Monthly Archives: April 2014

beach day – week 8

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i like to try and keep up with what my fellow media makers are up to. this week i checked out ella’s blog which had a really awesome video that she made. this video was to follow the constraint “places that define you” and i think this really works. ella lives in st kilda so filming acland street couldn’t possibly have suited her more. acland street is a very big part of my life so i know how much a strong part it holds in the heart of anyone who lives in st kilda. and i feel ella’s clips really do capture the heart of st kilda, from the terrifying teeth and eyes of the luna park mouth to those goddamn seagulls on the beach to the cars and graffiti, this film is st kilda.

i’m not sure why but my fave clip was the one of the traffic lights. it’s one of the few that show movement but it also has light and an interesting shot composition, it worked that the lights weren’t smack bang in the centre of frame. it makes it different and that’s what makes st kilda so special. it’s different.

good stuff ella 😀

film/tv analysis reflection 4, question 7

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Please outline some points that you took away from the Lighting Lecture. Points that excite you, something that was completely new to you, perplexes you or even one you take issue with.

the one key point i took from the lighting lecture was 3 point lighting. its so interesting thinking how any scene in any film or show has been set up using three point lighting, that it’s all specifically done. even more then that, that every shot, even the shortest, two second shots, requires its own specific lighting set up. so that filming every single shot involves deconstructing and reconstructing all the lights to create the right look and feel. this is really important when making a film and is something i will need to take into consideration when we are filming our own film as lighting plays a big part in one of our scenes.

the other point about three point lighting that is interesting is it’s actually set up, with the key light, fill light and back light. each of these plays a really important role in setting up the characters, location and most importantly the mood. the different amounts of key and fill light can be used to create harsh lighting or soft lighting which all give different feels to the situation and the characters. all these things need to be considered when setting up even the simplest of shots.

one thing i did not like is that we did not get the chance to actually practice and experiment with the lights in class. yes we got to see them but i have never done anything with lighting before so it would have been really beneficial to have been able to try a 3 point lighting set up to create a scene and then try shifting it for a new angle or new shot to actually give us experience in setting up and using lighting before the day of shooting.

film/tv reflection test 4, question 8

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1HJXolkZK5k

List the things that you learnt from this experience – this could be things that went well or not so well

making the lenny was a really good and useful experience, especially to help prepare us for filming our major project in a few weeks.

the most important thing i found was the impact of being unprepared. we had nothing prepared prior and so a lot of time was wasted just trying to decide what to do. this will be especially helpful because now i know that going into our filming day we need to have absolutely everything prepared and mapped out so that we know exactly what to do. we lost so much time trying to work out where to film, what angles and shot sizes to use, who would play the character and how to do each shot when instead we could have just been filming. because of this issue, we did not have enough time to film a number of shots that we wanted to so we need to make sure that we are completely planned and prepared when we shoot our film so that we don’t lose any important shots.

the other thing i learnt was about making decisions. because i am directing our film, i was director of the lenny so this made going in unprepared even more difficult and stressful. standing there with 4 people looking to you and ask what to do is pretty stressful and made me a little anxious. but once we actually got started i realised that rather than worry about what i was doing or what the others would think, i just had to make decisions and go with them. i learnt that there is no point sitting, worrying and deliberating over something, but rather i just need to decide and agree with my choice and use that to move forward. i think this was the greatest thing i got out of the lenny excerise because it really trained me for directing my crew and how to trust myself.

lists and lectures – week 7 lecture

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almost break time and you can feel it in the classroom. everyone is ready for a week off. not there just yet though. still got this lecture notes to get through.

it’s all about lists this week as adrian discussed what the literary value was of lists compared to narrative. lists are quick ways of getting points across. they can reveal thought patterns more tellingly than a narrative. written stories have been thought over for ages, lists are the quick work of the immediate brain. but lists also move us away from the restrictions of narrative. they don’t conform and can allow the brain to go in many different directions which don’t necessarily have to relate to one another. perhaps lists don’t tell stories, but they are told by people can reveal just as much. they can provide a method for answering a problem, the true question is what to do with the content. a list has a far greater means of interpretation. lists allow for the creating of relations.

woo. go lists! i love writing lists. ok, maybe not so much

gone in a flash – week 7

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this weeks reading gave us some nice info about korsakow itself from someone who has worked with the created of the program (and adrian,who is even quoted in it).it brought up points that were discussed in the lecture about interactivity and narrative in regards to how much control the audience has over interpretation. for example, here’s this quote from the article: “the juxtaposition by itself of course does not result in montage, it is up to the filmmaker to construct a logic that determines which images appear together, when they appear and what kind of relationships they enter into with one another”. this discusses the actual style of korsakow itself as a non-linear interface that is not about what is the content but more about how the content is put together to create connections and relations.

one of the smaller points of the article that i found really interesting was the stuff about the difference between older programs such as korsakow compared to new stuff like a done, java and flash. adobe may become obsolete in the future and so any films uploaded online using flash or other adobe software may cease to exist, negating the whole idea of internet films and things being accessible. not even accessible on certain mobile devices such as iPads- backwards thinking. older films from 1900 may have longer lasting rate than more current films produced and distributed using software like adobe. can the older adobe files still be accessible once software is updated?

 

and the k-films roll in – week 7

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last week our k-films were due. i got mine in. it was a lot of stress and confusion and frustration but it’s done and out there, ready for the whole internet to enjoy. and i figured, while i was there, i would take a look at some of the other students’, you know, to see how horrible mine is in comparison. and some were really good!! i mean just so fluid and beautiful really. its crazy to think how much meaning and art can go into something which consists of seemingly randomly ordered 6 second videos about seemingly random things. but they really are great.

one of my personal favourites was becs, who’s video can be found here: http://www.themediastudents.net/im1/2014/rebecca.skilton/rebeccaskilton.html#/?snu=209.

all the elements of her k-film really seem to just work well together. it really feels like she knew right from the beginning where she wanted her films to go and what they were going to look like (which is completely the opposite of mine). they all just seem to flow so eel and are similar in their style and content. one of my favourite elements of the film is that the thumbnails or in black and white while the videos themselves are colour. not only does it give the overall interface a really nice feel but it also shows the effect of colour in the videos once they are selected and played. there is just such a strong difference between the black and white still and the colour videos.

one of my favourite videos in the sequence it the keyboard/typing clip. i love the different angles and the contrast between the empty page and keyboard to the clips of the person typing. and the the end frame having the word “end” just feels very powerful, especially in consideration of the text underneath which says “i am not communicating but i am connected”. it makes for a powerful video that have a lot more meaning than my simple videos of apples. the text itself running throughout the entire film is very powerful in relation to the videos with which they are assigned. they seem to contradict the videos while simultaneously complementing them.

all in all, a beautiful, well rounded and interesting k-film

 

active audiences – week 6

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a big part of last week’s lecture was the discussion of narrative in k-films and the ability to control interpretations.

 

Can narrative be anything other than cause-effect stories?

– cause – effect are conventional narrative. k-films allow us to step outside conventional to redefine narrative. we can’t just restrict narrative to one meaning

– when making a narrative, someone has put any given something in particular order to give a particular meaning. we organise our k-film in a particular order to give a particular meaning. even if this meaning can be interpreted and experienced differently. there are still causal relations between events.

– just because we have these storytelling techniques doesn’t mean everything is a story

 

how can filmmakers control interpretation?

– can they even control interpretation? it depends on what. some things are easier to control than others. but in anything that is made there will always be elements that cannot be control. there are different amounts f control that you can have and there will always be multiple interpretations.

– people are always coming up with new ways to interpret and analyse media and content

– everything is defined by it’s relations to other things and words. nothing can just sit by itself. it needs to be interpreted to exist. for example, in a dictionary, words can only be described by using other words. they do not just exist. they have been interpreted.

 

my favourite quote from the lecture (and i’m sorry, i don’t remember who said it) was that “it’s how you tell it that matters. not the story itself”. i think this is important because the story can be taken and changed and understood differently by any audience but they will still take in how the story is communicated. this is like with korsakow, it matters how the story is communicated because everyone will make their own story from this method of communication.

can movies be essays? – week 6

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this weeks reading was a hefty one and i have to be honest, i didn’t get through all of it. a lot of skimming was done. but it was just so long. i was finding it impossible to focus and figured off i was better off reading parts and taking them in than reading the whole thing but absorbing nothing. not that it wasn’t interesting. because the concept of film essays is a new and interesting one. it was just a very long, very wordy article that had a lot of foreign examples that meant nothing to me because i don’t watch those kind’s of films.

Laura Rascaroli tells us all about the concept of the “film essay”. a concept which i am assuming is related in some degree to Korsakow. otherwise, why would we be reading it. it’s about making and seeing films in a new and different way. not just pure narrative anymore, film essays are more biographical. the director and scriptwriter merge together. most importantly, it’s the voice of the filmmaker which comes across through the essay. like korsakow, it’s not so much about what is being said but about how ideas are being represented or delivered and what the audience can gain from that. a literary essay is a means for someone to try and communicate their ideas and opinions to an audience and thus a film essay is the same. it sits between fiction and non fiction cinema, blurring the boundaries between the two as it can be either, both or neither. from the article, “an essay is neither fiction nor fact, but a personal investigation involving both the passion and intellect of the author”, the film essay is an exploration of ideas, led by the filmmaker. 

this is what korsakow is. it’s what we’ve been discussing. that’s it’s not about the content but rather how the content is delivered and how it can be interpreted. and this is how we have to look at our k-films. right now i’m still unsure about putting the whole thing together. but i just have to think about how i want to express myself and the clips that i have taken. importantly, it’s the relationships between the clips, not the clips themselves.

if the literary essay is a device for saying almost everything about almost everything, then the film essay can do exactly the same, only even more because it can show it too. this is where the benefit of cinema comes in. it is visual and audial (is that a word?) the viewers can see, watch, read and listen to the essay and the different elements combine to produce a far more cohesive and enriched work.

like korsakow, the essay shows the process of thinking, how the filmmaker goes about getting to the point they are trying to communicate. it is a reflective form, practically auto-biographical. the k-films show the inner workings of the filmmaker’s mind as they put the film itself together.

i only have two question coming out of this reading.

1. if our k-film is a film essay, why do we need a written essay to accompany it?

2. the article mentioned someone named Georg Lukács. are we sure this isn’t George Lucas trying to get his hands on another type of cinema?

 

a tiny respite – week 6

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there were no constraint tasks this week. i suspect this is because we were all doing our very important k-films. this means i cannot complete one of my contract clauses which said to discuss how i went about achieving the set task for the week. instead, imma talk about how i actually found making the k-film because i guess that was really the set task. and it links all the others together.

what i found the most interesting about making my k-film was that when i was made to put all these mostly random videos together to form one cohesive entity, i began to find patterns and similarities between these videos, even when i had not intended any of them. how does a clip of a tree branch relate to the sun setting relate to a photo mobile spinning in my room? on first glance, there are no connections. but as humans and as story makers and readers, we find meaning in everything we receive. this stems back to the active audience theory that we are all the creators of our own interpretations regardless of what the intended meaning was. i had not intended any meaning in my videos apart from fulfilling the given brief. yet one put together they formed connections. they required keywords, ins and outs, and these needed to make sense. because connections and relations are how we make sense of the world that we live in. nothing is separate, everything is connected. so when i was making my k-film i surprised myself by how much these videos actually connected to each other.

the more you know eh?