Final Reflection Natalie Aarons s3601713

1. In what ways do you hope your screenings/exhibited/screened work (whether individual or group produced) engaged its audience and communicated a key concern of the studio?  

I believe that our final piece that was screened at the final exhibition for class tied well into the key ideas of what the studio Sonic Materialities was about. The final piece which incorporated both sound and visual materials explored the notion of communication with sound, tone and gestures in terms of communication on a social level.  For example the piece screened engaged the audience with the idea of tone (which is sound) being crucial to how we communicate with people universally and thus has everything to do with the study of sound and the studio Sonic Materialities, the concept or concern of the studio was to explore sound through history and what sound is. Through our own research which we learnt through classes in the studio and out of class research we were as a group able to tie in the key concepts of the studio and create something both exploring sound but also going further than that and exploring what sound means universally within a social structure like language and communication.

1. Imagine you are going to keep working on that media piece (e.g. to screen it somewhere else like a festival, or develop it in to a different kind of work, and so on) – what would be the core things you would want to improve and extend and why? 

In terms of improvement for the final piece and making it something that could go on to more showcases, I would like to potentially spend more time in the production side of things.For example: getting the lighting perfect in every shot. I think some of our shots are a bit too exposed and sometimes the camera was not white balanced. The continuity with white balance was lacing throughout the piece.  Further making more informed choices for the composition of the camera angles. In regards to the types of camera angles we were using in filming I think composition sometimes wasn’t at the forefront of how we were filming I would like to focus on that more.

I think we could have also had more content as the video was short of ten minutes and that was our goal time. Lastly to make sure the sound was at the best possible quality and maybe even adding in some more foley sound.

1. Reflect on an aspect of two other students/group’s media work at the event in terms of specific insights they produced about a key idea addressed by the studio? 

The video about the bacon I really enjoyed, I thought the concept was both funny, light hearted and very thought provoking. It actually made me think about what sounds are actually coming from the source you are visually seeing and what are made up to make you think it is what you are visually seeing. Further, the presentation which was in the form of a podcast discussing feminism and the historiography of electronic music I also found very informative and well scripted. Coming from doing my concept report on the same subject I found that the podcast piece did intact consolidate my knowledge and open my eyes up to personal experience of those in my class who had put the podcast together.

1. How did being part of an audience at an event like this impact your experience of your own and other’s work? 

I think experiencing work in this environment does two things. One, I think sitting down in a professional environment and viewing your hard work gives you a sense of validation. It also gives a sense of praise for the tough work you have done all semester, it is recognition. It also sets you up for the potential to receive negative feedback. Negative feedback is really a positive and learning it through university is important. I mean to say that exhibitions liked this create a safe environment to receive feedback from peers. Secondly, it is very differ sitting down watching a movie alone in you room as pose ti sitting in an auditorium, it could be the same film but watching it in an environment with other people enhances the experiences and opens you up to watching the film through different eyes based on how those around you are reacting the film to: in this case I think the exhibition creates a space where you aren’t alone watching other peoples work the exhibition gives you that experience to bounce off other peoples thoughts and reactions throughout, you never know you might even think something you never thought would pop into your head if it wasn’t for the person next to you watching with you.

The Audience made me feel proud of my work because I saw a great reaction out of them. I was also able to compare my work to others in different ways. For example I gaged that our piece had a bit more humour than the others, however It lacked detail in terms of editing, and theoretical in terms of the information we presented in our video wasn’t as informative as the podcast for example. It made me aware of the things I liked about our work and the things I think we could have improved on.