Thinking about active and passive voices when writing, especially critiquing, is something I personally never really think about, so it was interesting to dive into this aspect a lot more.

 

I really think this aspect will help me in future writing because it often takes me so long to get to a point. I find it hard to find the words to use, and I find myself repeiting a lot due to not being able to clearly express what I’m saying.

This is where I need to think carefully and clearly about the sentence structure and what to put in front of the other in order to easily get to the point.

This week I had my edited version of my Baby Driver review ready for class. The main thing I added in was the description of the music. In the original version I talked about the music which was good not only because I made sure to cover many cinematic elements of the film rather than just the plot, but because the film essentially revolves around the music – the beat of the music reflects the mood and is diegetic as it’s actually in the film.

We looked at different reviews of the film Edward Scissorhands (1990 film). Going through each of the five different reviews was so interesting, as each was so incredibly different in tone, style, structure and language. Each of the reviewers had their own tips and main things to think about when reviewing which again were all so different and interesting. Here are the main points I gathered from the five reviewers: Jane Baxter, Ray Cassin, John Conomos, Paul Harris and Adrian Martin

Jane Baxter:

• Had a ‘storytelling’ style where she just summarised the plot majority of the piece
• Begins with quote from film = evidence and trustworthy source
• Used imagery with ‘box-houses’, ‘neat’ and ‘pastel colours’
• Punchy last sentence
• She says that it’s important to balance any criticism with a positive and try to be fair

Ray Cassin

• Appeals to a sense of nostalgia in opening paragraph with ‘fairytales’
• Discusses lots on the director and his choices and style

John Conomos

• Academic style= very structured, intellectual
• Lots of references to other films, showing his knowledge and research/evidence. Demonstrates expertise with his strong persona and voice
• Focuses on directing style and cinematic elements rather than story
• The piece requires knowledge
• He says that it’s important to borrow ideas and, references and styles of expression from other sources

Paul Harris

• Conversational style with simple language yet sophisticated quotes
• References of other films and pieces of media to support his points and show knowledge
• Discusses other cinematic elements such as music, not just directing style
• Style of writing reflecting the film = dark and gothic
• Interesting that he says he is unaware of his audience “the audience which I address is a complete mystery to me”

Adrian Martin

• Forceful in his views – feels as though he is shouting at you when you read
• Little summary on film but more so ideas such as the style, form and structure
• References to show expertise
• Analytical and intellectual voice
• Generous in terms of knowledge
• Concludes with positives of film
• He says it’s important to grasp the compositional elements such as the plot shifts, character stereotypes, references etc.

 

I really enjoy writing reviews, especially if I’m passionate about the material (if I enjoyed the film, TV show, book etc.) and I want my writing to improve, so I wrote two more reviews this week. One on the film Suicide Squad (2016) and a show I went to see at Chapel on Chapel called Britney Spears the Cabaret.

 

 

 

 

This week’s studio consisted of yet another brainstorm as a class, however this time discussing about what it means to be a critique and the elements we should be constantly considering.

Last week’s focus was on writing our own reviews whereas this week we shifted on to critiquing others work.

The 6 main points to consider when critiquing others work are:

1. critique the writing, not the writer
2. offer critique that is thoughtful, not rushed
3. start with the strengths
4. address weaknesses with positive language
5. be open to other areas and genres (be objective)
6. be specific: give examples to avoid being vague and make solid suggestions for improvement

 

I find it fun critiquing other people’s work in terms of recognising their style, structure and language, but it’s hard to actually critique it in regard to what improvements can be made. The main reason is the style and overall tone of the piece – each style is so different; a casual and conversational style versus a more authoritarian and direct piece. Both so different so can we criticise or make suggestions for alterations based on this? I guess it has to do with if it fits the piece and whatever works with the content.

 

The tone of my Baby Driver review is quite casual in terms of the way my writing is delivered. I’m in no ways forceful with my opinions and arguments, rather quite fair (well I aimed to be anyway…) and made sure to back the criticisms with positives.

Week one of the studio consisted of everyone finding their feet and thinking about what it meant to be a reviewer or critic in any form of media.

The last film I watched in the cinemas was Baby Driver, directed by Edgar Wright, starring Ansel Elgort and Kevin Spacey. I thoroughly enjoyed the film and chose to do my first 300-word review on it as I had a lot I could talk about. I’ve already found after completing this first review that it’s much easier writing a piece you actually care or are passionate about, because the words aren’t forced they just come naturally. For this film there were so many elements I could discuss, both the good and the bad (majority good) so I decided to go for it. Since it was the first review, it was only just discovering the ways we could write, so it didn’t matter so much on the content.

I was quite scared going into the task though since I had never written a review in my life – ever. So it was quite daunting. However, I completed it to the best of my ability and enjoyed doing so which is exciting because it makes me want to write more over the course of the semester.

The brainstorm helped a lot as well. I was able to gather the two main ideas we came up and agreed upon in class, ‘research’ and ‘description’ and think about how I might apply them into my first piece.

It’s the end of the semester. The final studio of ecologies of noticing. I have, to my surprise considering how confused and flustered i was at the beginning, enjoyed this course. I have found not only the content to be incredibly interesting, but I was opened to a whole new window of ideas, creations and theories in which I haven’t been exposed to before.

My whole interpretation of life itself has broadened, and I am now finding myself noticing things in everyday life that I would have completely ignored and wouldn’t have taken any interesting in prior to the course.

Although I only just felt confident in the content and why we were looking into such confusing and heterogeneous theories and ideas more towards the end of the course, I am now still able to reflect back on previous learning activities and put them into the whole perspective of the course.

My overall participation has been good. I have been able to realise what I’m continuing to do well in the course, and then am aware of what areas need improving. While the readings, in particular the Bogost’s, were our predominate source of learning and our main point of focus, my participation was great. I was engaged with the content and looking for ways to expand my understanding of it in terms of the course as a whole, and I was able to question what I was doing well and could be improving on. I was writing questions and annotating the reading well, however I could have improved on making sure I remained focused for the rest of the semester, each week being equally engaged.

Reading 20 pages of the reading each week was one of my initial goals in which I believe I did well.

I was able to stick to my goal in completing at least 6 blog posts a week which I am proud of. They vary in terms of content, length and my overall passion for that particular content (sometimes I was vague and brief in the discussion, and other times I put in a lot of real thought and effort).

Unfortunately, I had a lot of work that clashed with class so I wasn’t always able to attend, but when I did attend I was switched on and ready to learn and participate.

Overall, the grade for participation I give myself is 75% in terms of engagement, class attendance, readings, blog posts.

It was my birthday yesterday and one of my gifts from my friends was a Vinyl of the trio ‘The XX’. Such a cool gift, and I love their electronic music.

While the vinyl was effortlessly turning around on the turn table, I was watching it in complete awe. How does it work? How does this weird little needle gently placed upon this big plastic disc produce that music? It blew my mind. I couldn’t get over it. So I did a bit of researching. Here’s a cool video I found.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bw4YmbAKocM

 

 

Get Out is probably one of the best movies I’ve ever seen. I absolutely cannot stand the horror/thriller/scary genre, but this was an exception. It was so extremely clever. It was definitely more of a thriller than anything. It’s interesting too because it was directed by Jordan Peele, who is known for his work in comedy, his sketches with Michael Key “Key and Peele”. He is one talented and smart dude!

 

The whole film come together so well in the end with such a twist. The attention to detail is insane, with everything included done so for a reason; to portray or suggest a certain message.

 

There’s a segment where one of the characters is eating fruit loops, carefully placing only a few in her mouth at a time, followed by a sip of milk. This is meant to be a representation of her separating coloured from the white.

How clever is that?!

 

Definitely a must watch, and at the cinema to experience the film at it’s incredible full potential

Saw this on Facebook.

Yep.

Today we decided to meet up to complete our next video and audio pieces as a group. Our group does its best work when we’re all together; bouncing ideas off each other, recording footage efficiently and editing. The audio piece we were responding to is predominately about water. It has a description of water including its functions and purpose, accompanied with droplets and tap sounds in the background. From this, we decided to follow the theme and record footage of different sources of water. At RMIT there is a fountain which has lots of different compartments where water streams out of, so we headed straight there, set our phone cameras to slow motion and recorded. Lucas had an empty boost juice cup, so we decided to keep it and use it in the footage. I stood on it and water went everywhere including up the entire left side of my jeans. Lydia was in charge of the audio, in which we recorded different ways of us saying water, and anything else to do with water including ocean, waves and drip. Pat was able to merge his footage of coloured food dye in a fish bowl into the video piece, and the main techniques used were fading transitions and layering of different footage making the opacity on 50%.

The tap at the end of the video is meant to represent bringing things back to life and using an object even when it’s broken. It shows a broken tap with a non-existent handle, and by pouring water of the top of it, we were able to give it back it’s purpose, showing how objects can still be in use when broken.

 

I was lying in bed this morning checking my phone, as I do every morning. I came across a Mamamia article about Amy Schumer, with an embedded podcast. Being such an Amy Schumer fan, I clicked on it, curious as to what it was going to be about.

Now, those who know Amy Schumer know that she is very comfortable, almost too comfortable, with everything in her life. The way she openly and explicitly discusses her sex life and drinking habits in comedic ways is essentially what she is known for. I can understand why people don’t think she is funny. Her content is very cringe worthy and at times it’s hard to know whether to laugh, cry or just stare at the computer screen not knowing what to do.

Her new 1 hour stand up show “The Leather Special” is now on Netflix. I watched it a while ago and thought it was funny, but extremely predictable in terms of the content.

In the podcast, the girls review and criticise The Leather Special, and despite being an Amy fan, I definitely agree with them.

Especially when discussing the fact that her ‘Trainwreck’ movie character, whose name is actually Amy, often overrides her persona in her stand up shows rather than being the real Amy. It’s very predictable, and a bit repetitive. Having said this, of course she’s going to put on her persona. Her on stage persona is still a character. Whenever she’s performing, whether that be on screen or live, she’s always acting.

I personally think the only reason she’s funny is not the stories she tells, but how she actually tells those stories. Her confident yet hesitant way of describing the details is what makes her stories funny. The little shrugs and sarcastic comments during her stories is what makes her funny. I also admire her for being so open about topics that people often find uncomfortable and difficult to talk about. She generates conversation. She creates an environment where people can be happy about themselves. This is where she becomes a great role model.

Anyway, I love Amy Schumer and I think she is incredibly fierce, strong and of course funny.