Tag Archives: response

Film/TV 2: Analysis and Reflection #3

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Question 1:

http://vimeo.com/102615654

I found this exercise to be hugely interesting. Because we were unaware that we’d be piecing together the audio recordings and video recordings, we captured really raw and essentially meaningless, disconnected material. However, after a bit of weighing up, I was able to extract some form of very mild narrative from the material and cut it together in a way that didn’t seem completely irrelevant. I was initially a bit concerned over the relationship between the visuals, so decided to apply a black and white effect to the clips, adding a bit of uniformity between them, and helping to tie the whole exercise together.

All in all, the quality of the recordings was decent. If anything, I’d say the levels in the audio could’ve been monitored and adjusted more scrupulously, but the video footage was what we set out to achieve. By layering the audio and video together, there was an interesting relation that took hold and the initial discomfort I felt about the exercise disappeared. What I learnt from this exercise would be to monitor the audio levels more closely, to think more carefully about where the mic is pointed and perhaps to be adventurous with the filming of abstract material on the camera.

Question 2:

For this question, I chose to look at the wk 4 section of the ‘Rabiger, M. Directing the documentary’ reading.

  • I was drawn to the point about recognising dramatic units whilst filming documentary. Rabiger makes the argument that it is important to look for a ‘change in consciousness’ (or beat), in your participant, recognise it, then respond to the change and capture it on film. Rabiger states that this is where the skill in documentary filmmaking comes into its own and when truly great, dramatic tension is created.
  • The point on exposition of facts throughout the documentary raised by Rabiger was also compelling. I think the reason many of my previous films mightn’t have had the strongest narratives is because I didn’t consider the knowledge of the audience carefully enough. I had understood its’ importance, but never really paid much attention to the fact. The idea of using a list of all the facts that the audience will need to know in order to understand the film and bringing them out through the participants is something I’d definitely like to consider more carefully in the film project this semester.

Integrated Media 2: Response to ‘Us Now’ Documentary

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The ‘Us Now’ documentary is centered around the idea of collaboration and power of the people which is being empowered through increasing access to, and understanding of the internet. The film focuses on a number of different perspectives throughout, but is all based on the idea of people coming together to make change and help one another online.

More and more these days, people are taking to the internet and forming groups in order to achieve something which is in mutual interest to members of the group. ‘Us Now’ looks at the power of things like forums and mass-voting sites, as well as a communally managed football team in the UK. Whilst none of these relate directly to the events that we’re hosting for Integrated Media this semester, they represent what our prototypes have the potential to evolve into, post-event, and once the social media side of our project truly takes over. Although my groups’ idea, ‘The CBD Games’ isn’t going to change much in Melbourne in a political sense, it just goes to show that an idea with an online community behind it has the potential to grow rapidly and become something special.

As with real life movements, revolutions, protests and the like, online lobbies form out of mutual interest and often grow rapidly. This tendency of people coming together to achieve something is something that ‘Us Now’ recognises as having happened previously in history, and as finally making a resurgence now, in the digital age. With the aid of the internet, people are more connected than ever and it is easy to exploit this phenomenon to achieve positive change, as the interview subjects in ‘Us Now’ demonstrate. Subsequently, through the power of the internet, people are empowered to get involved, to participate, to help one another and to work towards something that is beneficial, both for them, personally and in a wider sense, communally, nationally or even globally.

Due to the power that the internet provides to regular citizens, people are becoming less reliant on their governmental institutions for change, taking matters into their own hands and using the power of mass-collaboration for good. ‘Us Now’ reflects on the diminishing role of such institutions and recognises that the internet is becoming a tool for society to achieve what they want, even if the government is opposed or unwilling to help. Through this empowerment and the growing tendency for online lobbies to materialise and make a difference in the real world, the role of the internet in society has completely shifted, becoming recognised as a tool for making things happen.

Although ‘Us Now’ definitely focuses on the idea of mass-collaboration, it is all made possible by peoples’ willingness to participate. This notion can be applied to the events that we’re holding for IM2 this semester. Sure, we can have a great idea, with a great plan and put in all the time we want, but it’s not going to go anywhere or be successful unless properly promoted through social media, recognised by a number of people and responded to on the day of the event, whilst also being followed up in the days after on social media.

 

IM2: Response to ‘Generation Like’

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This Four Corners documentary was really interesting. Reflecting on social media in a way that not many of us do, it presented a hugely informative and critical viewpoint from which social media can be understood.

In terms of the 3 major points we were given to respond to, ‘Generation Like’ was really helpful and it isn’t hard to see the connection between social media and the future ahead of us as prospective media graduates.

How does this documentary alter your understanding of the way you use social media?
My understanding of the use of social media has always been relatively sceptical, never having really accepted it as a true showing of a persons substance, but more as their own idea of their ‘perfect self’. ‘Generation Like’ reflected briefly on this stance during the sequences with the high school kids as they sought to out-perform one another in the quantity of likes they receive on their pictures. I see this as a form of worthless self-promotion with far too much importance perceived by our generation. Sure, it’s nice to get likes – but they mean nothing in comparison to receiving a compliment in real life from an actual human, not just their online persona through the internet.

The idea of likes as a ‘social currency’ was a term that really stood out to me and it’s quite clear that certain people do go out of their way to achieve higher numbers of likes and to feel accepted. Whilst the need and desire for attention and social validation has always existed, ‘Generation Like’ recognises a change in the stage through which these are achieved, whereby individuals promote themselves online and bask in the glory of their likes.

‘Generation Like’ also makes an interesting observation and likens the world of social media to an ‘arena of likes’. This metaphor perfectly sums up my understanding of social media, whereby those with the largest numbers of likes, followers, shares and retweets are winning… or so they think.

What connections can you make with the role of a Social Media Producer?
Where this documentary proved most informative to me was in bringing light to the role of the social media producer. Social networks, initially intended to be used by friends to keep in touch, have become one of the largest advertising platforms available for corporations today. Unparalleled audience numbers can be reached because of ‘sharing’ and ‘hash-tagging’, allowing companies to be hugely efficient with their marketing strategies and even now using their consumers as a form of marketing in their own right. Because audiences have now changed from relatively passive couch potatoes into active couch potatoes, with computers, companies are able to sit back and watch the numbers grow as their audiences like, share and spread advertising material without even realising it.

With the uprise of YouTube and some organisations catching on to the potential exposure of the network, product placement and corporate sponsorship has become a truly enormous venture. YouTube vloggers who attract large numbers of views can receive what might equal another persons’ salary through the commission of the advertisements that play before their videos, giving them the cash, equipment and clothes to wear in order to keep making videos and expanding the reach of said organisations, and it’s a frightening prospect that advertising like this actually works.

The importance of ‘transparency’ in the advertising that takes place online is another aspect covered by ‘Generation Like’, proposing that the effectiveness of such techniques is due to ads not feeling like ads (through carefully considered planning and ‘drip feeding’ strategies) resulting in audiences thoughtlessly spreading the ‘fire’ that is online hype.

What ideas does this documentary raise in regards to the event your group is planning and the task of achieving participatory engagement?
Lastly, there were a few parallels that could be drawn between what is raised by ‘Generation Like’ and the events that our IM2 groups are going to host this semester. The importance of hash-tagging and connecting content (even across different platforms) to reach the largest possible number of audience members cannot be overlooked, as exposure leads to attention. Similarly, the importance of promotion through one online presence supporting another (and both benefitting, as stated in the documentary) could be applied to our project.

Evidently, social media is a hugely powerful tool in the world of media, and its’ benefits are there for the taking, it’s just a matter of the right approach, the right strategy and the right connections.