Well it’s end of semester, normally this is a time for exams, but thing being media we don’t have one. THANK GOD. But it really got me thinking, was ever really fair making an exam the majority of our mark back in high school. I mean we spend 90% of a semester or year doing school work, and doing things inside the classroom, while also doing tests as well. So why was it ever really fair putting the majority of our year’s work on one piece of paper that held so much of our future. Yes I understand exams are there to evaluate the things you learnt, but even if it covers a majority of the year it kind of off putting knowing you have done good all year long, but then this one piece of paper comes in and you say you didn’t do as good in as you did during the whole year. That one bad could very outweigh the good. I guess one of the reasons why we see so many of our friends and sometimes ourselves stress out in the presence of an exam, as we all know this one mess up could really turn out semester around. However I guess it can be used the opposite way, as a really good exam performance can really help with out future mark and grades. However I’m still kind of annoyed how one piece of paper holds so much percentage of our fates and its not what we did during a semester. I myself do have one exam for this semester, and I’m hoping to do well in it, because I did alright in that class, I just don’t want one piece of paper turning it around.

Week 11 we were given an insight into tv and streaming and it got me thinking, what I use to do back then to what I do today. Back a couple of years ago, before I had access to good internet, all I had was the tv and a camera. I would watch and record all my favourite shows on tv. The Simpsons was the best, I didn’t miss a single episode, I would re watch and go out of my way and my parents way to watch it. But this was a long time ago, nowadays I don’t even watch The Simpsons all that much anymore, but the funny thing is when I do, I still find myself really enjoying the show. A lot of people have said the show has dropped in terms of quality, I never really cared, it still entertains me. But why in these days when I have more access to the episodes through the internet, why aren’t I going out of my way to watch it again. This also not only applies to shows I really like and would love to watch over and find new episodes again, this also applies to video games as well. During my high school years, I would love to try and play as much video games as possible, I was always excited when a blockbuster game was coming, I would’ve saved my money for it and buy it on release. I would play it until I 100% it. However there was always something that got in my way when it came to gaming, I would have found all the time to play it, but I wouldn’t have the money to pay for it, especially when it came to online through Xbox Live. Nowadays, I find myself in the opposite situation, I have ways to to pay for the game, but I find myself having less time, and it’s not that my workload is more. The biggest thing contributing to the change is simply the internet is growing and giving me more distractions. With the growing internet, there is so much more option at our fingertips, that I sometimes just brush off the idea of playing or watching as soon as it comes out. Because I know it’s going to be on the internet somewhere for me to find later on. It’s finally how technology and our approach to it changes as we grow up.

Week 10 was all about paying attention to sound, however I suck at paying attention properly. Sometimes we all have that moment where we really phase out of reality and get lost in a endless train of though. Haven’t you ever had those moments where you suddenly find yourself doing something, you normally wouldn’t do. I remember of a time, where I was doing school work, but then I drifted off, I probably got distracted, but I suddenly found an interest for the supernatural and started looking at videos of the supernatural and looking for extracts, before I knew it, a lot time has passed and I really needed to get back to work. There have also been many times, when I’m just casually listening to music on public transport, I would sometime almost doze off completely, but not before waking up just before my stop. It’s as if, I knew instinctively where my stop was, I normally watch the windows to see where my next stop is, but sometimes I’m just really out of it and suddenly to the realisation my stop is near without thinking about it. Sometimes when I’m just listening to music, I don’t even realise a lot time pass by, as an average song for me is usually 4 minutes, and there a times I don’t even know I played through that many songs. Sometimes it’s the opposite where only 2 songs have passed by, but to me it felt like 5. Sometimes I just get lost into whatever I do, I start paying less attention to the world around me and dive into my own world, but of course I come back to reality quickly.

Since week 9 was all about collaboration work, I think I tell you about the time when I was actually in a committee for one of the RMIT clubs. The club was called Games, Manga and Anime Society, for shot we call it GMAS. As a committee member, we really wanted to bring a lot fun and excitement for the club, but really set a very good framework as a team to work on. Every other year, the GMAS committee was known for having one person really run the show, even though there was a committee, there was really only one person doing the majority of the work. We really put an emphasis on teamwork. Because we put in so much work as a team, the club remained fun and very well organised. Even though it wasn’t perfect the teamwork we put in was considered by even previous committee members the best work out of any year, because stuck together. We organised everything together and had very good chemistry and cooperation with each other. Doing this all committee work really taught me a lot of myself and my teammates around me, as it helped me work better in a team and learn how to work with other people. When looking at the current committee, it seems we have set a high standard unintentionally, because the way things work in GMAS seems sort of unorganised and I can only blame fore maybe the lack of team work. But since I’m an outside currently, I don’t know how things work in the inside, but I can only imagine and hearing stories. I’m glad I was a committee member, I was able to learn a lot and it really helps me evaluate things in a more open manner. It also taught me teamwork is very important, no matter what job it is.

In week 11’s workshop, we were sent out to do another audio exercise. This time we weren’t put into our project brief teams, we had to work in pairs to record an audio extract while also having to edit it for later as well. I recorded with my partner a comedic radio broadcast of a apocalyptic world, we recorded inside a closed off small edit suite for the best sound we can get possible and recorded some atmos to make it sound as close to a apocalyptic world as possible by going near something that was blowing air out, as we still wanted to give the feel we were underground with tubes running along. After recording we were taught how to use audition, learning how to piece everything together and learning how to use the fades, became very useful for the project. I think the most important thing learning in audition was organization, we had to be very organised with the things we do, because when working with audio, file names play an important role, as we don’t have visual identification like in videos, we must name our audio files so we know what we are working with. But the workshop was to get a very basic understanding in recording and using the editing program. Here is how my quick edit audio extract came out.

After the exercise, we listened to another audio extract, though this one seemed more interesting than the one from the week before, it seemed less personal than the last, but it still felt very informative in listening into the person’s life

I came late to week 10’s workshop class. When I came in, everyone was on the floor listening to an audio extract. From what I could tell going into the middle of it, it was about a man dealing with issues while his father goes through a disease and how it has affected the man’s life. It sounded very much like a documentary, but also a very personal look into one’s life. I personally did not find the extract that too interesting, as I came in the middle of it and got lost on what he was talking about. But I did the notice the changes in the audio piece, when it sounded like a documentary to an archive recording of the past, there was clear indication different pieces of audio were used. We were shown this to let us no know, there is many ways to approach in making an audio extract, by not just recording, but use other pieces at the same time. After discussing with the class on the extract, we were split up into our project brief 4 groups again to work more on the project. In our group we made slight progress and started getting a better understanding on what we were going to present and do for the radio broadcast. We split our workload, and decided what part of the radio broadcast segments we were going to handle. We even made sure to put in our minutes to inform of our absent teammate, what kind of role he was going to play in the project.

During our week 12 workshop, we were asked to present our project brief 4 rough cuts to industry professionals for their feedback.

After presenting our rough draft to Jon This, he told us our work was relatively good and creative, in the aspect we had the whole fake story within the fake radio podcast. In terms of technical feedback, he told our talking part of the segment was too soft, and because we had the fear of it peaking too much, we toned it down, hence it became soft.  So he suggested to compress and normalize the audio to make it sound like a more professional broadcast, as he did say it did sound a bit awkward. He also mentioned to us to work on our timing as our opening, just sounded like atmosphere and nothing else, so he had to add more to it. We did after this, go outside during our workshop to record some more sound and dialogue for the opening, so it just wouldn’t sound like just atmosphere.

It wasn’t just the opening, the talking part of the segment, needed some cuts to make it sound more natural and less forced, especially when he told us to cut out the response for the phone cutting out in the segment, by mention to us that the studio wouldn’t ask if the person is still there, after the phone has been obviously cut off. Well apart from those criticisms, there wasn’t much to be said, we just need to get the rest our radio cast together, because the opening is done, we just need to finish it off strong, because we began strong, with the fake drama story to the fake cast, and then we go into the actual radio broadcast. We just need to finish it off, because our opening is basically done, and we got good feedback, and capitalised on it.

In week 9 workshop were given a brief of Project Brief 4, and knowing it was a group project we were assign randomly into a team based on the number we pull out of the hat. When I approached the hat, I jokingly guessed I was going to pull the number 3, and just coincidentally by accident, I pulled the number 3 out of the hat. My other teammate, Tessa also pulled the number 3. Unfortunately our last member was not in attendance  at the time, so Ben was our last member.  Luckily for me and Tessa, we have worked together before during an exercise, so we sort of knew how to work with each other. During our planning stages for our brief, we went with an idea to produce a fake radio broadcast, we only brainstormed for a bit of ideas. After getting to know our new teammates, we were sent out on a recording exercise to record an interview, both a formal and informal interview to test out the Zoom H2N microphones we were going to use. This is how it went.

It was nice to see how different the recordings were inside and outside, in different locations etc. We learnt the microphone was pretty power and can pick up almost anything, this definitely tells us, we need a quiet place to record during our project brief 4, for the thing we were going for. The microphone was in it self pretty simple and easy to use, although the navigation of the menu gets blocked by the pop filter, when using it.

So this being the last week of the lectorial, there was no guest speakers and no new added information we were told. We were just told to give our own reflection on the course and how we did find ourselves doing it. We were given a graph piece of paper to give an illustration and graph of how we think we did personally during the course.

By looking at this graph, I reckon I stayed pretty almost above my average abilities. Because going into the course beforehand, I had an idea of what I was getting myself into, and being a media enthusiast and one who loves making videos, the first half provided me with what I love doing and since I know how to use video editing programs, I say my skills came in handy. Notice how the graph drops during the last few weeks, that’s because we got into the more sound related part of the course, where I struggled a bit. Not completely failing and struggling, but it was an area I was uncomfortable at. But of course another thing plays into factor for the drop, it wasn’t me understanding, but I started to get the end of semester drug in me, as I was getting exhausted and flustered with more and more work thrown at me. After trying so hard at the start, I think I lost a bit of motivation towards the end. Overall I think its been a fun semester and I am glad I picked this course.

So in week 11’s lectorial our guest speaker was Ramon Lobato, who came to speak about tv and pop culture. The first question he asked us was, ‘when was the last tv show we watched and where?’ I was asked what show I watched on youtube, I simply answered ‘The Starters’ which is an NBA talk and anylsis show. It was quite when he brought thr stats up and surprisingly to myself, there id only a 0.5 hours of online viewing per day, as I thought there would be more. When I was born, broadcast tv only had 5 channels, today there is 30 and plus many extra from external devices. We discussed how tv has changed so much, because of the rise of the internet. Especially now that we don’t have to watch tv anymore to catch up with shows, but rather we can catchup later on the internet, and it also allows us to watch what we want on demand, rather than being force to deal with whatever is on tv. I like how I was like ome of the only one who has no access to the biggest subscription service, Netflix. Because of how tv has changed, tv is now more for live broadcasts and reality tv, more for thr non-scripted shows. Whereas streaming is more for dramas. Ramon showed us trailers of Netflix only shows, which I would never watched, because its not my thing and it appeals to a niche, which tv tends to nowadays avoid. As popular as Netflix is, there are some countries that barely use its services, because of their business model.