Media 1 – Page 2 – Its Everybody's Business

Tag: Media 1 (page 2 of 4)

Project Brief 3 – Feedbeck

After posting my “Project Brief 3” we attended class and presented them. Using the following “Hats” or reactions we then provided feedback to each other.

RED – Initial response to the piece

YELLOW – Something you liked about the piece

BLACK – Something that Doesn’t work

GREEN – Another creative possibility

These are the reflections i received

Red – The tone of the video started out from the beginning as relaxed and not too intense, it gave time for us to become familiar with Khalil before it went into the more intense montage about dance

Yellow – The way the cartoon contrasted yet suited the narrative. The way that it was a small box in the middle of the screen also reminded of “The Illustrated Auschwitz” (YES! This is what i was going for!)

Black – Felt as though there was not enough time for the audience to really comprehend what was happening in the cartoon cut-aways. Perhaps allow them to run longer and allow time to absorb. Also it would be nice to learn more about Khalil, it felt very surface level.

Green – Perhaps you could use a larger variety of found footage. Not just the one cartoon of the bird – it would be nice to see a range of different perspectives.

Project Brief 3

April 20, 2015 / Jordan Raj / 0 Comments

Groups and Truths

April 16, 2015 / Jordan Raj / 0 Comments

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.

Audio Recorda

April 16, 2015 / Jordan Raj / 0 Comments

Audio Recordas. Ammirite?

For our Media tutorial this week we were let loose onto the streets of Melbourne with a Zoom H2n. For those of you who are wondering – no this is not an influenza virus, it is in fact a voice recorder microphone. Coming from the background of video production the my idea of of these products is to have them close to your subject capturing audio up front. The video and audio can then be synced up in post production and you will have a nice crisp audio track.

The zoom h2n however pointed something out to me… no. it did not sprout hands and start pointing, but using it drew my awareness to a very interesting point – The world is noisy. We had discussed in class that theres something known as a signal-noise ratio, this is effectively the amount of wanted sound to the amount of unwanted sound. Once you put the headphones on and listen to the recorder you will notice that it picks up all sorts of sound with no bias – you take off the headphones and can hardly hear anything. It goes to show how the human brain and ear has been trained and conditioned to ignore certain sounds and focus on others. For example, have you ever looked across a crowd and focused on a random persons mouth moments – suddenly you will start to hear what they are saying and everything else will become background noise. In the same way Its almost impossible to listen to the conversation your friends are having and what the people behind you are talking about at the same time.

The audio recorder has none of these problems – it is not intelligent, it picks up all noise without bias. Thus, when you listen to the sound produced we can hear all sorts of unwanted noise and see our world much more objectively.

Digitising Minidisks – How Far Audio has Come

April 14, 2015 / Jordan Raj / 0 Comments

This week I met up with a man by the name of Naysan Naraqi, Naysan like me is a member of the Baha’i faith. We had only talked online and we met for the first time in real life and had lunch. Naysan besides having co-found his own company works for a company called Envato. Envato is is one of the internets largest online marketplaces for media resources, such as audio, templates and stock images. Naysan was telling me that he has a large collection of Mini DV tapes and Sony© Minidisk audio recordings of archival lectures and talks. He asked me if i would be able to help him digitise and archive them.

Soon, i had a large box of tapes and two Sony Minidisk players, i have not worked with analog technology before, and after working with the ZoomH2n earlier this week it was pretty crazy to see how far technology has come. Over the next few weeks i will spend time recording the audio off of these tapes and digitising all the content – the most tiring thing is that with analogue technology you have to wait for the actual time of the media has lapsed in order for it to copy.

Ethics of Sneakics

March 31, 2015 / Jordan Raj / 0 Comments

Hidden Camera Prank Videos. Aren’t they Great!

Here is one that I have always remembered:

Due to the rise of Youtube another type of videos has taken flight. Hidden camera social experiment videos…

Today in the Media 1 Lectorial we raised the question “is it ethical to film someone without them Knowing?”. I had looked this up a few weeks ago for my Self Portrait Project. I wanted to photograph people who looked similar to me or did similar things. I know that in some countries in Europe this is illegal without their permission, so i looked up the laws for Melbourne and found the following on the “ArtsLaw Australia” Page:

“There are no publicity or personality rights in Australia, and there is no right to privacy that protects a person’s image. Existing privacy laws are more concerned with storage and management of personal information and are of limited relevance to the present issue.”

Given this information my personal belief would be that Hidden Camera video is ok in Australia, however i would ask the subject to afterwards sign a release form. Just so that they fully understand that i intend to use their video.

March 29, 2015

For my final Self Portrait I simply built on the idea of Project brief 1 and consolidated it into a single video.

The original idea was to see myself though others – since my fundamental belief is that all humans are from the same source. I would take photos of other people doing the things that i do, preferably people who looked like me. I then recorded the sounds i hear and wrote a poem about my attitude. Together all these components were used to build the unique combination of elements that makes ‘me’.

The feedback i received after the first submission was that i could use the video to really portray the ‘me’ element. With this in mind i took videos of myself doing and experiencing the things that i had photographed, for example, the traveller faded into a video of me travelling.

I edited it together to make it clear that i was drawing parallels to other people, i did this by using fades and a voiceover. The voiceover was used not only to familiarise the audience with my voice but also to narrate and explain the other audio and the pictures.

I believe the video was an effective method to give a brief rounded idea of who i am, however it was quite challenging to work within the 1minute time limit. This meant that i was not able to go into much depth about where I’m from, or where i study. All the audience would know is that I’ve travelled and i study. I also believe that i could have filled in more black spaces of the video. However, i think not having any visual elements really helped the audience focus on the audio.

Overall, i think the concept of the project was quite strong but would do better with deeper exploration and discussion.

Why am I here – DEEP

March 24, 2015 / Jordan Raj / 0 Comments

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

Your Song

March 23, 2015 / Jordan Raj / 0 Comments

For Media 1 we were talking about sound editing and the different effects of music and why they might be inserted into a project. In order to experience an example of this i decided to try an experimental blog post…

The song “Your Song” by Elton John has been stuck in my head all day. I have decided to play the song while wearing headphone and write down whatever comes to my mind as it plays and what emotions it invokes.

***

Things seem to slow down, i see peoples lives more human-ly, makes me think about their families, where they come from. The troubles they have faced in their lives. It gives me a somewhat insight to think about people away from the hustle and bustle of the sounds of the world bombarding my senses.

Nostalgia

Thoughtfulness

***

Interesting that external sound can have such an effect

Now i challenge you to read this while listening to the song:

Detachment from Creation

March 21, 2015 / Jordan Raj / 0 Comments

On Tuesday for our ‘lectorial’ Paul Ritchard spoke to us about the production process. One thing he touched on was the idea of serendipity – which contrary to the sound of the word has nothing to do with sincere pity…

Serendipity as defined by the Jordan’s Brain dictionary means “coming across something amazing or perfect just by chance, it just happens to you by chance – like woah”

One thing which he spoke bout was that when things don’t necessarily go your way, instead of letting them beat you down, take it as an opportunity to try in a different way – because you never know what might come from it. This especially came to my mind this afternoon.

Since I woke up this morning i have been trying to write a song, i had a few pieces of it already written down and now i just had to compose the whole piece. After hours on the guitar and pain in my fingers i suddenly hit a chord and sung a line which was just amazing… but – it wasn’t in the chorus that i had planned out months ago. If i was to stick with this new line i would change the tone of the entire song, the title and perhaps the meaning; what to do?

I went with it keeping this in mind: “… at the onset of creative endeavour, one must be detached from the outcome”

This resonates with me on many levels; consider the following

1. Group projects – we often have to compromise OUR PERSONAL vision for the sake of the entire group
2. We might stumble across a greater technique or result while at work on a project
3. It allows for us to build a thought more organically, and gaining influence from dynamic surroundings and peers

In all these three situations a more detached outlook at a project will lead to it potentially becoming more diverse and having a stronger impact on a wider range of people, also allowing ourselves to grow. Being detached also means that if the project does not work out exactly as you intended it to, you will be able to reassess it and try again – except with more experience…

The same happened with the Project Briefs for Media 1, our first Projects once submitted would receive feedback that we could take forward to our second project. This means that there was going to be change during the creation of the project… i suppose this is where the word “iteration” comes into play. The constant changing and developing of an idea as it becomes closer to perfection…

A more serious video… #LifeChanges

A video posted by Jordan Williams (@jrnwfire) on Mar 15, 2015 at 5:51am PDT

Just some thoughts…

Its Everybody's Business

We gotta Stick Together