Before we got the final video, my group has re-edit the video several times. The first video we made was just a rough cut, there is no background music, and the progress of the painting in Melbourne central was so long and makes the audience feel boring and have no interest to watch. The interviews we got were also full of noise and no professional captions. At first, we had three interviews of the artist in Melbourne central and Hosier Lane, but there are some problems during the recording and led the sound in the video are noisy, when we found out the problem and wanted to do the interview again, the artists are not there anymore, so this was a big trouble for us, we have to interview more tourist to add in the video, that was hard, because to get a high-quality tourist interview is much more difficult than getting a high-quality artist interview, so we had to interview many people then screen the good interviews. The final video we got is much better than the initial one, we got the background music, and we took the teacher’s advise to add some views of Melbourne in the beginning and in the end. we deleted the unnecessary part and added some unique sound like tram sound, which represents Melbourne. Moreover, we add some simple effects to make the video be more interesting and persuasive. After many times of discussion and improvements, we got the final video, which is much better than the original video, Overall, we hope that when people see this video, they can know more about graffiti art and help the people who may love this art to find their hobby.

This is a short semester, but I learned a lot in these days. At the beginning of this semester, I wanted to improve my edit skill, and that was be achieve when I doing assignment 4, I can use Adobe CC intimately, also I got a lot advise from my teacher, he let me know that making a good video have to be rigorous, like the location of the caption need to be counting professionally, and the professional shooting must use the tripod otherwise the scene would be shaken, even we hold that carefully, when the video on the screen, the shake would be more obvious. The most surprising thing is, this course has helped me find what I love, photography. Before I had this course, I like to use my phone to take picture and catch the moments I want to remember, when I doing assignment 3, that we need to use professional camera to take photo, I fell in love with that feel, that I can take more professional photos, and try how to shoot to get the best angle and the great photo. I was enjoyed that day, that I took a lot of photos. There are lots of challenges when I learning those skills. For instance, when we doing the assignment 4, there are some shots need to be finish in the suburb, and we decided not to bring the tripods with us, because those equipment are heavy, after we upload those videos that shoot without the tripods, the scenes are shake and cannot be use, so we have to reshoot again and that has wasted more time, so we knew the importance of the tripods. When I was doing assignment 3, I was confused by the setting of the camera, there are too many functions and settings, like the focus setting, I searched online to learn how to use and watched some videos on YouTube, the progress was not a challenge for me, because I found t photography makes me happy and I’m happy to learn.

After we got this assignment, I and my group decided to make a promotional video, the initial topic we choose was ‘Melbourne’, then we asked advise from our teacher, finally, we decided to make a Melbourne graffiti art promotional video, to make more people know about graffiti culture. Maybe in Australia and other western countries, graffiti is a normal thing or one of the elements in their city, but in my country, there aren’t much graffities can be seen on the street or the public area, in the one hand, that’s illegal, on the other hand, people are too busy to do these kinds of things which is ‘boring’ and ‘meaningless’ in their mind. So, when more and more Chinese tourists and international students come to Melbourne and see those graffiti art, they may know the difference between our country and the other western countries and want to know about the culture. When we did some interviews in Hosier Lane, I think we almost achieved our intention, that many Chinese had seen the unique part of graffiti, some of them even stop and see the meaning of the graffities. I’m proud that we finished this video well, and had a great corporation with my group members. This is the first time I make a promotional video, which is more difficult than a short movie that has a storyline, so, we started a hurry and didn’t have a good plan, this fault brings lots of trouble when we edit the video, we planned to shoot the progress of an artist drawing, then use the fast speed when we edit the video, so we spent two whole days of that, in the end, we found that we can’t reach our aim, the angle we shot was wrong, so, in the end, we just use a little bit in the final video, all of these faults was led by the lack of experience, that we don’t have a good plan before we start the shoot.

Video:

Synopsis

As a unique culture of Melbourne, graffiti has become one of the most vital part in Melbourne. Walking through the streets of Melbourne, people can find diverse graffiti which conveys different concepts. It is a great backdrop for tourists to take pictures, and is a special way for creators to express their spirits. This promotional video gathers the creative process of different street artists and shows inclusiveness of Melbourne for graffiti cultures has been demonstrated through these two interviews. Accompanied by the view of Melbourne and the sound of the ancient tram, this promotional video spread the graffiti cultures to the audience.

Production Roles:

Shooting: Amy(Xinyue Dai), Poppy(Yating Shi), Rain(Yuchen Chen)

Editing: Amy(Xinyue Dai), Poppy(Yating Shi), Rain(Yuchen Chen)

Music:Rain(Yuchen Chen)

As a group of three girls, I think we did a great job of this assignment, we share our opinion together, and my group members are both intelligent and creative. During the shooting and editing, we had some different ideas, but I’m happy that me and my group members are willing to listen the different opinions. For example, when we start to do the plan, one of my group members insist to count the time of each part and shoot according to the plan, but I think the timing is not that necessary and there will be many changes during shooting, then we had a short discussion, in the end, we decided to make a rough plan of the timing, then we can make it more flexible during the shooting, because her opinion that make a plan is a good idea, when we start shooting, we can know a general understanding of the order, and we also need some flexible space to make a perfect plan. So, I think that was perfectly solved without any conflict. Also, there are too many videos need to be check and classified, so we divided the work and do the rough cut severally to save time. When we finish our part and make all videos together, I found that was not a good idea, because we cannot exchange the idea face to face, so the video can’t be link together perfectly, we had to spend more time to recheck the videos again. Overall, I appreciate two of my group members, we work hard together, encourage each other, when we need to get up early to interview the street artist, all of us arrived on time and finish the interview, when we found that one of the important interview had some trouble that cannot be use in the video, none of us are discouraged but find out the solution immediately. From the begin to the end, me and my group members had a great cooperation, I also learned that in group work, listen to other’s opinion will always inspire me, everyone has their own idea, when we combine our opinion together, the results will be unexpected and great work.

For this assignment, I made a collection of the <guide board> in Melbourne city, I choose the guide boards as the topic of my assignment because I found that’s the most inconspicuous thing on the road, but we can find it in everywhere and need them to find out where we are.we can see a train and a car was passing through when I took this picture, and there are lots of people stand the opposite side waiting for the traffic light turn to be green, the time was about 5 pm, that many people had finish their work and take the train or tram go home. I usually use low angle to take the photo of the guide boards, but I used neutral angle and medium shot in this photo, that I stand on the stairs and took it, then we can see the background scene not just the sky. I did some change of several photos, because in the late afternoon, some of the photos looks very dark and the color was not bright, so I just did some simple change, such as make them brighter and added the saturation value. I was very satisfied about my work, especially some of the pictures, but also I got some problems there because the lack of my professional skills, when I got the camera, the picture I took was warm-toned but I wanted a true tone, I didn’t know how to set so I had searched online for long time, which wasted lot of time on that, and when during the shooting, I also got some trouble about fuzzy pictures, I suppose the setting had some problem, but I don’t know how to change it, the solution I got was ask my friend hold the camera with me. Even though that was hard, but I found that I truly love photography, this assignment has helped me found a hobby, which makes me very exited, I decided to learn more professional skills that helps me to use the camera more easily.

If I have to name these photos, it would be ‘After Lunch’. We took photos after lunch, and that’s the time to take a nap or have a rest, so we catch some moments when people finish their morning and had their hurried meal to take a quick rest to wait for their work or study in the afternoon. When went to Yarra River, Melbourne Central, and Federation Square, there are some students walk on the street happily, some of them even wave to our camera, and there are some workers laying on the grass to have a rest, they seem not happy as the students, when they see our camera, some out them turn their head behind us.

I took this photo near Yarra river, there are many people laying on the grass which looks so relax, I guess some of them work in the nearby, so so after they had their lunch, they can have a quick rest with their friends. it’s hot today, but there is no sun, which is a good weather to lay outside on the grass. There are some pigeons in there, which makes the picture be more relax.

This is a photo I took in July when I back to China, the person in this photo is my best friend, that we know each other for 7 years, we decided to get ourself a tattoo, then we did it. I took this photo when she going to do that, she put her hat on her face, I don’t think she was scared about that, maybe just wants to see a completed tattoo when she gets off the hat. As her friend, I think I should catch the important moment for her, this is her first tattoo, the tattoo was also very meaningful, the words had encouraged her to get through a dark year.

At the beginning of the year, me and my family went to Newzealand for vacation, That was a happy journey, we found a farm on Airbnb, the household was a really nice person, he took us to look around his farm, my father was interested in the cows, so the household took us to feed the cows, when my father was feeding a cow, I took this photo, this is not common in my life, I grow up in the city, so I hardly see livestock, my father said when he was young like my age, he and his brother often feed livestock and graze the cattle and sheep. I think this may let him remember his teenage life.

I took this photo when I just came to Melbourne, when I settled down the school and accommodation things, I decided to go to the Victoria Library, which I knew that before I came to Melbourne and wanted to see what’s that looks like, The library was surprised me, how quiet inside, and the design so attracted me, when I get up to the second floor, I found that was a museum, that lots of paint there, there were not many people at that day, I saw an old man, he stands in front of some paints for a long time, so I took this photo, even I don’t know why I took this, maybe because I as alone at that day, Melbourne for me is a totally new city, I don’t have any friends or family, when I see an old man stand there alone, that would be a comfort to me that I know that not everyone got a companion.

This is our final assignment of this semester and this studio, also, I learned a lot from this final assignment, about skills and creative thinking. For study 6, I spent lots of time to think about how to make a creative and new interactive art, when most of my classmates had think out an excellent idea and made them out, I’m still entangled with ‘What to do’. The most pivotal problem is, whenever I had a new thinking, and I think that will be a great interactive work, and I start to use Max to make it, I found that I couldn’t show my idea by using Max, which because the lack of technical skills of Max. I was so disappointed that I couldn’t make things in my mind be physical just because the technical skills are lacking. The final work I did was a simplified conception, that was some improve on last study, such as I made a mini game and set a key that when visitors press on one of the picture, there will be a sound come out. The shortcoming is, there is only one level for visitors to play, which may make them feel boring, actually I wanted to make more game levels for audiences, that will be more interesting and challenging, but I didn’t know how to make a multiple levels and set different sound in different area.

Study 7 is the most successful interactive work in all studies of mine. The idea came out easily when I eating apple at home, at the first I think of Newton, suddenly I realize that I can make a game that apples falling down naturally and I set a little character to avoid them! Of course, this time I also stopped making my idea to be physical because of my limited technical skill. But I got some time to search online to get more useful skills and codes. Also, I asked my teacher for help, when I watch some tutorial videos and the teacher helping me to do that, I had learned lots of new things, due to there are some repeat work, the teacher just did a demonstration for me, and I tried to do the rest, which really help me to consolidate the new knowledge. When I finish the study 7, I had showed to my friends and ask them to play and give me some advice. There were some problems in there, such as the apple falling down in order, which looks not that natural and smart, and they also mentioned that there are some place the apple will not touch the little character forever, I tried to fix this problem, but there is something wrong, when the position code be a certain number, it will not change, but when I find out this problem, I couldn’t ask the teacher for help, and I tried to search about this online but I couldn’t find out any solution. I’m appreciate I can make this interactive work even though it’s not that perfect.

In study 8, there is not much new things in my project, I combined the previous work and some other classmates’ idea. I finish this final project independently, so I had consolidated my knowledge and also there are many bugs and shortcomings in the project. For example, I couldn’t find a solution that how to make the little character in a right place without any manual adjustment, and also there are some problem with the bomb I set in the game, when the gamer press a right key, there will be a bomb come out, but I just want that bomb appear for 2 seconds then disappear, I tried some method and codes but can’t work. From study 8, I realized that what I learned just scratched the surface, there are more things I need to discover.

Through the whole semester of studying Max7, all of the knowledge for me is new, and I did learn thing there, to make a simple game or a project, that was a interesting thing that every code has their own meaning and may produce a new effect, sometimes when a line link to the wrong point, the final production may be different with what you assumed. Max 7 is a extremely precise software, we can use that to produce countless project, what I’ve learned just the beginning. I believe I will discover more about Max 7 even though the class is finish, because I found this software is challenging and addictive.

Study 8 is the only one project that I complete by myself without any other help, which is a hard work for me. Considering this is the final project in this semester, I decided to make a complicated interactive work, so I had watch lots of videos on YouTube to find some interesting art or inspiration, I did find some work that really interesting, but those projects are not relate to ‘Sound’, so I gave up to find inspiration from the internet, I had ask my friends but didn’t get good answer either. Finally, I decided to make a Maze that controlled by sound. I remember that some of my classmates had done maze before, so I asked them for help, I want to make some changes on my study 6, which was use arrow key to control the character, this time I will use sound to control the character. The final work I’ve done was not a totally new work, all of the codes and the idea was combined with my previous work. But to be frank, I’m proud that I can make a completed project independently.