Project Brief Four (Reflection)
Project Brief Four was an audio piece based around the subject of ‘attention’. Attention, although quite a broad topic, was easy to navigate in the aspect of the media – we felt that many people encapsulate media as a lifestyle, not just one portion of their life. From this, we drew the conclusion to focus on movies and television shows as individuals dedicate their whole life to tracking, focusing, reading, writing and creating content for fan-bases. Thus, we decided to focus on the fact that individuals dedicate their lifestyle to ‘living out’ these movies and television shows in a real life sense; creating fan-fiction, endorsing merchandise, attending conventions and meet + greets and purchasing tickets to theme parks and other attractions. This ‘lifestyle’ as it is called is ever-consuming, hence, why we wanted to discuss it for our audio project; “why do people pay such close attention to movies and television shows that they become ever-consuming”. From this, we not only did academic research but also drew from our own personal experiences of movies and television shows, particularly focusing on those from my childhood and what makes it popular. We focused on how fandoms are encompassed in everyday society, but also how fandoms have influenced social media as a whole. In this way, I think our ideas were coherent to the theme of attention due to the theme and the question that we posed.
The intertwining of sourced audio and recorded audio was a strong point. The beginning, in my opinion, was one of the strongest elements as you only find out about the fandom (in this case, Harry Potter) when it is mentioned allowing the audience to discover it for themselves. Furthermore, the interview brought dimension and added input to the theme, the personalisation is something that I wanted to draw on, especially after our feedback from Catherine in Week Twelve. From this, we analyzed our piece over Week Thirteen and decided that we wanted to take a more abstract approach, putting in soundbites and having a single speaker rather than the original three that we were meant to have. I came to the conclusion that the opening sequence of the film was the strongest – the soundbites not only to describe fandoms, but our two focusing elements: Harry Potter and Star Wars. I thought the piece flowed well although I thought the piece overall could have a stronger coherency in terms of a direct link, we could have improved on the ‘podcast style’ that it was in. The topic itself could also say that it was ‘overdone’ as fandoms would be more of the popular topics that individuals may have chosen for the theme of attention – purely because it is relatable to today’s society.
I think our audio ‘plugs in’ to the ideas of attention discussed in class particularly through affordances – the relationship between a medium and the individual whom is consuming it. In this case, it is the movie and television genre (whether that be fantasy or action) and the strong fan base that is connected to it. These individuals can dedicate their whole life to supporting and loving the franchise, hence, why I think affordances are the particularly strong link between our idea and the project brief. They also link into the ideas presented in the lectures, particularly those regarding mass production and binge watching culture. Particularly it can be related to the reading, “The Night of a Thousand Wizards” by Henry Jenkins not only showing his experience at Infitus 2010 (a large convention held at Disneyland Orlando’s Harry Potter World for the opening of the theme park. He notes the importance of the fandom with the line that I thought summed up my ideas perfectly “I see the fans who have spent more than a decade editing websites, writing fan fiction, organizing conferences, producing podcasts, performing and recording their own Wizard Rock songs, and creating activists organizations, all gathered together in one place and one time to celebrate what they had built together from the resources that Rowling, Scholastic Press, and Warner Brothers has provided them”. However, this not only shows the dedication that current fans have but how the fandom has grown over time since the 2000s – something I wanted to show in my section of the audio and as an audio piece as a whole.
Collaboration, although important in the media sphere, I found particularly challenging. Because I am quite straightforward in the way I work, collaborating with others was challenging as I prefer to work with a timeline. However, it did teach me to be more flexible around timings and prioritizing and delegating tasks to individuals.
Word Count: 774
Work Sourced
http://henryjenkins.org/2010/07/fear_and_loathing_in_hogworts.html