Month: April 2015

Dee’s Project Brief #3

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Dee chose to represent her (super talented) older sister, Durratun Nashihin. I really appreciated the storytelling element through VoiceOver narrating over family kept photos.

I enjoyed that as the viewer I could literally see her transition from a young girl passionate about her sport and eventually achieving great success as the 2006 Olympics.

Some feedback: I would have liked to have seen some video added to your piece 🙂 gymnastics is a beautiful sport ! I thought the piano backing track worked really well. It was simple and did not distract too much from your sister’s narration, speaking of which I felt this convention was most effective in communicating her interesting story 🙂

 

Well done Dee !

Audio Recording with “Zoom Handy Recorder”

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Logging recorded sounds.
Log of recorded sounds.

During our Media 1 class this week we worked with “Zoom Handy Recorder H2n” to record various audio around campus.

A problem our group initially encountered was thinking we weren’t recording as we couldn’t find our clips in the playback setting. This was eventually resolved as we listened to each playback track and realised the previous user had not erased their work. However, overall most troubleshooting was avoided as we read through the “Dummy’s Guide” earlier.

The most successful recordings were of conversation recorded inside in a relatively quiet area. The clarity was of good quality however many areas around Buliding 9 are subject to echo and granted it’s a busy space there is always some type of background noise happening.

Mic technique can be manipulated by adjusting the setting to 2 channels. If I were to use this particular recording device again I would trial this feature when recording outdoors as not to make the recording area too narrow.

Setting the level was not too hard to change, initially we decided level 7 would work best as it wouldn’t be too harshly received. In hindsight, we may have needed to bring up (or down) the level when manourveieng from indoor to outdoor locations and they are two differing environments with differing  levels of extra noises.

Most of the recordings had a “clean” sound, if this were for a production more attention would be paid to factors such as people talking in between takes. Often the shot was of reasonable to good quality but the microphone may not have always placed in a position that was best for what we were trying to capture.

 

 

 

 

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Collaboration readings

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A reflection based on the prescribed readings for week 5 🙂
1. Keith Sawyer, 2007, Group Genius: The creative power of collaboration, New York: Basic Books, 2007, pp.39-57.
2. Jean Tabaka, 2006, ‘What are collaborative teams?’ Collaboration explained: Facilitation skills for software project leaders, Upper Saddle River, NJ : Addison-Wesley, pp.23-43.
3.Adam Hyde, Mike Linksvayer et al, 2012, ‘What is Collaboration Anyway?’ in The Social Media Reader, Ed. Michael Mandiberg, NYU Press

Communication is a device that allows for collaboration to be possible.
Importantly, the distinction is made between “sharing” and “collaboration”. Whilst as media practioners we may use platforms such as blogs to upload our content it does not instantly allow for others to contribute to the original work. So although we put work up there for everyone to see it remains idle unless others are able to do something else with it. The function of an “attribution” is a process whereby a media maker (like ourselves) is allowed to appropriate work under creative commons licenses by correctly attributing, that is giving credit to the orgignal author where it is necessary.

The term “collaboration” can be interpreted several different ways and sometimes that can cause conflict over who owns or has contributed to a piece of work. As it it readjusted, its original intent can become manipulated or used in away not orginally intended by the creator. To avoid this potential problem arising, the reading discusses “criteria for collaboration” in terms of “size, speed, space, and scope”.

Another, more positive aspect of working in collaboaration is “Teamwork”. When effective it allows for multiple viewpoints and opinions to converge in order to reach objectives and add additional dimensions to work.

Wk 6: Media is a form of research

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Library Information
This week we focused on the idea that “Media is a form of research”, fittingly we spent some time during the lectorial learning how to operate different aspects of the RMIT’s library portal in order to be able to develop our research skills for upcoming projects and tasks.

One particular feature of the site that is of interest is “Lynda”.
Lynda is useful for accessing tutorials on how to use specific software programs. This was of interest to me as I am aiming to become more confident in software, particulary editing programs. To expand my competence in this area will allow me to acheive and extend my creative visions.

In addition, acessessing the library online can allow you to see information and guides on how to reference. This will be handy when it comes around to doing bigger research projects requiring “scholary” sources. Scholary quickly became a buzzword during the class. By its conclusion we were able to identify a scholarly source by charcteristics such as a peer review.

Collaboration

Extending upon the idea of collaboration that we discussed last week, Rachel provdied us with practical tips in how we might approach common problems that can arise when working in groups.

Good & Bad experiences working in teams
A positive example of working with others I could recall:
✅ Yr 11 Media Film lists were organised of filming times, costumes needed, met regularly and communicated frequently with actors.

Collaboration is an important skill (that can be learnt/ developed) as it allows you to work on more challenging tasks. When effective it allows for rigour to be established and have more people to be inspired by, feeling supported through the process.

Rachel suggested that positive collaboration involves:
– setting clear objectives.
– clarity of goals.
– having a motivating value, all must believe in the idea.
– setting attainable and realistic goals
-future potential – have room to move and change
– being consistent
– being a person who others can trust what you are going to do.
– showing respect this involved basic things like texting when running late
-Support,an environment where you can take risks/fail.
Responsibility
– keep your end of the bargain / what you committed to
… and when things aren’t going so well in groups…
solutions included:
-sharing the work load
-involving trust,clarity and autonomy

Positive teamwork also involves:
-identity and sense of unity
-Creating timetables
-Conduct of good meetings
-having an agenda
-Time estimates for sections to cover
-Review
– someone assigned to take minutes
Notes on outcomes and who has agreed to do what
Before finishing, confirm what needs to be done before next meeting

Wk 5: “Media Collaborates”

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This week’s lectorial focused on the collaborative efforts of media making.
FOUND FOOTAGE
We discussed the idea of incorporating found footage into our own original works and looked at film makers who had used this technique in their own works. Found footage was defined as using Pre-existing film footage that is appropriated and used in a way not originally intended by the original author.

We also considered the ethical boundaries of using footage constructed by others as well as keeping in mind copyright regulations and restrictions we went over in last week’s lectorial.

ACADEMIC ARTICLES
Brian also gave us some handy tips for working through dense academic articles. I found this to particularly useful having recently discovered how tricky it can be to precisely extract meaning from some of out previous “essay type” readings.

Some advice included:
1.Look for argument and structure.
2.Download and print the article.
3.Write notes and highlight as you go.
4.Read key sections (abstract, intro , conclusion).
Skimming (scanning the page while reading) is okay ✅ (thank goodness ! I felt I was cheating by doing this)

I think I will apply this method to future blog posts dedicated to the weekly readings and will in turn improve my analysis and expression, rather than just summarising the articles.

Brian also suggested blog posts consist of:
– a brief summary of main ideas in text.
– Consider an evaluation of the text (strengths and limitations)
– provide commentary on its relevance for your purpose (eg background research on an essay topic OR creative inspiration for a technical/creative skill you are developing.

When reading the introductory para …
look for key argument and purpose of this writing.
Consider structure (look at headings, can be shorthand version of argument)

And when reading the Concluding paragraph …
-Decide what was the most useful aspect of the chapter.
-Discuss how does it informs practice and thinking.

THIRD PROJECT BRIEF INSPIRATION
I have chosen to profile one of my good friends for this assignment. I am looking forward to presenting aspects of another person in a creative way and it is of welcome relief that it does not have to reveal so much about myself as with the first two projects!

We also spent some time watching short creative documentaries that others had created on significant people. I found these to be particularly moving and at the same time a bit saddening, especially with a girl’s dedication to her grandmother. I appreciated the effort she had taken in gathering hundreds of personal items and photographs and artefacts (as we had done on a smaller scale in project brief 1) in order to represent a loved one’s life. I was reminded the importance of documentary in, literally “documenting” or saving the memories of people’s lives and experiences. This was emphasised to me when one mini documentary maker showed his mother’s life through photos and home videos that contrasted with her speech. Distant and unable to recall everything he was saying.

To conlude, and in a change of pace we enjoyed a humorous man’s recount of him dancing and how it makes him feel “free”. It all progressed very quickly as he discussed eating a tortilla chip to dancing and moving freely, all supported by a kick-ass percussion soundtrack ! Very much enjoyed this. Looking forward to constructing my third project for media one over the Easter Break.