I saw this outside the Trades Hall the other day, and i must admit it made me chuckle.
I’ve seen a bunch of similar things around but this thing was giant and on a canvas rather than a poster.
I wonder who put it up, and how long it lasted until it was inevitably taken down?
We’ve got progress! Over the last week myself and my group have been filming bits and pieces to start putting together the final artefact for Project Brief 4. During a tutorial we took a few of our classmates out in the hall to ask them questions for our ‘vox-pop’ segments. We also filmed a bunch of filler footage outside (of people walking and such). I’ve started to put together the footage in a somewhat cohesive manner so we can record a voice over and start fine tuning it from there.
“There is no such thing as an original idea”.
The lecture this week was on remix culture, a subject which I find very interesting.
We listened to a song called ‘This is the Remix’ by an artist named Girl Talk, someone I recall being really into when I was around 16-17. I saw them at Big Day Out in… 2010 it must have been? Girl Talk specialises in ‘mash-ups’ using Creative Commons licencing. Anyway, we were asked to pick out as many samples as we could in the song. The most obvious one was ‘I Want You Back’ by The Jackson 5 but after that i found it hard to keep up with spotting others. After looking the song up I found that around 28 different songs are sampled.
One of my favourite artists that frequently makes use of sampling is A Tribe Called Quest, who are often cited as the pioneers of alternative hip hop.
This song, ‘Can I Kick It?’ contains samples of “Walk on the Wild Side” by Lou Reed, “What a Waste” by Ian Dury and the Blockheads, “Spinning Wheel’ by Dr. Lonnie Smith and a few more.
Mmmmmm that sweet, smooth mix of jazz and rap.
On Friday I spent a day helping a friend out with her short film for third year fashion at RMIT. When I agreed to it I didn’t realise it would be such a long day. I got to the RMIT Brunswick campus at 8.30am and spent the first hour taping black garbage bags together to then place on the windows so people wouldn’t be able to see through them. We then spent quite a while setting up this ‘porta-jib’ contraption. It took two people to operate it smoothly but it was great to experience the freedom and fluidity available!
We used a Blackmagic camera which was surprisingly simple to use. The quality was great and we experimented with a variety of lenses- most notably a tilt/shift lense which created some super interesting effects.
I haven’t gone into too much detail as I need to wait until my friend has submitted the final product but it was a fantastic experience. I definitely experienced and saw how much work goes into a production, even if the final product is only 5 minutes long. I was there from 8.30am-6.30pm. I can only imagine what it’s going to be like when it’s my own production!
Documentaries are generally perceived as being an accurate depiction of real life, or as being ‘truth’. However, like in film, documentaries are often still highly constructed in the way they are filmed and edited. For example, even though in the making of Grizzly Man Herzog primarily used footage shot by someone else, he still had complete control over what was and wasn’t included and therefore had control over the representation constructed.
In the reading two main types of form in documentary are covered: Categorical and Rhetorical. In Categorical form documentary filmmakers use categories to organize the films form. It will usually introduce the subject of the film and then go on to introduce various aspects of the subject. In contrast, the rhetorical form is used to present a persuasive argument in a film. The viewer is usually addressed openly (the audience is aware they are watching something constructed) and the subject is usually a matter of opinion rather than based on factual evidence. The rhetorical form is used to appeal to our emotions and to persuade the viewer into making a choice.
Finally, this weeks lecture was on the topic assigned to my group for Project Brief #4: Institutions.
I thought it would assist in giving me a clear idea on exactly what a media institution was, but to be honest it just confused me a little bit.
I found it interesting that Brian started off by discussing the popular HBO television series, The Wire. My housemates are always watching The Wire but I have never been able to get into it. However, I could see where Brian was going in discussing The Wire as it does primarily focus on different institutions: police force, gangs, unions, city councils etc.
In terms of MEDIA Institutions I understood that they generally
– regulate and structure activities
– develop working practices
– public is aware of their status
– are enduring
– employees are expected to share values
The lecture was then split up into rough groups to explore the values and characteristics of certain Media Institutions.
I got Facebook and came up with the following:
MEETING #3 MINUTES
Tuesday 12th May 12.30
Present: Haylee, Elle, Andrew
Possible Questions:
Equipment to use:
We have decided to meet again tomorrow to create a more in-depth prototype before the tutorial on Thursday.
This weeks reading covers style as a formal system. Films will generally have a certain ‘style’ to them, defined by the various techniques used and the patterns they form. Filmmakers also tend to use similar stylistic techniques over many of their films, or ‘group style’ can form (i.e. German Expressionist).
A film will usually rely on consistent usage of certain techniques to form a certain style. However, narrative contrasts can often be reinforced by stylistic differences. An example of this is in Playtime when the character Mr. Hulot dresses differently to the rest of the characters in the film. This costume choice reinforces the key narrative aspect of Mr. Hulot being different to the rest of the characters in the film.
Analyzing film style can be described in four general steps: