Leak of my work from The Leak

I thought I’d share some of the segments I field produced for the informative and colourful show The Leak.

Anthony: Price of Bad Health
https://www.facebook.com/TheLeakLive/videos/1294001724006787/

Jacqueline: The Clinton vs Trump
https://www.facebook.com/TheLeakLive/videos/1237430816330545/

Anthony: Australia’s current classification system (MY FAVOURITE black humour at it’s best)
https://www.facebook.com/TheLeakLive/videos/1248181511922142/

I never worked with Pam but this is so good

Pam: Air Freshners
https://www.facebook.com/TheLeakLive/videos/1256049521135341/

To follow the Leak with the awesome Pat McCaffrie click on this link

https://www.facebook.com/TheLeakLive/?eid=ARCQREOQEC3b_n-d_1axnpKZNoAL-Hd6FipvKC193ttQmt2hOZcd_j6JC-Q5XZAyebxrNRdRE2ENIip8

Plan for Bowens Street Documentary

An area which has changed at RMIT is Bowen Street. I remember when I was at RMIT in 2016 there was no food stalls on Bowens Street, in fact there was just a basketball net. If I was hungry at RMIT I would usually go to the back of building 80 where they used to have a hot noodle store. Other than that there was the main cafes but there was no food on Bowen Street apart from the occasional coffee stand and on Thursdays when they had a free sausage sizzle. RMIT was pretty well, studies one basketball net based on Bowen Street.

Fast forward to 2018 and not only am I back at University but Bowen Street is back with a whole new makeover. Of course it wouldn’t be an RMIT makeover without some splodges of a really obnoxious colour in contrast to the rest of the brown scenery. This year they chose yellow, and there are yellow tables and chairs placed on Bowen Street now marking what is basically a food court. Here we have pretty much everything. So far I have seen hot food such as chips hot dogs and pies, pizzas, gourmet food, sushi, noodles, Mexican food, wraps, sandwiches, and lots and lots of coffee and lattes.

To shoot a documentary about the change of scenery here on Bowen Street I would start with a piece to camera with me sitting down cross legged, explaining how Bowens Street used to be. As I began explaining how it is today the camera would zoom out revealing the large display of yellow chairs and food stores on Bowen Street today. I would then camera following casually walk up to the pizza and gourmet food store (planned with store owner earlier) and ask if they had any tea. The store owner would as scripted reply ‘Absolutely what kind are you after?’ The conversation would continue until the order was put through and I would continue speaking facing the camera as it follows me walking past the food stored Bowen Street has to offer today. By the end of my explanation on Bowen Street’s new food saga I will lead a few lines into an interview I will have with one of the organisers for the Bowen Street makeover. In these few lines I will explain a reminiscent memory of mine in 2016 and incorporate a scene from Inception where the main characters are communicating with one another as they check out the dream scenery from the ‘first level’ of dreaming a character will be put in…

‘I distinctly remember all the way back in 2016, I must have been eating a sandwich looing aloof when I literally saw this..’

‘I saw someone with a builders hat on, someone in a suit that looked like he knew all about the site, someone in a more slouchy suit who looked like the Tom Hardy of the gang, not knowing much about maths but part of the planning of the street and probably someone else but I can’t remember. It looked to me like they had some grand vision with their hand gestures and the way they paced around. It literally seemed like the cast of inception, and who would of known the fruition they had in mind.’

I would then begin my interview with one of the organisers for the Bowen Street Makeover. This would be a voiceover with the organiser explaining how they wanted the street to look and why. I would use a voiceover so I could show some still images of the whole landscape of the Bowens Street makeover with the organiser explaining it at the same time.

I would then have actual footage of an interview with me and the organiser in a neat dim lit cosy room. I would ask questions to make the organiser elaborate on the whole vibe they were going for with the Bowen Street makeover before remarking ‘Well, let’s see what the students have to say about it’ which I’m guessing will prompt the organiser to reply yes we’ll have to see.’

I would then perform some vox pops of students on Bowen Street and get their opinions on what their favourite food store is here, do they feel much need to leave Bowen Street for food anymore, or are they comfortable eating close to their classrooms, and is there anything they dislike about the makeover.

I would end the documentary starting with a remark such as ‘There you have it’ and summarise all I found out about the Bowen Street makeover. I think the basketball net might still actually be there amongst all the café and food stores on Bowen Street so if so I would end with the remark that despite all the cafes and food stores on Bowen Street today they still left the hoop up for those who still like their casual lay up’ before doing a layup with a basketball with hopefully not too many takes..

I will be uploading the footage of my exploration of Bowen Street in a post to come as I am yet to present my plan to class.

Introducing Inception

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I remember the first time I saw Inception in the cinema; it was an event, apart from my mum whispering to me every two second ‘Omg Leonardo is so hot’ it was a film that beautifully and with much sophistication showed us that the frame positions our thinking. That architecture can be used as a state of mind.

….it’s a true story

 

 

 

The Frame

What’s a frame? Is it a square, is it a triangle or is not about the shape at all?

The frame to me is a point of view, an aspect that the storyteller is telling to the audience.

Project brief 4 is one that I’m definitely excited about. I can experiment with different mediums to find out what I actually want to do.image

Yes, I still don’t know what I’m going to do, but after writing an essay on In The Mood For Love’ I am ‘in the mood’ for noticing frames not only in cinema but in real life, when I’m walking down a corridor, when I wake up from a dream, I interpret everything differently when I notice the frame.

 

Behind the scenes

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Behind all the shows we aired and features we made was allot of tired mornings and draining nights. But! That’s not to say it wash’ all worth it in the end. I know for a fact that I know more about producing a show or story now then I did in any of the other subjects I’ve had during my Media course.

So let’s break it down:

Step 1: Find a team-Nora, Crystal, moi, and Tim

Step 2: Embark on a quest to produce a Room With A View Triple R radio show in one week.

Step 3: Think of interviews that would be GREAT

Step 4: Filter your GREAT interviews with what is SUITABLE for Triple R

Step 5: Send all the ideas suitable to Elizabeth

Step 6: Stay awake all night

Step 7: Wake up realllly early and stare at your mailbox

Step 8: Yay I’ve got a message!

Step 9: NOW you can get started

Step 10: Call interviewees secure times.

Step 11: Ahh! An interviewee copped out last minute!

Step 12: Bully a team member to give you a pre-recorded interview capeesh

Step 13: Practise in the studio with crew

Step 14: Now come’on DO IT

The first live show

ClipArtHairsprayCornyCollinsShow5Link

 

imageSo after all that preparation for A Room With A View we finally ran a show on RRR. It was abit nerve racking but I think it all ran quite smoothly and pretty fast. Everyone really focused on their roles to bring the show together.

I was lucky enough to score an interview with Steph..

Steph Kenealy is a representative from the organisation Oaktree. She let me know everything that was going on with the Live Below The Line campaign starting this May. What I loved was her overall positivity in bringing the youth in Southeast Asia above the extreme poverty line.

Then we had a pre-recorded interview from Tim, aswell as Nora’s live interview with Justine. I know that next time we may have to switch roles round so everyone can learn from each other, but I am abit nervous to get behind the panel euhhhhhh!

Radio

At the beginning this is what I thought radio was

Now 7 weeks in I know radio is a very raw medium used to bring communities together.  It is a fantastic communication service.  RRR has been a mountain to climb.  There’s no excuse being a student, you have to work hard to be a show producer, and at the end of the day no matter who has what role in the group, everyone in their own way is producing the show.

Working in a group of four was actually perfect.  It was enough members to help pull the weight of everything, but few enough to have a strong bond in the group.  Tim is highly capable with the buttons and gadgets in the studio, which took allot of weight off my shoulders, Nora’s organisation has kept us calm, Crystal’s wiz technical skills have set the bar for us all and well, all I can do is talk allot.

Anyway never leave me in the studio alone

Lecture

Today’s lecture was a blurr.  Though I did hear something about how “the story is dead” it all felt like things I’ve heard before, still I listened and gathered some pretty coherent metaphors.  Therefore in conclusion I left class with the engine and tools for learning something but hadn’t learnt something in itself.  I think I’m starting to gather that these network lectures I’m attending are more so to get us thinking and question what we otherwise wouldn’t; things we may look over.

The Hypertext

a software system allowing extensive cross-referencing between related sections of text and associated graphic material.  What does that mean for me? I can find things easier, what does that mean for you? You can find me easier, but is this good….

One of my readings pointed to the future saying something along the lines of in the future all texts will have links to eachother.  I guess this could be simplified as cross referencing. My teacher added in class saying that we have become really good at looking things up, but not so good at knowing things by heart.  For example my phone number took me ages to remember because I’ve had so many numbers I didn’t think this one was going to last, but more importantly because my phone number was so easily accessible on my phone. I didn’t need to know it.

But what if in the future we all become a generation of robots who don’t know how to interact with each other because we’ve adapted to this new wave of coding.  I know coding is not something I’m at all necessarily good at.  When I was assessed to code a website I had no idea what I was doing which leads me to my next point of interest..

We may ‘think’ we know technology but do we really?  My lecturer insisted that we need to actually know how to use technology not just in keeping our Facebook profiles up to date but in the template itself, the design, the structure.  Because without such, we’re not really in control of what we’re doing.  He used the example of getting your motor fixed in your car.  You go to the mechanic and he tells you what’s wrong with it.  You just believe him, because he would know better.  The counter argument is of course well no one really knows how a printer works.  I don’t believe that lie because printers are manual, and everyone says well books were frowned upon, but books are manual!

Time for a pun…there is no manual for how to use the internet!  There is a difference between the internet and technology.  Look:

The internet:

a global computer network providing a variety of information and communication facilities, consisting of interconnected networks using standardized communication protocols.
Now wait till we get to technology, we’ve got
a) the application of scientific knowledge for practical purposes, especially in industry.
b)machinery and devices developed from scientific knowledge.
c)the branch of knowledge dealing with engineering or applied sciences.
Personally I’m not satisfied with any of these definitions.  Just the fact that Google definitions couldn’t choose just one definition shows they haven’t got it figured out yet.  Technology is ever changing and ever creating, so how do we define such a broad thing.  Well I’d say technology is communication WHOA did she just say that? Uh yeah.  Technology is social, let’s face it texting only became popular when the tech nerds found out teenage girls in China and South Australia were texting allot, so they realised it was something marketable.  So we see that technological determinism is a saying I really dislike because it’s not robots that are in control of this world it’s us.  The only thing between us and the technology is the remote control, yus, the technology is in our hands.
Bye bye

 

Literacy

Moving on from ‘what is a story?’ my lectures have now come to explore literacy. A broad meaning of the sense I gathered from my lecture was as…. wait let me give you an example:

“She is so illiterate.”

“I know she can’t even buy a coffee.”

It’s a language

For example when a student is quite good at English at school, he may be asked to study literature as something that could further his understanding of English as a language.

So where do books come into this? Well apparently before print books were for content. It wasn’t until print came along that books became a device for exploring characters’s motivations and emotions.

So why do we find technology to be this big scary device? If in the course of history books were hardly a fifth of, why is it seen that books still and always will rule the world?

personally, I love books shhh but that doesn’t make me a genius. Perhaps more morale in sustaining my vision, however life at the, well ‘institute of technology’ has obviously made me atleast a bit more tech savy. I’ve come to be more fascinated with the politics of the internet, and who controls the content and voices that get seen and heard.

Rant over.