In today’s lectorial, we looked at the term institution and how they act in organising structures in society. We did an exercise of looking at marriage as a social institution and the symbolic, social, economic, legal and cultural that come along with it. One good point that was made was the fact that we have been ‘socialised to aspire to marry’, discussing the idea that we as a society believe marriage is a must in order for a relationship to progress. Personally, I believe that marriage is very subjective and as a society we should be more open to interpretations of that. I know many couples that have been together for a long time and had kids, who are happier within their relationship then some of the married couples I know. For some reason, our society thinks that marriage is just the answer for every relationship and it is difficult not to get swept up in the whole marriage propaganda as everywhere you look there are wedding cakes for sale, bridal hair and makeup pictures, wedding gifts and cards, honeymoon packages and bridal gown fashion shows.

So last Friday night, I went to a concert at Festival Hall to watch RUFUS, a band from Sydney play. As I was listening to their songs, I realised how much effort would have gone into every single piece of audio equipment to make it sound as good as possible. I really liked the arc of speakers set up which let out such a strong crisp sound straight into the audience. After playing around with audio in class, I now have a new respect for the people behind concerts like these as everything needs to be in the right tune, and have the right gain and volume in order for the audience will not be satisfied.  After researching on how concerts work, I learnt that there is a “mixing engineer” who sits in a small booth controlling and mixing all the sounds coming from the stage through a mixing board. The mixing board is where “the engineer has all the instruments laid out on separate tracks. The 12 microphones placed around the drum kit, for instance, might use tracks 1 through 12 on the mixing board. Once all the instruments are mapped to a track, the engineer can then meticulously mix a live sound that is perfect for the venue.” extract from http://www.pcworld.com/article/2000192/how-rock-concerts-work.html  Here’s a little clip.

After coming together last week, my group has decided to work on ‘Why we tune into Reality TV’, basing our discussions on the structural elements of the genre in order to try and explain why we get so hooked. We want to touch on audiences without overlapping with the group who is doing that. Here were some of our brainstorms.

In today’s workshop, we had the chance to get into our groups and present to the class how we were travelling with PB4. We decided to focus on Reality TV and as of yet we are still in the researching phase so we do not have a distinct question to focus on yet. We talked about readings we found such as:

-“reality-based” shows and how much is it staged/how much is real by Su Holmes

-the structure of reality tv shows and how many reflect soapies narratives as they operate similarly such as everyday life scenarios by Turner

-the ethics of reality tv and how much the producers are manipulating the structures of the cast and show in order to gain a broader audience and keep people hooked and how shows like Big Brother are creating a privacy free era.

We still have a long way to go before we can start recording/filming and as there is so much information and studies on Reality TV. We need to start focusing on a single question in order to go into depth.

In today’s lectorial, we discussed the rules and boundaries of copyright within Australia but also generally. In Australia, we do not have to register material with a copy right symbol in order to protect it, it is automatically done. However ideas are not covered by this protection and if we do have a great idea, the best thing to do is not share it and keep it confidential until you are certain your idea can be turned into a piece of material. This reminded me of Alexander Graham Bell who supposedly invented the telephone, however in 1860, “an Italian named Antonio Meucci first demonstrated his working telephone, (though he called it the “teletrofono,” mostly because Italians are wacky). Eleven years later, (still five years before Bell’s phone came out), he filed a temporary patent on his invention. In 1874, Meucci failed to send in the $10 necessary to renew his patent, because he was sick and poor.”  extract from http://www.cracked.com/article_16072_5-famous-inventors-who-stole-their-big-idea.html

Our group for PB4 was throwing around ideas in last week’s workshop and Grace and I thought we were going somewhere with what we were thinking but after checking with Brian we realised we were on the completely wrong path. These were our initial brain storming notes.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In last week’s workshop, we started looking at researching academic material online through the RMIT library website. I managed to find an ebook on some of the criticisms Jamie has received in his attempts to break bad eating habits in the UK and US. It was amazing to find some well written articles and books rather than just getting Google results and I think it will be really helpful in the future.

After researching on the internet for information on Texts and Narratives in the media, I came across this document about the theories behind certain texts and narratives. In Chapter 1 of the document, written by Helen Fulton, Introduction: The power of narrative, she opens with “In a world dominated by print and electronic media, our sense of reality is increasingly structured by narrative. Feature films and documentaries tell us stories about ourselves and the world we live in. Television speaks back to us and offers us ‘reality’ in the form of hyperbole and parody. Print journalism turns daily life into a story. Advertisements narrativise our fantasies and desires.”

I like how Fulton has talked about the idea that our realities are shaped by different forms of narrative. Examples of this that I can think of include certain documentaries such as David Attenborough’s ‘Life’ series in which he documents many different types of animals. This allows us to believe that there are those types of animals out there in the world without even seeing them with our own eyes. We learn about the realities of our worldwide fauna through a screen and we believe and accept that those animals exist.

After watching each other’s mini interview documentaries, we were asked to give advice (good and bad) about each person on our table.

On my table there was:

• Tash (http://www.mediafactory.org.au/natasha-khan/) who I believed had great composition of her shots and I especially liked her bike closeup footage and the transitions between each shot. Perhaps she could have included more footage of the photographer working with his camera but overall a great video!
• Aine (http://www.mediafactory.org.au/aine-hamilton/) who included great cutaways and footage of the lady singing with her group, the story line was clear aswell. One thing I noticed was that there was too much light in one shot, causing whiteness within the frame and on some of the women’s faces.
• Asha (http://www.mediafactory.org.au/asha-carrington/) who had great found footage to match her theme as well as great cutaways, environmental portrait shots and transitions. Perhaps she could have included photos of the lady back in the day when she was working.

In the last workshop, we were assigned groups and we were asked to brainstorm our contract and any ideas relating to the task. I am really excited to be working in a group of three as it means we can create things on a larger, more professional scale. Our theme to create our essays on is Text and Narratives and we found a great article on media forms such as tv shows, radio shows, film, news on radio and tv and others. We assigned for all of our group members to read the article and report back on any interesting things they picked up on and share it on our group facebook chat.