Monthly Archives: March 2014

Notes and thoughts on this week’s lecture, Media 1

Reality television programs are not just a television program, they are a broad media sphere, driven toward appealing to the public sphere in order to create profit. 

Well in my opinion this isn’t just reality television, it’s most media productions. In this day and age, if you’re sticking to one form of media in order to produce some kind of work and this isn’t a strategic move, you’re doing it wrong. People engage with a huge range of different media forms per day, if you want to be noticed or create some sort of effect, you have to integrate different media forms in your one endeavour.

Accessibility of media production devices is creating an avalanche of rubbish work (in comparison to professional work). 

I completely agree with Adrian when he said that you can’t compare documentation media to story media. Anything that was created with intent and was planned is immediately going to be more creative  than mere personal documentation  or random videos of cats.

There’s also this idea that amateur work that might not be to the standard of professional work is becoming more and more prevalent and this is true, because of the democratisation of media form and media devices. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but it makes it more difficult for people like me who are trying to create work and get noticed, to achieve anything. In a way this is still a good thing because it means you have to push yourself to create really good work in order to be noticed.

Unprofessional is uninhibited.

This is a really good point. As soon as someone else’s expectations are placed on your work you begin to doubt it and change it and conform. This isn’t always a good thing. Say you win a government grant to create a short film. Your equipment quality and actors might improve but the things you can do will be limited. No longer can you criticise the government, or show certain themes.

 

 

Life is a Musical

I watched Life is a Musical, a project by Media 1 students made last year.

This was an impressive project. Aesthetically and aurally it was really beautiful. Who ever did the filming did an excellent job of composing the shots. They were really balanced and sometimes quite abstract, often not showing everything in the frame. They chose completely ordinary objects and settings for their projecScreen Shot 2014-03-23 at 12.12.26 PM Screen Shot 2014-03-23 at 12.17.11 PM Screen Shot 2014-03-23 at 12.33.35 PMt and the lack of a distinct action, plot or a clear subject really emphasised the beauty of the mundane objects/scenes they were displaying. In this they really captured the poetic nature of the assignment.

The sound was of course an important element of the piece, and it stood out, as neither the sound or visuals out shone the other. Many of the sounds were similar though and that was a shame, the sounds were similar but in different locations and thus the shots were different. I think there was a clear focus on industrialism and the tools that we use everyday in our everyday lives. The microwave, the train, the  escalators etc, but I’m not sure if it was intentional or it was my interpretation.

I really love that they have placed no negative or positive attitudes toward anything, they have merely explored it in a really ambiguous way as to allow the viewer to appreciate the beauty of its simplicity and the simple, ordinary objects, and take their own interpretation from the work.

The connections between the main shot and the links to other shots were possibly too random though, if these weren’t as seemingly random (it was as if little thought had gone into it) they might have formed something of a clearer narrative or an opinion that they wanted to get across. Although I just said that I enjoyed the ambiguity of it all, I do think a narrative or categorical approach even would have made the piece stronger or more engaging. I couldn’t make much of a connection between distinct sounds, it just seemed like they’d grouped different but similar clips together and linked them to each other randomly.

Aesthetically it was stunning though, and as an abstract film it worked well. It might have just been too abstract for me as I like there to be some sort of message or connection that I could take from it. All I got from it was that the ordinary is beautiful, I feel like that’s a really simplistic and obvious message. They could have made it more complex and deeper by contrasting nature’s sounds and industrial sounds etc. If this was what they were trying to do, it was too subtle and wasn’t balanced enough to be effective.

My thoughts on the Bordwell reading

Thoughts on the Bordwell reading, I was Well Bored. Ha ha, ha ha, ha ha. But no it was actually quite interesting and got me thinking about my own creative practises.

Of the different forms of film covered in the reading, experimental, abstract, associative, categorical documentary and rhetorical documentary, which will I concentrate on in my documentary? Abstract aesthetics, conceptual or visual connections, will I make an argument or will I simply categorize my film? And how do abstract film and associational film fit into the sphere of documentaries?

The Korsakow films I looked at were categorical and associational. The associations had to be made by the viewer, this was the interactive element of the documentary, but the selection of clips that each main clip lead to was carefully selected by the maker, so that the viewer would draw connections, and thus it is a categorical and associational documentary.

So documentary can involve more than one element. I really like the idea of making aesthetic and conceptual associations using a categorical documentary form. I think I would prefer to leave it up to the viewer to interpret meaning rather than make an explicit argument.

Reading 3 Notes Integrated Media 1

Causality, the relationship between cause and effect.

Narrative is spacial, temporal and causative. It moves between spaces, through time and has cause and effect.

Databases are not narrative, but can be formed into narrative.

The story constitutes of the lines and what’s between the lines.

The plot is only the lines. What is visibly and audibly presented to us. Including nondiegetic material.

Cause and effect take place in time.

Temporal order is easy to follow and commonplace.

Temporal duration refers to the time span that the film covers. It could be one night (Prom Night) or a lifetime (Benjamin Button).

Screen duration is the length of the film. This influences how much can be shown, how much cause and effect can occur etc.

Temporal frequency is the amount of times that we see something in a film. This can be used to show the double meaning of a scene that at the time seemed trivial.

Space does not always need to be shown, it can be imagined. Like the scene in Pulp Fiction where Christopher Walkin recounts the story of the watch to the dead soldier’s son.

Over time the ending is different to the beginning. If you look at only the beginning state of the world examined and the end state of the world examined you can see what differences arise. The narrative of the film tells us how these changes happened. This could be an interesting way to study narratives and it would be interesting to apply this to other mediums, not just film.

Patterns of development are similarities in cause and effect within narrative. For example change in knowledge, or goal plot.

Experiential film challenges conventional ideas what the movie can do and how it can do it. Perhaps to present difficult ideas or to explore the possibilities of the medium itself. This cinema may follow really unusual narrative paths.

Abstract form, experimental film-

This concentrates more on the aesthetics rather than the story. Uses music as a recurring and changing motif.

“In a film, these abstract qualities [of ordinary objects] become interesting for their own sake.”

Rhythm of editing is as important as the rhythm of individual shots.

It’s all in the editing, how the data is arranged. User interface, narrative combined.

Associational form, experimental film-

A poetic series of transitions. Drawing connections that might not be logical or obvious. Aesthetic connections or conceptual and emotional connections?

“First, the filmmaker typically groups images together in larger sets, each of which creates a distinct, unified part of the film. Each group of images can then contrast with other groups of images… Second, as in other types of form, the film uses repeated motifs to reinforce associational connections. Third, associational form strongly invites interpretation, the assigning of general meanings to the film…. The filmmaker will not necessarily give us obvious cues to the appropriate expressive qualities or con­ cepts. He or she may simply create a series of unusual and striking combinations and leave it up to us to tease out their relations.”

Principles of variation and repetition are present.

“…the power of an associational formal system: its ability to guide our emotions and to arouse our thinking simply by juxtaposing different images and sounds.”

Animation

Each frame is carefully constructed and shot individually. Kind of like the longer shots in an abstract or associational film.

Documentaries

“Many, perhaps most, documentaries are organized as narratives”

Alternative forms are categorical form and rhetorical form.

Categorical form organizes knowledge to make sense of the world. Sometimes scientific, most commonly and in daily life ideological associations.

Patterns of development are generally simple and this risks boring the spectator.

It can’t depend too much on repetition, the challenge is for the filmmaker to introduce variations and adjust expectations. Also can add aesthetic variation to add interest.

Rhetorical form the filmmaker presents a persuasive and explicit argument. It addresses the viewer directly and asks them to believe or to act. The subject of the film may not be scientific truth but a matter of opinion. The viewer might accept is as true because the filmmaker makes a strong case for it. The filmmaker may appeal to our emotions if fact isn’t enough. Often the film tries to get the viewer to change an act in their daily life.

Arguments from source are fact based claims from reliable sources. Subject centered arguments are based on subject.

Clown Train and Her

Clown Train utilizes sounds extremely well. In the beginning it sets the tone, as it overlays a blank, black screen and we hear the creaking and squealing of trains and engines running. It is extremely unsettling. There are also SFX that emphasize important or emotive moments, such as the quiet booms that happen when we first see the creepy clown. There is tentative silence beneath the dialogue at first, which really makes the tension between the clown and the boy, and also the film and the audience, palpable. The buzzing when the lights go out is creepy and gets on the viewers nerves, as it accompanies the frightening darkness. There is also creepy ‘music’ that plays in a crescendo in moments of building drama.

In, Her, the film creators use music, dialogue and silence incredibly well. In particular silence is used to create a feeling of loneliness. In both the beginning and toward the end of the film, there are a lot of shots of the subject alone, and these shots are silent. Sometimes these shots are accompanied by sad instrumental music in the minor key. During the middle of the film when Theodore is dating his OS, Samantha, there is laughter and dialogue and warm music. The film also really utilizes Scarlet Johansson’s voice incredibly well as it is warm, playful and immediately loveable. The movie really captures the way that solitude life is full of silence, therefore emulating the emptiness of a lonely life, whereas a loving relationship is full of joy, conversation, laughter and warmth.

Week 3 Class Notes

Reality:

Must have verisimilitude- it can be verified. It is of this world, and not a world (eg. fiction). In interactive documentary we make claims about reality. Between the user and the artefact, claims are made about reality.

The tools that we use have limitations. Take these limitations and ask ‘what can it do?’ The limitations set the groundwork for what cannot be done, and also help you to understand what it can do. Therefore we enhance our creativity.

Simplicity is best.

It is difficult to negate in film. In some media forms, like film and picture, it is easy to show what something is but not what it is not. In something like a documentary it is possible to negate what something is, thus creating a multi-dimensional point or points of view.