Okay, so I’ve never actually seen Paranormal Activity (because it looks really f**king scary), but I figured the title sort of fit. Maybe it doesn’t? I don’t know.

So last Thursday was my first day back at Uni after Easter Break. I expected the Workshop to go slow (it is 3 hours after all), but this week was a little different. Firstly, we watched all our second projects and of course mine went first. It was okay though, because then I wasn’t anxious while watching literally everyone else’s. I guess what I noticed was how different everyone’s was despite having the same restrictions and even sometimes, the same themes and shots. I thought that was a really positive sign, because we all clearly had very different visions which is always good in the Media industry.

Then we were given a workshop activity (the blog post title making anymore sense yet?) which was to split off into partners and record ambiance sounds and interview each other. Me and my friend messed around with that at first, answering the set questions sarcastically, but eventually we did the task. It’s surprisingly hard to ask and answer a question without stumbling over your words, let me tell you.

I guess next workshop will be dedicated to trying to edit and use that audio we recorded and make something new.

One of the things we touched on in the lectorial yesterday was a listening exercise that had me very confused, though I guess that was the point. We listened to a piece John Cage style – in other words, it wasn’t a piece at all. Until yesterday I didn’t know anything about this man, but now I know he’s an avant grade performer who would sit in front of an audience for a solid 5 minutes and not do a thing. The intention I guess was to make people feel uncomfortable and confused – like Rebecca demonstrated with us on Monday – but more importantly, to try and get the audience to really be alert to the sounds around them.

So after that, it got me thinking about what sounds I hear and what sounds I listen to. As someone whose perpetually wearing headphones, whether I’m listening to music or not (like right now…) I tend to miss a lot of the little sounds around me. This isn’t from a lack of appreciation (although maybe that plays a part to an extent), but I have always been very tuned in to noise and sound and easily distracted as a result. I remember shutting doors and telling my mum to turn off the radio at the other end of the house because I was being distracted while trying to read my book in silence.

Without getting too deep here, I want to mention that as a toddler I almost lost my hearing. I had to have surgery to prevent from going deaf (hence the sensitive ears) and additionally, I’ve grown up with a grandmother who was completely deaf. So really, sound has always been pretty prevalent for me. For as long as I remember I’ve been sensitive to sound – just last week I went to see the Force Awakens and I had to stuff tissue in my ears because it was too loud!

I think what John Cage was trying to do with his piece ‘4, 33” was incredibly obscure and clever. It made me listen to the little things around me for the rest of the day. I considered how I could tune in and out of conversations a meter, two meters away from me and really tested the lengths to which I could hear things most people overlook.

I’m incredibly late to the party, considering this was meant to be done several days ago but… Anyway. We were meant to make a Haiku inspired short clip using footage collected by fellow students to try and experiment with Premiere Pro. Considering I know a lot of the basics, I decided to play around with some weird and cool affects. This was the result.

Haiku exercise from Lucy Wadelton on Vimeo.

The workshop this week for Media was a little slower, due to the fact that the internet was down for the first half hour. There was even some projector issues which made us all feel like the world was conspiring against us. Eventually though, the technology ended our little civil war and we could dive right back into work.

We were put into groups so that we could discuss the extent of our Premiere Pro abilities and even start working on the Haiku exercise (which we were told to do to help familiarise ourselves with Premiere Pro). The exercise is basically just making a very short clip based off a specific Haiku poem of our choice. Personally, I’ve been using the latest version of Premiere Pro for a year now. I used it for my SAT in Year 12 Media and then again to make short films with my friends over the Summer. But all the same, it’s an exercise that I have to do. With my day off (though I’ve got lots to do), I’m gonna try and finish that.

Eventually Seth came around to each group and we explained where were at. At this point I had been focusing so much on project 2 that I hadn’t really started the Haiku – while others had completely finished the Haiku and done nothing for project 2 so it was a real mixed bag.

To inspire discussion, we even watched a few of the Project 2’s from last year, specifically Bliss David’s. It was very interesting and definitely outside the box, and I kept it in mind as I brainstormed my own piece. Seth gave us a few pointers too, like try not to rely too heavily on a musical audio track for the short and don’t ramble in your analysis’s. I’ll be taking all of this on board for sure – PB2 here I come!

Since we’ve got Monday off (woohoo!) we’ve been given some readings for Media 1. If I’m honest, some of the readings were a little hard to follow. But what I did get from it, was the conflicting interaction between surveillance media and creative media. This brought me back to Year 12 Media, a whole topic was devoted to Media regulation versus Media influence. A lot of the things we learnt there was about how necessary it was to provide strict laws on Media (things like ratings and banning inappropriate material), but that it could sometimes suppress creative expression.

So we were given the task of getting into groups and exploring a certain area in the city for Media 1 which was a fun little exercise. My group (fondly named ‘number 4’) was allocated Bourke Street. I guess it’s interesting thinking about what kind of Media is around us daily. As soon as we were in the street we noticed all kinds of media expression – from street art to advertising billboards. We took photos and videos for this: for example, I filmed a busker and took photos of shop fronts and so forth. At the corner of the street there was even political media expression, protestors demanding justice for Aboriginal Australians. It was an eye opener to realise how much Media we really mindlessly consume. And how it all ties back into pre-modern and modern society – all of this advertisement and promotion has never been more prominent.

Right now I’m my second Lectorial for Media 1 ever, and we’re taking a ‘break’ to give a shot at making another blog post before we start up the next task. We just had a guest speaker, an RMIT Alumni, Jeremy Bowtell. He talked to us for about 10 minutes about editing, shedding some light onto a bit of the history. He started off by explaining that editing overall, is about ‘holes, spaces between and gaps’ as well as juxtapositions. Jeremy gave us some historical examples – such as Eisenstein who created the very earliest example of what we know as a montage and someone who suggested that film must be a ‘tendentious (argumentative) selection and juxtaposition’ which should influence the audience in the desired direction. Other examples Jeremy presented were people like Edward Dmytrk, who believed you should never cut unless you’re doing it for a specific reason – and Walker Murch, who focuses more on emotion, story and rhythm. The presentation also showed 2 different clips – I have to say I was more interested in the Scorcese scene than the early black and white. I’ve never seen “Casino”, but now I’m a little intrigued.