#82 Hactivism and all that

Posted on August 6, 2014 by helenapolley

So I watched some of the documentary and found it completely ridiculous- mainly because people are literally way too extreme and need to calm down, they are actually psychotic. Also partly because I don’t know why we are watching this at all- leading me to the actual point of this class- which I have come to the conclusion that there is none. It is irrelevant, it’s just filling up that extra space that us media kids need a 4th subject. It’s social media, we don’t need to study it- in today’s culture it’s common sense.

Anyway.

How does this documentary alter your understanding of Internet? I suppose it just goes to show how open the internet is and how many people it reaches (no shit)

How is social media used to create a community of people who share a similar interest and politics? How? Through connecting people worldwide- hello? websites, Facebook pages and all other forms.

What ideas does this documentary raise in regards to designing an event that asks people to participate and become part of a community? The same as it always has, getting people involved and coming together is needed to create the event, spreading it around, word of mouth etc.

What basic questions. This class is pathetic.

#81 Integrated 2

Posted on July 27, 2014 by helenapolley

Well we’re back at this again for another semester, I’m hoping that it’s better than last semesters, very pointless and confusing content and assignments.

As long as we don’t have to use Korsakow…

#62 Film Essay

Posted on April 3, 2014 by helenapolley

Integrated Media 01- Film Essay

The Korsakov programmed project film that I will be talking about is ‘Ballet Mecanique’ (Melissa Kuttan, Jeffrey Tay, Line Jensen, Blake O’Neill, 2012.) It is a collage of clips in a 3×3 set up with only non-diegetic sound used in a way that creates an atmosphere. The film uses audio as a way to demonstrate a pattern as well as relating the content to each other, in which I will discuss further on in this essay.

This film is a direct homage to the experimental film, ‘Ballet Mecanique’ (Fernand Leger, 1924) obviously in the title, but also in the broken and fragmented pieces of film displayed in the form of a collage, as well as a similar time patterning in the sounds when hovering over the clips. The content is unclear, and is of general surroundings mixed with a few people doing actions or tasks, for example bouncing a ball and pouring a glass of water. Unlike fictional, or staged film the experimental aspect of this film tends to be much more ‘real’ yet in saying this, it is not like documentary in which all is revealed either. I mean this in the sense that the clips do seem to ‘expose’ only a portion of what is happening in the surrounding area.

The message of the film is also unclear as the various different clips do not seem to have much correlation between them, in fact it is the use of the percussion instruments playing in similar beats and time that connect them together. By taking away the diegetic sound and creating new sound for the clips, it then changes the meaning and each clip almost become like single members of a percussive orchestra. However with the beats of the sound not completely in rhythm, the idea of experimental film is reinforced, especially with the contrast in clip content and length.

The interfacing of the film, varied in quality of the actual clips, with some being quite out of focus or poorly exposed and others being very focused and clean or aesthetically pleasing also made the meaning and content unclear as a whole, and I did not determine any composition nor depth in any of the clips that would help make it more clear. There is certainly no general linearity in the narrative as there is no distinct “cause-effect relationship” (Bordwell, D., Thompson, K. p.75) between clips, furthermore establishing this as a take on the original 1924 film.

In terms of genre, this film has the aesthetics of an experimental film, yet the content in each individual clip suggest documentary as it generally un-staged real life, almost observational. With this use of sound, it then adds more to the narrative creating a completely different meaning towards the viewer.

This project film is composed of various clips with the original sound removed and added sound effects, the narrative is non-linear and creates various meanings with the range of content presented. Overall I did enjoy the films aesthetics and use of sound that directly paid homage to the 1924 Fernand Leger film as well as the various meaning that could be interpreted in different ways. Although the quality of the clips were not always high, the relation of the content, pattern and interfacing related to one another and created an interesting film.

References:

‘Ballet Mecanique’ (Melissa Kuttan, Jeffrey Tay, Line Jensen, Blake O’Neill, 2012.)
‘Ballet Mecanique’ (Fernand Leger, 1924)
Bordwell, David, and Kristin Thompson. Film Art: An Introduction. New York, N.Y.: McGraw-Hill, 2013. Print.

#55 Response To Reading (Week 4)

Posted on March 31, 2014 by helenapolley

For this weeks reading I had to dig deep into the abyss to find my long lost lover, Film Art: An Introduction by the ever so square Bordwell and Thompson.

After blowing off the dust and settling in to a comfortable position, I braced myself with what was to come.

Here is what I want to talk about:

Narrative- “considered a chain of events linked by cause and effect and occurring in time and space” in general it is the story behind a film. Narrative can be linear or not, I mean lets think about Christopher Nolan’s Memento (2000) because that is definitely non-linear.

Most things tell stories, even our own lives a basically set as a narrative blah blah blah (so deep).

Documentaries- this supposed “truth” cinema, that present a “real” issue and seem unscripted and edited to give this sense of reality/real time. Documentaries have narratives I suppose, they tall a story, they inform through a sequence of events, cause and effect and all that.

Experimental films are fantastic. Watching them last year in Cinema Studies was a treat, they were all so weird and abstract. The shots were beautiful and there always seemed to be this focus on timing and patterns as opposed to telling a story or having “meaning”. They are simply “avant-garde” and if I say so myself, trés bien.

Fin.