“Is intention essential to collaboration?” (Adam Hyde, Mike Linksvayer et al, 2012, p.57)

Hyde and Linksvayer mentioned the “culturally based and context based” collaboration between opposing countries Israel and Palestine that exacerbated the tension between the two countries. Emphasising on this notion of a “context based” collaboration, how about the collaboration of two opposing views on a debate that do share a common intention?

PBS Idea Channel on YouTube presents this idea that piracy shares the same intention with actually purchasing the media text; by heightening the popularity and viewership of the particular show or film. Hyde and Linksvayer didn’t mention how P2P communities and streaming services such as Spotify can create a springboard for artists to showcase their talent to a vast audience. If the artist focussed on exposing themselves over earning a profit, well then that’s where the collaboration occurs in sharing a common intention.

Linking this back to the “ThruYou – Kutiman Mixes Youtube”, Mark Ronson explains how sampling music isn’t a sign of lacking originality, but rather a way of creatively incorporating an element of narrative into the song that’s being produced. Through legalities of copyright and so forth, a collaboration of sorts occurs where one approves of using their work to be part of another song. To be honest, I’m still trying to get a firm grasp of the extent to “how…we define the boundaries of contribution” (Adam Hyde, Mike Linksvayer et al, 2012, p.56), but for now this how I perceive it to be.

Reference: Adam Hyde, Mike Linksvayer et al, 2012, ‘What is Collaboration Anyway?’ in The Social Media Reader, Ed. Michael Mandiberg, NYU Press

Narrative is crucial to the story and is therefore organised in time and space, while being directed by causality. Specifically, Ivan Sen’s 2013 mystery-drama, Mystery Road explores its plot through causal and effect, through a chronological order, and temporal duration of weeks within a one hour fifty-eight minute frame.

The film introduces the audience to the murder of a young girl in a small town, and already a disequilibrium exists. In order to establish a stable equilibrium, the effect must be found; the motive, the murderer and possibly the method. Therefore, the audience are eager to uncover the events that occurred before the plot; before the young Indigenous girl was murdered. Ultimately, the film is from the perspective of Jay, the main character and investigator, thus the plot of finding the effect becomes the external conflict.

The internal conflict occurs within Jay’s life, in trying to rekindle his relationship with his daughter. This therefore becomes part of the story in order to motivate the character to continue his investigation. Again, the audience are aware of the causal; choosing his work-devoted life over his relationship with his wife. While this time, the audience are aware of the effect; damaging a close relationship with his daughter and his ex-partner becoming an alcoholic or exacerbating her addiction.

Overall, Mystery Road has an overall story duration that spans throughout a number of years, various locations, and several story events, an overall plot duration of a number of weeks, and a condensed screen duration of 118 minutes.

It’s that time of week again where Wednesday’s workshop begun with showcasing the interviews we’ve worked on for the past few weeks. In general, I was blown away by how everyone approached the brief in such creative and distinguished ways. Having sat with the people on my table for quite a few weeks now, I witnessed how their charisma and creativity shine through their subjects. Below I reflect and critique on their individual interviews:

Imogen

• It was one of the few interviews that introduced us with an establishing shot to provide context to the interview.
• Her mum’s answers reflect how the questions were well put together.
• Her mum was confident on camera and spoke eloquently. The dog was adorable too.
• Used the space and natural lighting well.
• Background music assisted in providing a consistent tone throughout the interview.
• The dialogue would sometimes drown out due to the open environment.
• A variety of shots could have been used to break the interview, such as a combination of dialogue and visual – b-rolls or overlay

Sarah

• Kris was confident and comfortable on camera.
• The setting of the interview in conjunction with the found footage really highlighted the controlling idea.
• Use of filters such as the black and white reflected his creative personality.
• I love the establishing shot of Kris against the white background with the title.
• Great use and mix of background music.
• The sound of the interviewee was a little difficult to understand due to being drowned out by the wind.
• The audio quality varied at some parts of the interview.

Reza

• Pacing was consistent throughout the entire interview.
• A great combination between the b-rolls and the face-to-face interview.
• The framing of Ali kick-boxing was well-thought and immerses the audiences into the intensity of the training session.
• The background music complimented the fast-pace of the interview.
• Really showed his personality through the interview and wasn’t completely serious.
• The image of him winning a match followed by a dissolve to black concluded the interview nicely.
• The volume of the audio did fluctuate from the start to the middle.
• Maybe a mix of different found footage?

Lydia

• Found footage integrates well with the interview.
• The framing of original footage was well thought out.
• I liked the use of two different locations for one-on-one interview.
• I liked the way you showed the title in front of a blurred image of your uncle. It highlights the controlling idea of the interview.
• Use of diegetic sound throughout the interview kept a consistent tone and pace.
• The detailed answers that her uncle provided reflected how well she constructed her questions.
• Rather than an establishing shot, the interaction between the interviewee and interviewer through sound established the interview in a unique way.
• Some the audio cuts were noticeable.

I’m really looking forward to be working in a team with such easy-going and cool people, Bradley and Emily. Before we’ve had the time to actually get to know each other; we’ve already started to feed ideas off each other and are driven towards making the most out of our video and audio essays.

Strengths

I’d consider my strengths to involve being adaptable and approachable whenever I’m confronted with new information or concepts. I’m genuinely interested with the topic of text and narrative that I can come up with a heap of ideas and resources due to just pure curiosity.

Weaknesses

I can sometimes get distracted easily and can’t focus on one thing for a long time, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that I don’t complete a task that I’ve started, it just means that’ll take a while for me to get there. When it comes to decision making, I am quite indecisive so I often seek feedback and criticism from others.

Opportunities

A media practitioner often works in a collaborative team so this will give me a sense of what it’s like working in the real world. It’ll be great to also combine creative minds and such different thoughts together that’ll definitely open my mind to different perspectives.

Threats  

Time management is still something I need to work on. But rest assured, I know that this project brief is one of my top priorities and I’ll be flexible in meeting up and ultimately helping each other out to achieve our (squad) goals (A).

“Five stars” – me

It’s rare to find an original film nowadays that just purely imaginative while providing a solid narrative. Winner of the BAFTA for Short Film 2014, Room 8 is one of five films that created their film on a single script as part of the Bombay Sapphire Imagination Series.

Initially, you would empathise with the prisoner despite having that inkling feeling of uncertainness towards him; from the way his positioned towards the wall and the harsh shadows that contour his face. On the other hand, our perspective is centred on the inmate that enters the cell, thus creating a shock factor when he is once again captured in a weird but freaking awesome way and the discovery of other matchboxes. The concept of the box itself is just genius that establishes a whole different dimension and climax in the short film.

“Casablanca helps us to understand what happens in those movies that are born in order to become cult objects” (Eco, Casablanca: Cult Movies and Intertextual Collage, p.11)

Indeed, Casablanca cemented our understanding of such established ideas and archetypes: associating Paris with love, America being the land of the free, the love triangle, and the list goes on! If this classic film was reproduced in Hollywood during this day and age, the audience wouldn’t appreciate the “outdated” values and morals the film encapsulates. Surely, these established concepts would still be weaved within such different views and values, but at the end of the day, it would be criticised as any “formulaic” romantic-drama (well, according to film buffs for sure). Essentially, films and television shows are produced for their audiences’ values no matter the time period or place the text is set within. Since Casablanca has shaped the way we interpret Hollywood cinema today, television shows such as Community have somewhat taken a playful approach to these concepts and stereotypes. This makes it one of the best and underrated comedies on television within these decades

I discuss here about post-modernism and continue to grasp on this subject a tad more here. The 2009 comedy series follow the “Study Group” consists of seven student attending Greendale Community College. This unusually functional group endure the ever-changing inter-personal relationships, a diversity of teachers and a dramatic Dean.

If we analyse a handful of episodes, each episode is a satire of clichéd narrative forms:

The 90s action film

The morning show

The heist

The stop motion animation

 The video game

The documentary

The western

And the list continues! Pop culture manoeuvres the show towards a playful and sceptical approach on culture. The meta-narrative of a family is the Study Group itself while they’re all based on contradiction: Jeff has a degree in law, but doesn’t practice it, Britta is a so-called activist but is inactive, Annie is a former drug addict and homeless, but is a straight A student, Abed is awkward but manages to be the character that’s the easiest to get along with, and no studying actually occurs within the Study Group.

Reference: Eco, Umberto. (1985). “Casablanca”: Cult Movies and Intertextual Collage.SubStance, 14(2), pp. 111

Robert McKee’s The Substance of Story expands on the inner psyche for developing and understanding the protagonist. This explains why “the audience identifies with deep character, with innate qualities revealed through choice under pressure” (Mckee, The Substance of Story, p. 142) no matter how “unsympathetic” the character may be. Mckee further elaborates on empathy; being the connection between the audience and the protagonist while sympathy is basically liking the protagonist. Yes, empathy creates that relationship with the audience but it doesn’t necessarily equate to asking the character to like them, per se.

SPOILER ALERT

Let me elaborate on the main protagonist of the television program Breaking Bad, Walter White. For those of you haven’t heard A SINGLE THING about this show, chemistry teacher Walter White resorts to making and dealing meth in order to financially support his family after being diagnosed with inoperable lung cancer. At the beginning, we sympathise the “underdog” persona that Walter possesses: a loving family and a secured job. It is until he is diagnosed with the disease, do we begin to empathise with his personal struggle of finding a way to secure his family’s future. Despite breaching the law, we still empathise with Walter because we know his intentions.

When he crosses over that moral threshold of killing Krazy-8, we still know that it was self-defence for both himself and his family. It is only when he progressively murders and manipulates others to kill, for the sake of his own authority, do we realise that he has essentially become his own self-destruction through his development as his alter-ego, Heisenberg. Furthermore, missing the birth of his daughter, continuing the business despite earning millions, and poisoning a child confirms his transformation as the anti-protagonist.

So would you say we still “liked” / empathised the guy? No, not particularly at all. Walter was infatuated with “a self-contradictory unconscious desire” (Mckee, The Substance of Story, p. 138) for self-fulfilment from the outset. His life consisted of a loving family and stable occupation but it was obvious that he wasn’t particularly satisfied with his life. Why did we continue to watch this show if we stopped empathising with Walter? He finally financially secured his family’s future, but didn’t find his own happiness, even though he did murder quite a few people and put his family’s life in constant jeopardy. For me, it was the progression in empathy that I had for Jesse. We were all sceptical of him at the beginning but then we witnessed his stark contrast in character from Walter’s as he matures, in aiming to escape from the drug world and realisation of his self-worth. If it weren’t for Jesse, there would’ve been a (slight) chance that I would’ve discontinued to watch the rest of the series. Breaking Bad would’ve been stuck in an endless loop with its sole focus on Walter’s gain and loss in the drug lord hierarchy, the life of an unlikeable / love-to-hate character, Heisenberg and continually pondering on what in the world happened to that underdog we were all rooting for.

Reference: McKee, Robert. (1997). ‘The substance of story.’ In Story: Style, Structure, Substance, and the Principles of Screenwriting. New York, USA: HarperCollins, pp. 138, 142

“How good are you at noticing?” Louise asks us in this week’s workshop. To determine this, we turned around for one minute to jot down the outfit Louise was wearing that particular morning.

What I remember

Boots
Colour palette: grey
A scarf
Jumper
Faded light blue jeans
Her hair tied up

What she was actually wearing

The ankle boots that she wore from last week
A long grey jumper
Light grey slim fit jeans
Earrings and bangles
Hair tied up in a bun like last week
A light-material scarf
Dominant colour palette: grey

It becomes apparent that I only noticed objects from a superficial level, as supposed to marking what she’s wearing when I turn around and visually notice her outfit. For example, I detail her wearing LIGHT grey jeans, not just simply wearing jeans. After marking, I progress to recording, in terms of recalling her boots as something she wore the previous week. Not only did I realise how noticing is superficial compared to marking and recording, but also the fact that my memory isn’t as bad as I thought it was.

Editor Tony Scott establishes a relationship between continuity and discontinuity editing in the 1998 Action film Enemy of State. Will Smith portrays a lawyer caught up within a politically motivated crime instigated by a corrupted politician and his NSA colleagues. At the core of this film however, is the breach of privacy that citizens of the United States face in the modern age of innovation and technology.

Expanding on this notion of a modern society, Scott employs continuity editing through the use of juxtaposing shots of close-ups and long-shots. In particular, Robert Clayton Dean’s (Will Smith’s character) conversations with his wife and child through a cross cutting of close-ups and long shots of their home to conjure a sense of normality in the domestic sphere.

On the contrary, Scott relies on tracking and pan movements, point of view and overtly blue colour grading in order to position the audience towards an unfamiliar and chaotic environment. The constant sharp cuts lures the audience into Thomas Brian Reynolds’ fast paced and chaotic environment. Furthermore, the exaggerated camera angles in conjunction with the NSA’s technology correlates to the underlying theme of privacy in the film. Extreme high angle shots, for instance through CTV footage instigates a negative connotation towards the constant progression of technology in society.

Scott relies on contrast and spatial manipulation in order to identify the environment the characters’ are in and the issues facing society at that time.

Recording “in some way, may be a product of our written-visual culture” (Mason, The discipline of noticing, p.33)

In this particular scene from Date Night Tina Fey and Steve Carrell’s characters’ notice that the restaurant is filled with couples, thus marking the individual circumstances that each couple are in. Further along, they communicate by recording the intimacy of each couple; their body language and lip reading to establish the current state that each couple are in.

As the audience, we notice that Fey and Carrell are currently on a date as couples also surround them and are a married couple due to their wedding rings. We mark that the fact they have been married for a fair amount of time from their banter and how comfortable they are around each other. As we record, we analyse the marriage that they’re in; a marriage that lacks the excitement they once had. In particular, the actual fact that they’re criticising and teasing the couples only reflects their insecurities and comparing their lack of spark to the development of others. The dialogue and lack of camera shots together further suggests their love for each other is still prominent but their marriage is in jeopardy from their own responsibilities in life; their career, their children etc.

From this short sequence we can distinguish what Mason explains to be the three levels of noticing in intensity and energy.

Reference: Extract from John Mason, 2002, Researching your own practice: The discipline of noticing (London: Routledge), pp. 33