Final Reflection

The last twelve weeks have gone by in the blink of an eye. The first semester of university can be summed up in a few descriptive words: daunting, exciting, self-guided and educational. Daunting because it felt as if I was being thrown into the deep end, shoved into the dark, pushed off the edge without a harness and whatever other metaphor you can think of that just screams of the unknown. Orientation and the first week of actual timetabled classes would be enough to scare anyone, let alone little socially anxious me, who pretty much didn’t sleep the entire week leading up to it. But somehow I made my way to that first orientation with my friend and met people who have now become some of my closest friends.

That first week was so surreal actually, even after orientation made me feel slightly more settled. I definitely relied heavily on my phone to check where my classes were and I didn’t even get lost once! It was very self-guided and I felt like I was so far from the days of High School just by the way things were run at Uni. There was no one but myself to encourage me to complete work on time, which is very hard might I add. I definitely liked the timetable – 3 days a week of class and one was just watching a movie. It sounds like a dream, doesn’t it?

The 12 weeks were educational for more than the obvious reasons – I actually felt I learnt just as much if not more outside the classroom than in it. I learnt the entire city loop train timetable, for one, and the locations of RMIT buildings (though day 1 it felt like a maze). I learnt about my own independence and even gained a bit more confidence in the class room. I think friends help with that too, a lot actually, but compared to day 1, entering class and seeing new people was not so terrifying.

I did feel lost quite a lot of the time – metaphorically that is, because I definitely had the building floor plans down pat OBVIOUSLY (but actually, I wasn’t too bad with getting to classes…).

In terms of the Workshop and projects, I did feel like we weren’t being given enough direction in the very early weeks and that I was just going in blind, hoping for the best. But I guess Project Brief 3 was the turning point for that, personally, as I went from a credit level mark the project before to a high distinction. Probably had something to do with the subject matter (an interview with my own father) which made the process a little easier, but I also think it was just because I was finally getting my footing within the course. I’d never done documentary style, nor had I attempted using found footage and incorporating it the way I did so it was something completely new and exciting to experiment with.

Every project was a learning experience and I’d like to think I improved as the weeks went by. I figured out how to use equipment like the lapel mic, zoom and rode mic – which included hiring some from the media department which was a big responsibility on it’s own. Sound in general was a big improvement to say, this time last year working on year 12 media projects. My weakest point has always been audio, so learning how to use Audition and recording devices for a project whose audio component was the focus, was a big deal!

I think I found the Lectorials the most interesting and educational. It always gave me a lot to think about and plenty of material for blog posts. I liked the relevancy of copyrighting laws, social media and other media practices we were taught over the 12 weeks. I always went away with new knowledge and a curiosity to research things discussed in the class.

Workshops were better for my professional conduct with potential co-workers. Peer evaluation and discussion initially seemed stressful and painful – I didn’t like the idea of being critiqued in front of the entire class. But I think in the long run it was very helpful, and I actually really enjoyed telling other students what I felt (mostly the positive stuff though, I’m not a sadist) about their work and how they did. Workshop also enabled me to learn to work productively and cooperatively with people I barely know – in PB4 – and become much more acquainted by the end of the project!

Overall, the first semester of this course was very eye-opening to a world beyond high school. I learnt about professional conduct, media laws and regulation and about my own creative style which I hope to mould more in the future.

Below is a graph I whipped up on photoshop to very vaguely demonstrate my ups and downs through this course.

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Dear Future Self…

I was looking over some old notes from Media 1 and I found my ‘dear future self’ list of 10 things I want to be able to accomplish on completion of my degree. I thought that since Media 1 is over, I might re-evaluate and see if any of my aspirations have changed or are being worked on.

Here’s the original list:

‘Dear Future Self…’ (10 things you want to be able to do by the completion of your degree)

  • Better understanding of Adobe Premiere Pro
  • Ability to analyse media texts at a high level
  • Be able to use technical equipment
  • Understanding the Australian media industry in more depth
  • Be able to use after effects and other creative cloud programs easily
  • Improve my abilities and style as a film maker/creator
  • Expand my connections in the media industry and within RMIT as a whole
  • A range of experiences in the film and television industry including work experience and exchange overseas
  • Make films and media content
  • Improve interviewing skills and professional conduct

I can definitely say i’ve been making media content and I’ve definitely started using new equipment that I had never even seen before. For example, the lapel mic. I think I’m still on a similar level for Premiere Pro, but I definitely discovered some new features by experimenting through Uni exercises. If this is some of the stuff on my list already beginning to take shape by the end of Media 1 I’m very excited to see how things go by Media 6!

PB4 Update!

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!

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)

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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.

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!

Instagram Update: Yay or Nay?

It was right after Thursday’s workshop when myself and some friends were having lunch and realised Instagram had updated their app – in a big way. We got to comparing the old interface and app icon with the new one (which looks like this by the way):

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The whole thing really struck me as good thing to post about, because like me and my friends from Workshop, the whole internet seemed to combust at the update. We definitely didn’t like the update – mostly the icon is what threw me. Instagram has never updated their application icon before – not in the 5 years since the app first launched. So as you can imagine, this was a deal breaker for many that the theme layout update just doesn’t compare to. With the internet being the way it is it became a kind of meme on several platforms. It reminded me a lot of the interaction of Audiences with a media product, especially social media, which we’ve discussed in Lectorials before. The controversy surrounding this has even gone to the extent of there being ‘hacks’ to get the old interface back!

This article at Forbes was quick to address that Instagram is simply trying to get with the times – and that the old icon has looked out of place with the regular IPhone updates for a long time now.

Media Characteristics

In the lectorial yesterday we got to talking about different media platforms – or institutions – like Facebook, ABC and things like community media. So what characterises these mediums into institutional? Facebook’s main values are to connect people. It’s personalised and focuses on communication with friends and family, sharing, community and the entire thing is very inclusive. Someone even pointed out the fact that even it’s emails use inclusive and informal language with sentences like ‘we’ve missed you’.

ABC on the other hand, is much more formal. They’re neutral politically and culturally – and although they’re funded by the government they tend not to favour one political side over the other.

I don’t know much about community media – but from what I know it talks mostly about non-for-profit radio and magazines. It’s less hierarchal than normal radio and doesn’t have an agenda. It tends to capture a wider range of voices and is less driven by commercial interests. It’s also somewhat of a training ground for newcomers.

Amber and I decided to do a little work before lunch today in Melbourne Central, of all places, but it’s early so there’s not many people around. I got to thinking about ‘noticing Media’ which I’ve been doing a lot whenever I’m in the city. I keep seeing that hand-painted billboard spot that now has a Star Wars DVD advertisement but had Batman Versus Superman just shy of 2 weeks ago. I think it’s interesting to note how much effort is put into advertisement and media in city ‘hot spots’ – that is to say, where I sit right now overlooks a far less busy street and there’s no where near as much posters or ads in the street than say, Swanson. I can see one radio billboard at the side of the tram stop but that’s about it. Compared to Swanson – which is complete with video advertising on giant plasma screens – this is nothing. It made me think about ads on TV in ‘prime time’ viewing and certain websites who get paid more to advertise things in the sidebars because it’ll attract more people.

Collectivist

I made some notes about Media institutions from the lecture. They are ‘enduring’, have regulated and structured activities, develop working practices, the employees and people associated are expected to share values and the public is aware of the status. The word Brian used to describe these ‘shared values’ was that media institutions are collectivists – that is to say, each individual must reflect the values of the group as a whole. When I was thinking of examples of this, I got to remembering a few times in which people have publically been racist or homophobic and ‘doxed’ to the point of being fired from their job.

This happened quite frequently as a result of the Black Lives Matter movement – from at least what I’d been seeing on social media and news outlets (though news tended to favour white perspectives). I saw a few incredibly racist people being tracked down via the web for comments on their Twitters and Facebook’s that resulted in companies cut affiliations with them as they do not reflect the values of the firm. I think that’s a perfect example of ‘collectivist’ media institutions – or at least, the good side. The other example I can think of is when singers or bands cancel shows/performances in regions as a result of the place’s not LGBT+ friendly laws or regulations as a sort of protest.