Today my group and I met up at 10am at building 9 just to catch up and give each other feedback. We talk a lot on Facebook, but face-to-face is always a little better. Since handing over the Video Essay project editing to Mia for the second half of it, I’ve been focusing on compiling sources for her. She showed us how it was going and it’s nearly up to 3 minutes – a solid effort, but we’re cutting it pretty fine. I think we’re doing well considering the circumstances, all three of us have been sick on and off throughout this whole project and that delayed a lot of work. We’re pretty happy with the results of recording the Audio essay last week and Bronte’s done a really good job of editing down that 30-minute content into a bite size, consumable package. We had a little talk about the direction we want to take with the video essay, for example we had a look at some beauty pageant videos and make up industry statistics – all things that contribute to the mass production and consumption of beauty. I’ve now got the task of doing some screen recordings of myself interacting with different media to give to Mia for it. Once I’ve done that I guess all there’s left is to assist her with the editing on Thursday when we next meet up and write my reflection!
Monthly Archives: May 2016
Spot(ify) the Advertising
I’ve really started getting into listening to music on Spotify. I’ve been a casual music listener for years, but I usually just settled for YouTube to find songs and let Autoplay go. I have to admit though, I never really liked Autoplay (I hated it, who even decides that One Direction should be followed up by Meghan Trainor? And don’t even get me started on dodgy sped up lyric videos…) but I guess I was too lazy to find an alternative. But when I wanted to find a new album that just couldn’t be found anywhere remotely credible without paying $$$ I had no choice! I already had a Spotify account that I’d never really activated, so logging in wasn’t a problem. What I’ve noticed over the past month or so of daily use of this program is MEDIA. Surprise! I bet you were wondering where Uni was coming into this. After every few songs an ad plays and it’s honestly gotten so common to me now that I could probably recite the 3 audio advertisements that they play. One of the advertisements that plays is, and I don’t know if you remember, but the one that I was shown during a Media Research project a few weeks back. The one about voting from the Australian Electoral Commission? Yep! I was among the first to be shown that as an audience feedback thing where I got to give my opinion so that they could make their product ready for the public. So I’ve heard about Ballet Boxes a little too many times for the average teenager, I’d say.
(These are just a few of the advertisements on the program, including a promotional audio for Justin Timberlake)
I could deal with ads actually, I found it kind of nice to have a break between songs (well, no okay that’s a bit of a stretch, but I could tolerate the ads). Now though – I can’t stand them. Because they’re overplayed! I’ve heard the same three ads about 5 hundred times and I’m sick of it. Spotify does a lot of self promotion on it’s program, one of the ads constantly reminds me that if I just upgraded to Pro I wouldn’t even have to hear the ad telling me to upgrade to Pro. Still, I’m resilient (and broke) and will endure the ads if it means listening to hundreds of different favourite songs and artists for free. That’s a fair deal, I reckon.
Media Overload
I was thinking the other day about how much media I actually consume daily, and I thought I’d write a blog post about it. The concept struck me because while I was researching for PB4 I came across some interesting statistics. For example, Facebook has 14 million users in Australia alone – that’s over half the damn population! And Instagram as 5 thousand, which is crazy! I also found some statistics about women, young women like myself, and our interaction with social media. We tend to use websites like Instagram for longer than our male counterparts. Which is pretty easy for me to believe, considering the first thing I checked when I woke up this morning was my social media accounts. I literally just got distracted by my urge to check/update Tumblr and Facebook while mid writing this. How Meta.
But seriously – my generation uses social media a lot. And its kind of insane, actually. Statistics show we use the internet for up to 9 hours a day, but if I’m honest, I use it way more than that on the weekends when I’ve got no homework. On a free day I check my phone as soon as I wake up, get out of bed and go on my laptop and stay there most of the day – and night. And even when I do have Uni work, I’m constantly checking social media or researching for said work. It’s constantly in the background or forefront of my day to day life.
The last workshop was sadly cancelled, but at least that meant a sleep in. I woke up pretty late and to receive a message that Cinema Studies seminar was also cancelled – both a blessing and a curse. Blessing, because well, I was pretty tired and they were my last classes before going off to finish assignments at home. But a curse because with all the upcoming due dates a little nudge and some support from our teachers can’t really hurt.
But nonetheless, I was meeting up with Mia from my group for PB4 anyway – so after a late breakfast and a sluggish getting ready, I headed into the city. We met up in Building 9 so that I could transfer all the videos and files for the video essay onto her laptop, handing over the baton if you will. We basically decided two days ago that Mia will take over the second half of the video editing because it was just too much for me to do all on my own, and this way we’re distributing the work load a little more evenly. So I did that, showed her anything she might need to know, gave her some pointers etc. and went on my merry way!
Of course I won’t be a stranger while she’s editing, I plan to do some recording and sourcing of clips for her as she did for me and I’m here if she has any questions too.
PB4 – audio recording
So today me and my group caught up again to get some work done. This time was much more hands on and very productive. Instead of the past group meetings which was mostly brainstorming and assigning work for everyone before we’d go off and do our own bit, we did a collaborative work. We basically met up and I showed the girls what I’ve done so far for the video, which is just under 2 minutes in length so far. They seemed to really like it, which was a relief, because before hand I had no idea whether it was something everyone would agree with!
We then decided to start recording our Audio essay! Bronte had prepared a sort of introductory script for us to follow and we’d all written short paragraphs about our own perception of body image thanks to the media. We hired a mic and got a key to one of the editing suites downstairs, which was really cool because apart from orientation I hadn’t step foot down there.
The process was fairly simple. We each had a turn of reading out the introduction (there was a bit of swearing on my part due to my tripping over my own tongue) and then reading out our individual experiences. That process was a bit harder just because we were reading from something pre-planned but trying to do it as conversationally as possible so that it felt organic.
By the end of it we had over half on hour of audio recording material which Bronte now has and will edit down to make our essay!
That’s a Wrap!
Today was our 10th and final Lectorial! Oh how time flies! We didn’t have any readings this time around (which I’d be lying if I hadn’t celebrated the fact) and the class wasn’t really about learning anything about media like it usually is. Instead we actually did a bit of a recap of the semester and got an explanation of what to expect in the future. The very near future, in fact – semester 2!
Next semester’s workshops are going to be very different from what we’ve been doing so far. In fact, so different that we don’t even really have workshop anymore – we have studios. Basically each lecturer will run an individual studio focusing on a single question or topic rather than the general media like Media 1 did. Soon we’ll get a chance to see presentations from each studio to see what they have to offer and to help us decide which one we want to do. The whole process sounds a little daunting – there will be ballot boxes and preference order (it’s all a little like preparation for the first time I’ll ever vote, maybe a little less important for the country of Australia though…).
The studios will have the same assessment criteria and schedule as media 1, so it’s not the complete deep end we’re being thrown into – at least we’ve done a bit of paddling prior to this. All the same, I’m both curious and anxious to see what the future of this degree has to offer me!
Storyboard!
Unfortunately, myself and both Mia and Bronte have been sick the same times, and today we decided we’d be much more productive talking online than going into workshop and sneezing all over the place. I’ve mentioned this before, but Mia has gotten around to writing up a quick little story board for me to follow (cos let’s be honest, I was a little lost editing the video all on my own). So that was helpful.
Here’s just some examples of it, though it’s hard to read when it’s small like that.
Vlogging As An Artform
One of the things we talked about in the lectorial on Monday was the idea that media is aware that ‘every consumer is a potential creator’. This got me thinking, especially when it was exampled by the concept of ‘vlogs’ – whose very success is relied upon by it’s home video, amateur style of production. Which is interesting, in contrast to the nature of Hollywood and blockbuster films. Of course the revenue produced by vlogs are not on par to that of multimillion dollar budget movies, but the internet sensation that is ‘vlogging’ and Youtube over all is gaining popularity and momentum yearly.
Back in the day, vlogging was just a hobby – as was Youtube as a whole. I should probably explain for whoever has been living under a rock (or maybe just happen to be over the age of 45 and has no idea how to even use Youtube – looking at you mum) what Vlogging actually is. Video + Blogging = Vlogging. Or in other words, a video diary!
Unlike the old days, now people involved can actually get paid for making the unprofessional content. I was never big into Youtube, but I have to say that I really fell in love with the ‘vlog’ genre. I watch a lot of Tanya Burr – especially Christmas Daily Vlogs – in part because I love her as a person, and because I love being immersed in places and with people who I’ve never met. That’s the selling point for vlogging – you can experience a day in the life of someone who has a very different home, family, world even to you. I’m big on travel, so seeing travel vlogs are probably my favourite. I’m going to put one below as an example. I even have a few Vlogs up on my own channel from schoolies and just assorted excursions with friends over the past year. I find the experience of watching the videos and making them yourself just as enjoyable. But perhaps that’s just because I’m a media student and kind of supposed to enjoy filming and editing. I’m not sure. I’ll link one of my own underneath too!
Medium Theory!
According to Murphie and Potts, “Medium theory is a special type of media study that focuses on such characteristics of each medium and on how each medium (or each type of media) physically, socially, psychologically distinct from other media.” (2002). There are 3 metaphors for this – media as conduit (textual analysis), media as languages (affordances) and media as environments (medium analysis).
An interesting way of explaining it was also described as hot and cold media – hot being information fed right to your brain say via a book, and cold media being something like TV – background noise, people choose to tune in and out to it. I thought this explanation was interesting and fed into media communication theories a little – with ‘hot’ being like the Bullet theory (in which media has a direct and instant influence on audience’s opinions) and ‘cold’ like the Users and Gratification theory (in which media does not influence an individual, and people consume media for their own entertainment and needs).
How Are You Going?
So I didn’t go into Media workshop this morning – nor did the rest of my group. As luck would have it, we’re all suffering varying levels of sickness. I was very sick yesterday and needed to day to recuperate and catch up on work that I’ve been unable to do pretty much the past 2 weeks. Thanks Body for that! Not!
Anyway, I’ve pretty much been assigned to do the editing for the Video Essay. It’s pretty stressful and kind of hard without everyone there to approve of everything. But at the same time, the work would get done so slowly if we all had to edit together at once. My team has been really helpful – providing me with all the found footage that I need to actually compile together into a 5-minute piece. They’ve even given me a little draft storyboard to help me get along without them.
I guess the struggle for me is trying to get past the first hurdle – I’ve put together about 30 seconds worth, but everything else is just a bunch of edited down footage with no place to go. I’m trying though, I really am.
I’m hoping that after I make some blog posts and therefore have caught up a bit in Media and Cinema, I’ll get some editing done later. It’s not that I don’t like editing – in fact, what we’re doing is really interesting to me personally. But it’s hard on my own, when I’ve been really sick, too. We’re all working well as a team though, I think, considering all the things pitting against us lately. Oh and ! I’ve also finished the my part of the annotated bibliography, so there’s that. Stay tuned for more!