This week in class we were sent a task of live streaming. Whether it was on Periscope or on Twitch each group went out on live streamed whatever was available around. Our group decided we would give a live tour of RMIT campus. While live stream, I noticed it was quite hard to keep the content consistently entertaining. Because we didn’t exactly have a plan, we just decided to improvise on our way to our said location on stream. So during the stream, there were parts where it would be sort of quiet, but there are also live moments, like when we caught someone dabbing on stream, so we decided to quickly film that as something entertaining for the viewer. The main problem with live streaming, would be trying to find ways to keep the stream entertaining, so you don’t have too much dead air. But the good thing about live streaming, was that because we were giving a tour of RMIT, we made the viewer feel like they were there at the scene with us, so it was an experience they can experience at the same time. We mainly used Periscope on our phones. As a streaming app, it was simple and easy to setup. We can see the comments as it happens live and have easy analytics to assess. One thing we couldn’t do was look at what comments has been posted and at what time, without having to watch the live stream all over again.

For pass semester I chose to do the studio “Everyone’s a Critic”. My main reason for choosing this studio is because I’m an aspiring critic on the side, alongside wanting to do something in film and tv. In fact I dedicate a whole youtube channel to myself, where I go out and review the anime shows that I watch. So choosing this course was a simple task. I wanted to improve my writing but also at the same time listen to many other voices and criticism while I was at it. My interpretation of a critic is one that expresses their own opinion on a subject or matter, it doesn’t matter whether the person was wrong or right, because as long as it’s their own opinion the criticism matters. That is what I have always firmly believed in when it comes to being a critic. One that is able to give criticism, expressing their own words, but also one that is able to take criticism and listen to others opinions as well and respect them.

Throughout the course we watched, listened and read many forms of criticism. It was also good to note that our class had a bunch of variety of characters and personalities, meanings all our styles were different and all our voices were different. At first it was intimidating at first having strangers read your work and critique it, but in time it became the norm. I was always use to this idea of your work getting critique, because I’m always willing to listen to a new voice and someone else’s opinions, because I am willing to respect their criticisms as it would only help me improve further down the track. We watched many types of reviews and listened to many type of critics in the class, some where more lenient and nicer in their reviews, while some where way more harsh and unforgiving in their reviews. Being a critic is having your own voice and style, everyone has their own voice, and its how they express it, is what makes them a critic. I learn’t while listening, watching and reading other critics not to be so biased towards the subject, because that makes you lose a bit of credibility as a reviewer. A critic we are a source of information for the general public to give an idea of what they are looking at. A critic is there to give a review and idea of what the subject in question is like and feels. The public wants a general opinion of something, before trying it for themselves.

Being a person that is able to listen, improve and execute upon criticism is a skill many can have. You don’t have to be professional critic to be able to give criticism. If you are able to give explanations to your arguments and point out flaws in something, using your own words, you’re pretty much a critic already. Because being a critic is having an opinionated voice on a subject, in fact, you’re opinion is the not the most important. The public needs more multiple voices and opinions, and being a critic is just one of many voices that is needed to be heard to give a out a overall criticism. Because everyone is different and has their own opinion, some people may have the same opinion, but some others may have the same opinion. Being a critic is giving an opinion and criticism for the people. And it’s the public and general’s job to decide and pick what piece of argument works best for them, and the more criticisms they get, the clearer the picture they have of the subject becomes more sensible.

Being a critic is also almost a gruelling job as well also. After watching Jonathan Gold’s “City of Gold” I have respect to him as a fellow critic of the stuff he goes through to publish a good review. The film wasn’t great in terms of criticism, but it was a good look at how a critic critiques. The amount of research he puts in, when reviewing a restaurant is an abundant amount. When I go to review anime, I make sure I do my fair share of research, to show to the audience I am qualified to review this piece. Because showing the audience you have done your research and being able to back up your statements, is one respect you can gain from professional critics. Having knowledge of other things is what plays a role of being a critic. Not to just be able to critique the subject in front of your eyes, but also make references to similar subjects of the matter. A role of a critic is be able to give and take criticism and if you are able to show your knowledge and research to others, you are qualified to be a professional critic.

I didn’t attend any of the session for this week, but I watched the short film “I’m You Dickhead”, in which I’ll give a short and quick review right here. First of all, I didn’t think much of the film, I just saw of it as a comedy where a character goes back in time to fix past mistakes. I like how the film chose to be a comedy and some of the jokes were simple yet effective enough for me to crack out a laugh. I like how the shots are laid out, with scenes getting constantly repeated, but adding something new each time, because one of main gags was that the character kept failing every time he went back to the past, so he had to keep redoing it over and over again, which meant he kept seeing doubles of himself. The film didn’t really have serious tone, it was quite a comedy till the very end, which I liked, because it stayed as a gag.

Like many other weeks, I was only able to one session, which turned out to be a fun session. As everyone got pitch their idea for the final project. Everyone including myself pitched their ideas to the class and everyone got feedback for their pitches. I love the fact that everyone had an initial idea, but there was always something added to the pitch, which made things more interesting. Everyone had their own unique ideas so it was a varied discussion. I pitched my idea of having to do something anime related, which I always get nervous bring up, because it’s a niche. But I like how everyone gave me new ways to approach the project, such as comparing to western live action adaptations and even making a video review, because I mentioned during my introductions I like to make youtube videos. Which ended up turning out to my plan of attack, as I plan to make a video critical analysis on Anime western culture. After the pitches we each decided to write a name for the final project on a piece of paper and shuffle them into a box and actually we didn’t chose a title, but we it was all read out and everything was anonymous, so we don’t know who wrote what title. We also ate donuts that class.

So I was only able to attend the Wednesday session, but I arrived late and could not participate in the exercise, which people were given a prompt and to write about it with the show they chosen. It was interesting to see what people came up with and see some of the creativity of such simple topics blend together with some complicated prompts. I was mostly interested with Everybody Loves Raymond and the prompt ‘night’ because it was interesting hear how creative someone can be to compare Raymond to ‘Night” I wish I could’ve participated in the activity. Because I always like testing my creative mind, and it was really cool to listen to everyone else’s ideas.

Who are Critics? A.O. Scott

A.O. Scott, also known as Anthony Oliver Scott, is a American journalist and film critic. He serves as a chief film critic for the The New York Times along with Manohla Dargis. A.O. Scott has an honors degree in literature, which is achieved in 1988 from Harvard University. As a child, originally A.O. Scott dreamed of being a rock critic, he dropped out of graduate school he worked as a book critic, which he then accidently became a film critic, when The New York Times hired him back in 2000. It was then in 2004, he became the chief film critic after the paper named him. However he isn’t only affiliated with The New York Times, he has also dabbled in literary criticism for The Book Review.

After reading and analyzing some of Mr. Scott’s reviews, I have found his style in writing very high class. He tends to go into really high detail about the films in writes about. This in turn is a good and bad thing, the good thing about his writing, he clearly showcases he has the skills and expertise to be a film critic. The way he goes into much detail of the film and when he speaks highly of the film, he makes it entertaining to read, while not spoiling too much of the film at the same time. He makes quite a bit of references when describing and highlighting the main characters in a film, which adds a lot of personality and vision to the character that is showcased. However this also backfires, as there will be times when people won’t understand what he is talking about, since the point of referencing something is relying on the reader to have seen or heard of the reference before. True it does show his vast knowledge of films and research, but to the casual reader, they might not be as invested in the review as some others.

A.O. Scott has a habit of sometimes letting his personal feelings affect his review. In particular, his review of The House he mentions how there was no advance screenings for critics to review the film, “I know better than to take it personally when this kind of thing happens, but I do often wonder why it does happen.”  Even though he states, he doesn’t take it personally, the fact that he had to mention this in his review, shows he has a bit of elitism in him. Well he is the chief film critic of The New York Times, so I guess, seeing a film earlier than everyone else wouldn’t hurt too much. You can see this elitism in some of his other reviews. When there is film he doesn’t like as much, he won’t rip the film apart, he more so gives a very quick and short review of the film. Although, a bad film won’t be interesting to the reader, the fact that he doesn’t go into very much detail on why a film is bad, unlike when he praises a film, he goes into a lot of detail, he doesn’t give equal analysis on a bad film. He however decides to make jokes throughout his review, by making references for the characters his describing and plot lines he’s trying to describe. This kind of review style maybe entertaining, because the reader is reading about a bad film, but it doesn’t go into too much detail on why the film was bad in the first place.

Even though there are some faults into A.O. Scott’s style of writing, he is a chief film critic and writing for one of the biggest publications, in fact it is regarded as a national “newspaper of record” for the United States of America, shows he definitely has the qualification to be writing for a publication that big. Only The Wall Street Journal is ahead by circulation in the USA of The New York Times. A.O. Scott has been writing since 2000 for The New York Times, and he became the chief film critic after four years shows his qualification as a film critic. Pair that up with the fact he has been writing for 17 years now, shows he also has the experience in film criticism, to be able to amylase multiple films. This shows when he is able to review different films of different genre, he can review international films, he can review big blockbusters to smaller independent films, so his knowledge is very versatile and vast, when it comes to film criticism.

A.O. Scott is a very qualified film critic, his pieces are not only very well thought out and his reviews are very well detailed, the fact he adds a lot of character to his reviews, while making it as entertaining to read as possible for the readers, showcases his own unique style of film criticism.

Unfortunately due to personal life agendas, I was not able to attend of the classes for this week. I’m upset that I could not attend the MIFF Critics Campus Mentors Q&A Session. However I was able to read up on them and get an idea of who those people are. Hans, Simran seems to write a quick review when the content is not of high quality. Her review of David Lynch: The Art Life was very quick and informative enough of a review. Her one paragraph her is able to not only describe what the film is about, but also states the exact reason while the film is not very interesting, in an easy enough format for the casual reader. When she interviews someone like in her piece about Julie Dash, she shows she’s done her research and is able to relate with the interviewee with her questions. Simran seems to very adept at her work, but shows little passion when reviewing something she doesn’t like.

Philippa Hawker in her pieces shows she has a very broad and vast knowledge in cinema studies. Her piece on “neon” showcases her knowledge in cinematography. She mentions she is good at observing it and analyzing it, so it able to put out good descriptions to back up her claim. However she also mentions she’s only good at looking at it, but states that she is bad at making it. In her piece on teen movies, she shows an incredible amount of research, because she is constantly referencing and comparing different teen movies to each other. This is the same, when she wrote her piece on ‘neon”, because she is able to give evidence along with it. As reviewer, Hawker shows she is able to research and knows quite a lot about cinema to back up her claims.

To start off the week we watched 2015 City of Gold, a documentary about Jonathan Gold, a food critic reviewing all kinds of different restaurants he attends. The film in itself very informative in teaching us using different personas in criticism. Having personas is pretty important in being a critic, it was interesting to learn how much of a difference critics are treated compared to a normal public customer. Throughout the film, it would just show every restaurant treating Gold like a VIP, because they know he is a well renown critic, so they obviously want to get the best review from him. It was interesting to find out, that some critics do multiple runs of a place before actually giving a review, some critics go in as a critic, then as a disguise normal customer and they were able to write how different they were treated between the two. Although as enjoyable and informative the film maybe in to Gold’s life and upbringing. It didn’t really showcase his reviewing style much, for a film about critics, there wasn’t much criticisms from the critics in general, it was more about the life of a critic. When we read one of his pieces during the class, we were able to get a sense of his writing style, and how his persona works.

Unfortunately I could attend the Wednesday class of this week, however I was able to do the reading on different critics on their take on Edward Scissorhands. Luckily for me I have seen the film before, so I was able to understand the reviews coming out of each critics opinions. But it was interesting reading 5 different reviews of the same film. One thing in common all the critics had was that they were able to summarize the plot and able to analyze the content of the film. However 2 of the critics delved way too much into the plot and ended completely just spoiling the plot and not reviewing the film at all. 3 out of the 5 reviews felt like actual reviews, the other two felt like detailed descriptions of the plot. Nonetheless each critic has their own writing style, and were able to point it out in their criteria for review, so they were able to admit what style of writing they are comfortable with. I personally wouldn’t read the first two as they did feel like big plot summaries, and less of a review than the other three.

During this week’s classes we we watched a panel discussion on criticism featuring Adrian Martin, Gillian Armstrong, Mel Campbell, Fenella Kernebone and moderated by Peter Mares. The panel itself was a lot of banter between the critics, but nonetheless it was interesting, because of their experiences, they were able to tell us the ever growing nature of criticisms and how having critics was a much needed thing in the world. Considering the rapid rise of the internet, and they were able to tell us the difference between an amateur review compared to professional review. Everyone on the panel had their own ideas on what it is to criticize, and it was fascinating to listen to so many opinions and voices, while each person on the panel respecting each other’s opinion. Which I can relate to, since I love listening to other opinions and never letting others opinions get to me.

In our other class we began the day brainstorming what we do as critics and how we can implement it into our writing. After that we gave our 300 word piece review to each other during class, so we can have someone else evaluate our writing and give and receive feedback. The piece I got was interesting, because for the most part it seemed like a very perfect review, even though it was only around 300 words. I found out even though a piece could be perfect, there’s always going to be someone with a different opinion and find a negative, I particular didn’t find a negative, but more so a fact it could’ve been my own personal feelings getting in the way, but that would only get in the way for me, so it the review that I read, was fine nonetheless. The feedback I got was fine, according to the person who read mine, even though I thought I went into too much detail on the story, apparently ‘you are your own biggest critic” does apply here. But I was happy to know my style of writing works and can appeal to people.

In Project Brief 4, we were asked to create an audio piece in a group. My group with Tessa and Ben created a fake radio broadcast within an actual radio broadcast. Our goal was to deliver something the audience would believe is real and we tell them that it is fake. Just like how Orson Welles’ War of the Worlds impact it had on the public. We wanted to get the point of how believing in things the media said can be somewhat dangerous, and we wanted to get the message out that media has so much influence on us.

This project was a team effort, we really wanted to work as a team so we split up the work load evenly. When it came to editing, we edited our own segments each and we just put it all together for the final product. At the very start we were missing a teammate, what I think we did very successfully with the lack of a third teammate was to have preparations ready for him when he came back. Me and Tessa had already organised enough to the point, where it was easy and accessible for a new teammate to jump in and contribute work for us. I think as a group we were able to work as effectively as possible in a short amount of time, but I think we could’ve been a bit more organised in the mid and later parts of the project. We all really left things to almost last minute, it is understandable as we do have other things going on, but I think we could’ve just been slightly more organised, so we didn’t have to rush as much during the end.

I still think as group we had pretty good chemistry and cooperation, we were all still able to work together in a positive and cooperative environment despite cutting it close to the deadline. We all knew we had the same goal, and we all knew were going to help each other achieve it. If there is one little thing I can say, I think I felt a bit bad on myself, I think Tessa might’ve done a lot more majority of the work, and I wished I could’ve helped out a bit more. She was pretty much the leader, I had no problems with that, because I was like working as a right hand man, being told what to do. However with me having done secretary work before, I knew how to keep everyone in track and keep organised of everyone and was able to make sure we all completed our work for each other in time. We all met up a lot to discuss and work on the project, which is something we really emphasised on, we really all wanted to get this project done, and if we were going to go down, we were going to go down together.

For the audio piece itself, I personally think it sounds like a genuine radio broadcast. So we were successful in presenting it that way. Despite it sounding successful, we really had a hard time fitting every bit of information in, because we could only have 8 minutes. The scripts we all wrote had a lot of information and things we wanted to say, so in terms of research, we all did a lot of research, but we couldn’t use all of it. So we ended cutting a lot of our script and segments down to fit in everyone. I think even though we couldn’t fit everything in, we still made it flow through smoothly between segments and were able to make the transition properly.

In terms of audio editing, I think I learnt some very useful things I can apply to the future projects. Especially when it came to effects, even Tessa did the effects in her own time, I learnt from her how to make the piece sound like a radio broadcast, which I didn’t even realise there was a function to make it sound like that. I didn’t even realise there was a difference in how radio sound nowadays compared to a normal recording of yourself. I also learnt how to make an audio piece sound like a phone call, as that was one segment in our piece I really liked, because it sounded like a genuine phone call. I learnt making a audio piece is very much different than a video, because so much is put into the recording of sound, we really have to focus on how to get people engaged by just listening, and I think we were able to grab there attention.

When it comes to collaboration I think we did a really good job, and it is a very important skill to have in the media industry. It really takes a good amount of teamwork to get a project done, and because we were very cooperative, we managed to get it done.