Angus Jones – 3658552

RMIT University | Bachelor of Communications (Media) 2020 | Climate Changing Media Assessment 4

Our Plastic Connections Short Audio Story:

Prompt 12: Critical reflection

The hyperobject I chose for this final assessment was plastic bottles as mentioned in my week 9 presentation, I was interested in breaking down the traditional stereotype that surrounds my hyperobject in contemporary medias.

I decided to create a purely audio based media work so one that I could test my own creative ability and secondly to avoid the cliché of delivering environmental information to the public or show footage of animals and people that climate media authorities typically do; because of this I was also not interested in utilizing any public news or media footage as well as the usage of corporate / commercial or advertising purposes.

My audio piece is about the shared emotional connection that humans and plastic bottles have, in particular focusing on the unforeseeable future we experience as young adults including the uncertainties of what our futures hold; which is contrasted with the plastic bottle’s journey in the story but also in reality. Following up on recommended resourcing, Amy recommended watching Heather Davis’s presentation[1] discussing the ethical responsibility that we have with plastic and how they can share a similar emotional connection as those of our next of kin. I was particularly interested with Davis’s presentation here as she discusses and breaks down the shallow image that plastic is easily brittle but in fact, as said, plastic is one of the most durable compounds on earth and poses the question to her listeners: What might we learn if we begin to embrace the no filial progeny that plastic might produce? I really liked this piece as I felt it offered up a new approach towards tackling climate change in media by showing a new perspective towards the topic; allowing for an emotional connection to be created to an object that is now part of the ecosystem that it lives within. Also this piece assisted me with a percentage of motivation for the ideas I wanted to covey through my media artifact.

For me something that I thought was a good strength in my piece was generating a more serious tone for the listeners. My immediate thoughts after choosing my constraints were how I could create tone without having a visual aid to assist. It was in Rose Hendrick’s article [2] that explores the importance of metaphors and tone when framing climate media work to the public. Hendricks discusses a scenario where psychologists presented online two short fictional news articles in which they are the same text, but with two different tones one referring to ‘war against’ the other ‘race against’.” The readers answered a series of questions, involving action to engage in pro-environmental behaviour and the results where in agreement. Hendricks piece highlights the importance of metpahors and tone, which is something I wanted to create for my piece not necessarily to convince people to take action, but to perhaps convince them to think of empathetic ways towards plastic objects.

It was also in an article by the Australian Psychological Society (APS) [3] in which Professor Graeme Halford discusses the important of communicating climate media to the Australian public. He discusses that the climate change topic is one that is an immensely complicated phenomenon and that some mediums try to distort the issues in the publics mind; instead he says that

People will find it easier to make an judgment call if they have a clear understanding of the essence of climate change. This is something I hope to achieve with my work, keeping the work to a level that is not deemed overly complicated for listeners.

In regards to approaches or techniques used to work around my 3 chosen constraints, I listened to vastly different genres in movie scenes and just listened to the audio paying particular attention to the rhythm of dialogue and music. I also looked into some examples of audio that I thought were exceptional including Dunkirk and animated films like Up.

In conclusion, I hope my piece contains an engaging story for listeners to take away a wider perspective towards the climate change issue and feel motivated or inspired to take pro environmental behaviours.

[1] https://youtu.be/CwR3hfqz-58 – Davis’s Presentation (Queer Futurity of Plastic)

[2] https://theconversation.com/communicating-climate-change-focus-on-the-framing-not-just-the-facts-73028 – Rose Hendricks Article

[3] https://www.psychology.org.au/inpsych/2012/june/climate_change – Prof Halford’s piece.

Angus Jones – 3658552

RMIT University | Bachelor of Communications (Media) 2020 | Climate Changing Media Assessment 4

 Prompt 11: Documented Progress

Initially when I begun the actually editing process of my media work, I realised that I maybe have under researched into potential sound techniques that I could employ into my media practice. I decided to look into 2 examples of audio techniques, one used by the famous Hans Zimmer throughout a lot of his movies called a Shepard Tone. Hans Zimmer’s audio illusion, otherwise called the Shepard Tone, is particularly evident in Christopher Nolan’s film 2017 film Dunkirk, in which what feels like throughout the entire film the audio seems to escalate higher and higher but never actually does; this is achieved with having multiple layers of audio pilled on top of each other but each are a octave level separate.

And another audio technique I’m particularly interested in is employed particular in the Pixar film Up, in which it’s more about what audiences perceives emotionally while the audio remains the same. The very introduction of the film there is a montage of two characters, Carl and Ellie Fredrickson who marry, fall in love and experience the tragic moments together including the death of the stillborn child and eventually Ellie’s death. While these moments are shocking and heartbreaking visually, it’s the continuation of the soundtrack that remains through these moments that truly bring the emotional weight down on the audience. I believe both these techniques are both achievable for my media making project, I do think that to re-create a Shepard tone will be more difficult so I’m more inclined to focus on creating a Kuleshov effect purely based around audio as demonstrated in Up. The intent for this is to arise an emotional response from the listeners, hoping that they can be brought to a state of ‘alarmed’ as address in Rebecca Huntley’s ABC podcast released earlier this year, without bluntly displaying facts rather easing listeners to that.

As far as footage I’m sourcing, I began recording voiceover and audio sounds on my iPhone and then sending them to my laptop of editing. I’ve found this is to be relatively effect though the audio quality isn’t to a high level of standard. After reading through Cristina’s review of my presentation in week 9, she had attached a link to BBC’s sound effects at the end of her response. After which I decided to look into more royalty free music and sound effect websites including ZapSplat and freeSFX, which offers a wide range of effects though anything more specific that I would like to add I will create remotely. Following up on our panel judge Amy; she recommended watching Heather Davis’s presentation discussing the ethical responsibility that we have with plastic and how they can share a similar emotional connection as those of our next of kin. At about 5 minutes into her presentation she discusses a new geological from of rock combined from washed up plastic on beaches in Hawaii. The plastics would melt from heat and bon fires held on the beach and because of this the plastics would be adhere to new kinds of substances becoming it’s own new object. Perhaps this is something could be re-created with my media work combining human audio effects and plastic bottle sounds to strengthen their connection to one another and vise versa.

Examples of Work:

Sound effects planned for Media Artefact

Early Editing Stages:

Angus Jones – 3658552

RMIT University | Bachelor of Communications (Media) 2020 | Climate Changing Media Assessment 4

 Prompt 10: Responding to Presentation Feedback

Firstly it was a huge honour to have on outside perspective into our media making projects from our guest panel for this presentation. Having access to professionally involved media and academic people I felt was really worthwhile, and this was reflected in their constructive feedback during our presentations.

The general feedback from the judging panel was that my hyperobject choice and the reasoning why I wanted to re-shape the current stigma surrounding the plastic bottles in contemporary media, they thought was good definitely a step in the correct direction.

Wendy in particular raised the idea of the connection that plastic bottles have with us, as human beings would be interesting to follow. Though she did say that my way of demonstrating that could be fleshed out a bit more; saying that climate media is never static, it’s always changing. She mentioned the piece about Huntley converting more people to the ‘alarmed’ concern towards the environment, and how currently thanks to events as COVID-19 and the Australian Bushfires that occurred earlier this year, people in Australia are already more ‘alarmed’ to these issues. I was thinking of focusing more on plastic bottles something that we are more familiar with and love, using that untouchable connection and explore that through use of a soundscape.

This also related to Amy’s advice on approaching the topic of plastic bottles and their connection to us. She mentioned Heather Davis’s The Queer Futurity of Plastic presentation in which she discusses the ethical responsibility that we have with plastic. She frames it in a way to suggest that plastic is like our next of kin, something that we are related too and we should be taking radical care of them. I thought Amy’s offered resource was really interesting to listen but also assisting me in my own project by showing content of a similar creation.

Cristina’s feedback as well was insightful as she offered up a lot of supportive comments and resources including a webpage which offered up multiple sound tracks which could be used, an article written in the Guardian with an attached podcast discussing the sudden obsession of using less plastic and a link to 2005’s best documentary The Wire episode 5: The Sound Around nominated by the Third Coast International Audio Festival. Cristina also offered constructive feedback highlighting that I should work out the specific of what story or message I want to send to the listeners.

Angus Jones – 3658552

RMIT University | Bachelor of Communications (Media) 2020 | Climate Changing Media Assessment 3: Performing the Changing Climate

Prompt 7:

Taking into account our modern day anthropence, climate change has definitely become a forefront to a vast majority of the Australian public’s knowledge due to publicized events in the media: including children skipping school in December 2018 to protest directed at the government a ‘call to action’, the more recent Australian bushfires and the affect that’ll hold on the environment and the rise in popularity of environmental activists like Greta Thunberg. This awareness is excellent for this pandemic making people have an emotional investment over the topic and talking about it, but is it too much? Has this topic been so recycled or recurring in the media that we’ve become desensitized to it?

Paul Barkley’s an ABC podcast presenter, who interviewed a socialist researcher Rebecca Huntley earlier this year which it’s revealed that in opinion polls Australians list climate change as one of their top concerns yet there’s still no consensus on how to respond. She says, “it’s almost as if the people who answer the surveys aren’t the same people who answer in elections.” [1] She continues by explaining the difference between multiple surveys conducted between the years 2007 to 2019, in which the survey system shows the increased concern about climate, saying that 59% of Australians agreed that global warming is a serious problem about which we should begin taking steps now to resolve, despite the cost; for it then to dramatically lose interest in people based on living conditions, education and age, as typical more people living in rural areas are more focused on demographic and economy based concerns rather than environmental.

Now I’m not saying specifically that it’s communities living in rural towns that are against environmental preservation, but statistics have shown that those who have completed their education are showing more concern towards climate change based topics. Beyond typical contemporary climate media used to inform the audience of the facts and statics about our environment, perhaps there is a way that government authorities or environmental enthusiasts could communicate the urgency of this topic to those interested in the topic by using different forms of communication. Could using different language, framing your discussion and understanding your audience better make a difference?

Rose Hendricks, a candidate in Cognitive Science at the University of California, released an article Discussing climate change: focus on the framing not just the facts [2], discussing the importance of calculating your and framing your work in relation to climate media. Towards the later end of her article, Hendricks discusses a scenario where psychologists testing 3,000 people online to read two short fictional news articles in which they are the same text, but with slight metaphorical changes: “One refering to ‘war against’ … the other ‘race against’.” [3] After which the readers answered a series of questions, involving action to engage in pro-environmental behaviour and the results where in agreement with scientific evidence show it is real and caused by our Anthropence. Hendricks highlights the importance of language and the context in which specific words surround themselves may cause your readers, viewers or audience to take action.

[1] Why are we so divided on Climate Change? Rebecca Huntley ABC Podcast Wed 29^th of Jan 2020 3:30 – 4:00 minutes. https://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/bigideas/why-are-we-so-dvided-on-climate-change/11898456

[2] Rose Hendricks article https://theconversation.com/communicating-climate-change-focus-on-the-framing-not-just-the-facts-73028

[3] Rose Hendricks article https://theconversation.com/communicating-climate-change-focus-on-the-framing-not-just-the-facts-73028 article 3 Let me rephrase lines 12-13.

RMIT Angus Jones – 3658552

University | Bachelor of Communications (Media) 2020 | Climate Changing Media Assessment 3: Performing the Changing Climate

Prompt 8:

When I began reading into Timothy Morton’s theory on hyperobjects, I initially found the his concept overwhelming as the shear scale of his theory was so immense to me that I found it a little bit intimidating; It wasn’t really until I read through more of the class readings, in particular Rose Hendricks’s article and Rebecca Huntley’s podcast, piece where I started to find some inspiration for my choice of hyerobject and the concept in which to explore.

So my plan for the moment is to create a collection of Foley sound effect recordings, and be able to combine those together to create a story or to share a message. My reasoning behind why I am interested in making a purely audio based media is that I am fascinated in testing my own media creative ability pushing me out of my comfort zone; but also to attempt to create content that is less traditional that a majority of news outlets on the topic of climate change.

In Hendricks’s piece when she discusses of speaking about metaphors, I started to write down common metaphors or objects that immediately spring to mind when thinking about climate change media, coming to my decision of plastic bottles. In her piece she stresses the framing of language when presenting climate media to the public by presenting a case study of a group of psychologists who conducted a survey presenting 2 articles; both the same the only difference is that one discusses the ‘war against climate’ while the other the ‘race against climate.’ After which the survey suggests that those who read the ‘war’ climate article where more inclined to pro-environmental behaviours. From this I wish to recreate that same response in my media-making project, but instead of using it as a promotional use of pro-climate based activities I’d would use it to re-shape the negative perception that surrounds plastics bottles in contemporary media.

I would also like to create an emotional investment or stakes to my media making idea as Rebecca Huntley addresses in her piece with ABC. After spending some time with the Yale Program on Climate Change, Huntley discusses the American public’s beliefs, behaviours, and motivations even voting patterns where represented into 6 different categories: Alarmed, concerned, cautious, disengaged, doubtful and dismissive. Continuing on Huntley, says that we need to increase the alarmed cohort by developing their skills of talking to others not of the same mindset. But also to provide social and emotional support as many of them – and many of us – struggle with feelings of grief, dread and anger about what’s happening to our planet and the response to many of our political leaders. I like this idea of supporting people emotionally with my media making idea, by using a familiar and common item that everyone has had one in their possession at some stage of their lives.

Angus Jones – 3658552

RMIT University | Bachelor of Communications (Media) 2020 | Climate Changing Media Assessment 3: Performing the Changing Climate

Prompt 9:

Cristina’s presentation explores the hyperobject of Fast Fashion in particular focusing on the cotton farming industry, and how the large-scale production of clothing is a contributing negative factor to global climate change. Considering the lack of public knowledge of this particular topic, I felt she presented an excellent array of stats to emphasis the environmental affect that this industry is having on our world but also the urgency conducted by her research say that it’s the second largest polluter in the world second to oil.

I also was interested in the point she made about tying us to the actual person who has created the clothing, this untouchable connection that we share which ties, I thought well, into Timothy Morton’s hyperobject theory that they can be viscous, which means that they ‘stick’ to beings that they are involved with and have a connection with; similar to my idea for my media project. She continues on with this broadening the scope of her point by saying that we all wear clothes, and how prevalent it is in our own lives.

When Cristina did start discussing the actual content she wanted to put into her short film, because it is a large topic she wanted to show the process of certain aspects of cotton including the farming, the production into clothing etc. I think it’ll be difficult to source footage of clothing without getting a shot of the brand involved. Perhaps there is a way you could demonstrate that differently could you have a visual metaphor? An object that represents a person, place, thing or idea by means of a visual image that suggests a particular association or point of similar interest.

Presentation – Powerpoint presentation