Posted on May 1, 2017
Okay? … No.
My experience of mindlessly trapping myself in a fandom
I remember when I was about in Year 10, I was thoroughly obsessed and in love with John Green’s novel The Fault in Our Stars. I had finished the book in just days, bookmarking my favourite parts, crying at almost every chapter, before I knew it, I was infatuated with this book and the film adaption released soon after.
It was only until one day, I found myself caught up in an argument with a friend who didn’t see how The Fault in Our Stars was such a good book. The argument ending with my friend storming off, both of us frustrated that we didn’t see how either of us could love/hate this book. As the angsty 16 year old I was then (probably still am now), I thought this friendship was over, until I stepped out of myself for a moment and realised just how irrationally obsessed I was with this book. Seeing myself in different eyes, I noticed how ridiculous it looked of me continuously quoting from the book, obsessing over the actors and most ridiculous of all, starting a fight with my friend because she didn’t like The Fault in Our Stars. She was entitled to her own opinion, but as such an infatuated fan, I felt the need to defend it and almost convert her to loving the book. Surprised at how ‘cultist’ I had become, over the next few weeks I started to realise that this book wasn’t really the ‘best book ever written’, and the film wasn’t ‘the best film ever made’ either. However, was John Green at fault for causing my unhealthy obsession with his novel? I think it’s a definite that my other friends who were fans, and the many posts on TFIOS fan sites contributed to my love for The Fault in Our Stars, but I think it definitely came down to me, as a fan, who took my obsession with this romance story too far.
This epiphany was definitely a big learning curve in my life as a media consumer and creator. I still notice here and there, some very intense fans that will defend their favourite TV show and actors to the death. I admire their enthusiasm and dedication, but it is definitely quite terrifying what extent these individuals can achieve with their pure obsessions.
Posted on May 1, 2017
the theory of fandoms
Warning: small discussion of self harm and mental health
As media practitioners and content creators, we are arguably nothing without our audience. More so with fans, they are the catalysts that bring attention to our creations and encourage us to push ourselves to create more interesting and engaging content. Though, there have been evidence of the ugly side of fans and debate about when we have to draw the line for when people can use ‘fandom’ as an excuse to cross boundaries.
I remember quite a while ago, when Justin Bieber was just passing his pubescent years and it was leaked that he was taking illegal substances, a small group of fans took the extreme side of reaction and started the trending hashtag: #cutforbieber. From what began as a hoax to a good amount of teens actually self harming, I was baffled at the power of the media’s influence on these loyal, heartbroken fans. I understand the discussion of people’s concerns of the power media has over audiences, but much like the many years of debate about video games and their violent influence on teenagers, it’s more than just the ‘bullet/hypodermic needle’ theory of “media controls audiences”. According to Joseph Klapper’s Reinforcement theory, many factors such as religion, parents, school environments, can contribute to an individual’s actions and pre-existing beliefs and behaviour. The Media is seen as only an aspect that can ‘reinforce’ their pre-existing behaviour. In addition, the Uses and Gratification theory also suggest how active audiences use the media as gratification and purpose for their particular actions and behaviour. Hence, in the eyes of the Bieber fans self-harming, it is not justified to assume that the media is 100% at fault for their actions; there may have already been a pre-existing psychological behaviour that may have been triggered by the media’s news. In no means to throw these fans under the bus, I do believe I share the concern of many others about the extent fandoms can fuel an audience’s obsession over films, tv shows, artists, etc. For content creators, they are treading on thin ice in hopes to keep their fandoms happy and content and it is a situation where one small mistake can turn these fans against them. In scenarios like this, in my experience, the fans almost ripple off each other with their expressions of anger and hate to the point it seems almost unrealistic just how furious they are over something that seems so minute. When scenarios like this do happen, many are quick to point the finger at the content creators, and although they can be the trigger, I think it is also important to consider that the fans are capable of acting on their own and their uproars could have been contributed by other factors in their life.
Posted on May 1, 2017
week 8 feedback
- Is it necessary to have the title appearing both at the beginning and the end?
- The light leaks look a little like lens flares that don’t make sense in the context of the shot
- The blacks in some shots look a little crunched – recommend bringing up the shadows
- The rhythm sometimes feels too rushed; want to see more of her talking before we see the cutaways
- The text and titles look a little to harsh; suggested slight gaussian blur
I was most grateful for this week’s feedback, as the people I showed on my table were the first (other than my family) to see my fine cut from start to finish. It’s always such a benefit to get other people’s perspective and I have learned to even treasure the feedback I disagree with. The aspects of my film that I did adapt according to my feedback were the light leaks, the shadows and highlights, timing of the cutaways and slight blur on the texts. With the light leaks, I definitely wanted them included over the footage of May and Paul in the gardens as I wanted to create a more warm, romantic atmosphere, but I was glad my classmates pointed out that it didn’t make much sense as lens flare-lookalikes on a cool-looking shot. Some of them did suggest getting rid of it altogether, but I definitely wanted to keep the warm colour leaks to emphasise the certain mood of the scene. Thus, to adjust it, I zoomed in on the light leak to get rid of the more harsh colours and had a more lighter opacity light leak that did a more ‘tint’ effect to the footage. In discussion about my placement of opening and closing titles, two of my classmates thought that as a 3 minute film, the title didn’t need to be repeated twice and was more appropriate to appear once at the end. I understood their point of view, but I was already quite happy with the rhythm of the opening titles with the music and my subject’s voiceover. In the end, I decided to keep the title appearing both in the opening and closing, but this is definitely something I will keep in mind for next time I create another short film.
Posted on May 1, 2017
animals tell stories better than humans
Although Week 7’s lecture was cancelled, I still had a quick skim through the reading “Why Look at Animals?” by Gilles Aillaud. Through his discussion of the use of animals in stories, it never really occurred to me how we, as storytellers, assign attributes, symbols and metaphors to these animals even though they may not be capable of such moral qualities. It is their innocence and simplicity of the animals’ attributes that have become integral to storytelling, and I’ve noticed they appear as characters and symbols everywhere from children’s bedtime stories of Peter the Rabbit to DC Comics’ Batman and Robin superheroes. The storytelling platform that stood out to me the most was Pixar and especially their short films, where they even bring life inanimate objects like umbrellas. My dad recently showed me one of Pixar’s 2016 short films called ‘Piper‘, directed by Alan Barillaro. The heart-warming story tells of a little sandpiper content with staying in her nest to be fed, but is then traumatised by her first experience finally stepping out of her comfort zone to find food at the shore. Left hungry and terrified of failure, she musters up her courage once more after following a group of hermit crabs to the shore and is then taught to embrace the ocean and use it as a tool to not only find food for herself, but for the rest of her family. In addition, coinciding with the main story, there were comedic scenes of the sandpipers moving and fleeing with the tide, her adorably flustered state after caught in the ocean, her little fight in the sand with the baby hermit crab, and many more to leave you feeling cheesy and giggly. Along with these animated comedic gags, ‘Piper‘ had a very clear, simple story that successfully left me, and I’m sure many others, sympathising with the protagonist and encouraging her to overcome her fears. Typical of Pixar to leave me feeling warm and fuzzy, I don’t think Barillaro would have made me and many other audiences feel such a way if he hadn’t chosen the characters to be animals. If the story was portrayed through humans, there’s a lack of that pure innocence that wouldn’t communicate the story’s powerful, yet simple moral message.
Posted on May 1, 2017
photographing strangers
I approached a couple on the streets whom I have never met before, and for the first time in my life, asked if I could take their photograph
As an introvert, I’m always quite nervous talking to strangers, and especially in this situation of asking a couple for a photograph, if my anxiety was a mountain, I was Mt Everest. I knew that if I wanted to become a photographer, I needed to develop the skills to ask random strangers if I could take their photo. Much like in documentary film making, I need to be engaging as the interviewer and make them, as the interviewee, feel comfortable and welcomed for me to tell their story. For my first time asking this couple for a photo, I think I did alright in approaching them and asking for permission, but I was at a loss of words when they asked ‘why would you want to take a photo of us?’ Caught off guard that they would question me back, I struggled to reply with a good answer. In the end, I think they realised I was quite nervous and just let me take the picture anyway without much further discussion. After taking the photo and leaving with an awkward goodbye, I remembered back to the reading on shooting interviews and how Michael Rabiger discusses the importance of an interviewer’s skills to engage their subjects and encourage them to be part of our media works. He also emphasises the importance of preparation and rehearsing before the interview, which I definitely should have done before approaching this couple. If I had clearly thought about my intentions behind taking their photo, I wouldn’t have found myself in the awkward situation of fumbling for my words and making them feel like I don’t know what I’m doing with my job. In the end, when we awkwardly parted ways, I comforted myself that I would not ever see them again and that this was just another learning block in my path to becoming a confident media practitioner.
Update: I bumped into them the other day and it was just as awkward …
Posted on April 30, 2017
the video with no edits
I wouldn’t say that Week 7’s workshop activity was as enjoyable as the others, but it was probably one of the most educationally valuable activity as a media practitioner. As the task was to create a short film with no post-production editing and no deletion of bloopers, my group and I really needed to put our heads down and carefully plan how we were going to create our story. With the narrative needing to revolve around a “pursuit”, storyboarding the action sequence of one chasing the other needed the most planning over the rest of the story. Even as we went out of the classroom to start filming, as we took in the location, most of our production time was spent standing around and looking through the camera to discuss and argue how each shot should be filmed. As we only had one chance to film each scene, we wanted to make sure that that one take is the best take. So, as a perfectionist I was a little stressed and pushed out of my comfort zone, but I remembered that before digital cameras were made, not many old film makers had the luxury to perfect things with post production editing. The next week when we all sat down as a class to watch the final products, I had a real good laugh and was quite impressed with how each film was able to communicate their own individual storyline. Watching the final products also definitely made me appreciate the editing technology we have now, but this activity was nonetheless such a beneficial task and extra step in the art of filmmaking.
Posted on April 30, 2017
a glimpse into the future of sharing
The all famous creator of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg has put out the question “So what if you could type directly from your brain?” One of the main reasons he and his team are working on something like this is for people with disabilities and such so that they can still communicate online even with their disadvantages. However, how can we guarantee that some device like this will not catalogue every single thought in our minds? This is moving to conspiracy theory territory, but if apps like Facebook, Twitter and Google are already taking information from us just from what we type and say on our devices, having some sci-fi technology to read our minds is something quite powerful and terrifying in my eyes. Even if I’m sending a private email to my friend through Gmail, Google is already processing the things I type and personalising advertisements and so on to what they believe will pique my interests. Just like in Dana Boyd’s “Privacy: Why do youth share so publicly?”, there’s a segment titled “Public by Default, Private Through Effort” in which she describes two people chatting in a cafe, assuming their chit-chat is private but there’s always a change that someone could be recording their conversation. Since the day the internet was created, the lines that define our right of privacy are becoming more blurred and faint by the day. Information is power for those who obtain it, and as we, the consumers, find easier ways to communicate and share through our phones and laptops, it is also becoming easier for huge corporations like Google to use our information for their own benefits. I could dive down into a deep rabbit hole about conspiracy theories of what our future apocalypse will look like, but it is terrifying to think about what these big corporations know about us. I personally don’t share as much online, but who is to say what sort of information they are taking from, for example, my emails to my friend over in Japan. Probably the only person with complete privacy is someone who camps in the mountains by himself, away from civilisation and away from any satellite signal. The future is inevitable, that’s a certainty. But something I’m not so certain about is how stable our rights of privacy will turn out to be.
Posted on April 30, 2017
week 6: an online post about posting online
As a millennial, or maybe more appropriately post-millennial/Gen Z, I haven’t really identified with the characteristic of making my thoughts shared online for the public to view. I believe this stems from many factors and variables thrown at me as I left the kiddie pool to swim in the ocean of social media apps and the simplicity of uploading my mind’s thoughts onto a rectangular glowing screen. Some of those factors were my sensitivity to people’s negative reactions to those few posts I have made, others would be from those advertisements and short films threatening the dangers and consequences of online posting and how “once it’s on the internet, it’s always on the internet.” However, the biggest factor that discouraged me from posting online was definitely because of my parents. I’m one of those kids who grew up in quite a sheltered household where I was allowed only one hour of computer fun a day, must only visit sites my parents have thoroughly looked through and approved of, also, could only have an MSN account when I was 10 and then Facebook when I was 13. Even now that I’m 18 and things have evolved, I’m still not allowed to have a desk in my room because my parents feel the need to watch over my studies and the movies I stream online. I would be lying if I said that I was totally fine with this growing up, in fact I became rather skilled at erasing my history, changing boys’ names to girls’ on my messaging apps, changing to another tab in the blink of an eye… I essentially became a first class liar at hiding things from my parents. Eventually as I got older, they loosened up the ropes and I am mostly free to do what I want on the internet. But, now that I have the freedom with them as I have the freedom to post what I want online, I don’t feel the need to do so. I enjoy my privacy and thoughts, and only feel like posting things that I think matter for others to read, not just for my selfish desire to “get something off my chest”. Yes, my parents were a little smothering in my childhood, but it feels (kind of) worth it now that I am off the leash and have learned to treasure the privileges of privacy.
Posted on April 30, 2017
storytelling in a single shot
For week 6’s workshop, we were given the task to make a short film that tells a story in just a single shot
Lava from Matthew Bickerdike on Vimeo.
With my experience in making films, especially in action sequences, I relied mostly on short cut scenes rather than a long take, basically because I didn’t think I was skilled enough as a cinematographer. Hence, when approaching this task, I was quite doubtful of how well the filming of the scene would turn out. This activity taught me the importance of rehearsal and staging. My group and I had to plan out the choreography and rehearse the scene quite a few times before we could even think about opening the camera case. Even as the cinematographer, I also needed to practise where I’d be moving in the shots, what camera angles I needed and the amount of zoom in’s and out’s. I thought this task would take us quite a few trial and errors, but to my surprise, it only took us about 3-4 takes before we were relatively happy and content with one.
The technique of a long take is definitely a style I hope to get better at and implement into my films. Especially after watching a few examples of this activity to tell a story in only one shot, when used properly, the technique definitely adds extra depth to the story that multiple shots wouldn’t. For example, the short film ‘Life of a 5 Dollar Note‘ (I don’t remember who made it), not only did it look impressive, the idea of the scene all taken in one shot emphasised the notion of the $5’s life cycle. With our storyline of two friends trying to survive over a pit of lava, we accepted the fact that our actors were no stunt professionals, so the fast paced action of the scene won’t cut it unless I, the cinematographer, made up for the action with the camera’s movements. With a final decision on the camera’s path to circle around the main points of action, as a group, we all agreed that this made the choreography more up beat in tempo and engaging to watch. Also, this is one of the few times I’m glad to be short, because it helped for me to duck under the guys to film the scene.
Posted on April 27, 2017
week 5 workshop
activity: learning how to use the Sony MC50 by making a quick interview
Having little to no experience with a film camera, I was excited to begin this task so that I could quickly learn and experiment with the functions of the Sony MC50. Additionally having Sophia, Callum and Euan in my group just made the task extra enjoyable since they are all such lively, amusing characters to work with.
Deciding to take a comedic Office/Parks and Rec style to the interview, we improvised most of our takes and just left the script open to what our creative story-telling skills were capable of making. Many tips from Michael Rabiger’s “Conducting and Shooting Interviews” kept surfacing in my mind as we went through the activity, especially as I took on the role as the Interviewer. I noticed that I was naturally did my best to engage the interviewee, mostly by nodding and maintaining eye contact so that they felt encouraged to talk more. I also noticed that I would accidentally reply with “mhmm”s while they talked which immediately made those takes unusable. So, I made a mental note that although it was a habit during conversations, for Project Brief 3, I had to make sure I remained silent as I listened to the interviewees answers. Another thing I learned while editing the footage was how critically important it is to plan before the interview. As we were all so keen to just dive into the experiment, the mistake of not planning to questions and structure of the documentary made it so difficult to sift through the haystack of footage to find that needle of a storyline.
Uni Lyfe from Tessa Chung on Vimeo.
Above is what I was able to create with all the footage my group made during the workshop. I was able to create some sort of storyline, however there were many times during the editing process where I wished that we had more takes of a certain shot, an extra scene to fill the gaps, more b-roll, etc. Thus, as I plan for PB3, other than just creating questions to ask my interviewee, I need to think about how I can create a linear and compelling story through these questions.