Archive | March 2014

Clown Train: Analysis & Reflection Q1.

Mar22

In the film Clown Train, sound plays a huge role in creating an eery atmosphere for which the story is to be told. The constant sound of electrical wires flickering/faultering, the squeeky train tracks, industrial sounds and static room noise all work together to provide a dangerous feel to the location and setting of the story. These sounds, along with the vibrant talking voices of the two characters, enable Clown Train to be dramatically suspenseful, literally giving me goosebumps whilst watching and waiting to see what was going to happen next. I think that the begining of the film is hugely effective in creating such a creepy atmosphere, witht he first 26 seconds being engulfed by a black screen and loud, eerily squeeky train noises.

Another genre film that makes use of sound in the same manner as Clown Train is Batman: The Dark Night. As this film is one of my favourite films, this question instantly made me think of it. The eery industrial sounds present in Clown Train remind me greatly of similar soundscapes used in The Dark Night in instances where The Joker is near.

This entry was posted on March 22, 2014, in FILM-TV 1.

Further reading about the reading.

Mar22

I found Bec’s notes on this weeks reading as recommended by Adrian to be helpful in my further understanding of the reading. Her discussion of the way new technology has enabled such change for film and film style can be found Here: http://www.mediafactory.org.au/rebecca-mylonas/2014/03/16/week-3-reading/ 🙂

Week 3 reading….

Mar20

We can consider a narrative to be a chain of events in cause-effect relationship occurring in time and space. A narrative is what we usually mean by the term story. 

– David Bordwell

As a Cinema Studies student I am familiar with this reading and with the concept of ‘Narrative’, however looking over this reading once again was not a bad thing for me to do. Narratives are made up of various elements, including plot, time, space, and Openings, closings, and patterns of development. These narrative elements occur again and again throughout film/cinema and play a major role in an audiences understanding of a narrative.

From narrative comes documentary film, and experimental film – and as was said in the post with this reading, all 3 of these particular topics  are going to be incorporated into our own Korsakow films. Experimental films have their own way of telling a story, as do documentaries, but they all still use the same varying forms and conventions when it comes to actually making the films.

In particular I fin the associational form of experimental film to be really interesting, with the fact that images and sounds are put together and juxtaposed to force us, the audience, to look for some kind of connection. This intrigues me in relation to korsakow and how visuals and sounds can be put together in an interactive way.

Fascination with Light

Mar19

So week 3 into Integrated Media and our audio visual task has been about light! When tackling this task, I found it really difficult to choose something to film, as light is basically everything we see. So I went on YouTube and searched up some videos to do with light, and I came across this video which I thought was really rad! So I’m sharing it with you now…. Enjoy!

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‘Life Is A Musical’ – a 2012 Korsakow film

Mar13

I was just scrolling through the previous years Korsakow films and decided to watch this one called ‘Life Is a Musical’ – basically purely because the title refereed to music and I really love music. So anyways, I clicked on this video and was impressed by what I saw. It consisted of various footage of cars and trains and people all walking/driving past a still camera obviously set up in a position to capture the everyday movements of life. The shots were rely nicely done, with colour playing a major role in making the footage so appealing to the eye for me. Each section of the film that I clicked on portrayed a different location where cars or trams or pedestrians were passing the camera, yet each set of footage maintained the same kind of atmosphere. I don’t really know exactly why this Korsakow film particularly appealed tome but I just thought it was show really nicely and it also helped me to understand the concept of Korsakow at this point in time a little more. If you’re wanting to check out any of the previous years films I recommend doing it 🙂

Week 2 reading take away

Mar11

Online Audio-Visual culture … (p 53)

I found this section of the reading quite interesting. The Discussion of how what was once a private, personal space, that has now become a public platform where everyone who has access to the internet can play a role in and contribute to the public discourse, is very truthful. The internet has enabled mass communication worldwide! Being 19 years old myself, I can remember growing up not checking the internet every single day, I can remember a time when the social interaction online was not so hugely prominent in daily activity. Fast-forward to today, and it is a completely different story.

Bringing in the topic of ‘audio-visual’ online culture, online videos have greatly impacted the internet and its many uses. The internet thrives off of any kind of video, from the crappy home made short film, or the dodgy recording of a concert you went to the other night, to the bigger scale productions where money has been spent and a target audience is in mind. The reading explains why YouTube is so successful as a video platform, and I found this to be put really nicely –

The main reason for the enormous success of YouTube lies in the fact that it operates as an open channel for the teeming millions of prospective content producers who, thanks to the technological and economic development of digital media production equipment, now have the possibilities to exchange meanings, experiences and ways of expression through the film medium.

The internet has enabled a giant platform to emerge for audio-visual produce and the people who enjoy creating them.