In this week’s lectorial, we heard from two guest speakers, Adrian Miles and Liam Ward, who spoke about theory & practice and editing, respectively.

I found Liam’s explanation of editing particularly interesting, as he brought up a completely new way of thinking about this process that I had never considered. He asked us to think of the editing process not as “fixing” the filming work, but of “breaking” the work, taking existing material and smashing it. He mentioned this in the context of creating meaning between elements, including the false illusion of movement and causing audiences to question what is surrounding the shot and what happened before/what will happen after the clip. Thus, according to Liam, “what is important is not what’s in the shot but what’s not.” He argued that humans bring historical and social context to everything they see, and it is in this space that creators infuse meaning, through connotations and attribution of meaning.

It follows, then, that Liam also suggested that “magic happens in the gaps” of media. The challenge for viewers, similar to poetry, is piecing together the different parts, which have been broken apart. This whole concept was fascinating to me. I knew that the editing process was important, but I had previously thought of this in terms of making sure each clip flowed on from the previous to create a cohesive whole. I had not thought about the spaces between clips, and how certain jumps could subconsciously plant associations in my mind. I hope that as I progress through this course, I can improve my ability to incorporate these techniques effectively into my own work in a range of ways.

The following is the feedback I received from my classmates on my Self Portrait (Project Brief 1) within the framework of Edward de Bono’s Thinking Hats.

– Black: one video was landscape and the other was portrait

– Green: a lot to work with in terms of editing to show more of my personality and my life (this will be helpful for Project Brief 2)

– Red: happy, felt like home, pleasing, optimistic, sense of belonging to Shanghai and Melbourne

I was pleased with the feedback I got in class. Before presenting, I was anxious that my ideas wouldn’t translate through the media I had created, so it was reassuring that my group mates seemed to understand what I was going for. On the other hand, I was hoping to gain a little more direction in terms of improvements they thought would make a difference to my self portrait. I hope that as we progress through the course, we all become more comfortable giving detailed, constructive feedback. As we’re all still new to this, it is challenging to give feedback because we’re worried about suggesting ideas that don’t quite fit the task or take a project in the wrong direction.

Having said that, I will definitely take on board the feedback I did receive. I’ve also been continuously brainstorming new ideas and thinking of ways to build on the media I have already created. I’m really excited about where I’m taking this, progressively more and more in the direction of how “home” reflects an accurate portrait of me. I also thoroughly enjoyed seeing everyone else’s products and hearing about what inspired them/how they interpreted the task. In particular, Maggie’s take on the task really impressed me. She looked at the task as a way to portray her life and personality as a movie producer would if they were to create a movie about her life. This was a concept that had everyone in our group laughing from the very first element of media we saw. Everything tied together so well and I felt that I gained so much insight into who Maggie was from looking at her work. This is something I will be striving for as I piece together and edit my self portrait for Project Brief 2.

In our week 3 lecture we learnt the about basic copyright laws, both in Australia and internationally. Essentially, in Australia copyright is automatic and this then means your work (in material form; ideas themselves are not included) is protected overseas.

According to Anne Lennox, the basics are:

– whoever created the work owns the work

– the work is protected by copyright for the duration of the creators life, plus an additional 70 years

– after this period, there are still moral rights (academic integrity) that require you to recognise that the work belongs to somebody else

– rules for work shared within closed environments (e.g. blogs that are password protected) are slightly different to public sharing

Of course, there are exceptions to each of the cases above and each instance may be treated differently depending on a range of factors.

A key point that was brought up concerned websites such as Pinterest and Tumblr, where people “reblog” or “pin” things they like, adding them to a page of their own. Given that user-generated data is often created with the intent of sharing, the workings of the law are quite complex in this situation.

A few more examples where the lines may be blurred and there are complex laws in place include: fan art, an fiction, Facebook sharing and Youtube videos (e.g. people at home creating and uploading covers of famous songs). Thus, today it is immeasurably important to adhere to copyright laws specific to the medium you are working in.

I was also fascinated by the fact that even if you gain permission to use a person’s work, the original creator can still ask you to remove your own adaptation from a public space if it is seen to reflect badly on them.

At the end of the day, according to Anne, “something must stand up in court as being creative enough” for you to argue that it was your original work.

It was very helpful to have all of these things outlined for us so early in the course, both so I am aware of how I will be expected to credit others, and so that I know what rights I have as a creator myself.

What I took away from this lecture was a better knowledge and understanding of things I need to look out for when I create something that builds on or incorporates others’ work. This is key within the context of the Media course and in my everyday life (e.g. Tumblr posts, background music in my edited videos, etc.).

The scariest thing about silence, at least to me, is that it is so foreign. I don’t believe that I have ever in my life experienced complete silence. Even if I am home alone I can hear the sound of the fridge humming or the washing machine running. In the distance I can (faintly) hear cars, traffic, sometimes voices. The times when I’ve been away from the city I’ve heard the ocean or animals; the sounds of nature.

I struggle to think of a time when I have sat in silence and not heard something – real or imagined – in my own head.

To me, the idea John Cage had is a disturbing one. I am particularly frightened of silences when I am with others. If I am alone I can make noise or listen or just focus on my own thoughts, but when others are around (especially people I don’t know well) I feel I have to fill the silence with conversation.

Placing a theatre full of people in this position – and particularly without warning – is an interesting social experiment. We tried this (knowing exactly what was coming) in our week 2 Media Lectorial and even 33 seconds was slightly uncomfortable. I started, even in that brief period, to pay more attention to the sounds filtering through the windows from the street and faint noises in the classroom. I also started to withdraw into myself and concentrate on my own thoughts.

Silence is a fascinating tool in audio, theatre, public speaking and the art of prosody (stylised vocal utterances). I’ve found it can be particularly useful to punctuate an important point because it abruptly calls for attention.

I don’t recall whether I’d heard about John Cage’s performance before we discussed it in our lectorial, but I am now curious about the significance of the title of the performance (4’33”) and the original concept behind it. There could be any number of aims behind the piece – exploring awareness, human nature, social relations, societal norms or perhaps just silence itself.