Archive of ‘Assessment’ category
In this article, the author, a researcher in psychology discusses and analysis five different ways of thinking.
The first way – disciplined
Disciplined way of thinking refers to training to perfect a skill. For instance, when you start doing something, don’t just do it, taking down notes while you are doing it. In this way you can look at and learn from your notes after. There will be a big room for you to improve next time. After few times’ practice, you will become more skilled and confident in whatever you are doing. Practice makes the perfect.
The second way – synthesizing
Imaging that you are making a collage, you take whatever you need from somewhere else to make a whole new thing. It works the same way in business. For a manager, his/her job is to call for synthesis. First of all, the manager needs to know what to be done, then they distribute them to various workers to finish. Also they look back and try to carry out the best future missions.
The third way – creating
It is born from the synthesis of disciplinary perspectives. Creative breakthrough usually happens more on young generation, leaders, creative industry like media, fashion and etc.
The fourth and fifth way – respectful and ethical
When it comes to respect, it refers avoiding stereotyping and caricaturing. Try to understand others from their perspectives additionally. What’s more, learn to trust others and at the same time, earn their trust. When it comes to ethical, identify yourself.
In this article, how to allocate your time in a more wise way to be more effective is addressed.
Reformulating Working Time
We can use some tools to help us manage our time effectively. For instance, the smartphone application, it can track what you have been doing throughout the entire day. According to this, you can make some improvement on your effectiveness. Reducing working hours is the most easy way to get out of time pressure. According to Keynes, the hours of work have been fallen rapidly from 1870 to 1930, and the falling will be continuing.
Work-Life Articulation
With the arriving of digital time, the boundary between work and life is becoming blurry. ‘The traditional time/space of the week and weekend and their characteristic social relations are now porous as people increasingly work, play, consume and interact anywhere, anytime’.
Slow Living in Modern Times
As time going by, the appealing for slow life is gaining. Slow living like cooking and sharing, growing vegetables, riding a bike and walking is fading away from our life. Instead we choose the way of fast living, eat outside, buy fast food, driving and so on.
New Technologies for Emergent Times
The digital world is like a big magic box filled with society, people’s imagination, representation of people themselves on social media. People expresses and represents themselves in new technology, but it is the same narrative.
Nowadays, people feel more stressed than before from time to time. However the feeling of getting rushed sometime can become creative tension. It is the time to take control of more our time out of time.
Reference: Judy Wajcman, 2015, ‘Finding Time in a Digital Age’ in Pressed for Time: The Acceleration of Life in Digital Capitalism, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, ch.7.
In this week’s reading, it addressed a lot about mindset. Based on my own experience, mindset is essential, it affects you a lot, and it leads you into different results.
I remember when I first arrive in Australia, two and half years ago from now, I was confused, scared and don’t know what to do at the airport after landing. But now, when I look back, I saw how much I’ve grown. When I choose this major at the first place, I just though it would be interesting, that’s the reason. Now I find it really fine, I’m fine to work in this area after graduation. So I think everyone doesn’t really know who they are, what they want, life is not always like the same you planned. However once you pick something, for me, I agree with the craft man mindset which is to be so good, they can’t ignore you. To do that, you need to devote your time, energy and passion.
Craft man mindset
I’ve been preparing for a dance performance for almost two months, and it is coming soon which is in two days. I can’t believe how much I devoted myself into, how many times I practiced. After so much hard work, it finally paying off. everything is connected, if you apply the same mindset to your work, your hard work will pay off.
Time and quality
Time is another important issue. When I’m doing multiple tasks, uni, internship, dance and part time job, I need a detailed schedule to help me to finish more work in shorter time. Remember time doesn’t equal to quality.
The tape doesn’t lie
Look back your life from time to time. In this way, you can make progresses from you pervious mistakes and you will be surprised about how much you’ve grown.
The passion mindset
Try to think the other way around, what’s your life is bring to you. There are so many things you can be thankful to. But always remember, you need to earn it and the process won’t be essay
Reference: Cal Newport, 2012, ‘The Clarity of the Craftsman’ in So Good They Can’t Ignore You: Why Skills Trump Passion in the Quest for Work, NY Business Plus, ch.4.
Geneva 2014, ‘Employment relationships in the media and culture industries’, international labour office, vol. iii-v, pp. 1-24
http://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/@ed_dialogue/@sector/documents/publication/wcms_240701.pdf
This article analysed the motivation behind freelancing. By pointing out different categories of freelance, it shows that freelance sometimes can be employees as well. Grey areas exist between them. Some freelancers consider themselves as businessman who runs their own enterprise, at the same time, they are workers themselves. In this way, freelance is actually mirco-enterprise. It also outlines the legal issue of freelance varies from country to country. As self-employed is not exactly freelancer. So there is no legal middle ground between employed and self employed status except considerable overlapping. For instance, in Spain’s 2007 Self-Employed Workers, it says,’ economically dependent self-employed worker’.
To sum up, there are areas of overlapping between real freelancer and employee freelancer. A obvious thing to test this is to see if they are economically independent. However, the overlapping areas push the creative mirco-enterprise to happen.
In this week’s reading, it mainly addressed the borderland between formal and informal media work. It highlights the disadvantage of informal media work, for instance, it can be very insecure, overload and low pay. This is especially common in freelancer and some other media workers who are at the bottom of food chain. The flexibility and exploitation exist at the same time, sometimes the boundaries between these two elements can be very leaky. Based on the experience of an old freelancer named Muise, he suggests that ‘give nothing for free, and discipline yourself to making some system- any system- work for you’ It is very common for media companies to hire professional media workers. In comparison, non-professional workers become contributors. There are no minimum payment standard for them. This low-pay model of freelance writing industry has caused criticism.
According to Toby Miller, labour is the power of all, it produces media and then culture and then humanity. The common and typical labour issue in media industry is unpredictable and insecure aspects of work. The ground-level workers suffer even more. Firm culture workers are not as good as they look like, they are not ‘stars’, rich or successful. In fact, they work for their company to get the basic payment. Sometimes they don’t get credit for their contribution. In the end, we can see a range of ideas developing, conflicting and connecting. Both of inevitability and contingency exist in the capitalist knowledge economies world. So take the chances, there is a liberation for flexibility and informal employment after all.
Reference: Ramon Lobato and Julian Thomas, 2015, ‘Work’ in The Informal Media Economy, Polity Press, Cambridge UK, ch.3.
All of the development and technologies have been invented through industrial revolution have always been relying on the power of digitisation and information technology. Three clusters are addressed in this process, physical, digital and biological. These three clusters based on and get support from each other in order to make progress.
physical
In physical branch, there are four main streams, they are autonomous vehicles, 3D printing, advanced robotics and new materials. Autonomous vehicles dominates the information without a driver. They are developing into more strong function of transferring messages in the environment. 3D printing is also called additive manufacturing. It produces subjects layer upon layer based on model or drawing. Roberts are used in automotive environment for the most of situation. New material is being created based not he principles of lighter, stronger, recyclable and adaptive way.
digital
The key connection between physical and digital branch is the Internet. Internet provides platforms, products, services, places, etc. People is walking through these paths between technologies and platforms. Digital platforms save people a lot of transaction and friction cost. Individuals are sharing the same asset.
Biological
After long time researching and huge cost has been spending on it, biological realm has arrived a new level. On the other hand, computing power has been helping scientists go on the right trial.
Internet has been playing an essential role in the industry. It connects everything, it makes the communication faster, easier and more effective. It save money and space.
Name: Haisi Jiao
Student Number: s3445133
Tutor: Elliot Heatwole
Workshop: Thursday 11:30-13:30
As we all known networking is like a big community. In this community, people do their own jobs, establish a relationship net and contribute to the community. In filmmaking, it is the same thing. In this essay,I will investigate the distribution part of film network from a traditional way and a new digital way. Also I will compare this two different way of film distribution and define a best way and direction the future film distribution might go.
A distributor is the individual or organization that represents the film at festivals and world-widely market. Also a distributor is the one who sell the film to the studios, television, airlines and some other companies who screen films. The distributor is in charge of the theatrical release of a film in general in a particular country. In addition, they also are in charge of marketing and circulation of films for home viewing like DVD, Video-On-Demand, download, television and so on. Different distributors arein charge of different areas of distribution. (Film Network, 2014)
In the traditional way of film distribution, there are several sections being mentioned, the first one is territory. In which specific area or country this film can be distributed is very important. The second one is term, in other word, the time period for the distributor to hold the distribution right of this film. The third is rights granted, you need to distinguish the rights granted to the distributor and the rights reserved to the producer. You should be aware that if they are exclusive or not. If it is an exclusive, you should not allow others to show the film within some other areas, media forms and terms. Fourthly, the producer has to make sure that there is no infringement of copyright. Fifthly, the distributor actually received the all monies once the film gets exploited. No deductions have been made by then. Sixthly, net proceeds, this part of money is for producer. Usually producer will receive this money after the exploitation of the film with some deduction including distributor fees, commissions and expenses. Seventhly, expense caps should be established to prevent the distributors from asking for extra and unreasonable amount. Also in this way, the producer can get the deserved amount. Eighthly, the distributor should do his/her best to realize their obligations, owning the most of the gross receipts from marketing and exploitation of the film. Ninthly, the distributor should be honest about all of the sales and expenditure. They should also keep a very accurate and true record of it and preset it to the producer the regular accounting statements on the film. Finally, termination, after a long time of negotiation and cooperation with your distributor, in order to terminate the relationship or keep cooperating, you need to pay attention to every details and circumstances. (Film Network, 2014)
Some people choose to distribute their films by themselves, however there are both advantages and disadvantages about the self-distribution. From my point of view, the online distribution is a little bit similar to self-distribution. The advantages about self-distribution are as follows, firstly you can get the full control and rights of your own movie and you can have it show wherever you want. You don’t need to pay for the distributor, this means you can get all of the money made from your film. The disadvantages about it are as follows, firstly it is a big workload for you. You have to chase buyers and sales, fill in plenty of paperwork and so on. It will take you lots of time. Secondly, you don’t have enough buyer sources. Distributors have established relationship network among all kinds of buyers and it is easier for them to sell the film out. Thirdly you need to be cautious about signing away your film’s rights that will be the barrier for you to show it elsewhere. (Film Network, 2014)
As we all known, it is a long process from festival premiere of a film to its final release. Many people might wonder why it takes so long to finally come out. There are several reasons for this. I will introduce them next. Firstly, it takes time to find a most appropriated buyer. This is a market and competition among buyers. Secondly, after the deal was made, the contract and delivery usually take months sometimes. Thirdly, ‘long lead times for press are required, at least four months, and that planning usually does not happen until after deal closure’ (Ravid, 2012). Fourthly, the booking of an appropriate theatrical slot take time, again months, because it is competitive out there, the best screens are usually booked in advance, to book one takes time, to book a right one takes even longer. Fifthly, the launching of marketing campaigns costs money, the distributors need to deal with cash flow, which also takes time. Sixthly, uploading and making a movie available on digital outlet like VOD, DVD takes time to arranging, planning, slotting everything. It contains lots of strategic about releasing a film. Seventhly, the time of releasing a film deserves considering carefully. A specific time like Christmas and Halloween might be a better timing to release the film. Eighthly, the internal schedule of distributor is also important. They also have other films to release at the same time period. Ninthly, ‘grass roots and other marketing also demand lead time’ (Ravid, 2012). Finally, in traditional distribution, everything cannot be planned in advance. Everything needs to be done step by step after the festival premiere. To give you further information about traditional distribution, click here to read.
There is a new kind of distribution in the digital age, for professional sites like Netflix and for non-professional YouTube. However there is big difference between platforms like Netflix and YouTube. Netflix is more professional from the aspects of copyright, sources, payment, distribution strategy and film prescreens and so on. There are lots of online distribution platforms nowadays like Netflix, iTunes, BitTorrent, Vimeo On Demand, Amazon On Demand. To choose a best option, you need to ask yourself if you need exposure, profit and accessibility. To read more information about different online film distribution, click here. (Kroll, 2013)
There is another platform YouTube has been very popular since it was established in 2005. This web site is created for people to upload and share video with the rest of the world. It became very popular immediately. At the beginning, YouTube was just a simple platform for people to upload some interesting video sharing stories like interesting location, crazy stunts and hilarious pranks and so on. With time going by, YouTube has gradually developed into a multiple media platform with completed system. For instance, nowadays you can even see some political debates, formal musical and dancing performances, tutorial video, war footages without prescreening, etc. There are thousands of people uploading videos onto YouTube, so sometimes these video cannot get prescreen before releasing. Also the most of the video clips and short films are usually free on YouTube. The ‘distribution’ here just means uploading video by author himself/herself. There is no long and complex process for YouTube’s ‘distribution’. However it has the access to plenty of audiences. Once you upload the video, the rest of the world can see it and make comments about it. (Strickland, 2014)
‘The emerging digital entertainment economy is going to be radically different from today’s mass media market’ (Anderson, 2006). There are several differences between traditional way of film distribution and new digital online film distribution. The most obvious one is the time. Traditional way of film distribution has a very long and complex process that takes lots of time to finish. However online distribution takes less time and steps to complete one. The second one is profit. As I described above, traditional distribution cost the filmmaker a lot to do a good campaign. The profit of your film needs to be shared by yourself and filmmaker. If you want more profit, you can try some online distributions like BitTorrent and Vimeo On Demand that save some money for you. The third one is the access of audience. As we all known, the Internet is like a big community with very quick and wide connections. It is fast, convenient and has sufficient sources for people to choose from. People can just download, rent or buy the film and then watch it on computers. Instead of waiting for a long time and go to theatre, many people prefer watching at home. From the angle of both filmmakers and audience, the online film distribution is much convenient, easier and cheaper than traditional film distribution. Nevertheless, online distribution is developed on the base of Internet and traditional distribution. The Internet provides a good environment for online distribution, and traditional distribution provides the flow path for online distribution.
As far as I am concerned, we should not abandon the traditional way of film distribution because it represents the authority and model. Then we should try to improve functions of online distribution and try to do it better. Online distribution might be a main part of the film distribution in the future because the Internet has become an essential part of individual’s life. The only thing we should keep in mind is that keep everything in order.
Reference:
- Anderson, C. 2006, The Long Tail, WIRED, viewed 16 October 2014, <http://archive.wired.com/wired/archive/12.10/tail.html>
- Courshon, J. 6 Lies of Film Distribution, Writers Store, viewed 19 October 2014, <http://www.writersstore.com/6-lies-of-film-distribution/>
- Film Network, showcasing new british filmmaking, BBC, viewed 19 October 2014, <http://www.bbc.co.uk/filmnetwork/filmmaking/guide/distribution/distribution>
- Kroll, N. 2013, Breakdown Of The Major Online Indie Film Distribution Platforms, The Beat, viewed 20 October 2014, <http://www.premiumbeat.com/blog/breakdown-of-the-major-online-indie-film-distribution-platforms/>
- Ravid, O. 2012, Premiere to Release-Why does it take so long? THE COLLABORATIVE filmmakers first, viewed 17 October 2014, <http://www.thefilmcollaborative.org/blog/tag/traditional-film-distribution/>
- Strickland, J. How YouTube Works, how stuff works, viewed 14 October 2014, <http://money.howstuffworks.com/youtube2.htm>
- 4Filmmaking, HOLLYWOOD, viewed 19 October 2014, <http://distribution.4filmmaking.com/film-distribution.html>
Image Source:
- http://www.raindance.org/wp-content/uploads/Film-Distribution-BAsics.jpg
- http://www.premiumbeat.com/blog/breakdown-of-the-major-online-indie-film-distribution-platforms/
- http://i.dawn.com/2012/09/youtube_logo_670.jpg
- http://thumb101.shutterstock.com/display_pic_with_logo/102804/99875567/stock-photo-group-of-frightened-people-watching-movie-spill-popcorn-99875567.jpg
