Overall we were happy with our presentation of our video. For a second draft, we received really positive feedback from Kristian, and also a couple of laughs the amateur editing (of sound in particular, when I say “such as”). We also received some really helpful constructive criticism including:

• Match up the B-roll to its correct and relevant section
• Fill in the black spaces with footage to match the dialogue
• Adjust the audio levels of the video
• Make sure to reference all content, including images
• Match up the ratings categories with their corresponding colour logos
• Shorten James Franco dialogue, only use key lines from his vlog.

After class, Jack and I went to our new stomping ground (the edit suites) to edit and smooth out all the issues in our video… Yes! We began the final stage of post-production- the all illusive, final draft! We decided to smash it out until we finished, which turned out to be 9:35PM at night (very unfortunate for the girl who lives an hour away and also starts work at 7:00AM Friday)

Before beginning editing, we went through the video and came up with a list of things we needed to fix, combining the feedback from class also. We meticulously went through it, and also made sure we referenced all the footage we found (mental note to future Elise: compile a list of links so you don’t have to search for AGES trying to find them all again)

• (Beginning of video) fix titles
• 1:45 irrelevant footage, use correct match
• 2:10 get ratings images (with corresponding colours)
• 2:35 swap explosion, sexual activity around to match script
• 3:17 communist footage here
• 3:20 “few, for the many” dialogue, use crowd footage instead of elise’s feet/hair to make more relevant
• 3:39 more footage of streets
• 3:40 audio needs fixing
• 5:04 james franco come in earlier
• 5.20 cut up james franco footage, to shorten.
  • 5:20- 5:38 (keep)
  • 5:50- 5:55 (keep)
  • 6:09- 6:52 (keep)
  • 6.54- 7:10 (keep)
• 7:43 remove repeated footage
• 8:08 find money footage from archive.org, write prices of classification
• 9:09 fix audio
• 9:22 add credits and reference

We had some major difficulties with audio which made the session last longer than it should’ve, as it just disappeared from some of our crucial ending footage, but we figured it all out by using a previously saved draft to get the footage again. It has really been great working as a part of a team, bouncing ideas off other people and working together to solve problems.

All’s well that ends well.

https://vimeo.com/128565206

We’ve re-grouped, re-filmed, re-recorded and are now up to re-editing for the second draft phase! This time around not only was it FAR easier to remember my lines (I may be an actor yet… not) but we managed to get a lot more B roll of both Jack and I. It will mean matching footage to my long answers/dialogue wont be such a struggle when editing.

We still have a long way to go, but I’m really happy with where we are at, and can’t wait to get some feedback on Thursday!

Few weeks ago I received an email offering up free tickets for RMIT students to the opening night of St Kilda Film Festival. I thought it was a relatively small thing, but boy was I wrong. I went last night with some fellow students and it was packed! For some reason Mitch and I managed to get really good tickets from the sales desk and were seated in a pretty good spot, amongst quite a few recognised faces. It was really cool as I’ve never attended anything quite so prestigious before (why do I assume more well known peeps= more prestige…) ANYWAY, it sounds very cliche, but it truly felt like an honour to view films on an opening night for a festival, in such a beautiful place as the Palais.

The films that were shown were obviously awesome! I loved most of them for differing reasons such as the soundtrack or cinematography, but ‘Pink’ particularly stood out to me as I couldn’t quite work out what was going on, the film intrigued me and felt like I needed to piece parts of a puzzle together. I love films like that.

I did get a parking ticket, but even that couldn’t dampen a great night

https://vimeo.com/128329150

This was a quick rough draft we presented to Rachel for brief 4. Jack and I worked really hard to write a script, film and audio record the past couple of days and we’re pretty have with the progress of our work. In saying that we realised there are a few elements to be tweaked if we are to present the best work we possibly can. An example of this is that we thought that it might be a good idea to re-film my segments with a lapel mic in order to cut out the atmospheric sound that accompanied my dialogue. Rachel seemed to echo this idea and also suggested that we re-write, re-film and re-record the ending of our video for it to represent the conversation surround the classification board with more clarity and truthfulness. It will add more work to our plates, but we’re happy to try and live up to the challenge to do the best work that we can. Looks like it’ll be a Filming-Friday tomorrow…..

In today’s lecture (week 11, holy moly), we studied two scholars; Walter Benjamin and Eduardo Navas, and their theories in order to understand the idea of sampling, remaking and remixing original artefacts such as art, film and music, and how ‘authentic’ these ‘copies’ may be. The measurement of authenticity, is identified as how much ‘aura’ of the original is present in the copy. ‘Aura’ is a term used to describe the moment it was taken in, the human memory of that specific time. People will never stop trying to capture ‘aura’ via social media or photos, however you will never capture the exact moment as it was in its entirety (what it looked, felt, smelt, sounded etc. like). Dan stated that we talk about technology as always being ‘inauthentic’, however IT IS social media. IT IS hard to capture the ‘aura’ (as it is little more than a theory and very hard to quantify). But there is still a place for a tweet, Instagram photo or Facebook comment in illustrating who someone is. Granted, it is a more constructed, crafted version of one’s self, but still relevant and also somewhat authentic. You could argue that social media is becoming and more authentic mode of communication.

A mini case study for the lecture was artist Girl talk, whom does not produce his own music, but merely samples and remixes others. We watched a segment of a doco about Girl talk and the narrator stated, “culture always builds on the past”. A woman, assumably from legal background, questioned how Girl talk could not be a blatant copyright infringement? She says, “What is the moral dilemma with [sampling] Girl Talk?….. It’s taking something that is and turning it into something it isn’t“. She doesn’t think he is creative and states, “You can’t argue your creativity when it’s mixed with other people’s stuff”. Well why not? As said at the beginning, culture always builds on the past… Hmm.

Like the first line, an idea that really stuck with me this lecture was that in a world where there are no original ideas, tearing down and reworking old ones may be the only way to do it.

We presented our prototypes for brief 4 to our class today. As Jack and I decided represent to structure our video on the Classification Board of Australia as an informative, educational video, we decided to show a character famed for his…. Mr Troy McClure. *Please excuse subtitles*

The feedback we received was positive in relation to our creativity for the artefact, however some were concerned that if our video attempted to be a parody, it may in fact appear like it is trying too hard. Therefore we decided to just keep it as an informative video from the perfective of a filmmaker. The audience will learn information about the Australian Classification as the character does. We believe as we are first year media students there will possibly be some production issues to do with acting, costume and perhaps sound that may innately come off as comedic without us even trying.

When we first received brief #4, I was a little apprehensive about the topic of ‘institutions’ as I knew very little about what a media institution actually is, let alone their function in society. It has turned out to be a blessing in disguise as Jack and I have learnt more and more about what we perceived to be the hardest topic.

Institutions are concerned with organising structures of society. In their organisation, there are certain principles values and rules that underlie the way they function; such as legal framework and regulations, cultural rules and expectations.

Media institutions, according to Branston & Stafford (1999)

• Are enduring
• They regulate and structure activities
• Are collectivists in that they restrain individuals to their goals (E.g. Channel 9 camera man and CEO share the institutions goals, morals etc.)
• Develop working practices
• Employees and people associated are expected to share values
• Public is aware of this status (issues of trust, and breaching said trust between audience and media institution can damage an institution’s reputation. Examples: Journalism scandals, in the New York Times with Bush admin and Iraq and also the Catholic Church and child sex offences.

Some examples of media institutions are:

• ABO
• The news
• Journalism
• Newscorp
• Cinema
• Broadcast television
• Community radio
• Public broadcasting
• RRR

Hi, I’m Elise…*Hiiiiiiii Eliiiiiise* and I, I haven’t touched my phone in 3 days….*crowd cheers*. It’s been killing me, but I really need to break the addiction…

I’m kidding. I actually lost my phone, but we have finally been rekindled after 3 long days. No lie about the killing me part though, I feel like I truly have undergone a detox. I’m embarrassed by how much I have missed it and felt lost without it. Simple tasks such as setting an alarm for uni, navigating roads and organising group meet up times have been a struggle, let alone trying to socialise and use social media. I have gone without it for days at festivals before (how heroic of me..) but the difference is that I have known in advance to prepare myself. I fear this will be a major dilemma for Gen Y, X etc, an inability to function without technology when it unexpectedly is not there. It kills me to say, but #PhoneFreeDays, drawn out of a hat at random, may need to become a thing.

It was only when completing a group presentation for my contextual study this week, that I realised just how necessary a collaborative contract is. As this was my first group presentation as a university student, I went in optimistic and enthusiastic, not thinking any of my group members would ever disagree let alone fail to co-operate well. The nights leading up to the presentation, and also on the day of the presentation, things did ironically fall apart. Thankfully, it all worked out in the end and the 4 remaining members worked as a team to solve issues that arose, however it did get me thinking… I wish we had a contract at the beginning of this assignment, and a procedure with failing to hold up one’s end of the contract. For future assignments I would like to ensure that a contract is written up, not to be used every time, but as a tool for arbitration if needed.

Best soundtrack of the year in my opinion, and I can’t see one topping it for me.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RIELdjwCGHE