Uncategorized

The practitioner in my chosen field I want to talk about is Ryan Murphy, and he is one of the most successful producers in this world. Ryan Murphy has produced a series fascinating tv series and almost all his works received a good reputation. There are many his works such as Glee, American Horror Story, American Crime Story, Feud and Pose has won the Emmy Award. His work not only focuses on the commercial value but also full of the humanistic concern, each of his works is showing ‘his distinct stamp and sensibility’ (The Guardian 2018, Para. 4).

As a producer, Ryan Murphy’s works involves many fringe themes such as gays, geeks and addicts, and the audience often resists him. But I think the most valuable thing he did is he never label his characters when showing and analysing them, and Murphy to explore the sociality behind them. Ryan Murphy is ‘like a wild guest at a dinner party, he’d lifted the table and slammed it back down, leaving the dishes broken or arranged in a new order’ (The New Yorker 2018, Para. 17).

It is undeniable that Ryan Murphy is good at showing the character’s embarrassment, confusion, and pain when they experience self-awareness through the storytelling. His understanding of his characters will be expressed uniquely. Many people said the reason why Ryan Murphy can be influential is the violence, blood and sex scene in his works, but the aesthetic level and the avant-garde awareness in his work is worth remembering and discussing more than the sensory stimulation. ‘ His legacy is not one standout show but, rather, the sheer force and variety and chutzpah of his creations, which are linked by a singular storytelling aesthetic: stylized extremity and rude humour, shock conjoined with sincerity, and serious themes wrapped in circus-bright packaging’ (The New Yorker 2018, Para. 20).

Therefore,  Ryan Murphy inspired me to focus on the creativity, but at the same time, also to ensure the completion of the essential work in a project as a producer. And more importantly, the industry requires a producer to keep trying and break the traditional rules. Just like Ryan Murphy said, ‘You just have to be bold, and I think you have not to be afraid of the word no’ (Daily Bruin 2017).

References:

Nevins, J 2018, ‘American success story: how Ryan Murphy became Netflix’s $300m man’, The Guardian, 16 February, Viewed 25 September 2018, <https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2018/feb/16/ryan-murphy-netflix>.

Nussbaum, E 2018, ‘How Ryan Murphy Became the Most Powerful Man in TV’, The New Yorker, 14 May, Viewed 25 September 2018, <https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/05/14/how-ryan-murphy-became-the-most-powerful-man-in-tv>.

Mazzucato, O 2017, ‘Q&A: ‘Glee’ creator Ryan Murphy discusses industry success’, Daily Bruin, 1 March, Viewed 25 September 2018, <https://dailybruin.com/2017/03/01/qa-glee-creator-ryan-murphy-discusses-industry-success/>.

Regard to the community of practice, and the general concept is ‘groups of people who share a concern or a passion for something they do and learn how to do it better as they interact regularly’ (Wenger-Trayner 2015).

So undoubtedly, the first and essential community for me is the classmates and like-minded people from RMIT. We have the similar background and may know each other for a long time. Therefore, we could cooperate smoothly and more accessible than the others. The RMIT academic community contains enormous possibilities and support. As a graduate of RMIT, I can get a lot of support and help from the university technically and mentally.

As an international student, it is evident that the Chinese community is an important part that involves various work fields. Chinese people will affect the industry increasingly as the primary group of immigrants in Australia. Furthermore, I could get more information and the cooperation without the language barrier, for example, the film project of Aullywood where is a filmmaking company I worked, got the investment form the Australian Chinese community AHCC.

Sometimes I got some actor jobs, and when I enter this industry, I knew that everyone who works in the industries that inform or entertain could get the support from MEAA. Of course above are some general communities, I will have a more particular community of practice according to the different career I developed.

Reference:

Wenger-Trayner 2015, ‘Introduction to communities of practice’,Wenger-Trayner, blog post, viewed 26 August 2018, <http://thesiswhisperer.com/2013/04/03/the-wormhole-incident/>.

The participatory art means the artwork that involves many participants. Claire Bishop (2012) briefly defines the general characteristics of participatory art is the artist is the collaborator and planner of the situation rather than the sole producer of an object, there will be some uninterrupted or long-term projects turn audiences from viewers into collaborators. Grant Kester (2004) does not focus on the ‘participation’. He divided it into ‘dialogical’ and ‘collaborative’ art.

Participatory art is an art form which emphasises audience involvement and interaction. The ‘Infinite Mirror Rooms’ created by Yayoi Kusama is a typical example which ‘using mirrors, she transformed the intense repetition of her earlier paintings and works on paper into a perceptual experience’ (). She turned the space that only existed in people’s imagination into reality through endless reflection. The audience had an unprecedented spiritual experience that evoked their most profound and vibrant memory. The artistic conception was completed in this kind of participatory experience.

With the development of the WEB 2.0, it is common to have the two-way communication online, and any interaction can be seen as generalized participation. The participation in the documentary can be defined as the interactive documentary that the audience change the modes of presentation and content by editing an existing movie or uploading a new one. It emphasises the ability of the audience to participate in the production process directly. For example, in the interactive documentary <18 Days in Egypt>, the viewer can upload videos they have taken with mobile phones or the other types of equipment to the website as a part of the whole project.

I believe there will be more new forms of participatory documentary, and the range of issues it can explore will be more extensive. The participatory documentary could use richer art resources to make the audience to participate the discussion easily and actively.

References:

Bishop, C 2012, Artificial hells: Participatory art and the politics of spectatorship, Verso Books.

Kester, Grant H 2004, Conversation Pieces : Community and Communication in Modern Art, Berkeley: University of California Press.

Yayoi Kusama, Infinity Mirror Room, viewed 19 April 2018  <https://hirshhorn.si.edu/kusama/infinity-rooms/>.

Last week, our group did the presentation about ‘Interactive and immersive narrative’, we focused on the relationship between the space and the immersive interactive narrative, and gave some example projects that exist in spaces beyond the internet or small screen.

Immersive narratives use situations, characters, atmosphere, plots, and rhythm designs to engage the audience in the story. As dining said ‘Immersive storytelling is a medium of expression that permits the participant to witness an enhanced sensation of “being there” in the narrative story. Immersive storytelling is not a new form of narrative expression. Rather immersive stories have existed throughout history, with their presence in theatrical production, literature, interactive web-based narratives, and within gaming'(Dining 2017).

There is an immersive theatre example called “sleep no more’ which is the most successful immersive theatre. It adapted from Shakespeare’s <Macbeth>. “It breaks the fourth wall, this wall is what traditionally separates the viewer from the audience both physically and verbally’ (Bucher 2017, p. 81). The audience put on the mask and follow the actors they are interested in, and they can choose the perspective and order of the story. They will forget the real world through props, music, and smells. Also, they will be a part of the theatre. The actors will interact with the audience. For example,  Lady Macbeth will ask the audience to wear the necklace for her.

With the development of the internet, people have explored many different spaces of ‘interaction’.

GPS, WIFI and the mobile equipment connected the video and the realistic place to create a mixed media space. For example, the project about the development of Los Angeles called <34 North 118 West>. The audience walks on the streets of LA holding the Mobile devices like tablet or GPS device,  and they can listen to the history and watch the Historical video of a building or a street when they are at a specific location. So this project  Combine the reality with the virtual to make the audience experience the past and now of the same place.

The interactive and immersive narrative provides us many possibilities  to break the limitation of time and space.

But at the same time, the tutor gave us some useful feedback to make us think about the relationship between the immersive narrative especially VR set and emotional connection. Does VR evoke empathy? There is a VR project example called <Notes on Blindness> which is let people experience the feeling of blind people in our presentation. But can people feel the exact feeling through VR? How long will the empathy last? This question is complex and discussable.

Furthermore, will the development of virtual reality and immersive technology bring the significant negative for human society? People always talk about the advance of the new technology, but the technology could influence the social connection in real life. Image when people are addicted to the virtual world and do not want to build the connection in reality. Also, the immersive space become more and more real, the negative effect on children maybe becomes increasingly clear, like the violent game will blur the boundary between reality and virtual and affect children’s mental state.

Reference list:

Bucher, J 2017, ‘Storytelling for Virtual Reality: Methods and Principles for Crafting Immersive Narratives’, Taylor & Francis.

Dining, A 2017, ‘A User Study of Story Presence in an Immersive Narrative Experience tested with Variant Levels of Immersion’, In SMPTE 2017 Annual Technical Conference and Exhibition, pp. 1-12.

ARTE Creative (2016, Apr 20). Notes on Blindness – Into Darkness [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z9yIofiLa24&feature=youtu.be

One of six typical traditional documentary type is the participatory mode, and the primary feature of this mode is  ‘the filmmakers does interact with his or her subjects rather than unobtrusively observe them’(Nichols, 2007 p.179). Such as the representative documentary <Chronicle of a summer>.

There is also a participatory type in the interactive documentary, although any interactive behaviour can be seen as a participatory method because of the development of the Internet. But the ‘participatory’ in an interactive documentary means the audience could change the content and structure of the project through their editing or their own videos. In the interactive documentary project <Global Lives>, the audience could not only upload the new videos to enrich the project topic, but also could change the project structure. This interactive documentary designed to ‘explore the diversity of human experience through the medium of video, and encourage discussion, reflection, and inquiry about the wide variety of cultures, ethnicities, languages, and religions on this planet’ (Global Lives Project 2010, Artist’s Statement). There is no ‘ending’ in a traditional perspective in the participatory interactive documentary. The project presents an evolutionary status. The interactive behaviour in the interactive documentary is physics, as Lister (2009) presented, the audience has the ability to directly change the video or the text they are involved in. The interactive is no longer people one-way control on the computers, the interactive reflected between the audience and the whole project. The audience changes the project through their interactive behaviour, at the same time, the project influenced their feeling and emotion.

The creator of an interactive narration is not the original filmmaker or the audience who provide the content, the interaction between the project and receiver is the true storyteller. On the other hand, the project changed its structure, and the other hand, it influenced the inner thinking of the audience. The most interesting point is, we used to think how the traditional documentary adapts and develop in the new media platform before, but the interactive documentary breaks the limitation of the tradition, it develops based on the new media platform and explore the boundary and possibility of the documentary constantly.

REFERENCE LIST:

Global Lives Project 2009, Artist’s Statement from 2010 Yerba Buena Center for the Arts Exhibit, Global Lives Project, viewed 11 March 2018, <http://globallives.org/about/overview/>.

Lister, M 2009, New media: A critical introduction. Taylor & Francis.

Nichols, B 2017, Introduction to documentary. Indiana University Press.