April 2015 – Just Outside The Zeitgeist

Approaching Creating A Narrative (Wk 8)

Again falling back into my comfort zone of talking about my personal hero, Dan Harmon, and his approach to writing a story in a three act structure. With the talk of narrative this week in the lectorial and having to assign a point value to characters in Finding Nemo based on their importance during the three acts of the film I realised that as I was talking about the three acts with my group I was thinking of the breaks in terms of Dan Harmon’s Story Circle.

I was confusing my group with my insistence that Nemo going down the drain was the end of act two because this was the return threshold. Marlin had had an atonement with the father over the fact that he thought Nemo was dead and so he and Dory had parted ways. Yet to become master of both world and finish his journey of change he had to find Nemo and bring him home. Nemo finally making it to the ocean began this reconnection and begins act three as they save Dory from the net, utilising what they learned on their journey and return home changed. This story circle is always in my mind when I discuss or create narrative and so if you are ever confused about what I am talking about when I describe a narrative in these terms, I now know to direct you right here.

April 29, 2015 Inspirations and Ideas No Comments

Week 8 Lectorial Reflection

Whenever I approach creating something my first thought is “Where is the story?”. I like creating a narrative because our existence is based on story, our everyday life is ruled by people searching for their part in a larger story. For Project Brief 3 I book-ended the portrait with Keegan fixing his hair, creating a narrative framing device to explore his personality, from him sitting on the stool to getting off it, having gone through a change. The audience view him as most people usually don’t, without his hair straightened. They also get to know him through other people’s point of view, as well as seeing him with his hair done up. When they see him get off the stool, they realise they have seen a private part of his life as well has having pieced together his personality as he created his preferred facade.

Whenever I watch a film and I find a plot hole, I like to create a reasonable excuse for why that exists. Even creating a narrative between two seemingly unconnected events or people/characters is something fun I do when I am bored. So approaching Daniel Askill’s film We Have Decided Not To Die and trying to see if there was a narrative aspects to it was an engaging exercise for me.

Some narrative aspects that may exists are

Title cards create a linear story
Conclusion cross-cutting between the three characters connects their stories
People as central figures helps audience connect to them
How they arrived at the situations/backstory
Movement could connotative pain and struggle and narrative can stem from character suffering
Thematic connection, patterns of representation
Different places create a journey
Parallel events
Title gives film causality and character motivation

Jenny had the task of finding non-narrative aspects of the film and she found

No obvious causality
No character development
No clear diegetic plotline
No clear linear events tying scenes together
Graphic matches to make art, not story
Lack of cohesion
Non representation (something not explicitly said can mean it is not a narrative element)
Lack of conclusion/sense of closure
No character motivation
People as props not characters

This exercise highlights how each piece of cinema, and even art in general, is subjective to an individual and approaching a film from a different point of view than your usual one can open your eyes to a whole new interpretation.

April 29, 2015 Lectorial Reflections No Comments

Week 8 Tutorial Reflection

The broad scope is the most daunting aspect of Project Brief 4 yet it does allow us to focus on specific areas relating to our topic that we find interesting. Cheyenne, Aidan and I are researching mediums and today we decided to focus on three different mediums for our research and annotated bibliography. I started to research video as a medium and it became immediately clear that as the most well known medium, particularly in the Western world, it is heavily influenced by other media. Going forward, I will look at the relationships between mediums and how they are utilised to create meaning. By discussing mediums with my group, it became clear that every type uses different means to generate a desired audience reaction and this is an area I am interested in delving in to. Propaganda across mediums is something I have researched in the past and so we might focus on conflict and its portrayal across mediums through history for our project.

What follows are our quick notes of a few broad areas of media contain to provide a starting point for our research.

Video
- Film
- TV Shows
- Non-narrative
- TV News
- Home video
- Instructional
- Online content
Audio
- Music
- Radio
- Podcasts
- News vs. Entertainment
- Audio Recordings
Text
- Books
- Newspaper
- Magazine
- Fiction vs. Non-fiction
Common artefacts through all areas
- News
- Stories
- Advertising
- Information
- Internet

April 28, 2015 Tutorial Reflections No Comments

Thoughts on a Portrait (Wk 7)

This is Aidan’s portrait on his friend Zach Green…

It has become very clear that Aidan is something of a savant when it comes to editing, an example of this can be seen immediately as the piano begins as the lights in the background turn on in the first shot of this piece. His use of found footage creates an self reliant and carefree image of Zach while also opening the audiences mind to the metaphorical nature of the archival images. On the surface, the meaning of longing for freedom is clear but with repeated viewings the use of birds and planes, inter-cut with a pair of running cartoon legs under the title of future immensely highlights how much of a powerful driving force independence is for Zach. While the piece is fantastic, it feels quite short and other aspects of Zach could have been displayed during that time. Yet Aidan’s on this particular aspect of Zach’s life shows how he important it is to him and showcasing this for everyone else creates portrait filled with hope and inspiration.

April 23, 2015 Inspirations and Ideas No Comments

Week 7 Tutorial Reflection

Presenting my portrait on my friend Keegan to the class was a very different experience compared to my self portrait. Capturing and showcasing my friend’s personality was a much easier task and I was proud of the results as it allowed for everyone to get a glimpse of what it is like to know Keegan.

My Thoughts

Incorporating the found footage was difficult for me as I could not find a source that had anything I could utilise blatantly. I sourced the archived video from Pond5 and overlayed it with Keegan talking as symbolic interpretations of what he was saying. The train filled with logs as a symbol of his transitional journey into adulthood and the large work crew beginning construction of a skyscraper to represent Keegan’s desire to create a work people will one day know him for. Fitting his personality into two minutes was a very difficult task considering I had over two hours of footage and there were idea I still house about a five to ten minute portrait. The little nuances of his personality such as some quirks, his love of video games and especially his relationship with more friends then the ones highlighted in the portrait were left out due to time. While they helped to deepen an understanding of what makes Keegan, I felt it more appropriate, considering the time constraints, to paint a broader picture of the man, book ending his portrait with him doing his hair.

Peer’s Thoughts

I was very happy with the feedback Aidan, Jenny and Alaine gave me as it allowed me to see the my work outside of my own self absorption. They liked how intimate the piece was, created by following Keegan around with the camera and having him interact with it and not ignoring it. It allowed for them to piece together and overall feeling of him as a person because he was not acting as if he was not being filmed so his real self could be brought to the forefront of the portrait. They biggest ‘black hat’ comment I received was the need for more found footage. I totally agree with that because it would have allowed me to create symbolic connections between Keegan and the footage. By re-purposing found footage a different meaning is created due to its new context which allows for it to hold a lot more meaning opening up the portrait to numerous interpretations then just images of the subject.

April 22, 2015 Tutorial Reflections No Comments

Week 7 Lectorial Reflection

Every individual watches, interprets and responds to every text in an unique way and in creating these texts you must keep that in mind. The question of ‘what is a text?’ is an intriguing question for me as I have always assumed I knew but never paused to deeply understand what I thought the meaning was. Presented with the idea that texts are vehicles for the production of social meanings of the time they were made invites the thought that whenever I am deconstructing a text, that is the first thought I should consider. Texts provide a history of prominent social values and interpreting them in the context of the time it was made and contrasting it with its place in today’s society shows how certain values have evolved and changed over time.

In these texts are signs, which are made up to two parts. The signifier, which is the label or artefact such and the signified, which is all the thoughts, ideas that spring to mind due to the presentation of the signifier. An example of this relationship could be a dog (signifier) and the thoughts of puppies, family, barking and playing (signified). This can also highlight how individuals respond to a text differently as someone who was attacked by a dog during their childhood may bee presented with the signifier of a dog and have images of fangs, growling and bites be the signified, thus having a direct contrast to someone who loves dogs.

Sound as a medium in and of itself has never been as interesting to me as films and television. I like listening to music and podcasts to fill the silence or monotony of a train or car ride yet having it described as pervasive and omnipresent opens my eyes (and ears) to the reality that sound is inescapable. This makes its role in other texts very important as it provides a certain reality and understanding that would be missing with utter complete, disconcerting silence.

April 21, 2015 Lectorial Reflections No Comments

Keegan Mew: Behind The Fringe (Project Brief Three)

And now… it is time to reflect…

The most successful aspect of my portrait of my friend Keegan is that I managed to capture his personality in the span of two minutes. His voice over from the few interviews if conducted with him allows for the audience to understand his life aspirations and his thoughts and feelings on his life. Coupling the voice over with clips I collected with him just hanging out with friends allow his quirky, funny side to be showcased which helps to create a complete portrait of him. One of the most problematic parts of this piece was incorporating ‘found footage’ into the piece and I chose the three black and white clips so as to create a small narrative that matched up with what Keegan was saying during the interview. The train is symbolic of moving towards the future, the typewriter is a vessel for creativity and the footage of a large construction crew beginning a skyscraper is symbolic if Keegan’s wish to create something that he will be forever recognised for. The problem with this is that it may not be as clear from an audience’s perspective yet with a time constraint of two minutes it is difficult to communicate every single idea succinctly.

Something I learned during this process is that I need to take in account the audience when sculpting a media project. While editing, I suddenly realised that I was leaving aspects of Keegan’s personality out of the portrait because I have known him for years and I take those aspects for granted. Yet an outside source, a stranger in the audience, has no idea who he is and therefore I made sure to bring those traits to the forefront to assist the audience in viewing Keegan the same way I do.

During the making process, finding found footage which could be utilised correctly was a challenge. The music I used was from Keegan’s own band, Error37, which I purchased from the band’s Band Camp page after receiving permission from him to use. This opened my eyes to the difficult nature of collaboration and copyright law and informed me on the process for any future media projects I develop.

April 20, 2015 Project Brief 3 No Comments

Snapshot of My Portrait On My Friend

This image is taken from Project 3 to give an inkling of the tone of my portrait. While I angling to inject humour into the film as my friend Keegan is a very funny person, I also what to showcase the transitional period he is in at the moment in his life. In addition, this shot is indicative of his thoughts on himself, his need to keep up physical appearances while being able to self reflect on the life that surrounds him.

April 18, 2015 Inspirations and Ideas No Comments

A Revelation on Inspiration (Wk 6)

I was recently reflecting on my Portrait, showing it to my friends and Keegan (the subject of said piece) and I was trying to think of what guided me to present it as I did, with talking heads from friends and from Keegan himself describing their relationships and thoughts on him as a person. It finally occured to me as I was listening to some podcasts recently. One of my favourites is called Harmontown which involves my personal hero Dan Harmon, creator of two of my favourite TV shows, ‘Community’ and ‘Rick and Morty’, in front of a live audience discussing whatever pops into his brilliant mind. After being fired from ‘Community’ he decided to take the podcast on a tour around America for a month and hired the director Neil Berkley to make a documentary of the trip. I have watched the regular version twice and the extended edition once and I love this film and I am not a person who heads straight for the documentary isle in my locale movie rental store (figuratively speaking as those do not exist in this dimension anymore). This trailer captures the films tone and story while showcasing how it gave me inspiration for my own piece. And yes I am not ashamed to admit it, even now, months after the film’s release, this trailer still manages to make me tear up.

April 18, 2015 Inspirations and Ideas No Comments

The Beauty of Fandom

As a man who has deeply devoted his life to everything TV and film, I have seen the original Star Wars Trilogy many, many times. I was introduced to them when I was 10 years old by my father and they are films I can always go back to if I am in the mood for a good film. The only downside to this is the fact I was never alive to witness the event of a new, good Star Wars film being released (good being the clarifying word in this sentence, cough cough Prequels). The excitement around The Force Awakens has reached critical mass, and we are still seven months away from its release. The raw emotion emanating from the internet after the release of the second teaser trailer is a thing of beauty as a fan of film because it shows the unifying power an cinematic event can have on the world. The passion and expectations Episode 7 is a wonder to behold and I hope the populace can put aside these expectations and enjoy what will hopefully be a great movie.

Here is one of the YouTube reviewers I follow reacting to the trailer in a very nerdy way, just showcasing the effect nostalgia and expectations can have on a fan on film.

April 17, 2015 Inspirations and Ideas No Comments

1 2 Next Page »

Content