that was mentioned was that anything created on behalf of the government is owned by the government. They just have it all!
Rachel’s input is always valued; she interjected with a statement about how film festivals will not take submissions if the proper copyright steps have not been taken; this is definitely food for thought.
The second guest speaker was Kyla Brettle who must have inspired everyone in that room. With her butterfingers style discourse and ‘cool as shit’ mannerisms, Kyla explicitly and implicitly relayed that, if you’re passionate about your work, you too can travel the world, party hard and document new and interesting stories… but just make sure that you endeavour to use a telephone and not email when communicating with participants.
Kyla presented a Venn diagram that cleverly illustrated the roles in documentary production; they were, text, funder (spell check hates that word), producer, participant and audience; however, as Kyla had only limited time to speak and the Venn diagram was only touched on; I feel that I’m needing more clarification on this.
Finally, why does Paul Ritchard remind me of all of my uncles?! I really look forward to picking Paul’s brains about film and television.
Cars and art; the two things that I have loved for as long as I can remember came together in one roaring exhibition entitled Dream Machines!
Held at The Shepparton Art Museum (SAM), the show celebrated over 100 years of invention displaying ink drawings, dioramas, conceptual sketches and of course the machines themselves!
From dapper hipsters through to family groups, rockabillies to farm workers; folks from all around the country arrived with their finest flannels and killer quiffs to view this amazing union of art and machine.
The revered badge of the GT Falcon
From a media point of view, the labelling of these machines extends beyond a badge or a ticket… it is a lifestyle, a culture and a legacy.
For the warm community of Shepparton, it was an event to mark the start of the cooler months. People bathed in the autumn sun, ate burgers and chips in little car shaped containers and bobbed their heads to the dirty rock n’ roll that emanated through, what would normally be a quiet street in a quaint country town.
Despite a multi-sensate increase, this sense impression overload doesn’t necessarily mean the information will stick. Mason, J (2002) The Discipline of Noticing, p31
On Tuesday the 10th of March were set the task of observing media around the city. Rachel divided the class into groups according to the geography of room 80.11.10. and assigned each group a location. Our group was number 4, there were 6 of us and we were sent to Federation Square.
As I was on my bike, I had to split from the group and make my way solo.
My iPhone was on shuffle and 2 songs came through my ear buds in transit, Prisoner by The Jezebels and Release Your Problems by Chet Faker.
On arrival, I texted a group member to see if they were there yet. I got no response so started looking around without them.
I saw Daniel Ricciardo’s – Red Bull advert and immediately thought of Alexander Rodchenko and the propaganda artists of the 40s and the 50s. On researching those images further, it seemed that a raised arm was the pose of choice if you wanted to sell an idea.
There was still no word from the group so I continued perusing the site.
Viktor Borisovich Koretskii Moscow 1941
The advertisement on the church at first glance seemed sacrilegious until I realised that it was a cause for the refugees.
Eventually, I was flagged down by a member of our group and this was without the aid of mobile phone correspondence. The group had been whittled down to two thirds of what it was, perhaps distance and lack of communication had resulted in the dispersion of our caravan.
I wasn’t happy with the audio at the time so I revisited the site that evening after work and got this an esoteric Fed Square freebie gem! It was music to spoken word… another reason why I live in Melbourne.
Later that night I realised that for some reason, I had set my phone to airplane mode and when I got home, I began receiving messages from the day. It was gratifying to think that the outside world wasn’t trying to snub me, it was just me that needed to be a bit more on task with technology.
All up, it was an enjoyable experience as I got a chance to get outside and exercise my observational skills and ascertain which media items resinated with me the most.
The cool esoteric performance may have stood a chance but if it weren’t for this conscious media documentation process, I can almost be certain that these sounds and images observed throughout the day would have been discarded and become a victim of the ephemerality of my short term memory.
Nuzzling into the bosom of a sort of set typography in my brain, I seemed to have forgotten that wonderful human capacity to learn at such a rapid rate as I have done in the first 2 weeks at RMIT.
My 3 chosen subjects have delivered a tempest of knowledge.
So far, Sound Design has had me observing my sonic surroundings in ways that I have never would have considered. Cinema has allowed me to tear apart the elements of film narrative and investigate how the 4 meanings are categorised; Referential, Explicit, Implicit and Symptomatic. Media felt like a chummy old pal who has returned to dazzle me and at the same time, steal my money but with a budding new awareness, I’m viewing it in a new light.
I must have fallen to the side of observing Media as an automaton in recent years, like a slave to its machine, up to my neck in a cesspool of useless information. I sense that I’m being more selective with my Media consumption and it feels good to be wading out of the barrage at last!
I am having a major ‘tree falling in the woods’ moment… just like I had had with Mark Rothko and Marcel Duchamp’s work. John Cage leaves a gaping hole in the aesthetic experience, he subverts our expectations, he is taking the micky out of you and me yet I can’t look away!
When entering room 80.11.11, I was greeted by about 100 fresh faces awaiting their first lectorial.
Brian conducted the lion’s share of the presentation delivering the seminar with his warm, avuncular tone, allowing space for an occasional contribution from his contemporaries to relay further information such as how learning will be divided, important dates and that ‘this will be your life from here on’.
Rachel drew up a chart on the whiteboard and Brian asked students to share their thoughts on what they hoped to achieve as far as learning goes. From recollection, the chart was divided into contextual and practical. The learning goals expressed by students were entered into these fields and the responses proved vast and interesting. This gave me some things to think about for my own learning aspirations. Aside from my hopes to enrich presentation and critical thinking skills, editing was mentioned by a student which is definitely something that could help me evolve… as a student.
We then read through a 5 page essay by Katherine Hayles entitled, Hyper and Deep Attention: The Generational Divide in Cognitive Modes arguing that there has been an apparent shift in the concentration levels in developed nation’s due to the increasing use of technology. Ironically, I found myself distracted by my buzzing phone and the fact that the student sitting to my right was masterfully applying multicoloured highlighters to their text when all I had was a inefficient old pen to mark the dates, names and phrases. She had inadvertently made me feel under-prepared so I had to consciously and forcibly negate this ‘hyper attention’ that seemed to be snowballing as each new thought justified the next. Ahhh! Katherine Hayles! ‘Deep concentration’ could prove to be a challenge for me!
According to a report cited within the essay, many students spent 8.5 hours per day consuming media and have evolved toward multitasking. I am a fine example of this as I am currently writing this from work!
For me, the highlights of the lectorial were observing the students’ reactions to questions asked by Brian and the response to the shared learning approach applied by the school. For example, people seemed withdrawn when it came to answering Brian’s questions however, they were more than happy to freely and openly share their thoughts with their peers. I personally think that the latter is where much of the learning takes place.
Low-lights… hmm, I can only remember being really really thirsty, and please note that this is not a portentous clique like ‘I was thirsty for knowledge’ or anything like that, I literally hadn’t taken my water with me and couldn’t bring myself to pay $3 for a bottle from the cafe on principle.
Overall, the seminar allowed me to consider my own learning behaviour and the need to better prepare myself. I’m looking forward to the digital components, such as the blackboard and the blog, coalescing with general uni life so that I can buckle down and get the most out of my studies.
