FINAL POST | BEST BLOG POSTS

Posted on by under REFLECTIVE PORTFOLIO

WEEK 3: CONNECTION 3

WEEK 5: CONNECTION 5

WEEK 7: CONNECTION 7

WEEK 8: LECTORIAL 8

WEEK 9: CONNECTION 9

I really feel like I’ve learnt a lot this semester. Although at times some tasks and lectures felt mundane and irrelevant, as I reflect upon the semester and all that I’ve learnt and all I have achieved, I realise that I’ve actually learnt heaps. With that, I feel like I’ve opened my mind to more than just filmmaking and script-writing and I’m really keen to develop my skill set. I think being surrounded by people who want to work in the same industry as myself really inspired me to learn more and to be a better filmmaker and create better and diverse media products.

 

I find that I work well when things are discussed and planned. I like the idea of building off other peoples opinions and ideas. I think that critiquing and analysing the technical elements of my own work and the work of my peers was very beneficial to me. First of all, because I caught a glimpse at the standard my work had to live up to so that I didn’t fall behind as others progressed. Secondly, because I could see the strengths and weaknesses of my peers and I could see who could help me on developing my own. And thirdly, because my own work was given the opportunity to be critiqued by others . I believe this is the most important part of the learning experience, or at least it is for me. I always take on board the opinion of others when it comes to something I’ve created and I choose to better my work upon their opinions. I can’t think of any better way to become better at what I do.

 

I think what I’ve learnt, and what this course so far has pushed me to do, is to be more creative and more textured with my work. Although I’m still trying to understand how to be more textured with my work, I think I’ve been forced to get out of my comfort zone and explore a wider range of skills and to incorporate different forms of media into my work. I think that this course keeps reminding me that there’s not just one form of media, but that it surrounds us in many different ways – something I know but I easily ignore.

 

Throughout the semester, I didn’t take the course too seriously and was more keen to be a part of university life and expanding my social life. This resulted in work that I can’t say lived up to my abilities. In saying that, however, as the semester progressed, I did find that I picked myself up and got my head in the game and started critically thinking and creating work that I could say I was proud of. Hopefully next semester I can be more focussed and prepared from the get go so that I can create more things that I’m proud to present.

 

As a filmmaker, I was forced to face with my own weaknesses during this course. Looking at other peoples work and comparing it to my own made me critically think about my own abilities. I realised how uncomfortable I am using music or sound in my films. I’m more of a visual person and I often forget or leave the audio aspect of my films to the last minute so that it gets neglected or I give up on it. This is something that I want to work on so that I can turn a weakness into a strength and develop further.

 

It’s been a good semester. Cheers Media One, it’s been a good run. Let’s crack open semester two

xx

 

Project Brief 4: A Reflection

Posted on by under PROJECT BRIEF 4

This final project brief has been a rollercoaster of stress, excitement, humour and relief. I was, in the initial stages of the Project Brief, very excited to get into the research and gather some solid information. I saw it as an experience to learn about the complexities of the media and how it affects audiences and creators alike. The topic that was assigned to Eliza, Alex and I was Institutions. I was very happy with this choice as I think it compliments my interests in politics and government regulation as well as letting me look at the overall impact that institutions that create media have on the people that consume it. I was very keen into getting into the nitty gritty of the theories behind the media and exploring them for myself. As a group, we came up with the idea to make an artifact in the form of a documentary or a report.

 

I was extremely happy with the group that I had been assigned to. Eliza, Alex and I immediately clicked as a group and we all had a lot of ideas and were very animated about what we were going to create. I think in the planning stages, we had the most fun because we just kept on building upon one idea and having so many we had to come back down to earth and think more practically. In our first meeting together we talked about our skill sets and we found out that we were working with the same skills and we could adapt and better these. I was, however, disappointed that they were just as wary of using sound as I was because I wanted to learn from my group members about how to be more confident with editing with sound etc. As we progressed with our Project Brief, we found that each of us had stronger skills than others. Alex and I were very good with technical things and, when it came to filming and editing, we took charge of camera and mise-en-scene. Eliza always kept us in line and made sure we were on point and organised – she was more of our communicator because she has awesome people skills; this came in handy when we were organising interviews.

 

We spent most of the time given to create this project brief planning what we were going to do and how we were going to do it. So, in class discussions and presentations, when we had only plans to present because that was all we could do as we were awaiting for our interviewees to organise dates with us, it seemed that we were not doing any work. This made me very frustrated as I am a very focussed and head strong person and I like to complete things to the satisfaction of all that are around me. And the truth was, we were doing A LOT of work – I would go as far as saying that, collectively, Eliza, Alex and myself did more work than any other group in our class. We just had to fix our time around others. The feedback that we got in class was to make our content more engaging than just a documentary and to be more textured. I think we took this as a challenge to overcome and Eliza and Alex came up with an idea to create a zine or a comic book to  accompany the documentary. I didn’t really understand the point of this, but Eliza and Alex had a clear idea of how to do it, so I didn’t complain. I still don’t think it’s necessary to the project but the others were insistent upon it. I chose to not argue so as to keep harmony within the group. I think that was a good idea.

 

I took more charge in editing and filming interviews, and this was a stress for me too. Not because editing was difficult, but more because I felt that if I did a bad job, it would be my fault that we received bad marks. I think i did an excellent job with the finished product though. I would have liked to have made it longer and have more information in it so that it reflected all that we had created, planned and discovered but I think it would have been a stretch to make it a feature length documentary. In total we had seven interviews that totalled up to more than hour of information. That limited down to 15 minutes in a documentary is shattering.

 

My favourite part about this Project Brief was listening to the interviews. Mark O’Toole’s interview was my favourite and I felt very privileged to have conducted it as it was so interesting to hear the opinions and anecdotes of what someone who is working the field I want to one day work in.


Although I was stressed and angry at times, as a group, we worked so well. I couldn’t have asked for better group members.

WEEK 12: WORKSHOP 12

Posted on by under workshop

Last ever workshop for the semester. I’m keen for holidays, if I’m terribly honest. So let’s get this show on the road.
My group didn’t come to the workshop this week, which was fine. It just meant that I had to present on my own. I didn’t mind because I got to talk to my hearts content about what we had filmed and the interesting subjects we had found. I showed some clips from our interviews and talked about how interesting their opinions were and how they were similar and different. I seemed to engage the class a bit, which was an awesome feeling and it made it feel like we were on track and we were making something spectacular. I felt so much better about the project brief after that and I even got a round of applause for all the time and effort we put in. That was really gratifying because for the last few weeks, my team and I had ran through the mill in getting all this ready and done.

Learning Graph:
I want to try and put my learning graph into words.

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WEEK 11: CONNECTION 11

Posted on by under connection

Okay, so a bit unrelated again. But I watched one of the greatest ‘stand-up’ films ever made. As you may have already guessed from previous posts that I’m really into stand up comedy. Well, I tend to download the stand up performances that comedians make into films.

So I found Scott Dooley’s. He’s a rather attractive 32 year old comic from Sydney and he used to work on tripleJ as a presenter. He’s a household name…at least in my household. Anyway, his film was more a documentary than anything on his first time performing a live stand up show. He accompanied footage of time on the road and seamlessly edited together with awesomely angled shots (that were vignetted) of him on stage performing. I’d never seen a stand up film like it. I thought it was creative and insightful. I was very impressed.

Upon doing further research I found out that Dooley received a stellar rating for his show at Melbourne Comedy Festival in 2o14 – this is the one he made his film after.

I really like how someone like Scott Dooley explores through different mediums and forms of the media and broadcasts himself in different ways. As an artist he doesn’t seem to stop adapting and I think that’s very important. Dooley has really impressed me. I hope as an aspiring filmmaker, and as a general human being, I also never stop adapting and learning new things and exploring the media in different ways so that my point is never lost and always heard.

Here is a trailer for Dooley’s film. I recommend a watch.

WEEK 11: LECTORIAL 11

Posted on by under lectorial

We didn’t end up attending the electoral this week. We had to compromise this to go and shoot some footage for PB4. We have a hectic schedule of interviews.

First of all, today at 10.3oam we need to be at Classic Comics on Bourke Street to interview two men who were happy enough to answer our questions about the comic book industry and how they as a small business survive in distributing physical comic books. I think their answers were very interesting. I think it was a good idea getting the perspective of people who didn’t work directly with an industry but rather were impacted by them greatly.
We asked if they think comic books would survive in their physical form. I assumed they would say, in time they will become redundant. But instead, their answers were quite positive and even pointed out that comic books, and the comic book industry had been around longer than cinema and will continue to survive.

Our next interview was with Mark O’Toole in Fitzroy. This was the one I was most excited about. This was Eliza’s screenwriter contact and I was really interested in what he had to say for two reasons. First of all, I’m a fan of the shows that he’s written for such as Black Comedy and I think anyone who is behind the writing of that show is a genius. Secondly, because it is my aspiration to become a screenwriter and write comedy shows for an Australian audience. So interviewing someone who is quite literally living my dream was just amazing for me. In conducting the interview, I felt very privileged and I felt like I should have praised the Media 1 gods for giving me an opportunity to speak to such a spectacular person.

WEEK 11: WORKSHOP 11

Posted on by under workshop

First Interview today. I was really excited! And really proud of myself! After weeks of planning, weeks of calls and texts and emails, we had all our interviews set up and ready to go, and by next Monday we’d be in the stages of finishing editing. Finally things are being made and it feels like all the work we’ve put in is finally becoming something real.

Our first interview is with Jess Junor, the general manager of RMITV and we’re going to be interviewing her straight after todays session and in the booths on the bottom floor of Building 9. Alex, Eliza and I decided to spend the whole day together in order to get ready for all the interviews that we had this week. We met at 9am in the Atelier space and didn’t leave until 12.30pm when we needed to be in class. We went over in detail, what we were doing, how we were going to do, who was in charge of the equipment, who would be conducting interviews etc. We also had a closer look at all our interview questions. For the first time in the course of this project brief, I feel ready and focussed. The finish line is insight, and we’re going to end this race with a bang!

It was good to get some down time in the workshop to get our head away from our own work and listen to how everyone else is presenting their work. I think everyone is so creative and I wish I could think as creatively as them and not be such a straightforward thinker. Some groups ideas are a little to creative however and totally miss the point of the task, in my opinion, and are steering away from their topics. But we’ll see how they come out in the end.

The group that are looking at Mediums is by far my favourite. They all know what they’re doing and they work SO well together. They’re going to come up with the best Project Brief.

WEEK 10: CONNECTION 10

Posted on by under connection

So in yesterdays lectorial we looked at Community Media, and, by some strange coincidence, RMITV (a community broadcaster) got back to me and agreed to an interview with us. I think yesterday’s sessions gave me a new insight into community media and what makes it run. So, with this newfound knowledge, I’m going to go over the questions I have written for RMITV and ask some better developed ones to fit around RMITV being a community broadcaster.

Knowing that RMITV is mainly run by students so that they have opportunities to better their skills as filmmakers/actors/producers etc. I want to ask if the internet has changed this at all. Is student engagement in community broadcasting, especially at uni, still a big thing.

And maybe even about the future of community media generally? Will it survive against the big corps.

WEEK 10: LECTORIAL 10

Posted on by under Uncategorized

Here it is. The big one. The one of Institutions.

I liked how Brian linked the social institution of marriage to media institutions. I think this draws on what my PB4 group is trying to achieve in exploring how media institutions are seen as a sort of social institutions nowadays. In a way, nowadays, people look to the media to know how to act and how to be, they (sometimes) follow social customs when posting online and look to the media for guidance. To me this sounds like media institutions have replaced the church and religion.

 

The In-Class Activity was very helpful in looking into the way in which media institutions work. I think the prompts that were given to us were very helpful for me in understanding media institutions:

•Relationship to audience/users (‘mode of address’)?
•What are their core values?
•What is their status?
•How are their activities ‘professionalised’
•How are they more than a business?
•What forms of regulations constrain their activities (internal & external)?
•In what sense are they conduits for flows of power?
•What other institutions are they related to?engaged/aligned with?

In the lectorial i explored Community Media. I think this is most interesting because community broadcasters aim to only appease a niche and small demographic so they’re relationship with their audience is a lot more personal than a bigger corporation.

Here is the brainstorm we came up with:

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WEEK 10: WORKSHOP 10

Posted on by under workshop

Another week where we only had little to present. This is the plans that we presented: 

KEY QUESTIONS TO BE ANSWERED BY THE FIRST THIRD OF PB4:

What are media institutions?

What guides how institutions generate media?

How do institutions form an industry?

How does a media institution become a social institution?

What are examples of these theories in action?

PLAN:

Introduce the concept of Media Institutions ~~~ Define it.

Introduce specific institutions as a focus: Walt Disney, Marvel, DC, News Corp, ABC etc etc.

Discuss the relationship in Media Institutions between artists and businesses.

Discuss business mandates within Media Institutions.

Show how institutions influence and control the media they produce.

Demonstrate that a Media Institutions key focus is to function as a business and to generate profit.

Demonstrate that Media Institutions rely on being socially relevant to continue being a

successful business.

Demonstrate and explain how such businesses models then become

successful and why they were successful.

Proceed to explain that successful business models within institutions then

become copied and replicated in the same or similar manner among other

institutions within the same medium. Therefore forming an industry – moreover,

forming critical industry norms.

 

I really hope we have something more to present by the end of this week.
I’m really enjoying Tim, Dan and Sally’s plans. I think they have some really good ideas. I like they’re presenting it in a podcast! I think that’s really creative and awesome. I can’t wait to hear their finished product!

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