Category / Media 1 Discussion

by harrietread

Course Reflection Post

My biggest struggle this semester has been organisation. I have been doing alot of things at the last minute, which I will try to improve on next semester. My greatest strength this semester has been technical work and submitting initiative blog posts. I have improved the most in doing group work, because every single class’ assessment piece this semester has been a group assessment. I’m basically a complete expert now.I need the most improvement in my motivation and general initiative to do work. In the grand scheme of things, however, I am in the very complicated process of moving house and also have had to find a new job  in that time and so alot of my energy was sapped during this semester.

This second half of semester has been an arduous one to get through. Completing the PB4 group assessment was more difficult than expected. I felt as though we were thrown into the metaphorical deep end of group work, in the sense that we were given a very large assessment to complete together and that what we were asked to do ultimately was communicated to us in a distinctly vague way. Essentially, we were told to make a video and audio essay on Mediums and Technology, but it took us a while as a group to narrow down what was meant by that prompt until we finally decided to talk about photography, smartphones and Instagram. Next semester, I will make an effort to be more organised in preparing for an assessment.

While I did do the readings on Mediums and Technologies in an earlier week (http://www.mediafactory.org.au/harriet-read/2016/04/30/my-take-on-medium-theory/), looking back I realise that we did little to discuss how communication of a message affected an audience or viewer based on the actual medium that the message was given in.

One of the more interesting lectorials that I recall from this semester has been the one on Copyright (http://www.mediafactory.org.au/harriet-read/2016/05/02/my-take-on-copyright/).

I also was interested in the lectorial on broadcast media culture (http://www.mediafactory.org.au/harriet-read/2016/05/02/my-take-on-broadcast-and-the-post-broadcast-paradigm/) because I am very interested in human psychology and its relevance to media.

I found this half of semester that I was able to make clearer links between my classes, in particular to New Media New Asia with Terry Johaal. In this post (http://www.mediafactory.org.au/harriet-read/2016/05/03/basic-comms-101-by-me/) I highlighted some aspects of this class that interested me and will remain relevant in my core studies.

Finally, I had a look into my stronger suit of cinema studies and made this post about my thoughts on what makes a horror movie a) good and b) scary. (http://www.mediafactory.org.au/harriet-read/2016/05/30/my-take-on-why-good-horror-is-scary/)

by harrietread

Media 2 STUDIOS

Sooo the next 2 and a half years of Media will be studio based. These are project based which is exciting to me because I like having something practical to do. Theory is awesome, but it’s kind of one of those balance things: too much of one without the other, too much oversaturation of either one, is completely exhausting on every level.

It’ll be made up of (technically) 5 assessments, going from PB1 to PB4B, over fourteen weeks. I’m hoping that in comparison to this semester it won’t be as emotionally or psychologically draining. Then again, since it will involve a lot of practical work and group work, it could sap the last drops of life from me.

by harrietread

Recap SEM 1

In semester 1, we have been covering:

  • Practices
  • Professionalism
  • Theory
  • Technical practices

Over this semester, I want in particular to put more practice into the professional aspects of this course. This includes my desire to find work attachments, which could give me opportunities that will contribute to my professional career.

Theoretical studies in communications are something that I am incredibly interested in pursuing further. I want to do more studies involving human psychology and sociology, because the ideas and studies in these subjects  interest me deeply.

by harrietread

My Take on Work Attachments

Don’t have a great relationship with ‘work experience’ or anything like that; the last time that I had work experience was in 2013 and I was at a very small business’ admin building, and basically spent the whole time playing Happy Wheels on the computer.

Thus, the thought of having to put myself out there for work attachments isn’t too enticing when it’s first mentioned.

However, I’m at a point where I’m realising that grades and marks ultimately mean jack-squat; its moreso the opportunities that are presented to us and what we choose to do with them that paves our careers. For instance, I took up a paid photography job for a college function a few weeks ago, and even though I haven’t had a rags-to-riches overnight sensation experience from that, I now have that experience under my belt to present to future prospective employees.

So: Game Plan.

Step 1. What are my skills I already have, PLUS what are skills I want to learn and develop further. Write list, check for whether ideal outcomes are reasonable, leave to sit in fridge for 30 minutes.

Step 2. Have CV/Resume sorted. Any kind of experience in my opinion can be useful, for instance I used to work casual/part time at a workplace (shall remain nameless) that I believe has given me experience of what it is like to work in a poorly managed organisation

Step 3. Research organisations/companies you’d like to work for. For me, I can see myself working in a very creative workplace, involving technical and visual understandings of media. Thus, I can’t really see myself working in something like radio, but I reckon something in PR or marketing could suit me better.

Step 4. Here is my resume hire me please and thank you

Time to grab life’s opportunities by their politically correct labels and hope for the best.

by harrietread

My Take on Michel Foucalt’s Institutions

In today’s lectorial, we had a discussion about institutions and variations on them in society. Essentially, an institution is a man-made construct concerned with structures of society. This can be anything from ‘marriage’ or ‘divorce’ as social institutions, or media institutions such as the ABC News, HBO or community media channels.

What stuck with me most after the lectorial was philosopher, historian, social theorist and literary critic Michel Foulcalt’s ideas of relationships between society and individuals. In his 1961 book Madness and Civilisation, Foucalt explores the institution of mental asylums from the Renaissance (1500s AD) up to the contemporary society of his time in the late 1950s-early 60s.

In his book, he explored the societal implications of what constituted as ‘mad’ or ‘sane,’ and the way that society dealt with ‘mad’ people. His study became an exploration of what was considered ‘normal’ or ‘abnormal’ according to social values. In summary, he maintained that unlike inthe Renaissance, when those deemed ‘mad’ were believed to be on a cosmically higher level than others in society, in the Classical Age (17th to 18th/19th century), those considered mad were simply thrown into asylums out of the way with other undesirables for the protection of society.

Moving further on to his contemporary era, the modern era, he asserted in his findings that while there were attempts being made to ‘cure’ these people in institutions under the guidance of medical doctors, there was on one level a great contrast in power between patients and doctors and on another level an inherited social value from the Classical Age that those who were ‘mad’ were undesirables to be hidden away for society’s protection.

Foucalt’s study on mental asylums as institutions through history are important factors of my studies because it highlights the central significance that sociology, society and society’s values have in media and communications. What I got out of this lectorial revolving around institutions, elements of sociology and Michel Foucalt’s case studies was the sense that institutions are an immensely important construct and organisation of structures in society.

by harrietread

My Take on Broadcast and the Post-Broadcast Paradigm

The second half of our lectorial today was about the role and nature of audience in media. Key terms that were discussed were broadcast and post-broadcast.

  • Broadcasting refers to how media is/was distributed to ‘mass audiences,’ mostly via television or radio. Broadcast media included things like the news or generic television shows catering to general demographics i.e. Families
  • Post-Broadcast refers to this idea more specific, niched audiences becoming consumers of media, rather than just simply mass audiences

I was interested in how the change in communication technologies have contributed to the change in how media is received. Distribution of media evolved from from TV broadcasts to online content, changing how audiences could access this content. When this occurred, media creators and practitioners altered their approach to getting audience attention by going online. Now there are platforms like Netflix, Apple TV, Spotify and TIDAL all encouraging the individual nature of consumers.

For instance, in the last decade, the cable network Adult Swim has become increasingly popularised as audiences are able to access their shows (including Rick and Morty, Aqua Hunger Teen Force, Robot Chicken and Family Guy).  The network has further developed itself by producing video games and music. Adult Swim’s penchant for creating mature, adult-oriented content in the form of animations and cartoons has attracted an incredibly tightly niched audience.

Without the formation of online streaming and downloading of media content, the kind of TV, films, music and content being produced would seem more generalised in the hopes of ‘entertaining the masses’ huddled together around the TV in the living room.

by harrietread

My Take on Copyright

Discussing copyright in our lectorial today was like a trip down memory lane back to VCE Studio Art. I’m grateful for having listened in those few Studio Theory classes on copyright, because a lot of what I knew came flooding right back: moral rights and obligations, duration of copyright and fair dealings.

We really only scratched the surface in VCE, and my first impression of the lectorial was a fleeting sense of panic: I immediately thought of any original artistic content, whether it was a drawing when I was 12, a photo series or a film that I’d posted online, and its vulnerability in cyberspace. Even further, what about things I had uploaded with copyrighted content? On YouTube, for instance, I tried to upload videos with a song from the 2007 film Hairspray, and about a week later the sound was muted because I wasn’t allowed to use the song. That, I think, was a fairly decisive but relatively appropriate manner in which to deal with the issue of copyrighted music being unlawfully used; I went on with my business, and forgot about the whole thing until now. In other areas of the internet, lack of understanding and the living, breathing environment of cyberspace makes enforcement of copyright laws nigh impossible except for in rare circumstances. But that is a post for another day.

Until this class, I always thought of copyright laws as being arbitrary. I still believe that to some degree, but now I feel I can respect those laws a little more since I have a better understanding of what is and isn’t allowed. For instance:

  • Ideas are not copyrighted, but content is

An idea can be recycled in anyway shape or form. If someone comes up with an idea for a film, and someone else wants to use that idea in their own ways. They may write different scripts or draw up different storyboards; as long as the actual material content of the films contains certain dissimilarities, everything is cool. It’s only if one of these products either takes content from the original, or replicates it until it is substantially similar, does this become an infringement of copyright. The only instance in which substantial similarities stop being grounds for infringement are when the product is made on the grounds of parody, satire, criticism and review or for educational purposes i.e. for an assignment.

  • Duration of Copyright

This got me a little confused. I remembered from VCE and had my thoughts confirmed that generally, copyright lasts for the remainder of the creator’s life plus 70 years afterward. However, the whole shimozzle regarding how to deal with works created before copyright was created in 1968 got me puzzled. The system of how copyrighted works are classified before 1st May 1969, to me, seems complicated and unusual. Then again, I was only able to see the slide for a brief moment before we moved on.

Copyright was a friendly little blast from the past in today’s lectorial, and I felt pleasantly as though I was eased into it having done Studio Art last year.

by harrietread

My Take on Story-Telling

Today’s lectorial on storytelling really got me interested in my own experience with storytelling. Since I can remember, I have loved to create and imagination stories and worlds and fantastical journeys, and expressed these in drawings and attempts at writing books. Whatever I came up with, I had to get it down in some way, and I could spend a few hours or weeks obsessed with an idea; one of my primary school teachers thought I’d be CEO of Puffin or Penguin books. As I entered middle school and high school, that passion waned a little; I spent less time creating and more time consuming media, which isn’t so bad really. But now that high school and VCE is over, I want to get back and create again.

Something that I think became a weaker point in my productions towards the end of highschool was my ability to create a strong story, and instead spent all my time trying to impress myself and others with what I thought was avante-garde film techniques, cool editing and an unusual and difficult to function piece of steadying gear I got for ten bucks on eBay. It wasn’t until I looked back on these old films I’d made, and also until this lectorial, that it became apparent to me that the techniques, gear, cinematography and visuals that go into a film don’t mean anything without a solid story.

I also got this epiphany watching Casey Neistat’s vlogs and films, in which he encourages aspiring filmmakers to care less about the gear and equipment you use, and more about developing a story or idea. Story is what drives the film, and the equipment, regardless of whether they are a point and shoot camera or an expensive camera drone, are just the tools we use to present the story.

by harrietread

Introduction to Interviewing

During this week’s workshop, we were sent out in groups to film an impromptu interview regarding ‘How to survive at RMIT.’ The experience was an interesting one mostly because it required us to shoot footage with people that we had not met or spoken to before, and so we had to overcome that awkward ‘just met’ boundary in order to successfully shoot the interview within an hour and a half.

Three things that were obstacles in working with unfamiliar people on an interview were:

  • Deciding where to film
  • Deciding who was going to be interviewer/interviewee
  • Deciding what questions were going to be asked

When filming with new people, creative decisions become difficult ones to make because often, people are nervous that their ideas will be judged poorly or harshly or that they may embarrass themselves in some way. In my group, we all understood quickly that we could not afford to be shy in the short space of time that we had; each of us quickly took on leadership roles in our own ways to allow us to progress in a fair and open-minded fashion.

by harrietread

My Take on Text Analysing in Culture

One of our more recent readings in Media 1 explored textual analysis from a media practitioner’s perspective. I have to say, it blew my mind a little bit; What made sense to me is that every cultural product made by humans is a text, and every text can be analysed.

These texts are analysed through semiotics; Semiotics and media are intertwined and depend on one another, allowing to make connotations, suggestions and representations that are communicated to audiences.

What I think caught my interest however is the notion that the language of signs differs among cultures; every ethnicity, religion, nationality and culture has their own language of signs and symbols that correlate with their social rituals and cultural beliefs. For example, in Western cultures such as Australia or the United Kingdom, the colour white is used as a symbol or connotation of purity, chastity, hope, etc. However in Eastern cultures, such as China or Japan, the colour white is a symbol of sickness and death, and is used to represent negative ideas. While an English woman may wear a white wedding dress for purity and happiness, in China white is worn to funerals.

This language-barrier, or perhaps a ‘semiotic barrier,’ is something I want to investigate and understand further in my studies. An example that I can think of surrounding how different cultures are represented by eachother comes from the 2013 fantasy-drama epic 47 Ronin, directed by Carl Rinsch. In the climactic battle scene that takes place during the wedding of Mika (Ko Shibasaki and Kira(Tadanobu Asano), the bride Mika is shown in a white wedding dress. On one level, this contradicts the source material’s Japanese heritage; a Japanese bride would wear red, as white is a colour of misfortune and illness. On another level, however, the film may have been written in this manner to connote a sense of Mika’s despair at an enforced marriage.

This is what I love about text analysis; any number of ideas and theories can be unpacked from a text, and it’s not wrong or right. It’s just another theory, which can be agreed or disagreed with, but cannot be negated outright.