Category: integrated media

Narrative fiction and logic

Narrative fiction is different to life because everything is logically formed with a beginning, middle and end. There is a conflict that a character faces and then the film revolves around how they deal with this conflict or don’t.  This is different to life because a main character won’t die mid film of an accident because they are put into the film for the purpose of showing an issue.

We can still experience fiction narrative through other more artistic forms, however it then becomes interpretive logic. We interpret something in ways that logically make sense to us .

Today’s lecture QUESTION TIME

Today the important people at the front of the class discussed and answered the questions that the Tuesday 2:30 class created.

Why has reality TV become so popular?
Keeping up with the Kardashians, Geordie Shore, Jersey Shore, The Real House Wives of New Jersey and many more bring ‘real’ drama to our homes. Reality TV is a guilty pleasure that many can shamefully admit to enjoy. We enjoy watching something that seems ‘genuine’, although it rarely is.
When one thinks of reality show, the reaction most of the time will be either ‘Reality TV is sooooooo bad’ or an embarrassed ‘Yea reality TV is my guilty pleasure’.
This got me thinking of Jersey Shore and all the ‘bar fights’, ‘bitch slaps’ and drunken hook-ups and I found this video of a man who PROVES TO THE WORLD that everything we are watching in Jersey Shore is fake.

Similarly, When the hit reality show The Hills finished, they revealed to the audience that everything that took place, what we thought was being filmed on the streets, was actually being choreographed in an LA studio.

When my friend saw the season finale of The Hills and how they did the ‘crazy reveal’, she was fuming. She hated that she had been lied to for five seasons and was disappointed that all the arguments were staged. This got me thinking, why is she so mad? Regular television shows like F.R.I.E.N.D.S are not real but that doesn’t take away from the fact that it was a brilliant television show. So why does it matter if reality television is real or not?

In answering the question, why are reality TV shows so popular these days? I would have to guess that it is because it is a guilty pleasure that we can’t help but love to watch. You don’t have to pay attention to the minor details you can just mindlessly watch it.

Today’s lecture: Taxonomy

Today’s lecture revolved around taxonomy and classification. So what makes two things that have very similar properties different? Adrian discusses gum trees and how there are 700 types of gum trees. Any average on looker could look at two different gum trees that stand side by side and consider them the same, yet they are not because one tree has a  darker shade of bark. What can be confusing is, not one gum tree is the same, naturally they will not all have the same colour. So how does one establish that they are different?

Thus begins the discussion of the ‘boundary rule’. Classifying species to be in the same group, but different. An easy classification would be that of ‘fish’. What makes them the same? Well, all fish swim and breath in water, but you have an estimated 28000 different classifications of fish. It’s when you start to go deeper into classifying something that it get’s more difficult to establish that these two very similar things are not the same.

The basic classification of living things that I learnt in school started off with that of Biology but this made me think of all other things you can classify.

No Light

Analysis/Reflection
I really like this shot and feel like it could be the opening for a horror film or a film with witches. The sun has almost set and the sky is the only light that sits behind a silhouetted tree and church. I wish it had panned out a little more, but I couldn’t without including telephone poles and construction.

Shadow

Analysis/Reflection
This is probably my favourite 6-10 second video that I have made so far. I feel the concept of ‘shadow’ is really captured in a unique and creative way. I like how the elephant shadow moves across the wall as I move the light I hold.

Light

Analysis/Reflection
I like this effect of the jellyfish being illuminated by the light behind it, however I wish I moved the camera more to get different and wider angles in the shot. I didn’t do this because you could see my bed side table mixed in with the jellyfish and I wanted the focus to purely be on the jellyfish and the light that is running through it.

Roung things 1,2,3

Round things no.1

Analysis/Reflection
I like that you can see all the different sizes of the circular coins and how as the camera moves more coins are visible in the frame. I wish I had laid out more coins but I simply ran out. I would have liked to pan in and out of the shot.

Round things no.2

Analysis/Reflection
This shot purely focuses on the shadow and light effect within the white bowl that sits on the table top.  I like this but it’s quite boring at the same time.

Round things no.3

Analysis/Reflection
I like the creativity behind this clip as it the camera is down on the floor with the man’s shoes in the background, and then the bar of hotel soap rolling into frame and then flooring perfectly on the floor right of frame. I displayed this video in class as part of the participation group exercise and a had positive reviews. One review suggested I don’t include the man’s shoes at all, which would put more focus on the rolling bar of soup in the frame.