Tag Archives: blog

final participation contract – week 12

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what did you do well?

i surprised myself by actually sticking to my participation contract and doing all 5 criteria every week throughout the term. in this sense i did well by keeping organised and on top of my work. i didn’t have to go back and add stuff or change anything. and doing the blog posts for my contract every week really added to how much i got out of the subject each week. it made sure i paid attention in the lectures and that i did the readings. i also attended all but one of the classes and lectures throughout the semester (and i only missed one because i was interstate)

what have you learnt to do better?

i learnt how to better articulate my thoughts about the content through the blog posts (even if that sentence wasn’t great) and to use my blog posts to consolidate the knowledge and content delivered through the readings and lectures. this process has really helped me learn how to take in info from the course and to discuss the relations between the different things we were doing and learning which overall helped complete the work this semester. i tried wherever i could to not just summarise the readings or lectures but actually discuss the ideas that were presented. i’ve learnt how to organise my blog through categories and tags. this was one of my criteria and was really useful to learn over the semester.

what could you have learnt to do better?

perhaps further consolidating what i was taking in from the course with material from outside of the course would have increased my learning and over all experience of the course. i did fulfil my contract but i did not expand on it so i could do better in going outside of the provided course material to expand my understanding. and done some more experimenting with korsakow outside of class to understand it better

the problem with no conclusion – week 11

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been jumping around a number of people’s blogs this week and a post bec made really caught my eye. she had some really good things to say about this whole non-linear, no-conclusion thing we’ve been dealing with all semester. because yes, we do need to start embracing the new types of online and social media dominating our world today. but, like bec says, that doesn’t mean that we have to completely disregard everything we’ve had up until now. they’ve been trying to get rid of print and books for years. but they’re still here. people have been telling linear, narrative stories since the beginning of time. obviously they’re doing something right if they’re still around today, and are the most popular form of entertainment out there. so why should we completely disregard this all because of some little non-linear stuff that is really big for a very small number of people? es, maybe that’s where main stream society is heading. but narratives and conclusions will still always stay with us, so it’s important not to completely write them off.

like bec said, we use narratives to escape our lives. they provide answers and conclusions where sometimes our lives don’t. Adrian does always say that korsakow and non-linear mirrors the way we think and how we experience the world, by association. but isn’t that why we have stories, to escape the real world and experience something different? bec has raised some good questions. she’s not saying to completely disregard what we’ve been learning, but just suggesting that we also don’t completely disregard everything we all ready know and have in society as well.

what happens on vine – week 10

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been checking out some other people’s blog this week and came across Kevins very funny vine post called “what happens to an asian on vine”. not the most academic video but it is very enjoyable. however, the video does have some kind of relevance to the course, specifically the kuleshov effect that was discussed in last weeks reading and the lecture earlier in the week. the kuleshov effect describes the theory that individual clips have no meaning by themselves, but rather that meaning is drawn from the connections between clips. kevins vine is comprised of 4 separate clips that, if you were to only watch one by itself, would be confusing and mean nothing, but when placed together in this certain order, have a meaning. the video shows kuleshov in its basic format. putting clips that alone mean nothing but together create an experience that could not be had if the clips were separate. good stuff kev.

a picture paints a thousand words – week 9

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hitting up the other blogs this week. kevin always has some good stuff on there. this week he’s posted a photo in response to something that was discussed at the lecture, that “language rules the universe” (i believe he is quoting adrian). kevin rebuts this statement with the old saying “a picture is worth a thousand words”, claiming that the photograph transcends language. this is because no prior knowledge or information is required to understand an image, it can just be appreciated and experienced. language does require knowledge and not everyone can understand it.

however, i think kevin may have been a little confused coz i remember adrian talking about language not being the be all and end all because it is restrictive but how images existed way before language did, back with cave paintings on the walls. thats why client film worked. or why kids watch tv and read books before they can actually speak or read. because images are universal. language is limited.

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 😀

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

 

living plants – week 5

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so, in my usual troll of everyone else’s blogs for ideas, i came across bec’s video responses to this week’s constraints.

her video of light from the perspective of a plant is rally enjoyable video that succeeds in making me understand how this plant views light. it’s a simple, static shot of a tree in the sunlight but the many different elements that combine to make this video are what make it feel so alive.

first off, the screen is filled with plants, the leaves of the tree in focus, it’s branches. but also the leaves of a wall of vines in the background. the plants are the main characters in this video. however, they are not the focus. the focus is the light coming from the sun. the bright light shining onto out main plant is contrasted against the plant in the background who is in shadow and this makes the light seem so much brighter. the light also flickers and glows as the leaves move in the winder, making both the light from the sun and the plants themselves feel really alive and in sync together. however, the best element of the video, which ties the others together, is the music playing in the background. it completely lifts the video, giving the plant a personality and emotions and really shows how the plant feels about the light.

great video bec 😀

Spinning slowly – week 4

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i always like to check out the blogs of my fellow students. it’s useful to see if they’ve found any sites or videos out there that relate to the content that maybe i haven’t but also jus tot see what they’re up to. everyone interprets this course differently so seeing what others have thought about each weeks stuff can really broaden my knowledge and my take on the subjects covered that week. and it’s fun to see what kind of videos others have made in response to the constraints because everyone makes such drastically different videos, it helps me see how maybe i could make mine better.

one of my favourites this week was from the blog of Kylie who had some create video responses last week. although i did really enjoy the traffic one, i’d have to say that my favourite was the slow record video. not only did it combine one this week’s constraints, slow, with one of the first week’s, round, but there were just so many different elements in such a simple video.

i loved it. loved the simplicity of it. we’re just watching a record spin for 6 seconds but the Screen Shot 2014-03-30 at 1.15.50 PMentire 6 seconds we are kept interested. what i thought was great was the way the record itself actually blends into the rest of the frame, so really all you can see is the smaller circle in the middle which is the label of the record. and you are left watching that rotate slowly as the words move from right side up to upside down and back again, all the while you can kinda but not completely see the shine of the black record itself spinning.

however, my favourite part of the video was the double slow. not only are we watching a record spinning slowly on it’s turntable, but we are listening to the music as it plays. the music not only keeps the video interesting and draws us into the spooning record, but the tune itself is a slow tune. thus we are presented with a slowly moving record playing a slow tune. its like inception… slowception. i guess this is what happens when you read waaaaay to deeply into a 6 second video. but well done kylie. i loved it

would you like fries with that? – week 3

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one of my favourite of the sketches that we went through in class last week was tiana’s sketch about the french fries at her work. and no, it’s not because i have a never ending crave and lust for chips (ok, that may be part of it). but i think it was because, of all the videos we watched, this one had the strongest narrative. and that seems crazy to say about a 6 second video that was just following the constraint of “something square”. especially because fries aren’t square, they’re rectangle (but that’s not important right now). but it did! it started with a frier. it could have had anything inside. the shots changed to different angles and we were intrigued, what was being fried? and then finally, the climax and conclusion, it was chips, golden and glistening. and we felt satisfied (except maybe our stomachs). compare that with my video of something square which was just six seconds of filming a painting on the wall of my house. hard to imagine much of a story there. so it fascinated me that in 6 second tiana could create a narrative using a frier and some chips. and i feel this really paves the way for the videos and tasks for the rest of semester, showing how things like i-docs and korsakow films can create stories and narratives out of simple, abstract videos about seemingly random and unrelated objects. wooooo for connectivity!