This week’s lectorial discussed the concept of noticing, especially in the world of media. Media is everywhere and we particularly as media students should be noticing more than others in our everyday practices.

Rachel suggested that noticing helps to inform our future practices whatever they may be, however I struggle to fully understand how she means.

I definitely agree that we learn from noticing though, we learn something new everyday as cliché as it sounds, but particularly through noticing as a bystander rather than being physically told the information.

 

 

Narrative = a way of structuring meanings in the form of a story. This was one definition that stood out to me during the ‘narrative and storytelling’ section of this week’s lectorial. Brian mentioned and later in detail spoke about the different elements of narrative. This included:

• Controlling idea
• Character
• Conflict
• Structure
• Character change/growth

I began thinking about the effectiveness of a narrative if these elements weren’t taken into consideration. Obviously the controlling idea of the narrative is going to be ever-present because otherwise there would be no point of it at all, it would just be all over the place and make no sense; this would mean there is no structure, which is another important element. Having no structure would unable to audience to understand what is going on as it wouldn’t provide the audience with guidelines to follow, it would create a messy environment in which the audience would have to create their own interpretations.

The dramatic curve was a stand out aspect in this reading as it allowed me to look at a narrative structure from a different perspective. Having it presented as a graph enabled me to understand the structure visually, seeing where the climax occurs and during what point of intensity and time in a film (generally)

To further and clarify my understanding of the graph, I wrote it down on a piece of paper and anaylised it. I jotted down ideas and definitions and elaborated on each factor within the graph.

Discipline of noticing

The reading this week by John Mason was about the different forms of noticing and different ways we can learn from what we notice in every day life. A quote that stoof out to me was “noticing itself is something that happens to us, not something we do deliberately”which I believe is entirely correct. With this quote in mind, I decided to try one of the tasks he set: “arrange to have with you two colours of pen, and to chose which colour to use each time you reach for a pen”. When participating in this task I did notice myself overthinking it a lot of the time. I had a green and purple pen set up over the duration of a day, during which I wrote my cousin’s birthday card, wrote a shopping list and wrote in my diary. Every time I went to pick up a pen, I took the time to decide which colour to use. In the end I used both alternatively however it was a much more time consuming process and required lots of thinking which I wouldn’t have done if I stuck with the norm and just grabbed out a black pen.

Mason states that the most important and key element in each task is ‘set yourself’. He then proposes the question of how we actually set ourselves to do something. I believe that setting yourself to do something is such an annoying, tedious and draining effort, rather than just letting something happen naturally. For example, setting myself to go for an afternoon run is such an effort. I have to plan what time I’m going to go, find appropriate running gear to wear, get dressed, get iPod ready to listen to music, think about which route to take …. It’s just too much!!! Whereas if I just happened to have my active wear and runners on, I would just quickly go out for a run without setting myself to do it and thinking about the whole process too much. It I set myself the task of going for a run in the end I just don’t do it. I actually enjoy running, that’s not the issue – it’s the effort it takes when I set myself the task of doing it.

The reading this week was extremely interesting as I felt as though it related to me so much in every day life.

After Louise spoke at the lectorial about the ‘four W’s in an interview’, I began thinking about these W’s and how they help to make a great interview.

• It’s important to keep in mind why the interview is happening and what the whole purpose actually is. This makes it harder to go off track and talk about irrelevant things, ensuring that the interview remains informative and engaging relating to the particular topic.
• It’s important to fully know who you’re interviewing; basic things about them, their personality, their likes and dislikes so on.
• It’s important to keep in mind what the content is about so again it’s harder to go off topic, and when the interview will take place

Personally when I watch an interview either online or on TV, it consists of a montage of shots being played whilst the subject answers the questions proposed by the interviewers. The camera every now and then cuts back to the subject whilst they are answering the questions and can often cut back to the interviewer asking the question or responding to the subject’s answer (head nod, ‘uh huh’ etc.)

A good interview consists of:

• Smooth and natural answers by the interviewee
• Confident asking of questions by interviewer
• Laughs every now and then between the interviewer and interviewee to make it less serious and more light hearted (as well as more natural)

Many things can make a bad interview. However, the most obvious and cringe-worthy thing is when the interviewer asks an ‘out of bounds’ question where the interview is forced to awkwardly respond with ‘uhhh no I don’t want to answer that’ or ‘aren’t we hear to talk about ….’, leaving the interviewer to react with a ‘uhh yeah’ or even worse; ‘sorry, sorry’. These are so hard to watch, and what sticks in our heads the most when thinking back on the interview or throughout the rest of the interview.

 

A few examples of this situation are included below:

This week’s reading by Victor Burgin suggests that photographs can actually be read by viewers. Burgin tends to relate photographs and texts together, implying there is a definite link between the two – which I believe there is. Both a photograph and a text can be read. However, there are obviously many differences between the two.

The difference between reading a text and reading a photograph:

Texts

• Generally, readers have the same interpretation
• Readers are given the exact same information; it’s how they understand it that differs
• Easier to consume as the content with the necessary information is right there in front of you

Photographs

• Viewers have completely different interpretations as it’s purely based on what they visualise
• Viewers are left with less information so have to gather it themselves
• Takes more effort, time and thought to consume

These points can be both a negative and positive aspect, for example even though photographs often take more effort to consume and comprehend which may seem like a negative, it can expand knowledge, awareness and imagination to viewers.

As soon as project 3 brief was announced I was so excited and immediately began thinking of possible subjects. I thought about who had a particular aspect of themselves they could openly talk about, who had a passion that essentially defines them (whether that be sport, music such as in a band etc.) and the types of shots I could do whilst undertaking the task that relate to the subject.

With all this in mind, my four initial ideas came down to:

• My auntie Jacinta who is an art teacher at a high school in the country
• My friend India who rows for Victoria
• My friend Sarah who is a national sprinter (athletics)
• My auntie Dee who is an actress

All four of my ideas would have been absolutely perfect, however I had to chose one. Each subject was so interesting and had a lot of different aspects of themselves and their field that they could talk about. It really came down to who would be more confident and/or natural when it came to being on camera.

This is why I chose Dee, as she has lots of experience being filmed, and thus would be more natural for her.