Category Archives: Workshop

My Media Moment

We had a brief discussion today about a ‘media moment’ we’d experienced the last week. I didn’t get a chance to talk about mine, so here I go.

I, like many others around the world, watched the latest instalment of Game of Thrones on Monday. Now, a certain tragic something happened to a certain beloved character, which was immediately picked up by media outlets and newspapers who had nothing better to do.

My dad, who does not watch the show, read about the incident on the Herald Sun and engaged me in conversation about how dumb he thought the whole thing was. With my feels still recovering, I informed him that if he’d watched the episode itself he would’ve felt very differently.

However, I thought this was a good example of how consuming something through different forms of media can mean very different experiences. In the context of a television show in its 6th season, the incident was very touching and significant. Yet, conveyed by a reporter and read briefly on a website before moving on to the next story, it has as very different effect.

PB4 Progress + Feedback

We finished the rough draft for the audio essay this week. I think we’re all pretty pleased with the results: our argument is fairly easy to follow and the examples are solid. Also, we received some helpful feedback from Louise in the workshop today.

However, overall the essay is a bit dull. At this point, it doesn’t really use many of the affordance of the audio essay. It is essentially just us reading out a written essay. We’re planning to add a lot more different sounds and music to add more texture and make it more engaging.

For example, at some point in the essay we discuss the negative feedback Scott McIntyre received for his controversial ANZAC day tweets. It’d be interesting to read out some of the negative responses he received, and layer these so they sound very intense, like an angry mob.

 

It feels good to be on track with PB4: the audio essay just needs a bit more polishing, and we’re well on the way with the video essay.

Week 10 Reflection

Seeing as we didn’t really do an ‘activity’ per se in this week’s workshop, but mainly focuses on working in our groups for project brief 4, I decided to take this opportunity to provide some brief reflection on the progress we’re making and how we’re working together as a team.

First off, I’m super pleased with how our group is working together. We all seem motivated and organised, and are working towards the same goal. We’ve been meeting regularly, both in person and online (through Skype and Facebook.) The Facebook group we have created has been invaluable for sharing interesting relevant links, arranging time to meet up and posting any other important stuff. It’s also been helpful using Google Drive and Docs, as we are all easily able to edit documents at the same time.  This has led to some really productive (and humorous ) results.

The hardest thing so far has been finding time to work on PB4 together, as all of us also have personal commitments to balance with university work. So far, though, I’m feeling positive we’ll be able to bring together all our work to produce great results.

PB4 In Class Discussion

In the workshops today, we discussed our annotated bibliographies in our groups. We each chose one of the texts we had researched and thus presented 4 texts in total to the class.

It was really helpful to have some feedback of our ideas in a supportive classroom context. It was also interesting to hear the ideas other groups were working on, even if it wasn’t the same topic as us, as other ideas still have the potential of adding depth and variation to our own ideas.

It’s always interesting to see how different people or groups of people tackle similar tasks. Everyone has a unique approach that works for them. Also, it was good to see an in depth discussion happening amongst the whole class.

Workshop Exercise: Research

So handsome. Jamie’s okay too I guess. Source

For the annotated bibliography due next week, in the workshop today we did an exercise to help us get started researching our topic. The exercise was to research in regard to Jamie Oliver, the celebrity chef, as if we were writing a hypothetical essay on him. The first point was to consider where to search. Possible places included:

  • RMIT Library search
  • Jamie Oliver’s Twitter account
  • Google news
  • Equella
  • Google News
  • Google Scholar
  • Jamie Oliver’s website

Secondly, what sources to look at:

  • Academic sources
  • Books
  • Journal articles

Thirdly, What key terms appear frequently, and thus give insight into how media academics talk about him?

  • Culinary culture
  • Domestic masculinity
  • Family man/everyman
  • Class/authenticity/roots/identity
  • Social issues e.g. child obesity, sugar tax, school dinners
  • Social activist
  • Lifestyle

This exercise helped me a lot in terms of where to look for academic sources. I had no idea where to start finding these for the annotated bibliography, but now that I know resources like the RMIT library search exist it will be a lot easier.

Radiolab Podcast Analysis

In the workshop today we listened to a podcast on sound by Radio Lab and analysed its audio/stylistic elements, to help us when producing our audio essay. The podcast propels the narrative along by asking a question/hypothesis (why do we need sleep?). Notable was the conversational style of the narrator, which made it is easy to digest the information, as it wasn’t as dull or full on as more academic styles, even though it was clear that the podcast was still scripted. The sound quality was very high, as the narrators were probably speaking quite close to the microphone, compared to the interviewees who sounded more distant.

The podcast weaves in and out between narration and the interviews, creating an interesting rhythm. It is easy to visualise what is happening due to the creation of the soundscape, using sfx sounds and atmospheric sounds from the locations fo the interviews. This also helps to introduce the characters/people that are featured in the podcast.

The audio elements used include:

  • Sound effects created in studio (SFX)
  • spot sounds (such as the cat purring)
  • Music
  • Narration
  • Interview audios
  • Atmospheric sound
  • sync sound (live sound)
  • conversations

other audio elements that could be included in our audio essays as well include:

  • archival recordings
  • vox pops
  • phone call (diegetic sound)

Mainly, this podcast created interest through the layering and mixing of different sounds in a way that engaged the viewer and thus presented information in a unique way.

Sound Feedback

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After watching all our Project Brief 3’s in class, the main criticism for almost all the videos was sound. Often, the background music was too loud, or the audio was just recorder poorly.

The consensus was that more thought needed to be put in on where to record (apparently cars are excellent places for recording sound). In a live room, sound bounces off everything, like rooms with lots of hard surfaces, which is why big old churches are so echo-y and it’s hard to hear your friends in you resident white tiled and concrete floored hipster cafe. In rooms like the one in which our workshop is held are designed to reduce reflected sound and thus be better for recording. Fun things like carpet and acoustic panels (pictured above) can help absorb sound.

I know that the audio in my PB3 is very mediocre, due to recording most of it on a DSLR without a separate microphone. Recording better audio will be important especially in the upcoming audio essay for PB4 so these it will be crucial to keep these issues in mind.

Project Brief 3 Feedback

In today’s workshop, we screen a mini film festival of our completed portraits. We teamed up into groups to give feedback on each other’s films, keeping in mind de Bono’s six hats system, which I mentioned earlier on this blog, the technical and aesthetic aspects, the controlling idea, and more.

Firstly, Jason Hendriks’ portrait of a barber. I thought this portrait was really well done. I liked that it opened with a few establishing shots of the barber shop, and there was really good coverage of the shop overall, utilising different angles and shot types. The opening titles look good and it was clear that time and effort was put into this. As with many of the portraits, the audio quality was quite poor and it is quite jarring when the barber first begins to speak, but it was clearly audible over the background music. Also, the split screen editing used the space of the frame in a quirky, interesting way.

Sylvia’s portrait of an artist used lots of varied camera angles which made it an interesting film. It was however hard to understand the subject at times as his voice was competing with the background music. I think some of the transitions between shots were quite hard and could have been softened a bit. However, the controlling idea (art, creativity) is clear and the film remains interesting throughout.

Yolanda’s portrait was about a student fashion designer. These was a variation of shots of the subject working on a dress, but these shots were quite long – I think some faster editing could have heightened the engagement of the portrait, perhaps interspersed with more shots of the interviewee speaking. I did like that different shots were included of the subject buying fabric.

Watching everyone’s projects was really interesting and inspiring (and a little sad for me because they were all so good). It’s cool to see how everyone takes a brief and fulfils it in very different and creative ways.

 

What type are you?

If you came here expected a Buzzfeed quiz in the vein of what dog are you?, you’ve come to the wrong place. If not, feel welcome to keep reading.

Whilst discussing the readings in our workshop this week, regarding teamwork and communication, we touched upon the topic of the type of people the media industry attracts. In general, the media industry is a creative one, and therefore attracts creative types. These types, as we discussed, tend to have traits such as being obsessed with details, extremely passionate, eccentric.

One trait that we couldn’t really pinpoint was if these types are likely to be extraverted or introverted. From my experience, no person is fully extraverted or fully introverted. How people behave and express themselves is dependent on the situation they find themselves in, for instance, a person may me introverted at work but extraverted at home. They may be introverted when they are sad or extraverted when they are happy. I know that when I’m happy and comfortable around people I know I can be extraverted, but these moments are more rare than moments that I’m more quiet and reserved.

In the end, it comes down to empathy. People may behave in different ways, but to help you work with them, it’s important to understand how they feel and where they are coming from. So, in the eloquent words of Luke O’Dell, introvert, extrovert, doesn’t matter.

 

The Art of Noticing

One of my train sketches.

One of my train sketches.

John Mason’s Researching your own practice: The discipline of noticing (London: Routledge), describes different forms of noticing and how these can help us to become better professionals, encouraging us to be ‘mindful rather than mindless’ when it comes to noticing. (page 37).

Part of our discussion in the workshop touched on how noticing, marking and recording is important in the media industry as well. For instance, a writer has to notice people and their traits and characteristics to aid them in creating complex and unique characters. The best fiction has its roots in reality, and interesting characters can be found everywhere in real life if you take the time and attention to notice them.

This rang very true with me, as I have also dabbled in writing and drawing, and my subjects are almost always humans. I spend an hour on the train to get to uni in the morning, time which I often spend listening to music and observing the people around me. Trains, for some reason, always gather the most odd and interesting characters, which are fun to sneakily draw.

Learning to draw has definitely opened my eyes to notice many things that I didn’t usually before. For example, once I painted a study of a nose, and afterwards I’d constantly notice the way the light hit someone’s nose and how this revealed its construction and how I’d go about drawing it.

Whilst I did this type of noticing subconsciously before, after reading Mason, I intend to do it more often and more consciously.