Tag Archives: workshop

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!

Film Festival!

Last week we sat down for a ‘film festival’ screening of everyone’s interview shorts. This would have been terrifying enough for me, only we were divided into groups and allocated ‘thinking hats’ (green, red, yellow, black) in which we’d have to talk to the class about what we thought. I have a huge fear of public speaking, even in such a laid back setting. As a result, I got a little nervous and stumbled on my words a few times when directly addressed, but I’ll live.

My group went first.

We watched Luka’s film “Filthy Rat Bag” – the name alone was intriguing to me. I really liked the relevancy of this topic – social media and art are elements I really enjoyed. I liked the informality of it, too and just everything that the girl was talking about made me think which was good! I would have liked to have seen some more footage of the actual interviewee, personally.

Second was Alec’s “Head Trauma”, which was about a man who experienced memory loss. I really enjoyed the experimental art-house feel of this one, and the eerie quality of the music and footage accompanying his explanation of what it felt like to have head trauma. One thing to change might be not to have the audio still running while the credits roll.

Then Anna’s – “Olivia” – which was probably my favourite, though I really loved everyone else’s. I think the subject matter attracted me the most, because I have always been very passionate about LGBT+ issues and the concepts, especially about gender expression and perception of femineity and what makes someone a woman, were very interesting. If I had to say anything negative, it’d be that some shots seemed a little overused/repetitive.

Lastly in the group (before myself) was Jasmine’s “Healthy Clean Times” – which was really uplifting. I enjoyed the use of animated found footage – which hadn’t really been used by anyone else. The only downside to this was the unusual backdrop to the actual interview – old bookcase – which didn’t seem to fit the atmosphere of the whole project.

After our group a number of people showed theirs too – we got around to almost everyone and I was really delighted and interested in every film shown! Well done class!