During this weeks lectorial Rachel Wilson talked to us about collaboration.

– Cold Sweat –

The thing about group projects is that although they have so much potential to be amazing they often end in blood sweat and tears. Theres an old phrase that states: “If you want something done right – do it yourself”, sadly there is an element of reality to this that is unavoidable – which is: If you don’t care about your well being; nobody else will. If we think back to the days of high school many of us will remember the dread that was group projects, one or two people would do all the work while the people who were less interested in passing the subject would happily allow it to happen.
The problem with these scenarios was that there were members of the group that did not feel motivated or interested int he project; fair enough, it was high school and we all at some point had to do things that we didnt have an interest in.

Hopefully now, in the world of university where everyone has chosen to be here its going to be different.

The pinnacle of productivity in group work comes from motivation and desire to succeed, this is why companies that are formed with teams of interested people are usually successful, because the members of the group have an actual interest to complete the task at hand.

So hopefully, from now on all group projects are only comprised of people that care.

Why are we studying media – thats an excellent question.

This question brings me back to when i was deciding what i wanted to do after school, i wanted to do a uni course and i wanted to do one that i enjoyed. Easier said than done…

I thought about doing a science at first, perhaps going into engineering or product design, but realised that my passion was really within media. So why not choose media? well this was the thing – i knew that if i wanted to learn how to make movies i didn’t really need to go to university – what! Yes, all i had to do really was watch a few youtube videos and then get out into the field. I thought this story was one that had long been put to rest until today in the ‘lectorial’ (We are working on getting that word added to the dictionary). Adrian Miles, who is one of the RMIT lecturers came in to talk to us about why we were there. The guy didn’t mess around – he straight up told us all that if we were there to learn how to make movies we were in the wrong place. He said that if we just wanted practical skills we could have gone onto youtube. agreed. He then went on to explain that we are doing the course to innovate, to become forward thinking people, create the future of media…

Im paraphrasing… what he said was not as grand as that. But – it did remind me of why I AM here… I am here because I don’t just want to learn how to use a camera and press some buttons – i really do want to make a difference (yes yes cliché thank-you)… But i suppose now i realise that i need to make the best of this opportunity…

***

We also talked a bit about closure and the space in between two thoughts or edits… so try and link this video to my above reflection…

When You Get Left Home Alone… #ShakeItOff #PartyTime #Dance

A video posted by Jordan Williams (@jrnwfire) on Mar 24, 2015 at 2:15am PDT

This week we were asked to read a comic called “Blood in the Gutter”, i did not feel particularly attracted to this name, however the lecturers of media one seemed to have a fun time continuously bringing it up. Effectively the comic is about the structure of Comics and the assumption that people place in the “gutter” of the space in-between two frames. The reason this was relevant to me is because I do lots of video editing, and i rely on the assumption that the audience makes in between cuts. This also relates to the Kuleshov effect, named after Lev Kuleshov, the effect is that of how an edit relates two objects together. Famously Kuleshov edited the same footage of a mans face into different spaces by using the preceding shot to establish the setting. For example cutting from a bowl of soup to the mans face made him appear hungry etc. This gave me something to think about.

Often when I edit my own films, i give little thought to how the setting is being constructed or what the audience perceives. This is due to the fact that my films are very short, and often done in a vlog setting. However, when i start working on longer productions i would definitely have to take these effects into account.

However, what i am doing at the current time can be explored in this way. I often cut from the shot of me vlogging to a scene which i then act out. Due to the fact that i have made many of these videos and stay consistent to a style popular on youtube the audience is quite familiar with it. Thus i believe it is effective, the audience understands that a cut away is portraying something from another time, which is relevant to the main vlog.

“Scott McCloud, 1993, ‘Blood in the Gutter’, Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art (Northampton, MA : Tundra Pub)”

Copyright – your most annoying best friend.

Today the copyright lawyer for RMIT University came into our ‘lectorial’ to explain the basics of Australian Copyright law. Im not going to do into detail because really… we hire people to deal with it.

The part about copyright that always got me was ‘who decides if its similar’ and ‘what if i ACTUALLY did it first.’

How are we meant to know when we come up with an idea if its already been done? We can google some things – but how do we know google is not gonna run off with our ideas and make millions. This is my essential problem with it, i might have an idea and actually do it first but im not gonna know until somebody sues me, and then who decides if its similar…

This is the part of the post where i usually keep it positive and suggest a solution… But i got nothing, so please let me know what you think…