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.

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.

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!

Alright let’s present what we’ve got so far.
Alex, Eliza and I have made a lot of plans – plans that go above and beyond the calling of Project Brief Four. However, at the moment, they’re mostly plans. We want to do a lot of filming and a lot of interviews and develop some sort of documentary or report that relates to the topic of institutions. In presenting, today, it seemed like, from what we were presenting, that we didn’t know what we were doing or that we hadn’t thought a lot about it – honestly it’s quite the contrary. We talked about the main areas we researched in our annotated bibliography and divulged some of the interesting information we had come up with and how we wanted to develop this into a media artefact.

As a group we came up with a timeline and aims to reach by the end of the week so that we were on track and all putting in an equal amount. As a group, we’re working really well together and really enjoy bouncing ideas of each other and coming up with things to complete. We decided that we wanted to interview people who worked within different media institutions and came up with names of the people we could get in touch with and even started contacting them. I’m really excited about this because, first of all, I think this will set us apart from the rest of the class because we’re putting in a lot of effort to go and see people and interview them but also because we get to talk and see a real insight into the lives of people who work in the media

For myself, it’s been a dream for a long time to do screenwriting, as seeing as both Eliza and myself know someone from screenwriting backgrounds, I’m really interested in what they have to say. Even asking them questions about how it is write with media regulation controls etc really intrigues me and I can’t wait for these interviews to happen.

We also had the idea to create a zine. This is the only concept of the Project Brief that I’m not completely clear on. But Eliza and Alex seem pretty excited about it and they have a pretty clear idea of how it should look and what it should say, so I have no objections to it.

Let’s do this!

and Project Brief Four did commence…

I’m overall, really happy with my group. I’ve been paired with Alex and Eliza, and to be honest, I think we’ll make a stellar team. Our topic is ‘Institutions’ and I think we’ve all got a really good grasp on the concept itself and ideas are already forming for us. Our thought process is as documented below:

The concept itself is quite difficult and very broad, but I’m thinking positively about it. I think the key is not to stray too far away from ‘institutions’ as the root of the assignment and always come back to it as the question. It’s very easy to be sidetracked by subtopics when the topic itself is so broad. I like that the presentation method for the project brief is undefined – leaving it to the skills of the group. I’m not sure I give too many exceptional skills as I’m really more focused on filming, miss-en-scene, framing and editing. I think Alex and Eliza have similar skill sets, so maybe making a killer video would be the best use of our strengths although I was hoping that I could be taught some new skills by my team members. I think we’ve decided to create something in a sort of documentary or report format as we feel that our research will suit an informative sort of presentation

As a group, I think we’ve delegated our time and resources well and we’re on track to making some real progress. I’m interested in seeing where the research and the concepts we come up with actually go. Hopefully, after finishing the annotated bibliography we have a firmer grasp on the direction we’re going to take and come up with something EXTRAORDINARY to create.

As far as the Annotated Bibliography is concerned, we decided that delegating a topic to each of us so that our research is unique and we cover as much information as possible. I’m taking care of Media Regulation, Eliza is looking at audiences and Alex is looking at institutions themselves. I think this is a very good way of covering information as it gives us some ground to cover and ensures that we are getting information on all parts of the topic.

I’m really looking forward to working more with my group and I’m especially looking forward to making something brilliant with the work that we’re doing.

The presentation of Project Brief 3 proved to make me feel nervous once more. I think that’s just the nature of presenting something that you’ve created – whether you’ve put hours and hours into it, or just fifteen minutes. What was my main worry was that, compared to others, the quality of what I had filmed was not up to scratch, however, I was holding on to hope that people would look at it as that I had made it look textured and that it was fitting with the concept of the film (ie. post-modern arty).

Most of the criticisms I got were quite positive. I was mostly happy with what people had to say about the Project Brief but I was more keen for them to tell me where to improve rather than what I had done well. First of all, though, my audience didn’t pick up on the quality of the filming, in fact, they thought that the graininess of the film added to the film. I was very happy with this, because it’s a relief that fellow filmmakers weren’t judging the quality of the footage. I was also commended for how fluid the transitions between found footage and original footage. However, I did find it concerning that people didn’t know the differences between the footage I had taken of  my sisters art, and the art that was found footage.

In addition to this, the few criticisms I had mainly detailed the shortness of the film. This worried me too when completing the task but I ran out of exciting original footage and I did ‘t want to overuse the found footage. My own criticism of the piece would be the lack of sound other than voice-over. Although I did receive a compliment about how what was being said in the voice-overs matched the visuals (which I spent quite a while perfecting), I think I need to broaden my horizons when it comes to sound within the films I create. I want to feel more comfortable with using music in my films

Sound is an imperative tool for any filmmaker. It’s important, especially as an inspiring filmmaker, to learn how to use and master this tool. I know for a fact that the use of sound is not one of my strengths and I would probably consider it the weakest point in my skill set. I think it’s very easy to forget about the importance of audio when creating and instead focus more on the visual aspects of filmmaking. But in the words of Amir Blumenfeld ‘audio is the second most important part of the audio visual system’. I’ll let you think about that one.

I found that the working with the ZoomH2N Recorder was very beneficial to me. I felt, initially, as a bit of an outcast because everyone seemed to understand the jargon that was being thrown around and I seemed to just be nodding my head pretending I understood. I, however, made sure I read and completely understood the instructions before I used the recorder itself just so I was able to understand what I was doing and could use it successfully.

As we split up into groups during the workshop, I was glad I had three group members who seemed to fully understand what they were doing. I found that standing back, watching what they were doing with the recorder and simply analysing how they utilised it in different environments to create the best possible sound. Other than learning how to correctly record sound, we actually had a lot of fun in just creating sound to record.

I took the ZoomH2N Recorder home and recorded my audio that night.

**SAM HAS TO SEND ME CLIP TO ATTACH**

The feedback for Project Brief 2 was interesting. I think it’s always hard to watch your work be received by other people and considering that the PB was supposed to reflect myself, I think the nerves intensified even more. I was happy with what I had created but I paid very close attention to the facial expressions of those around me because I believe very strongly that the audience is the most important part of creating media. The expressions were pretty much neutral, no one looked as if they weren’t enjoying it or disliked it immensely (which is a good sign) but that’s really all the reaction I got. I wasn’t quite satisfied with that.
As the class went into discussion about the film itself, I wasn’t quite satisfied with the response either. Although some responses were positive and people did say ‘this is making me hungry’ which I took as a testament to my grandmothers cooking, I still felt like what I created was a little too vague. Most of the class discussion were mostly questions about my own culture and tradition than what I had created. I’m not sure why this is, but, as Jasmine pointed out, the lack of faces in it makes it just a little less personal. Maybe this is why I didn’t get the response I wanted but I will take this piece of advice and apply it to my next Project Brief. What was also said was that the use of black and white took away the real vibrancy of the food and thus didn’t enhance the homely atmosphere I was trying to create. I know now that I have to really consider how I’m editing and what implications each technique I use may have.

In Project Brief 3, my aim is going to really be adding some soul to what I am creating and making it more personal.

In this weeks Workshop, we analysed and criticised each others lo-fi self portraits. What was most interesting to me was the similarities between most of our self portraits. Most people had sound recordings/videos/photos that included some form of public transport. As Jasmine pointed out, it is a big part of our daily routine. I personally believe that travelling on public transport is probably on of the only places where people can do their own personal and critical thinking, so I understand how people identify with the sounds or the movements of a passing train.

I had my own issues with presenting a self-portrait to what is essentially a group of people that hardly know me. This is just my own personal uncomforted with revealing too much about myself to people. So, essentially, I found that making jokes at my own expense helped me to present to people and I truly envied those who could simply just say what each media form represented about them.

I hope that as I feel more comfortable with this group of people I’ll find that I can perfectly portray to them (without jokes) what I am trying to represent about myself. I think that’s important when making a media product because, although it is presented for the scrutiny of the audience, I think it’s important to start from an honest place.