Tag: Mediaone

PB4 Reflection

Escapement

 

Our group’s Audio and Video essay is finally coming to an end, and I’m so relieved that all of our hard work paid off. My group members were Ryan Rosenberg, Lydia Watt and Isobel Smart. They are all a great teammate, discipline, smart and consistent at doing their job.

I think the most successful part of the essay would be the topic itself. I think the topic that we have chosen is informative and part of an ongoing debate. The topic for our Video essay is how can be misinterpreted by different cultures, for example the movie The Interview.  Our audio essay talks about trigger warnings, the ongoing motion created as a means of self-prevention from traumatic memories, and how it has spiraled from books into classrooms. I liked my group’s topic, and they did a good job structuring the arguments. Given the fact that the topics are quite new, we could not find a person that considers themselves as an ‘expert’ or an ‘academic’ of that topic, so finding different opinion was a very interesting and anticipated work.  Our video essay has done a good job at giving different opinions, both from a Korean student, to the creator’s words itself.  We also showed news coverage about the video release. Overall I think our essays have given a strong argument.

The first most problematic aspect of the work would be our time management. We all had a drastically different schedule, and we can mostly meet up twice in one week, including the tutorials, so we mostly rely on individual contributions to the work, then after we met we would assemble all the materials together. Fortunately we had a good communication, we primarily used facebook, because we could share links, videos, pictures more easily and it’s easier to connect with a platform that everybody was using.  The second most problematic aspect of the work would be time itself. Honestly, I think my group had a late start. On the first week we hadn’t figured out yet how we were going to pursue with both essays. We wasted a lot of time figuring when we could meet and what our topic (Text & Narratives) was actually about. Then we were left with 4 weeks of cramped up work, and trying to get interviews. I learned that you had to email your interviewee as early as you can. It’s always better. Because there was no guarantee my interviewee would even read the email, let alone replied to it.

My role for both of the essays were to gather interview materials. For the video esaay, I had to find a korean student to aksk about their opinion regarding to the movie. It was a challenge, albeit there were so many korean students here in Melbourne. It’s hard to find any student who wasn’t shy to have their face on camera. But I managed to interview one of my friend’s friends, who gave an interesting viewpoint on the topic. For the audio essay, I gave out articles that might relate to the topic in facebook, and primarily I had to find an academic who would willingly give their opinion on trigger warnings. I tried emailing teachers who were experts on information technology or law, but the first one was on a another country working, and the latter does not seem to be interested on the topic. So I asked Brian for his advice, and he recommended me Rachel, also our lecturer. And I have to say she had a strong opinion on the topic. She gave an rational and logical reason, and her opinions had helped our essay so much. Finally I also made the formal documents for the group, that including the Audio script, the minutes, and the bibliography. Annoying jobs, but important anyways. Overally I think I contributed quite well into the group with gathering materials and interview, and making the compulsory documents.

Before doing the PB4 assignment I hadn’t interacted with audio-based media very much. I didn’t find it appealing whatsoever, mainly because it couldn’t give me the stimulation that i can get from videos. But after doing the project brief, I could see the appeal in it. Creating an audio media is challenging and fun, it forces you to be creative, you only have one senses to appeal to, so you have to somehow channel that one sense to trigger the others. I also learned that from Louise’s tutorial lesson, where she played us a podcast about dreams. Using sound effects to create a sense of space, time, atmosphere is a pain in the stub, but rewarding regardless.

I think the most lesson I learned about collaboration is teamwork. Brian, Rachel, Louise, Paul all told us how imporant it is to have teamwork skills in the media industry. Everyone will be working seamlessly together, so you need to keep a good attitude to build your career in the industry. I’ve learned that with this project brief. Communicatin is the keys, behaviour is the door. withouth the two object you can’t really do any useful action. I’ve learned to always be positive, to always encourage my teammates to do the best, even though we were really struggling with our projects.  And lastly, do your job! Do not ever think that anyone will help you even if there were anyone. Try to do the best yourself first, then if you couldn’t, then you ask for your teammates

PB4 progress

Collaboration

 

Last Monday my group met up to polish our final work. We were 70% finished with our work, and I have to say I was impressed with what we had done. We caught a minor problem, for the audio essay, our essay ended up with 50 more seconds of the interview. We know that we breached the limit, but cutting any part of the essay would make a huge nono to the overall point of our audio as every interview/monologue was important. So we emailed our tutor for her guidance, and luckily she allowed for the extension! In turn that audio essay had to be good.  Our video had also made quite a good progress, we have finished cutting appropriate videos and linked them all together, we just have to record the narration, which we had written. So everything’s going well, my job now is to finish the audio script, finish the minutes, make a list of media materials, and the bibliography, easy peasy!

Reflecting back on the first semester.

Grand Canyon

Having done 12 weeks in my first Media and Communication degree, I have learnt many important lessons around the world of media. The reason I first wanted to take this degree was because I am always surrounded by media,so why not take media studies for a degree? How stupid that thinking was, but still taking this degree has been one of the best decisions I’ve ever made. But it also one of the most important one, as this major will carve the path for my future career, and I need to show my parents that this is the right choice for me. I loved that my parents supported my decision, but understand they still have their traditional value, with their first son taking the creative industry, it is an uncomfortable support. Even though it has only been 1 semester, I have learned plenty, I am closer to the media then ever before.  I am going to tell you what I learned the most from the last 12 weeks. 

Semester one focuses on the basics of what a media is, and how ubiquitous media is in our lives.  I remembered at our second lecture, Brian told us to create a group to go out of the class and go to a location and scour the media that exist in the upper ground, lower ground, middle ground, foreground, and background.  Some of the medias that I found I posted in around my first few blog post.  There I was intrigued by so many different media items, from on-screen advertising to poster, billboards and radio stations and how apparent they are.  I shared an article in the blog, about an inmate using Instagram to sell “hoodies and caps” and posting images of drugs, cash weapons, because that’s what their followers want. Then Brian gave us an article by John Mason about noticing (really good article) that tells noticing is a beautiful and rewarding action, but it requires effort, and you shouldn’t notice everything, just the things you want to notice.  I learned from this article why noticing is important for a media practitioner. Sometimes the best scene and media material comes from the simplest situation.  Time-lapse videos are an example of this. Time-lapse shows us changes that happened over a long period of time, but static in its location. If you stayed at the same place where the camera was standing, you wouldn’t notice the same way the camera will. 

I’ve learned to be a media practitioner, professionalism must be at its best at all times, even if you are making a media material of you family/friends. I learn about what do yo have to do during pre-production, production and post-production. Forms, form and forms. Personal release forms, location release forms, insurance forms. It is important to inform the subjects of your video that you will be modifying them when you edit it, and they have given you their consent to release their identity to the public commercially/non-commercially. You also have to use  location forms, because privacy. You can’t take a video in public space without interrupting the public, and you also can’t take a video in a private place, because privacy and ownership. That’s why you need forms. It’s annoying, but it gets  things going. It’s a rule that you can bend around because the process is rudimental, they have been accepted by every  media practitioner. Responsibility is also a key learning here. The responsibility to follow agreements, the responsibility to protect your subject’s contract terms, The responsibility to handle borrowed equipment with care, and most of all, the responsibility to finish you project in time. My first experience with the forms was when I did my project brief 3.

I’ve also learned to be critical, to my own and to others. Everyone here in Media one are in the same boat, even though some of us already have skills in creating media. As fellow classmates we are obligated to give opinions to our peers about their mistakes and how they can improve them and vice versa. Being a sassy sensitive prick is not going to get you anywhere in this industry. Take the critics as a sign that they care about you. Louise once showed us a technique for criticizing in a fair wa, “The Six Thinking Hats” by Edward De Bono. I tried using the yellow and black hat  while giving my opinion on my classmate’s assignment, and it helped me a lot. I usually can’t find any mistake in my classmate’s videos, because I always think they did a great job in their videos.

Lastly, I’ve learned how important group work is in this industry, and our lecturers haven’t stressed enough how crucial it is for your career. We all have had our own anecdotes for bad teamwork, but let’s try to keep it an anecdote, not an ongoing story. I learned about collaborative contract, a written agreement by group members about their effort to pursue their group’s goals. Throughout my project brief 4, I learned how important communication between team members, is because we all have our own schedule, so making time for meetings is an effort. We also need trust, trust that each members will do their best, but we also need to do our own job, for others to do theirs. Rachel gave us a Ted talk link which I found to be very useful.

While I was writing this reflection, even though it was quite late, I realized that this semester we have been taught mostly soft skills, skills involving our manners, etiquette, and professionalism. While I’ve also learned media theories, practical skills stuck in my head the most. I understand why we are taught about this in our first semester, to prepare us into the real-work environment, which is the next semester. Definitely I’ve learned a lot this semester, can’t wait for the next, right after I’ve enjoyed my holiday first.

growth graphand this is my learning graph.

P.S thanks for my team members: Lydia, Ryan, and Isobel for making those awesome PB4 assignment.

Strength, Weakness, Opportunity, Threat

Caged heart

In a group work, it is important to acknowledge every member’s strength, weakness, opportunity, threat. I believe from a personal analysis, these are mine:

STRENGTH

  • If you have a better Idea than mine, I will 100% support it and give new ideas that I think will be useful
  • I will do what my task is and complete it under the given time
  • If no one dares to try something, I usually will be the one to step up my shoes
  • I am quite optimistic
  • I can handle critics for my project, and I’ll try to improve by their tips

 

Weakness

  • I tend to procrastinate, it also means that I’m at my best only when I’m under pressure
  • to people that I feel are much more smarter than me, I tend to be quiet and very reserved because everything I said would sound stupid in front of them
  • I care too much about other people’s opinion, so I tend to agree to go with their plan, even though their idea isn’t that good itself (luckily this isn’t the case for my project brief 4 group!)
  • I work really badly in a pessimistic group

 

Opportunity

  • I will try to speak up more and give my opinions.
  • I will try to be more friendly (my friend believes I have one of those “RBF” faces, which makes me look really uptight)

Threat

  • I think my biggest threat is my self-confidence

Technology Determinism

Distracted youth

Technology Determinism refers to the state where media technology has shaped how society thinks, feels, acts and operates as we live throughout the development of technology.

According to uky.edu, technological determinism is a belief that we do what we do because of the messages and stimulation we receive from different forms of media.

Technological determinism usually referst to the present, projected on to the future, as expressed in claims that ‘we have no choice but to adopt this technology’ – A. Murphie and J. Potts 2002

Marshall McLuhan explains that all technologies are extensions of human capacities. Tools are extensions of manual skills and computer is an extension fo our brain. For Marshall, culture media is significant not because of it’s content, but how it manages to shape people’s perception.

If so, Has television and cinema become our third/second parent? Or even the first? Because probably most modern family will have their child in front of television when they are 2 years old. Do you agree with the theory of technological determinism?

Culture and Technology

Technology

The readings gave me a lot of contemplation. Here are some of the points that surprised me the most

Technology was used sparingly in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, refering [to] the study of the arts…But by 1860 its meanings began [to] shift to its modern usage; the word had come to mean the system of mechanical and industrial arts

According to Wikipedia, the term ‘technology’ was used to describe useful art, forms of  art that is manufactured and crafted, and basically the antonym of performing/fine art.

The article also cited  from another author: William Barret

“…if our civilization were to lose its techniques, all our machines and apparatus would become one vast pile of junk”

This basically applies to all of our media work right now. No matter how expensive and advance our equipment is, without the right skill and technique the content will basically be a pile of junk

It seems that ‘technique’ is not just a specific of skills towards a certain kind of machinery, but also towards the body. Marcel Mauss believes that techniques “crucial to culture and to the transmission of culture as technologies”. The way we walk, we swim is a result of techniques pass down from our ancestors. It’s effective and traditional.

As the time goes, culture is associated with the artistic or the mind. The romantics embraced culture while the industrial opposed it, labeling the two word as if in black and white, completely contrast to each other.

Culture is dynamic because,…ideas and values change, often quite quickly, over time. Older attitudes to culture may be susperseded, or they may overlap with new ideas, or the older values may re-emerge at a later time.

like culture, technology is also messy. Technology such as the internet has allowed everyone who have accessed to it to put whatever content they want, whether it might challenge other people or not.

While corporations attempted to wring new profits out of this huge entity, governments sought to impose regulations on what they saw as an ungoverned system. The latter attempt, at least was made difficult by the properties of the internet as a global network. As one of instance of the globalization process, the internet does not respect national boundaries or jurisdictions

Just to show that the internet has become a powerful entity, capable of passing the fences each country has built.

Because the reading is way too long, I couldn’t give out all the points, because it would be stagnant and boring.  Do you have any points you want to point out?

Dear Future Self

#hope⚓

Inspired by Brian Morris lecture, I’m writing this for my future self.

Dear future self. Whatever happened, be grateful you are still alive. Be grateful for everyone you have known.  Go out of your way to help people. Meet as many people as you can.  If you’re not doing what you love by 30, find a reason why you’re doing it, other than the money. Find someone to love, and try to make them happy. Hope for the best of everyone you meet, and as awkward as you can be, be nice to people, even though people say you have RBF. Most importantly, do something that your future self would be proud to remember.

There’s actually a website that provides you a way to write to your future self. Check them out (you have to pay though) here

 

Lost in translation? Or too much filtering?

while I was searching for good material for my project brief 4, I came across this video of John Green explaining his book was listed as number one in “2015 top ten most challenged books”.  I was quite surprised that book was put into that category. Personally biased I’ve read the book and find the explicit material to be, inexplicit at all. As mentioned by Green, the sexual reference was only a few number of pages and it wasn’t a sexual act itself. Yes the book talks about using drugs, but the whole story is about this guy came into using these drugs, not how he felt while he was under drugs (I personally don’t like Alaska because she kinda ruined the protagonist’s life). The story is taken out of context, and it shouldn’t have to be if you actually read the book. What’s your opinion on that?

Institution

  Brian Morris discussed social institutions, which brought tearful memories of my high school. We used to remember the most common types of social institutions and all the functions, pretty useless but somewhat fun. I’m going to try to tell you all the things I remembered.  (disclaimer, I took the information from Wikipedia, but trust me I’ve learned this in…

Radioplay

  Last Workshop we were given a podcast about sleep. It’s no rare knowledge that sleep is important, but i   really liked how they present the material, by showing the sleeping nature of other animals. We discussed the techniques used in the podcast, like how the use the background noise of the found recordings, to create a somehow visual appearance…

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