Month: August 2017

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week 6 extras + week 7 pitch session info

Hi everyone!

For those who missed week 6 classes or want to revise, on Monday we talked about “curationism” and rise of the curator in popular culture. We read the articles here and here. Both these pieces are examples of what has been called “cultural criticism“. It might be a form of criticism you’d like to experiment with.

On Wednesday we looked at ways to find new angles for our critical writing, using randomly selected prompts. We each chose a television series to work on, then selected a “lucky dip” prompt. We did 10 minutes of nonstop writing on the TV series in relation to the idea in the prompt, before revealing the combinations to the rest of the class and workshopping the ideas further.

Some good ones were:

  • Sex and the City + architecture
  • Everybody Loves Raymond + night
  • Desperate Housewives + the past
  • Girls + temperature

This is something you might like to try at home if you’re struggling with finding an interesting way into a text.

We also looked at the difference between ACTIVE and PASSIVE voice. We’ll talk about this more in week 7, but see if you can notice where you might strengthen your voice by switching to active in your own writing.

OK. The plan for Week 7:

Monday 12:30pm – 3:30pm: studio pitch session

I will bring snacks, but you will need to bring two things to Monday’s class:

1. An idea for a piece of critical writing that you will “pitch” to the rest of the class for the anthology website we will produce. Your pitch does not need to be exhaustive (remember Simran’s advice), but it does need to be a considered idea that gives the rest of the class a clear picture of what you want to work on.

It could be:

  • a comparative review of croissants from Melbourne bakeries
  • an in-depth review of your favourite (or your Mum’s favourite) album
  • a piece of cultural criticism about a recent trend you’ve noticed
  • a critical reconsideration of a film you think deserves another look
  • a piece that considers the historical significance of movie snacks that also reviews the snacks available at Melbourne cinemas
  • an essay about the cultural value of Billy on the Street
  • OR anything else you think of

2. An idea (or two) for the title of our website/publication.

HERE’S an example of the kind of thing we might want to produce.

Wednesday 8:30am – 10:30am:

We’re going to be looking again at the idea of passive and active voice and other aspects of sentence construction. We’ll be applying the principles we look at to earlier drafts of our own writing.

Have a great mid-semester break!! Here’s a cheap date idea:

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everyone’s a critic: week 5 update

by Isabella Oliveria & Patrick McKee

This week Alexia introduced us to Yossi Klein, chief editor of Bread Wine and Thou. As a class, we worked through two pieces of criticism about French restaurants and food, and discussed the differences and the impact of both.

 As a class, we read through a review written by Jay Rayner and a review by A.A Gill, both about French restaurant experiences and both negative reviews. We looked at and outlined the key differences and similarities of the reviews and focused on the types of description and voice in both. We had not yet tackled the idea of the negative review so looking through these two articles – that differ so much in language and description –  gave us two different examples of negative criticism. Both articles had distinct voices, but were for two very different publications (The Guardian and Vanity Fair respectively) so the “humour” can be classified as “high brow” and “low brow”. This relates back to our Q&A session with Simran and Phillpa last week ensuring that you pick the right publication for your voice.

We also were able to have a Q&A session with Yossi about his writing career and projects. Hearing Yossi’s stories and attitude towards writing was quite inspiring as it gave us another perspective on critical writing and writing in general. Yossi’s key argument was that “everyone has a story to tell”. I think I really related to the ideas of telling stories about the particular thing you are writing about (in this case, we were discussing wine) rather than boring your audiences with details about your subject.

 

Some of the advice that Yossi gave us:

  • *Writing finds you
  • *Everyone has the ability to tell stories
  • *Don’t be egotistical, be honest
  • *Be self critical: you’ll know when it becomes counter- productive.
  • *Everything is derivative, we are influenced and receptive to everything

 

 

Embarking on a significantly different task from Monday’s tutorial, however, was in Wednesday’s lesson where our class was set with the challenge of completing our very first descriptive task. The process involved creating what Alexia termed as “explosive sentences”; essentially, the aim of the task was to transform an initially bland paragraph – one that was devoid of any compelling details or emotion-inducing phrases – and to ultimately add some of our own personal flare to it, making the paragraph “explode” with imagery and description.

The choice was ours to make in terms of what sentence of the paragraph we wanted to embellish and, in spite of the task’s seemingly easy exterior, many of us found it quite tricky to revamp an entire sentence that didn’t necessarily have a whole lot of meat to work with. On the other hand, there was a select few of us that found that the sparseness of detail actually helped to ignite a multitude of narrative possibilities, ushering us into an hour long writing session which tested our creative flare and ability to construct a story.

After the allocated time had passed, it was time to share our newly refurbished sentences, starting from the first sentence and working our way to the last. Indeed, it was here that we found just how disparate many of our stories were in the sense that the same sentences, edited by different students, could end up following completely different trajectories. Protagonists ranged from melancholy to utterly depressed and the setting either frantic and panic-stricken to desolate and solemn the next.

This tutorial was certainly filled with many “why didn’t I think of that?” moments and other creative revelations that not only helped us explore the extent of our descriptive writing capabilities, but to go beyond those boundaries as well.

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week 5 extras + what you need for week 6

Hi everyone,

Thanks for another great week in the studio! In case you missed the Wednesday morning session, we did a writing exercise around developing detail and description. Everyone started with the same bare bones story and each chose a sentence to “explode” with detailed description. The most exciting thing about this was how everyone elaborated a line from the same story in completely different ways. I think this illustrates how important detailed description is to articulating your voice and persona, not to mention engaging the reader. It was so much fun hearing everyone’s variations.

The other thing I think this showed us is how much writing we can get done with heads down for 25 minutes. This “shut up and write” model is based on something called The Pomodoro Technique. If you tend to get stuck a lot, or are prone to a little procrastination (or a lot of procrastibaking), this technique can be very powerful (trust me). There’s a bunch of cute pomodoro apps to help you replicate this scenario at home, or you can use less cute, but still effective, online timers like this. You can read about why it’s named after a tomato, but it basically gets your brain working because you are committing to a short period of intense focus instead of an exhausting, no-light-at-the-end-of-the-tunnel situation.

A couple of extra things relating to Week 5:

  • If you missed, or want more of, the “exploding a moment” exercise, try using a line from a detail-less synopsis of a film you know well. Mine wikipedia or imdb.com for an example and “explode” the line with as much detail as possible. You might want to watch the relevant section of the plot again to refresh your memory.
  • We also talked in class on Wednesday about “listening to your broccoli” (your imagination and intuition) and “radio station KFKD” (the negative chatter inside your head when you try to write). These ideas are from Anne Lamott’s 1994 book on writing, Bird by Bird. I have scanned these short sections for you and put them into the shared drive. They’re great for short-circuiting gloomy feelings and rallying the troops.

 

Looking ahead to Week 6:

Monday 12:30pm – 3:30pm:

We’re going to look at the rise of the curator and how it might relate to the role of the critic. We’re also going to spend some time looking ahead at what we need to achieve in the second half of the semester.

To prepare for class, you will need to:

  1. Spend a few minutes exploring what the word curator means/has meant. Bring these ideas to class. You may also want to have a look at these articles on the rise of the curator here and here before we go over them in class.
  2. Check out the details of PB3, which have been posted on the Assessments page.

 

Wednesday 8:30am – 10:30am: 

Our early-morning session will be dedicated to writing exercises and “group therapy” for overcoming the Grammar Shame we talked about this week.

To prepare for class, you will need to:

  1. Have a think about which aspects of writing you feel most uncomfortable with. We’re going to make a list and see if we can, over the rest of the semester, unravel as many obstacles as possible.

 

Stay warm, watch movies and have a great weekend!

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everyone’s a critic: week 4 update

By Elise Schumacher & Stephanie Avro

This week we were challenged in Monday’s class to give one another feedback on either our PB2 drafts, or on other critical reviews that we have been working on. For a lot of us, giving and receiving feedback can be awkward and uncomfortable, but we are steadily growing better at it. Alexia read only the first sentence of our reviews, and gave us some excellent advice to take on for our writing across all fields: to always rewrite your introductory sentence and see how that manipulates the quality and both yours and other readers perception of the piece.

Simran Hans (UK) and Philippa Hawker (AUS) discuss how to pitch to editors

On Wednesday we participated in Q&A session with Critics Campus Mentors, Simran Hans (UK) & Philippa Hawker (AUS). Both well established writers this was a great opportunity to learn of what exists beyond our weekly tutorials. Opening the floor to us students, conversation seemed to steadily shift toward the idea of ‘pitching’, posing stories for publications to print, an area both Hans and Hawker are well familiar with. Introducing concepts such as a ‘Cold Pitch’, (sales approach to brand without any prior rapport), was a learning experience for I’m sure many students. The basic notes of pitching, as according to Hans are as follows:

  • Don’t waste a pitch on being too general, be specific, (keep it short)
  • Introduce yourself and text voice
  • Pitch a story, not an idea
  • Keep it tailored to publication
  • Include 3 examples of short published works
  • Pitch to multiple publications
  • Establish upfront if it is a paid job- ‘follow up with “what’s the deadline and fee?”’”.

We also discussed the specifics of a ‘writer’s voice’ and how the current media landscape has caused for many to change in order to appear ‘commerical’ to a wider audience- similar to Week2’s panel discussion, Critical Failure: Film. When asked how to develop on our own voice and tone, Hans and Hawker both assured that ‘If you write a lot, your authoritative voice will develop and come…It’s not something you look for or seek out’.

Taking us beyond the classroom, this session allowed us students to view the art of critical reviews from an international space.

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recent criticism by Philippa Hawker & Simran Hans

Hi everyone,

Ahead of our session with Philippa and Simran on Wednesday, please find here two examples of writing by each critic we’ll be meeting with. Try to have a read of these before our session on Wednesday.

Hans, Simran. ‘David Lynch: The Art Life – portrait of the auteur as a young man’, The Observer, Sunday 16th July, 2017. 

Hans, Simran. ‘Film-maker Julie Dash: ‘#OscarsSoWhite worked!’, The Observer, Sunday 4th June, 2017

 

Hawker, Philippa. ‘Neon explores the glory days of the world’s illuminated signs’, The Age, May 27, 2016. 

Hawker, Philippa. ‘Teen Movies: familiar tropes of school, detention, love and growing up’, The Australian, July 8, 2017

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everyone’s a critic: week 3 update

By Samuel Harris & Natalie Pitcher

Monday found us with our first in-class screening, Laura Gabbert’s City of Gold (2015), a profile of internationally renowned, Pulitzer Prize-winning food critic Jonathan Gold. Our task: to take notes in order to draft a review of the film, putting fingers to keyboards (or pen to paper) in the process of bulking (beginning) our portfolios. Getting into the swing of things, keeping the words flowing is where the success of the studio lies, and this exercise proved useful in giving us another avenue for our writing to go.

Following the screening we delved into a review from Gold himself, a reflection on his experience with a pop-up restaurant in Mexico. Switching from analysing his words onscreen to his words on paper helped further our understanding of his persona as a critic and in this close reading – a paragraph by paragraph comparison – we considered tone and point-of-view, with brief foray into the ethical considerations of food evoked in Gold’s writing.

 

A close reading of Edward Scissorhands reviews

Trying to write reflections, weekly updates, and as many reviews as possible for your folio be like

In Wednesday’s class, we analysed the styles and techniques used in reviews of Edward Scissorhands. We examined 5 quite different critics, including Paul Harris of 3RRR’s Film Buffs Forecast and Adrian Martin, former film review for The Age. The exercise was really useful in helping us prepare for an upcoming assessment–to profile an established critic–as well as making us aware of the different tools available to us as writers.

We considered four key elements in our analysis: word choice, sentence fluency, voice, and structure. In paying particular attention to these aspects we were able to form a pretty clear idea of the critic’s style by the end of each of each piece.

The main take-aways to keep in mind for our own writing:

  • Having authority is important–however, there’s a big difference between name-dropping and making references for the sake of showing-off, and letting your expertise speak for itself through discretion in your choice of (relevant) references.
  • Parenthetical statements and use of the em dash (–) can be a great way to inject a little personality, but be wary of overuse as they can also distract the reader and dilute the point you’re trying to make.
  • Stacking adjectives is a way to play with the rhythm of a sentence, but sometimes one word is better than three.
  • Always back up declarative statements with an example.
  • For the love of dogs, don’t just summarise the plot! Always provide new insights–if the reader wanted a synopsis they would have gone to IMDB.
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feeding your brain + what you need for week 4

Thanks for another great week, everyone! The analysis of writing style you did in Wednesday’s class was really impressive and I’m super keen now to see what everyone comes up with for their “profile of a critic” piece. That discussion of writing style would also make a good topic for the week 3 reflection post on your blog; I’ve been reading the posts coming through on the feed so far and they’re really great, so keep up the good work!

A reminder: try to keep feeding your brain ideas, as often as you can. Pick up something you’ve never seen from the library’s AV collection (or on Netflix etc.), or listen to an album you really like but have not heard for a long time and write a couple of paragraphs about what it makes you remember or what is so special about it (this is a good public transport activity). There’s also an Experimenta Social session on at ACMI on August 9th called Curing Media: The Curator about curators, canons and cultural gate-keeping that might be of interest in terms of our discussions on expertise. It’s free but you need to register.

Finally, below is a little summary of what we’ll we doing next week and what you’ll need. Remember that we will not have our regular Wednesday 8:30am class next week because of the MIFF event, so you can afford to press snooze a few more times that morning. Please also note that the next round of assessment (Project Brief 2) is due next Friday 11th August.

The plan for Week 4:

Monday 12:30pm – 2:30pm (or thereabouts): we’ll be having our second critique session.

To prepare for class, you will need to:

  1. Prepare a draft to bring in; this can be your “profile of a critic” or another piece of criticism you would like feedback on.
  2. Print it out so that your editing partner can mark it up.

Wednesday 2:00pm – 3:00pm: Q&A session with MIFF Critics Campus mentors Simran Hans (UK) and Philippa Hawker (AUS), running in 51.03.011.

To prepare for class, you will need to:

  1. Take a look at each critics’ profile and catch up on a bit of the kind of writing they do.
  2. Think about what you might like to ask Simran and Philippa; consider their different backgrounds, the fact that they work in different parts of the world, the difference between being a staff writer and a freelancer etc.

Friday 3:30pm – 4:30/5pm: Live recording of The Rereaders literary and cultural podcast, running in 80.09.012.

No preparation necessary (but you may want to have a listen to this podcast to see what they’re all about before coming in).

+ at 5pm (time tbc): MIFF Critics Campus Closing Drinks in 09.04.029.

Come along for a drink and chat to the mentors and this year’s participants about all things film criticism, what they got out of the program etc. This will be useful if you’re considering applying to the Critics Campus program next year (using your dazzling studio folio).

AND: have a nice weekend 🙂