Media 1

This week’s lectorial focused on what it means to work collaboratively.

Just type in ‘group work meme’ into Google‘s search bar and click on images…

No one is a stranger to group work; if you’ve lived, you’ve been involved in something collaborative.
Life is a collaborative effort.
You’re never going to get anywhere if you don’t learn to work with others.
Learning to talk to people, relaying your thoughts and findings, then working together in harmony is definitely a dificult task.

Working as a photographer is more or less a solitary job.
That is, when you’re developing concepts, banging your head on the wall trying to differentiate yourself from others, banging other people’s heads against walls when they ‘steal’ your concepts (and do them better than you) scanning Pinterest, editing photos etc..
Otherwise it’s a very sociable gig, depending on your subject matter of course but mostly if you want to get better, you’re going to need to work with people at some point.
For me, that meant networking.
I did that over various platforms; Instagram, Facebook, I even used a Tinder account to find people to pose for me (it’s actually really useful).
I attended photography meets and met the people in the industry in person, or I contacted people whom I admired and asked if I could shadow them, spend time seeing how they worked – whatever your jam.
They had a team of people around them, artists in their own right; make-up, hair, styling, designers.. and the photographer has to be able to coordinate them all.
If the photog has an assistant, then they need to know how to coordinate too – so, the more opportunities I took, the easier it became to gel with others, especially models/subjects.

Learning how to delicately and diplomatically deal with different people is something that comes through practice and exposure – try and try to increase your chances of succeeding.
Research your area of focus, learn the lingo and tattoo the information to your brain and recall it when you’re going for a job, meeting someone new or just because you’re solely setting yourself up for future pub trivia.
Just make like a sponge and absorb.

Now, I’m not going to sit back and pretend like I’m the Great Kahuna of collaboration – no.
I can talk to people and I can and do enjoy working in (certain) groups but if you refer to aforementioned Google search, you’ll have to beg my pardon when I say that group work at uni usually sucks.
Signing contracts and alerting everyone in the group at the beginning of an assignment of everything that is expected of them will only lay on the guilt at the time they’ve let you down but it changes nothing in the grand scheme.
Additionally, some people have actually been born without ‘guilt’ and FUN FACT, I’ve been grouped together with five of these anomalies in the past.
I’d also be a liar if I said that I have my shit together, ’cause I don’t half the time.
I’ve been trying to fake a personality disorder to my therapist for years trying to score a ‘learning disorder’ freebie for school to help with projects like this but it turns out she’s genuinely good at her job and I’ve been diagnosed with being a straight out liar. What’ya know!
Not really.
Or have I?
.. we’ll never know.

So, collaboration.
I’m all for it.
– I read somewhere ‘Collaboration is the future’ – a girl I know started a 3D printing jewellery company and this was her tag line. She oddly only works alone, so that part confused me but hey, maybe she has multiple personality disorder and she counts all of those as seperate entities.

I don’t even have a therapist but this spiel seems to be centred around mental disorders. It’s the flavour of the evening it seems.
The above statement also proves that I am in fact a liar.
We’ve come full circle.
I can only hope this got a smirk out of whoever reads this.

In conclusion, however you choose to roll, there’s team effort embedded somewhere.

The Portrait interview was a challenge.
I had a clear idea of what I wanted to emulate, having watched many videos from i-D and Vice online, I wanted to achieve a reflective piece of work that didn’t appear forced, or as though the talent was responding to questions.
I wanted the video to take on a reflective quality, as though they were talking to themselves and unravelling their answers as they went.

I used a Canon 5D3 of my own with rented RMIT lenses to help me achieve the varied looks and wide angled shots.
One of the biggest hurdles I came across was solely to do with my unsureness in regards to what my boundaries were, as well as audio.
In order to create a seamless interview, as per above, I wasn’t sure how I could intervene without interfering with the authenticity of the talent’s reflection.
Could I say ‘cut’, ask the person to repeat their answer? Would it have affected the final result? Would it still technically be their response, or would they slowly be responding to my prompts and would the interview then take the form of something what I wanted instead of who they were…

Joanna, my interviewee, drew out her sentences and her tone picked up at the end of her words.
This, coupled with my apprehensiveness, made it very difficult for me in the editing process to tie things off and transition them seamlessly.
Audio was difficult to choose and I don’t feel that the tracks I chose fit her style as much as they tailor to a general mood I was trying to create; contemplative, ponderous..
There were portions of audio that I wanted to use but not all were usable because they either ran too long or didn’t leave enough time for other content.
Challenges in capturing sound were also an issue and in hindsight I should have used a sound booth because I didn’t end up using the footage that I filmed of Joanna talking anyway.

Locations were interesting to work with and I encountered strange issues such as not being able to film on a camera but filming and taking photos on a phone were oddly allowed everywhere.
Ask and you will receive was the case with the Kino cinema; I had free rein of the place and its un-used cinemas.

Working with a piece such as this posed many challenges but it was enjoyable too.
Aesthetic and timing considerations were something I overlook as a still image maker.
I enjoyed seeing the alternative ways that the editing could be used to create a different mood and my perfectionism was tested.
I tried my best to match the beat with a shot change to further emphasize movement and give the piece rhythm but it proved more difficult than anticipated.
I would have liked to have chosen a track before shooting so that I could have tailored some of Joanna’s (interviewee) movements to suit them. Above all, I think the piece has potential but I’m happy enough to submit this as a first attempt.

White Gloves Film Festival

And There Was Light – by Tamara Desiatov in 1990

I was unable to attend the class this week but did my own research on the festival that was used as inspiration for a filming exercise in class; editing in camera.

Having thoroughly enjoyed the previous exercise; one shot filming in the week prior, it was a shame to have missed the opportunity on layering and building on that technique.
The theme for this week was ‘The Pursuit’.

I’d love the opportunity to use a super 8 camera in the future and film something similar to that above.
Black and white is a sometimes food for me but in this particular sense, it just seems to be fitting – hope the videos that were made in class are up somewhere to see!

..Continuing on from the one shot takes reflection post previously, I wanted to talk about one shot movies.

Most recently, Russian Ark was a 90 minute film that adopts the single shot technique.
2,000 actors were filmed in 33 rooms with 3 live orchestras in the Hermitage Museum.

Rope, by Alfred Hitchcock is a notable mention. Although it wasn’t entirely filmed in one shot because the cameras could only run for 10 minutes at a time, it does appear to have been shot as such.
I really enjoyed this movie, it built on tension really well, as is the mastery of Hitchcock but it was oddly the least favorite of his movies.

Birdman, also shot to appear as though it was filmed over the course of a single day, received an academy aware for its efforts.

I really don’t have an qualms with whether a movie was genuinely filmed as a single shot, or if it was able to mimic the technique through editing – both are really masterful in their own right in keeping with continuity.

Do you think it matters?

Following the workshop, I began looking at examples of one shot videos, remembering one of my favorite songs by Radiohead, No Surprises.

Tom Yorke is being filmed over a single shot in a space suit, singing, as it is slowly being filled with water.
It’s an intense 3 minutes, a close-up of his face with varying light changes.

Next, I looked up ‘Subterranean Homesick Blues’ by Bob Dylan from his documara of his tour of England, ‘Don’t Look Back’, 1967.
This video is quietly recognised as one of the first ever music videos. Dylan stands holding up cue cards with lyrics from his song, filmed in the back alleys of the Savoy hotel, London.

Third on the list is ‘Here is Comes Again’ by Ok Go.
We’ve all no doubt seen this video in one form or another.
The most recognizable aspect to the clip is the synchronized dancing with the use of treadmills.
Ok Go are the kings of creative and inventive ways of using the single shot technique and this video is what kicked it all off.

My brother provided the basis of the story for our one shot filming exercise for the week 6 workshop.
We had a really great group, we all gelled and brought some of our own spice to the mix.

Our story was prompted by the theme ‘misunderstandings’, using inspiration from my brother who that morning used a play on words with me, replacing ‘can’t’ to mean something uncouth.

The story played out with a couple of friends talking in the corridoors discussing work they had to finish and one of them mishearing what the other said.
That friend then proceeds to continue about her day, encountering friends along the way, telling them what her friend called her – a trail of gossip.

We filmed the shot next to the old Melbourne jail, behind building 9, wanting to be indoors for the most important verbal cue and then heading outside.
Ideas kept coming to us as we worked through our movements, trying to coordinate one meeting of friends to the other.
Lines were missed, laughs were had and we eventually finished the take and went upstairs to edit.

We hurriedly added bleep noises and some fades to neaten the video up and presented.
We enjoyed the process a lot and I think we were all a little excited to see the end result.

It was unfortunate that we didn’t have the best sound quality because of microphone positioning but it was a great first effort and we can take that knowledge into a next project; learning from mistakes made.

Overall, it was interesting to observe who took on which roles; Jemma managed and coordinated things quite well, which was great because that’s always a running issue among group work, and I know it to be a weakness of mine.

Find the link attached here

I’d watched the documentary shown in he lectorial before but it was nonetheless shocking all over again.
I think once you watch something as profound as that, uncovering the truths beneath the surface, the undercurrents that herd us all in the same consumerist direction, it’s hard to imagine that we disregard even a fraction of it and continue about our daily business.
That’s not to say that I’m not aware of the privacy and marketing out there, it’s just that we sunconsciously set it aside; otherwise I’d never get anything done if I were constantly on high alert.

I mean, I know that a supermarket is set up in a certain way to guide me in particular directions and buy certain products. Things at ‘adult height’ will cater to my general wants, rather than needs, the lights are starck and the environment sterile, the music has a hypnotic quality as you go ’round and ’round the isles (down the rabbit hole) in the trolleys which are strategically sized (which is why I opt for a basket or my own bags so I don’t over purchase) but you can let slip the finer details.

Brian mentioned he didn’t altogether agree with the way in which the docco was filmed (I think) and I kept that at the front of my mind as it played.
I think the only thing I didn’t like about it’s narrative was the stop start narration, talking directly at the audience/camera, instead of a less invasive technique to Louis Theroux.
Then I wonder if the two are comparable..

Louis Theroux’s style of documenting is enjoyable because of his likeability which he has aquired though his non-threatening demeanour and appearance.
He doesn’t talk at you, he talks to you and explains situations, whereas the woman in the social media documentary appeared to be reading hard news on CNN with each take.
Another point is the way in which she was telling us things that we already knew and have the ability to change through our settings on our web browsers. There doesn’t seem to be a resolve in her story, instead, she applies a bias through her directness – we’s made to see social media and the online market as a negative place.

I’m not sure if any of this makes sense.
I’ve been out all day in the strange heat of the day that quickly spun out of control into a storm, catching me out on a football field as I supported my brother playing footy (I don’t really like footy).
I saw a guy in my Media 1 class there too, Tom, I think his name is.
He plays on the same Trinity team as my brother and that’s all there is to that observation.

I definitely need sleep.

Interviews are the toast of the week and a staple meal to get me through a day.
A documentary a week helps to keep my mind working and an accompanying cup of tea to warm me up, now that the weather has turned bitter.
I think because we all collectively dared Melbourne (in jest) to get colder because we were sick of  sweating profusely at 10pm, she unhinged her jaw and decided that Winter was now here.
We beat Game of Thrones to the punch.

I cannot wait for Game of Thrones.

Where was I… Reflections, yes.
I’ve been watching a few interviews on Vice and i-D; both brands that are big on whitewashing publications.

I watched the docco below with Grace Neutral, interviewing different people in Korea on beauty ideals.
Grace goes to Seoul and meets with underground tattooists and a couple younger kids who are influenced by the growing K-Pop beauty scene.

I’ve watched this interview a few times and I believe that Grace is guilty of orientalism, although she means well, Grace is covered in tattoos; a stark contrast to the girls she’s interviewing.

Her eyes have been dyed purple, she has used scarification, body modification; skin grafts, had her tongue sliced in half, stretcher earrings all over her body – and while this is her choice it does mean that talking to a girl in Korea, with no tattoos, who also represents a Westernised beauty ideal, is a concept that she can’t comprehend.

I am with her to the point of disagreeing with young girls indulging in plastic surgery because they’ve been affected by unrealistic beauty ideals but around the 6:00 minute mark, the girl tells us that Korean girls tend to get plastic surgery just after they graduate from high school.
Around about the 18 y/o mark.
With a girl’s body fully formed at the age of 26, it’s a premature decision.
Skipping ahead a little, Grace then mentions that she feels uncomfortable being unclothed in the Korean bathhouse (where she’s interviewing the girl) because it feels like she is 14 again, showing her mother her first tattoo.

So, Grace was 4 whole years younger than a girl in Korea modifying her body.
Grace was no doubt responding to something societal by getting those tattoos, as we all inevitably do as we try to navigate our way through adolescence (and life), so she’s not doing something different.
She was rebelling against what was thought of as beautiful, or maybe she just had a group of friends who had tattoos.

I do wonder why it’s okay for her to have got a tattoo (without her mother’s consent, mind you) and the Korean girl is made to look like an air-headed princess for a single procedure.

I watched another of her docco’s on Brazilian beauty and how feminine ideals are being challenged more these days.
The girls she interviewed were a lot like her.
They had shaved their hair off, they were covered in tattoos and piercings and boasted a masculine appearance.
They looked a little punk and still fed an ideal. It just wasn’t typically westernised.

The bias wasn’t verbalised but it was definitely palpable.

I thought that these were interesting examples of an interviewee meaning well by exploring important issues but unknowingly judging a lifestyle just because it varied from theirs, or maybe it wasn’t what she expected.

I feel it’s also important to note that I find it incredible that women are fighting against what is seen as typically beautiful but I also think that beauty is personal, regardless of who you have been influenced by.
We are all influenced by something or someone, and so on and so forth.
It is the medical industries and their lax standards that allow for these premature surgeries on people whose bodies are not fully formed.
It is their lust for money that overrules morality.

Media that is released and disseminated within the populous, infects the minds of the youth who aren’t taught to think for themselves.
Instead, we’re told to look up and idolise those on billboard charts and advertising campaigns.
Reminds me of The perverts Guide to Ideology

We have to search for alternate media and information to furnish our minds with enough ammunition to be able to counter any and all bias’ we encounter.
It’s exhausting but it’s never dull.

I can’t wait ’til all this fighting pays off and my worth is no longer judged by my looks, rather my intelligence and sense of self.

Wanted to see where this thought led me – sorry if I rambled.

I considered not coming to the Thursday class, having to endure the film I had made for my first assessment.
Subjecting the class to my ‘girl gone abstract’ production.
#eyeroll

My themes were so bleak that I now look back and chuckle now that the nausea has subsided.

I’ve always had a problem with turning things on myself and then sharing it.
I don’t keep a journal, my hand gets tired from writing and I don’t like to type my feels because I find it too impersonal.
So I don’t write about my feelings, but I do take pictures of others who emulate the way I feel.
It’s my chosen form of introspection.

How many times have you had to share something personal with people?
How many times have you had to share something personal with a room of people you don’t know well?
It’s said that we find it easier to share with those we don’t know, as opposed to those we do.
I find it easier to talk to people I am close to because I feel it will be understood better than someone judging me on face value.

I think I was stuck in the middle of wanting to share myself with the class but also not wanting to share myself at all.
Adding insult to injury, I use an RMIT laptop which experiences separation anxiety from the campus server once I open it at home and proceeds to shut down my Adobe programs.
‘End program’ is the dialogue box from hell and has been the bane of my entire scholastic existence.
My project was shut down in excess of 5 separate times, forcing my soul to be crushed 3 out of those 5 times, my files to be lost, forcing me to recover and regroup.
I eventually ran out of steam and ended up submitting something I wasn’t proud of out of pure frustration, coupled with lack of motivational drive.

As I sat in class and watched others share themselves with us, I realised we have a diverse mix of creatives, each individually interesting and each video served as a teaser or trailer.
A lot of people were left to be continued and in a strange way, regardless of how each of our videos turned out, it did familiarise us all with each other a lot more.

Brian put us into groups again and showed us how to use the filming equipment.
I felt like a kid again, the cam-corder reminded me of the family recorder we’d take out on special occasions/everyday.
I’d never used the video recorders from RMIT, opting for a Canon 5D3 for all my filming work, I prefer the Canon glass, the film quality and the smooth auto focus.

I suggested to the group that we take to level 12 of building 8 to film, as they wanted somewhere sound tight.
We decided who would be interviewed, what the questions were and how we were going to frame it.
It was a quick job with the little time we had and we took the mickey out of it, as was to be expected.

It was great to put filming into practise as my contextual class is Cinema studies and we’re discussing mise en scene, editing and cinematography on a weekly basis.
I began to notice the 180 degree rule when we had to film the ‘nodding’ reaction cut-away shots, making sure we stayed on the same side of the imaginary line, so as not to distort perspective when it came time to edit.

Looking forward to editing the footage (on campus, as close to a server as humanly possible)

The Five why’s; Who, What, When, Where, Why?

Who.. Someone of interest, someone who has a story to tell, someone who you can look at and that in itself is enough to draw you in.

What.. Perhaps they are working towards something to no avail. Their story is of despair or overcoming weakness. The most important of all the questions; what makes them worth listening to.

When.. Their story has been taking place since they were young, working tirelessly towards a resolve. Tirelessly they persevere..

Where.. Melbourne? Internationally? Are they local and where have they gone? What environs have informed their life and work? Where are we?.. Where are they going?

Why.. Is it important? Why do I care? Why are they worth talking to? Can I bring worth to the character, or am I merely a surrogate..

I’ve had to interview a lot of people and I will not say that I have by any means done it well.
Most of that is largely due to the direction that I was given and my uncertainty in my own abilities at that particular moment in time.

Last year, we were working on a project for the Alessi Mutants exhibition at RMIT.
I was new to my role in media and marketing, having worked as an exhibition designer, fresh from architecture, I was in new territory and under new command.
My advisor was a media and marketing coordinator, an RMIT alumni who took on my suggestion of interviewing and photographing students who had designed products for the exhibition – personalising the products.

She insisted that we film the interviews on iPhones and minimise the amount of post-production.
We sent out emails to students with questions, prepping them for what was going to be asked of them upon arrival at the studio.
Each showed up unprepared and unaware of the email – it was a mess.

The students transformed into completely new people as soon as the camera was pointed at them.
They couldn’t describe their work, they became tongue-tied and the process dragged on and on.

We were making a short 30-50 second video for social media, back when Instagram only allowed shorter clips to be posted and before Instagram stories hit the scene. We worked with what we had and on our 3^rd hour at the studio, we had to pack up shop and make times to interview the remaining students at a later date.

I had prepared release forms, a photographer, the interview questions and some food and drinks while they waited for their turn.
I do wonder how I could have improved the session. Perhaps I could have been more cut-throat and given each student limited time to speak, then move on to the next one if we didn’t see any results.
Or, I could have requested that those who wanted to participate would be required to send in written answers to my interview questions, along with a printed copy, showing they have read the Q’s and had something to refer to.

Although, I do just think it comes down to what Louise said about talent.
It’s not just a term they use to describe the subject they’ll be interviewing in industry but also a means of discerning whether or not this person is someone interesting enough to draw in viewers.
Does the talent have anything worth saying? Can the talent deliver their information with enough interest to hold attention or create it?
– I believe that’s where we went wrong. We wanted to be inclusive and make sure everyone had a say but should have focused on those who had strength in tone and let their accompanying designs speak alongside them.

#lessonlearnt