Writing a sketch wasn’t as easy as we thought it would be. We had lots of ideas, but when it came to sitting and writing them out, they disappeared. We initially thought about how we wanted it to look objectively, a sketch is meant to have some kind of context to the start (Medd, 2012). We then had to decide if we wanted it to be “character-based, situation-based [or] premise-based” (Bent, 2010). We had none of this worked out when we began writing, and it was the feedback from the class, and the helpful notes of Cal Wilson that made our sketch what it is now.

The final sketch, while still containing the end joke of the first draft (although no longer as pivotal), is a near-complete change of pace from draft one. The initial idea was sparked from the prompt “an anti-feminist character beating the odds”, and the difficult task of an audience viewing an anti-feminist character as the hero. Enter the ‘surprise factor’. Draft one of the sketch depicts one man (Harry) looking increasingly disgruntled at two younger gentlemen talking about women in a very out-dated manner before he finally turns to them and tells them off for it. But then, as he turns back in his seat, the audience sees that he is using a woman as a foot-rest and is, therefore, just as bad, if not worse, than the other guys.

Family Guy “Women in the Workplace video”

In the script-reading session, Cal Wilson gave us some very good feedback and told us to build on the end joke. However, it was listening to everyone else’s scripts that we realised a key thing. To demonstrate sexism isn’t necessarily to talk provocatively about women. We began brainstorming ideas and one took flight: the parody sexual harassment video from Family Guy. We moulded the tutorial video idea into modern settings, and set it up as a video men can watch to learn how not to be sexist in 2019. The new sketch follows Harry’s attempts at educating men through a series of ‘everyday’ scenarios. However, in these scenarios, it’s actually Harry that ends up being the sexist one. Cal Wilson gave us some great advice; if something’s funny, don’t change it. So we kept our final “plot twist” joke at the end, with Harry putting his feet up to rest on a girl while talking about equality. We felt the main theme of irony would help with jokes, while simultaneously driving a message about feminism home.

One comical device found in our sketch is irony. The “unintended consequence” (Ferguson,) of Harry is the entire premise of the plot. Harry is teaching people not to be sexist while being very sexist himself. Comic irony is particularly evident at the end of the sketch, when, after explaining how to avoid being sexist, and the importance of it, Harry sits down and puts his feet up on the girl he is using as a footrest. Furthermore, when he says in front of the girl/foot-rest “it’s all about respect” and then proceeds to cut her off as she isn’t allowed to talk, is dramatic irony. Where, due to Harry’s “lack of knowledge” (Ferguson,) (or in this case, lack of realisation), his words are “laced with… opposite meaning for the…audience” (Ferguson).

There are also elements of exaggeration throughout the sketch, all demonstrated by Harry, one particular scene is the ‘No-go zones’ scene, where Harry pulls out a pointer to dramatically demonstrate where ‘not to touch a woman’. The exaggeration in this joke/scene works on two levels.

On one hand, it creates a solid joke based on exaggerated ridiculousness of anyone “honka-honking” a woman. While delivering an underlying message of the inverse of the ‘no go zones’ of a woman, stating where it is okay to touch her. This implies the similarities between men and women and essentially tells the audience the message liberal feminist keep trying to convey; ‘for God’s sake, we’re the same!’.

Liberal feminism is “often seen as synonymous with feminism” (Beasly, 1999). It is based on a theory of “un-equality” where women are seen as fundamentally the same as men but are hindered by “artificial barriers to… participation in the public world” because of their sex. Liberal feminism theorises that there isn’t the need for a “revolutionary change” but simply a “reform of society” (Beasly 1999). The small “reforms” Beasly refers to is the central point for our sketch. The idea that it’s just small actions and attitudes that need to be changed to not be sexist.

To help push this message, a grain of truth can be found throughout our entire sketch. As an almost unavoidable device when writing a sketch on feminism, the truth behind all our jokes is that the message Harry is trying to deliver needs to be said. While the audience laughs at Harry for shutting down a conversation that wasn’t remotely sexist, the underlying message stands: you don’t have the conversation that Harry was implying those men were having. The liberal feminist idea that we are equal to men and only impeded by our sex is ironically demonstrated by Harry when he says, “a congratulatory pat on the arm is okay” when talking pointing out ‘where to touch a woman’. It implies that women aren’t completely off limits – just the parts that make us ‘women’.

Our final sketch ‘Navigating Sexism in 2019’ took a long development process. We employed the feedback given to us by both the class and Cal Wilson during our script writing session, which sparked an entirely new concept. Throughout the sketch ‘gag devices’ such as irony (both comic and dramatic), and exaggeration can be found. However, it is the underlying grain of truth throughout our sketch that conveys the message of liberal feminism and equality.

Script Final Script

“A successful comedy is not so much about what you do, it’s more about how you do it” (Ferguson, 2010. P 4). Amy’s Schumer’s sketch “12 Angry men” featured on her television show Inside Amy Schumer is a parody of the Oscar-nominated movie of the same title. However, Schumer’s sketch revolves around twelve men deciding if Amy Schumer is ‘hot enough’ to be on television, instead of the original movie where they decided the fate of a boy. Schumer’s take on the sketch is a reflection on modern day gender stereotyping in the modern workplace. Majority of people are under the impression that “sex discrimination no longer presents a significant problem for working women” (Gregory, 2003. P 5.), which is why strong feminists such as Amy Schumer write skits to not only create entertainment but to also present and communicate important ideas and discussions about gender equality and women in the workplace. Using a variety of Tim Ferguson’s “Principles of comedy” (Ferguson, 2011 p.5)). Schumer created a sketch that saw the eyes of the female audience sparkle with relatability. She used exaggeration, and inverted values to reveal the bare truths of continual gender discrimination. This sketch further utilises Ferguson’s “Gag Principles” (Ferguson, 2010 p.9) by contrasting elements, and always drawing upon a grain of truth. ‘Inside Amy Schumer’s’ parody of 12 Angry men encompasses the issues that remain in the workplace, and utilises Ferguson’s principles to highlight their flaws.

Schumer’s 12 Angry men sketch is a parody on the 1957 movie by the same name. In the original movie, 12 jurors discuss the case of a teenage boy set to be put to death if found guilty. However, Schumer’s sketch follows twelve men seeking a unanimous vote on whether Amy Schumer is hot enough to be on television, or, as it is so eloquently put in the sketch “does she give [them] reasonable chub”? (12 Angry Men 2016). The initial joke and issue of discussion is set at the start of the sketch, as one of the characters calls the jurors to take their seats. He goes on to explain how they must reach a twelve nothing, unanimous vote and then “gentlemen, raise your hands, please, if you think that Amy Schumer is not hot enough to be on television”. Schumer has used her comedic skills to paint light on the continuing issue of gender discrimination in the workplace, particularly homing in on how a woman must look “to be on tv” (12 Angry Men. 2016). Presently, there is a huge amount of gender discrimination in all workplaces, especially throughout Hollywood. Where a woman’s looks are placed much higher than anything else on her ‘Why are you important?’ scale in comparison to a man. Schumer’s sketch highlights this fact and, “because acts of sex discrimination are frequently subtly conceived and not readily detectable” (Gregory, 2003, p.11), it is very important to the industry she has done so.

Exaggeration, inverted values and offering the audience a bare truth hold strong comedic value. Schumer utilises all three of these throughout the duration of her sketch. In fact, the entire sketch itself is an exaggeration of inverted values. However, both are used specifically throughout the sketch and simultaneously provide humour and send a message. Exaggeration describes when “the punchline takes the premise to a nonsensical extreme” (Ferguson, 2010 p.31). At one point in the sketch, after much discussion revolving what gives a woman validity, the characters realise their dismissal of less attractive women, regardless of their talent. The gag is regarding X-factor sensation Susan Boyle. Even though she has a beautiful singing voice she “looks like an 18^th Century paper boy [so they] treat her like toilet shoes” (12 Angry Men, 2016). The extreme wording paints a picture in the audience’s head to draw a laugh.

Inverted values “portray the trivial as important…to illuminate larger truths, or expose fallacies in accepted truths” (Ferguson 2010 p.3). Throughout the entire sketch, Schumer keeps drawing back this overarching theme. Discussing if Amy Schumer is “hot enough” is a ludicrous discussion to be having in a courtroom punchlines like “if we decide she is not bang-able” remind the audience of that and demand a laugh. Furthermore, the undertone offering a bare truth is the clever way Schumer sends her message. While the audience laughs along, the underlying truth is that women are judged in such a way, albeit less official than a courtroom. But it’s the, almost self-deprecating humour, we all have inside us that makes us laugh at the absurdity of 12 Angry Men.

A common technique a lot of writers draw upon when describing the difference between men and women in, in this case, showbiz is by putting the opposite sex in the same situation. Much to the dismay of popular comedic actor, Kevin James, Schumer uses him as an example of an ‘ugly male’ and contrasts him against Amy, as the characters ask themselves if Kevin James is hot enough to be a protagonist while Amy Schumer isn’t. To which, of course, the response, is “I’m not thinking about fucking Kevin James”. The blunt, bare truth of the punchline holds enough shock value for an immediate laugh, as the message is made clear through the contrast.

Schumer’s sketch is, almost in entirety, based around the absurdity of gender discrimination in the workplace, using Hollywood as an example. She uses many of the principles Ferguson discusses in his book The Cheeky Monkey which, of course, work together to create a successful comedic sketch. However, like all good narratives, the characters demonstrate growth, as, throughout the sketch, they realise how much validity a woman receives directly correlates with her looks. The scene finishes without a resolution for the judge, and in doing so, shows the character development of the men as they realise that Amy Schumer, might, in fact, be hot enough to be on television.

Nevertheless, while the body of the jokes in this sketch are made up of exaggeration, inverted values and contrast, the skeleton frame is the complete and utter, bare truth of it.

12 Angry Men. (2016). [Video] Directed by A. Schumer. Hollyw: Comedy Central

Ferguson, T. (2011). The cheeky monkey. Strawberry Hills, N.S.W.: Currency Press.

Gregory, R. (2003). Women and workplace discrimination. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, pp.Chapter 1,2 and 11.

https://www.bankrate.com/lifestyle/celebrity-money/kevin-james-net-worth/

https://www.biography.com/people/susan-boyle-454696

12 Angry Men video

Assessment 4 reflection

Media: Assessment 4

Your Hand in Pollution began when Zitni, Sarah and I became a group and combined our initial ideas for our solo projects in Assessment 2. Throughout Assessment 3 we developed our ideas of what entanglement was, and how plastic, water and the human hand could be related. We found the answer was quite obvious: water pollution. This issue is increasingly more urgent and we wanted to spread word about how easily water can get polluted. There are many different forms of pollution, e.g. domestic, industrial, agricultural, etc. (Rai R.K et al 2012). The toxicity levels of water are dependent upon different chemicals and elements within the water. Different chemicals can be released by different substances being dropped into it (for example copper or lead) which increases the LD₅₀ (Lethal Dose) test results (the dose limit is set on a scale high enough that it 50% of animals within the test would be killed. (Nesaratnam, S. 2014). For this showcase, we wanted to demonstrate the effects a small drop of ink (representing pollution) can have on the water supply.

Our main idea of what it means to be entangled is how something might affect and relate the another. In our case, this is how the human hand leaves plastic (in the form of rubbish) behind, and it gets into the water stream. Building on Ingold’s theory of “no inside or outside, and no boundary separating the two domains. Rather there is a trail of movement or growth” a person can unknowingly contribute to pollution by forgetting to pick up their plastic the park, and hence that plastic gets into the water streams. We combined sound, text, video and images in assessment 3 to portray our concept. These mediums worked well together to tell the story of the dangers of pollution and how we can help stop it. The text provided the information while the videos and images provided the evidence. In assessment 4 we wanted to take it one step further and show the audience how easy pollution is, and how the smallest ‘drops’ can build up and make a difference. Thinking carefully and practically about how exactly we could engage the audience directly, we settled on our final piece. The tangibility of dripping ink into the bowl allows the audience to physically see for themselves the damage pollution causes through the changing in the water colouring. Utilising the screens, we live-streamed the water bowl onto the wall, highlighting the key element of our showcase and surround the audience with the effects of pollution. Once the audience has completed the first stage of the showcase (dripping ink into the water), we have utilised Instagram as a medium for two-way communication and the combination of text and images to further tell a story. The images we have uploaded are of a painted number, which audience clicks on and is given a riddle about water or pollution. Once solved, the person is rewarded with a prize, either a painting or a poem about water. The images of paintings provide an aesthetic element to the Instagram page, but do not tell enough information, hence the text. These two components work really well together, especially on Instagram, as that’s what it is designed to do: combine images with text. We entangled these platforms together to engage the audience as much as we could. The tangible media (the water, bowl and ink) works closely with the videos, the audience is not only doing, but they are watching the water. The second stage of our concept, Instagram, integrates both text and image itself. The image provides the aesthetic, while the text provides the information. The final outcome of our piece is to inform people about pollution through integrated media, and encourage them to change.

What were the questions that arose for your group and that you might like to explore in future work?

“What is entanglement?” Was the first question that arose. While we did discuss this throughout assessment 3, we now had the added element of physical space to incorporate. We mulled over the idea of utilising sound and space and looked at ways that we could get sound to “exhibit the same power of illumination as light” (Cusak, 2013). The Eavesdropping exhibition assisted with a few of our initial ideas. Originally, we were going to place speakers in a line so as the audience followed the sound along our piece. Employing the idea Cusak discussed in 2013: “the interpretation of sound certainly benefits from a knowledge of context in the same way that captions and titles enhance photographs”, the sound would be the main feature while the undecided images and text would provide the context. While we swapped the main focus around, instead deciding we wanted the audience much more involved, I would like to explore the idea of sonic journalism further. I think sound can be very powerful, and is a relatively underrated and under-utilised sense in the art world.

However, as I have stated, our final piece morphed into a more audience-driven concept. Which sparked our next main question: what do we want the audience to take away from our showcase? To answer that, we looked at what our main idea was: the under-valued damage of water pollution. How could we communicate this so that people would listen? We didn’t want to lecture people in an obvious way like so many environmentalists do, so we turned to a more-subtle option. The water in the glass bowl, which turned murky as the audience added ink to it themselves. This was actually quite successful. As our piece involved each participant uploading a video to their personal Instagram, I was concerned as to how many people would be interested in partaking. However, everyone seemed quite excited about how interactive it was. The hands-on element is something that I would love to develop further in the future. I think the Instagram posts and messaging back and forth became too complicated and the message was lost in the process, but getting people to create and add to something themselves brings a personalisation and satisfaction that can’t be achieved through visuals alone. I would love to have a more varied and relevant background sound. I think a microphone attached to the bowl so you could hear the ink hitting the water would increase how submerged the audience became in that one action. Not only surrounded by the imagery, but by the sound too each participant would be entangled further into our showcase.

How did you consider the way someone might engage with your work in an exhibition space after seeing the exhibition in class (or another of your own choosing)?

The Eavesdropping exhibition at the Ian Potter Museum was my initial introduction into how we could present our final piece. We had previously toyed with the idea of playing more with sound and space, and seeing the different ways sound can be presented and displayed sprouted different ideas for ways to manipulate our final display.

There was one part of the exhibition where the audience could sit in the middle of a darkened room and watch a screen while the sound played around them. It felt as though you were surrounded by the piece when you entered the room. And the screen (either at the front or the two sides depending on which piece was playing) helped centre and direct attention. It was the balance between engulfing and focussing, making some kind of sense of the entanglement between the sounds that were coming from every angle. We took the idea of the big screens for our final piece and utilised the projectors in the showcase room. Our initial idea sparked off the cuff of the idea of letting the sound be the main feature, and the screens simply there as a guide. However, after some workshopping, we realised that as our piece is not secluded, the sound might be difficult to concentrate on, and become fully immersed in, as one was in the inspiration exhibit. We decided on a more integrated use of the screens rather than just directional. I think this change of direction worked really well because it brought to life the simple bowl and highlighted the change in water. In the future, I think we could have improved on the lighting. We battled a little bit between wanting the projector to stand out in the dark, and needing to light what was being projected. This problem could have been solved with a lamp of some kind lighting the bowl without taking away from the projectors.

A few years ago, the Melbourne Museum put on an exhibit for the Titanic, and it remains one of my favourite exhibitions I have been to. The ticket to enter the exhibit was a designed as a ticket aboard the ship itself, and the name on the ticket was of real life passenger of the Titanic. Throughout the exhibit, you followed the prompts and clues on your ticket to unravel a little bit more about your designated person, and the things they would have done (e.g. entrance to the ballroom for the VIP guests). At the end of the exhibit there was a wall with all of the names of those on the ship, and you could look up the name you had been given and find out if they survived or not. The personalisation of the ticket is what made the exhibit to interesting. In our final piece, we got people to upload a boomerang of them pouring ink into water on their Instagram and tag our Instagram page. We then sent them a riddle, and then replied once they had solved it. After that they were given a number to choose, correlating to the numbers uploaded onto our Instagram page, and won a small prize. Throughout the day, we had many people do this, I think it worked really well because it got them personally involved, as opposed to simply walking past and viewing out showcase.

How have your ideas about entanglement and making ‘entangled media’ changed over the semester?

Entanglement is a strange concept to me because it’s so obvious yet so complicated at the same time. When I first thought about the idea that everything is entangled somehow, the initial response is “well, duh”. But then, the more you consider it, the more entangled everything becomes, until it hurts your head to think about. It’s the way everything in the entire world is intertwined. It’s the definition of the lesson in every time-travelling movie ever “Don’t touch anything!” because the smallest change can make the biggest difference. It’s “a field not of interconnected points but of interwoven lines; not a network, but a meshwork”. The world is entangled in such a way that it is ever-evolving and ever changing with everything anything does. Essentially, people are not only living in this world, they are inhabiting it and therefore are “threading their own paths through the meshwork – they contribute to its ever-evolving weave”.  (Ingold, 2013). The world is not a straight line where something effected by something, which then affects the next thing, and then the next like a connect-the-dots. The world is a scribble made on paint where each section between the scribbles is coloured in a different colour, somehow all matching and yet not matching, all meeting up and yet all separate and but all somehow one work of art.

At the beginning of the semester I had no idea what ‘entangled media’ meant. I could venture a guess and say it was the use of different forms of media (e.g. video and sound) to create one piece. I thought it was referring to the way different mediums worked together. The way the image of a movie worked with the sound to make sense, or the way you could press a button and it would make a noise to indicate the fact you’d just pressed it, for example, doing everything on your iPhone while it’s on loud. Entangled media is all those things, but it’s also so much more. It’s intertwining media in traditional and non-traditional formats. Over the semester, I have explored the different ways in which media can work with media to tell a story. Throughout each assessment, this has become more and more clear. Assessment 3 demonstrated this, where we utilised text, images, video and sound to tell the story of water pollution, none would have made sense without the other. The text was there to explain the images, the images were there as evidence for the text, the videos provided overall context while the sound added an extra atmosphere to the piece, a kind of third dimensional element.

Assessment 4, however, has combined entanglement with media. It has allowed us to entangle the four-dimensional world with the interconnected web that is social media. It demonstrated the ways in which we entangle ourselves every day. Filming our surroundings is a very common thing now, it was therefore interesting watching a physical act become a platform of media (video), which then lead to two more platforms (image and text), with the idea of entanglement consciously in mind. For the first time, I was conscious of how closely related everything is and everything is becoming as technology increases (i.e. we now have better cameras on our phones than actual cameras so accessing those modes of media (video and image) are painstakingly easier than it was, even 10 years ago.

If we had the chance to do this again, I would reconsider the logistics of filling the bowl of water. It didn’t fit under the taps, so we had to run back and forth with drink bottles. This slowed down the process a lot in between each re-fill and the water was left murky for longer than it should have been due to the difficulty of refilling it. However, I was pleasantly surprised with the amount of people eager to participate and post on their Instagram accounts. I think the overall showcase went quite well, and demonstrated how not only entangled media is with other media, but how entangled it is with real world is as well.

Alexander, B (2011) “The Next Wave of Digital Storytelling Platforms.” The New Digital Storytelling: Creative Narratives with New Media. ABC-CLIO, LLC: 29–43. [accessed 15^th Oct.]

Bennett, J (2010) The Agency of Assemblages. In Vibrant Matter. A Political Ecology of Things. Durham, London: Duke University Press, pp. 20–38 [accessed 14^th Oct.]

Cusack, P (2013) Field Recording as Sonic Journalism. In A. Carlyle & C. Lane, eds. On Listening. Devon: Uniformbooks, pp. 25–29. [accessed 14^th Oct.]

Ingold, T (2011) ‘Rethinking the animate, reanimating thought’, Being Alive: Essays on movement, knowledge and description Routlege: London, New York 67-75 [accessed 15^th Oct.]

Nesaratnam, S. (2014). Water pollution control. 1st ed. John Wiley & Sons, Incorporated, pp.63-67.[accessed 15^th Oct.]

Rai R.K., Upadhyay A., Ojha C.S.P., Singh V.P. (2012) ‘Water Pollution’ The Yamuna River Basin. Water Science and Technology Library, vol 66. Springer, Dordrecht. [Accessed 16^th Oct.]

Showcase poster:

The initial poem that acted as the instructions for our piece.

People then filmed themselves dropping ink into the bowl of water, which was projected onto the screen. They added this video to their instagram stories and tagged our instagram page in it @thefluidhand

We then replied to their story with a number. This number correlated to a number on a photo we uploaded to our page.

Once the person solved the riddle (which they replied back to us) we then sent them a poem.

This is a copy of the poem they received upon solving the riddle.

Reflection for Ass. 3

Assessment 3

The initial task for this assignment was bringing our past ideas together. Collectively, we had water our best course of action was to talk about the plastic that hands (and the humans that control them) leave around to pollute water. Humans polluting the water is a very current and real issue today so it worked well to be able to bring our ideas together to talk about something relevant. Though it did not come without its struggles, the single page format worked well for us in the end. The initial sound of the ocean at the start represents the ‘clean’ ocean, which then contrasts with the sounds of the ocean and plastic halfway through the piece. We chose this so it would play at the start and continue for roughly the amount of time it would take a reader to read through the rest of the piece to the next video. “Field recordings give basic information about places and events” (Casack 2013), this idea was to fully immerse the reader with both sound and sight. The text tells the story, while the images act as a form of evidence, proof of what is happening, as well as breaking up the text and making it more visually pleasing.

After my lack of knowing how to properly embed media into a blog post in the second assignment, I was happy with the aesthetic of this one. The way that it is set out creates an assemblage of sorts. For the piece to achieve its intended effect on the audience, all types of media are required. While the text is the spine, Bennett 2010, states that “no…type of material has sufficient competence to determine… the trajectory or impact of the [audience]”. Therefore, without the others, each single piece of media would lose impact and meaning. The images just be images and sounds without the context of the text, while the text would become lacklustre. I think our piece does well to bring these together to create something more powerful, and I think the idea of bringing different media components together to tell a story paints a more vibrant and clear picture than on their own which is an idea to develop further in the next assignment. What else can we add? How can we mix the material further?

As far as the overlook goes, post receiving feedback of using stock photos on our final product, we found our personal photos just weren’t aesthetic as the original photos we had in place were. However, it was nice to use more of our own material.

In the next project, we will have the ability to use physical space which will add an extra element into our work. Incorporating more of a tangible form of media will be interesting to experiment and workshop with to blend it with digital works. We have some ideas using physical water and ink ideas to demonstrate how a single drop of ink can pollute water, as well as exploring ideas of “sonic-journalism” (Cusack, 2013).

Here is the link to our previous assessment.

Assessment 3

Alexander, B (2011) “The Next Wave of Digital Storytelling Platforms.” The New Digital Storytelling: Creative Narratives with New Media. ABC-CLIO, LLC: 29–43. [accessed 10^th Sept.]

Bennett, J (2010) The Agency of Assemblages. In Vibrant Matter. A Political Ecology of Things. Durham, London: Duke University Press, pp. 20–38 [accessed 10^th Sept.]

Cusack, P (2013) Field Recording as Sonic Journalism. In A. Carlyle & C. Lane, eds. On Listening. Devon: Uniformbooks, pp. 25–29. [accessed 7^th Sept.]

Ingold, T (2011) ‘Rethinking the animate, reanimating thought’, Being Alive: Essays on movement, knowledge and description Routlege: London, New York 67-75 [accessed 11^th Sept.]

71% of the earth is covered by water. It is a crucial element of life, and yet is under struggling with copious amounts of pollution

Water pollution is a build-up of substances to the extent that can cause problems for people and wildlife.

Most water pollution comes from city sewage and industrial waste clearance. Also, caused by people leave rubbish, mostly plastics.

80% of water pollution comes from the land. Most of this pollution is a result of runoff, from sources such as small septic tanks, cars and other motor vehicles, farms, ranches and forest areas.

Plastic is the most common substance found in polluted water, killing enormous amounts of marine wildlife as it is swept into the oceans.

Some animals mistake plastic bags for prey and eat them, some get tangled up in it and drown, and others are just slowly poisoned from the chemicals in the water

It’s humans that are polluting. Even if we aren’t meaning to, we are polluting the Earth. We forget to pick up rubbish, we don’t recycle and plastics can’t be broken down. We leave cigarette buts everywhere you can imagine.

But what if we changed that? What if we started picking up our rubbish? What if we started recycling properly? What if we used out hands to clear plastic from the water? What kind of world would we have then?

 

Links to WWF  and Green Peace to learn more about what you can do to help prevent and fight back against water pollution.

 

The idea that everything in the world is somehow entangled in a very intricate web is quite an overwhelming thought. It reminds me of the ‘Butterfly Effect’ theory which states “the outsize significance of minute occurrences” (Vernon, J. 2017). I describe entanglement as the way in which everything is connected to everything, a “trail of movement or growth” (Ingold, 2011). Water is an apt demonstration of this concept as it ebbs and flows in and out of everything.

Water is one of the most vital resources for this world. If there is too much it floods and destroys, if there is too little, the drought that follows devastates. I have represented water in almost following the flow of it throughout the world and what it can do. For example I have taken water out of the glass initially and then followed that with the devastation in the world (while not all directly water-related, the devastation effect is the communicated symbol). Furthermore, I have followed filling up the glass with the beauty in nature and everything water can do to bring it to life.

I chose a variety of media forms to demonstrate the way water ebbs and flows throughout our lives.My favourite ‘collaboration’ of types of media is the montage of the destruction around the environment with the sound of dripping water. I did this to symbolise two things; time is running out, as heard by the slow drip of the tap, and water is vital. I really like the power that juxtaposition has.

I also filled the glass of water up as a video so that it would appear as though that specific glass of water was being poured on the crops in one smooth flowing motion.

I chose not to put a slow zoom on the photos of the positive nature’s because I wanted the final sunset to stand out as significant photos.

A background noise can add or takeaway so much effect. I really like the effect my sound has on the final piece. Whether it’s the simple power of a water droplet, or the cheerful tune of a country song, they both help create the atmosphere I was aiming for.

were a few things that I think could have been improved. I don’t think the order flows as it should. I think it would have been a much smoother transition to start with filling up the glass and then change direction with Al Gore’s words and then the devastation currently taking place in our environment, as I had originally planned. I think it would have worked a lot better as a ‘shock’ piece. However, during the editing phase I decided that the world already has negativity in abundance and I would try to avoid adding to it. Hence, the change of order and ending with an ‘everything will work out’ vibe.

During the process of putting my piece together, I have learnt a lot about the power of juxtaposition during the story-telling process. For example, when putting this together I wanted to finish with a happy ending. Had I linked the story to the glass of water by first depicting the beautiful nature shots and then the pictures of the drought, the audience would be left with a depressing turn. However, the way it was put together with the song “Everything’s gonna be alright’ puts a positive spin on the situation that is currently occurring in 100% of NSW. The most important part of a final media piece is the presentation, the order of events to tell the right story.

The final presentation was disappointing. I was hoping I would be able to have each video embedded in the video. That ruins the flow of my piece, but I hope the effect of each video is still the same.

*References

Davis, B. (2018). Farmers in survival mode: Lower Hunter battles awful drought. [Blog] Narromine News. Available at: https://www.narrominenewsonline.com.au/story/5205340/farmers-in-survival-mode-battling-awful-drought/ [Accessed 9 Aug. 2018]. 

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