‘A hero ventures forth from the world of common day into a region of supernatural wonder: fabulous forces are there encountered and a decisive victory is won: the hero comes back from this mysterious adventure with the power to bestow boons on his fellow man.’
Joseph Campbell, The Hero With A Thousand Faces, p. 23′
When I studied Professional Writing and Editing at RMIT we studied, ‘The hero with a thousand faces’ by Joseph Campbell. It covered the archetypal journey of the hero or causality: protagonist’s call to action, overcoming obstacles to a final resolution – a classic three act structure that you see in nearly every Hollywood movie (you can view a summary of the archetype structure in my Other Readings file blog).
And read by every aspiring screenwriter of course is the eponymous Robert McKee – ‘Everything is story, story is everything’.
Yes, narrative is everywhere. Even people not normally associated with discussing it like the renowned neurologist, Oliver Sacks. ‘Humans naturally create stories and narratives’. (http://bigthink.com/videos/oliver-sacks-on-humans-and-myth-making). This echoes what Adrian Miles was addressing his lecture that ‘humans are the only animals that create story’ (Ah, if only we could understand ‘whale’).
TASK
As activity, in pairs we were to map out a story of a well-known movie or story.
Think of a story both know
Map the story according to emotional highs/lows
Map the story according to character prominence.
Lion King
Out of 5
Act 1
Act 2
Act 3
Simba
5
5
5
Nala
2
4
3
Scar
3
2
4
Side kicks
3
3
Non-narrative
Whenever I hear this term ‘non-narrative’ I can’t but help think of some tedious French film where two lovers are sitting at a distressed wooden kitchen table, and with long faces are shoving plates of camembert at each other in between interminably long pauses and then, after two hours the credits roll. Or instead watch Andy Warhol’s Empire State Building to get the same feeling.
Yes, not a lot happens and often non-narrative is typified by bucking the conventions of narrative ie there maybe a hero, they may not overcome obstacles, there maybe no end and they maybe even on hero.Even so, so-called non-narrative forms do use elements. As this video by Daniel Askil ‘We decided not to die’ shows.
REFLECTION
As a published writer of a travel narrative, short story and scriptwriter, I didn’t find in today’s lecture much that I didn’t already know. Still, it was, like seeing an old lover, pleasurable. Watching the video ‘We decided not to die’ despite so-called non-narrative style of it each vignette had journey of the protagonist and resolution. So still they were following the classic three act structure.
Aiden Tai-Jones’s work stood out for me (not in my work group) as it combined the technical, visual and narrative particularly well. It highlighted the fact that my own skills in filming and editing needs a lot of work!
In my group I have chosen to focus on Sarah Brooke’s work, ‘Breaking Bridges’. What I liked about her doco on her friend Andrew Foo was the contrast of using black and white, the use of smoke billowing only in the frame and then the sudden colour when her friend made some changes in his life. I did suggest that she use parkour footage as Andrew was/is an urban acrobat of sorts, but Sarah advised me that he wasn’t in to that. Anyway, very inspiring work.
Textual Analysis covers film, audio doco, policy documents, fiction, non-fiction etc. It can be hard to define. As Morris said about a U.S. Supreme Court Case, the judge exclaimed, ‘Porn. I don’t know what it is but I know it when I see it.’
Where does ‘textual analysis come from? It comes from content such as films, articles, topics and has a quantitive focus. For example, the Bobo Doll Experiment looked at the effects of child violence. Parents were given a Bobo doll and hit it. Their children watched this on a television screen. They were then told to entre the room and play with the Bobo Doll. They immediately began beating the doll. This mimicking of adult behaviour led researchers to believe there was a connection between onscreen violence and children’s violence. It’s a debate that is still being raged over today with uptake of video games.
Coming out of the Structuralist era of academia in post World War II to the mid 20th Century, there was a turn against a particular idea of culture. Namely this was the consumerist culture or Pop Culture. Academics took a moral position that some culture was higher than others. For example, James Joyce Ulysses would’ve been regarded higher than say a Spiderman comic, which was seen as a lower culture. This brings us to our next topic, semiotics.
Semiotics
What is it?
‘Semiotics is the study of sign systems. It explores how words and other signs make meaning. It is anything that stands in for something other than itself. This lesson focuses primarily on linguistic signs. The word ‘semiotics’ dates back to ancient Greece, but its use in modern linguistics was propelled in the 19th century with the research of Ferdinand de Saussure. Saussure was a Swiss linguist who contributed greatly to the study of semiotics, also sometimes referred to as semiology.’ (http://study.com/academy/lesson/what-is-semiotics-definition-examples.html)
What is a ‘text’?
Texts are the materials traces that are left of the practice of sense-making – the only empirical evidence we have of how other people make sense of the world. This is done by:
vehicles for the production of cultural meaning (Sign systems)
‘texts’ in media, coummunications and cultural studies include cultural products, images, policy documents, social practices, institutions…
Sites where we can see the social production of ideas
Alan McKee ‘Textual analysis: a beginner’s guide (2003) – p12. ‘This , then, is why….make sense of the world.’ See (http://www1.cs.columbia.edu/~sbenus/Teaching/APTD/McKee_Ch1.pdf)
SOME PREVIOUS ACADEMIC MOTIVES FOR TEXTUAL ANALYSIS
‘textual analysis is an educated guess at some of the most likely interpretations that might be made of text’ Alan McKee.
Communication, academics argue, is a gamble. There is the possibility that the reader may not get the encoded meaning or understand it. An example is ‘re-coding’. Ronald Reagan appropriated Bruce Springsteen ‘Born in the USA’ which was originally to communicate the working-man for his election campaign.
As example of constructing meaning, Morris showed a picture of children of different ages, a man and a woman and a dog sitting together picture. We immediately said ‘this is a family’. They maybe individuals but because they’re sitting close we imagine that they are a family. The dog is something that is part of the equation that we have constructed that is the ‘typical family’. We have attached meaning to these images.
When shown another image of people together all of similar age we knew immediately it was perhaps a band. We make these meanings through the use of labels we assign to each object and what it signifiers to us.
Commercials often use semiotics to sell an idea like the advertisement for cotton we see a father throwing a child into pool. While it emphasised pleasure it also sold the idea of white privilege, an exclusivity.
LIMITATIONS OF SEMIOTICS ANALYSES
‘…different modes allow to you to do different kinds of things, and not only allow you to do different kinds of things, but insist that different things are done.’ Gunther Kress, Social Semiotics: Key Figures, New Directions (79)
While we can separate images we can’t separate semitic elements when it comes to sound. Because sound is:
Pervasive – can’t control what comes into our ears.
Multidirectional – comes from everywhere
Complexly layered –
Prioritized by the ear – Janke Schaefer ‘Audio and Image’. Someone saying your name on the street.
Sound is intimate and subjective.
These can be affect by Aural Semiotics, as Theo Van Leeuwen describes as ‘Perspective’. The meaning of sound depends on the closeness. For example if the figure in the foreground the figure is the focus of interest. The ground sets the context or setting and the field is the background or ambient space. So we judge something based on a ‘Social Distance’. For instance whispering (intimate relationship) to say using a microphone (public distance). If we look at broader sounds this takes us to looking at soundscape.
SOUNDSCAPE
It is a representation of a place or an environment that can be heard rather than what can be seen. Tony Gibbs, ‘The Fundamentals of Sonic Art and Sound Design’. These are made up of ‘sonic components’ such as technical, emotional, pitch, volume. Looking below as this disturbing image we can already imagine the ‘soundscape’ here. The girl we might hear screaming above the other children’s cries (figure sound), the sound of footsteps, guns, radio chatter (ground sound) and sounds helicopters, explosions in the distance (field).
REFLECTIONS
Thinking about textual analysis and semiotics we do it on a daily basis without realising it. I make choices all the time if I’m going to read something based on whether it is ‘worthy’ (high culture) or not like a graphic novel (low culture). I deliberately eschew commercial television because I see it as low culture and feel morally superior when I engage in watching documentaries on enslavement of iphone workers in China a rather than my neighbour who wants to talk about My Kitchen rules.
In regards to semiotics I thought immediately of advertising as they are highly constructed images. I studied copywriting and it was always a challenge to seize an arresting image that maybe neutral to look at but then connate it with a tag line. I think this Evian ad best exemplifies what I mean.
Also, I thought about the last time I was at the pool. People leave their towels on a sun lounge to denote that this is their space. The towel is no longer a towel but a form of signifying ownership. I thought, as a funny video, I could go around town putting towels on things and saying they’re mine. Put the towel on somebody’s bike – ‘That’s mine now, thanks!’ or, upping the ante, on somebody – ‘You’re coming with me.’ I guess that’s not that far from the truth with wedding bands. ‘This maybe just a piece of round metal but once I put this on your finger…your life is over.’
What stands out for me was finding, after shooting 47 minutes of footage, a theme that greatly helped to simplify the story of Adam Hoss Ayres: glass.
The beauty of his glass creations made him cry with joy but, as we discovered later, there was also a connection to great pain. He began his relationship with his stepfather with glass and ended it by trying to break glass. None of this had occurred to him before and it was a privilege to help him find that. So, the human element, finding, in a sense, closure, is the thing I like the most about this piece.
Visually, which is not always my strong suit, I think the singular framing of Adam is vibrant and colourful while motifs such as the fractured dissolves add texture and fit with unifying theme. The use of Adam’s music gives greater depth and meaning to the work, as it becomes more frenetic and louder thus matching his turbulent family life.
What was difficult was not getting distracted by other possibilities. For example, I had a quote from Adam’s website from Pablo Picasso: ‘I am constantly doing things that I can’t, that is how I do them.’ I was going to show how Hoss has expanded his craft by living this aphorism but in the end, it jarred with the unifying theme. Furthermore, making choices about found footage was perhaps the most perplexing of all: what was copyrighted, what was not, what I could use and could not. It was a conundrum. Fortunately, I found footage from a Roger Corman film which, though comically, extrapolated on Adam’s broken childhood.
Next time, I might experiment with more visual elements, perhaps a more disjointed style, as I think this piece is somewhat conventional. I also discovered a website (http://nofilmschool.com/2014/08/what-i-learned-after-interviews-first-documentary) about how to formulate questions like avoiding closed questions or getting the subject to repeat the question in their answer. These tools are just some of things I’ve learnt in expanding my practice.
This week Amy Saunders RMIT Media Librarian was our guest speaker. She illuminated us to the possibilities of research in the RMIT library and its online resources. For example, here is a list of resources to peruse:
http://rmit.libguides.com/mjsmis an extensive online training library that helps anyone learn software, creative and business skills. It contains a wide variety of video tutorials from experts with subject coverage including 3D + animation, audio, design, video, web and more. (Not indexed by LibrarySearch)
Referencing La Trobe has good referencing
iSearch
http://emedia.rmit.edu.au/isearch/search-process
Moving Image
World Cat
Google Scholar
Or ask a librarian
One of the lecturers, Brian Morris, emphasised the need for good research skills.
COLLABORATION
Here is a great example of collaboration:
Interestingly, employers are advising above most other skills is the ability to be able to collaborate. They are looking for people who can work with other people and enjoy working as part of a team.
The advantages of collaborating are that it can: develop your skills for your professional life; learn more effectively and retain knowledge longer by talking to others and teach you how to participate in group discussions.
GOOD vs BAD EXPERIENCES of Collaboration
The Good
get great ideas
cross pollination
new ways of looking at things
share ideas
support
more responsible
share work load
rigour – strong vetting process to evaluate ideas and approaches
you can tackle bigger projects
solve problems together
The Bad
Working with people who are difficult
Dominate the group
Want things their way
Uncomfortable expression your opinion
Can’t reach a compromise
People are unreliable
Do all the work
Taking in both the good and the bad experiences this can help you:
Develop leadership
Gain experience
Resolve conflict
Negotiate for a win/win outcome
Professional communication
Establish peer relationships
Deepen your knowledge
HAVE FUN
POSITIVE COLLABORATIONS
See the lecture slides that Rachael prepared: http://www.mediafactory.org.au/2015-media-one/files/2015/04/Collaboration-SLIDES-1z0gh6m.pdf
Resources
• http://emedia.rmit.edu.au/workinginteams/
REFLECTIONS
I’ve worked in various capacities from team sales, building sites, film locations, markets and working with groups. I can say that yes, collaborations are an intrinsic part of getting things done, certainly getting big projects off the ground. You need a lot of people. I hadn’t though, considered the positive elements before; that you can learn from others, that you can have an expanding experience. I mean, I knew it afterwards but my perception of collaborating is ‘Oh, God! I’ll have to deal with someone who is going to be annoying, lazy or dominate the group with their ego.’ And yes, this has happened! But it’s good to see there are strategies out there to cope with the inevitable hiccups. I wonder how it will go with our next project? Bit daunting not being ‘in the young team.’
Also, it was good to have Amy’s lecture about the library resources. I had no idea of the breadth and scope of this resource (particularly the online books and journals) and shall visit the library in due course.
We discussed in groups who we might interview. Most people chose their closest friends and I did as well. But then Robbie suggested that I step outside that circle and ask the question ‘Is this subject interesting?’ Well, my friend is interesting but not in a visual sense (he’s a composer).
Eventually, I ended up choosing Adam Hoss, an artist friend of mine where I share my office at J-Studios. He’s a visual sculptor so this would look better on film and I didn’t know all the answers to his life. Thus, it would be a new experience and one also where we get to know each other better.
The issue that was discussed was the curly nature of found footage. It cannot be stock and it must be derived from a copyright free source. www.archive.org was one. It’s okay. Not the greatest resource. Also, because my topic is on an artist I wanted to use artists that had influenced Hoss such as Geiger and Picasso. Alas, despite finding these on www.archive.org I couldn’t use them due to copyright that extends onto the artwork itself. I’ll have to find another tact.
