Today, people around the world mark IDAHOBIT. The aim of the day is draw attention to the many ways in which sexual and gender diverse people are discriminated against and marginalised.

“Australia is like anywhere else in the world – life can be very difficult for people who don’t conform to stereotyped expectations about sexuality and gender. A key way in which such inequality is maintained and legitimised here is through the restriction of marriage rights to heterosexual couples only. On Sunday 17 May in Melbourne, thousands will rally to send a message to the government that this and all other discriminatory laws must be scrapped, and to add their voices to the calls for the ALP to adopt a binding vote on the issue at their upcoming National Conference. It will also draw attention to the array of issues, from formal discrimination to bigoted attitudes, that too frequently blight or destroy the lives of LGBTI people in Australia.”

The day featured speakers, including former teacher and Safe Schools Coalition organizer Mel Gaylard, Transgender activist Elliot Downes and former Greens leader Christine Milne.

I was proud to be apart of the message to Australian politicians in support of marriage equality.

Being a British citizen and recently having spent a lot of time living and working in the UK I’ve being paying a lot of attention to Westminster politics…Probably more than what’s happening here. I feel horrible about today’s election result. David Cameron confounds polls to win a second five-year term in office for his conservative party. Imagine hearing the same news about Abbott (praying that won’t happen)

The UK has a massive trade deficit, a skills deficit, mass unemployment in terms of zero hours contracts. The gap between rich and poor has gone back to the 1920s, and a million people including those who work use foodbanks. Local councils are being forced to hand over school assets, and the NHS (Medicare equivalent) is being forced to hand over services to profit making companies.

I was recently in the dreary grey gloom of it all whilst unblocking toilets for a drainage company in Dorset. Each morning I’d cycle past a UKIP branch (Far Right anti-immigration party), arrive at the office for a coffee always to see a new copy of THE SUN newspaper (Rupert Murdoch Propaganda) on the table for the plumbers to flick through. If anything the newspaper is a big fat insult from the elite to the ordinary working class. The lads I worked with couldn’t see that though and it made me really concerned about the state of the country and generally our planet. The headlines may as well say here suckers take a bite of this ridiculous story because you’re not worth anything other than a manufactured fiction of reality. They’re trying to keep them in this low vibrational state of hate, bad news and topless women. Its time to destroy the agenda-driven sections of the media that focus on divisive, superficial stories which serve only to distract us from the main game: inequality, corruption, environmental exploitation and the immorality of our governing and business elite.

I truly thought that times were changing, that old media didn’t have the same sort of power it used to… Evidently that is not the case, David Cameron is the British Prime minister with more seats than before! after all thats happened.

Feeling very disillusioned.

Last night I volunteered as camera operator on a pilot series for a stand up comedy show. I am gaining a lot of studio experience each time go and it’s also a lot of fun. Hopefully one day soon I’ll have enough experience to be a multi-cam director…

that’s the master plan.

50 million displaced people in the world today; all fleeing from war and oppression, a lot of which we helped create. Some countries literally have millions of displaced people, some hundreds of thousands.
And we cop the smallest trickle of people.
we are one of the richest countries in the world, and have more space than practically every other country. But we can’t help at all? We can’t help this desperate handful of people?
Really?

They come to Australia expecting freedom from war and detention, but they are put in a facility surrounded by barbed wire…like criminals.

Australia’s policy of mandatory detention means that everyone is locked up, including small children.

We have two political parties preaching hatred and intolerance, trying to top each other in how sickeningly cruel they can be to fellow human beings in need.

This will go down as a very dark time in our history.

To govern is not to crush the persons or processes governed, or to dominate them, but to mobilize them toward some ends – Rose, 2005

End Children in Detention

read my essay Here

This morning Elise and I met up to complete our collaborative contract and discuss our ideas and what directions to take on our topic of Institutions.

We decided to specifically look at the Classification Board of Australia and explore the board’s function, purpose and structure as well as its relation to cinema.

Click to see mind map

It was important to set particular goals to insure we stay on track and meet deadlines.

• We would like to utilise our skills on the Sony MC50 Camera and the Zoom H2N sound recorder to produce our work.
• We want to develop a clear understanding of the Classification Board and its interaction with contemporary society
• We would like to try and interview people on the street (Vox Pops)
• We will attempt to meet up 2-3 times a week to combine and collaborate ideas. This may include particular locations such as cafes, the state library as well as on-site office locations to further our knowledge of media institutions.

We also decided it was important to construct some dispute resolution procedures.

• We will always give honest, constructive feedback to each others work (De Bono’s “coloured hats” method)
• If we have contrasting ideas or opinions, we will try to resolve the dispute through compromise, to avoid the issue quickly escalating.
• If compromise cannot be reached, we have agreed to draw straws, and leave it up to chance. This provides fairness to both sides.
• If things cannot be resolved, we will seek independent advice from a our lecturer.

Click to see mind map

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Not sure about the significance of week eight but for some reason I’ve come to the realisation that I am now, in fact, well and truly, in a routine. A routine that will continue for the rest of this year, and the next one…and the NEXT one. It’s freaking me out a little. I’ve strangely been going through old journal entries, reading stories I had already completely forgotten about. Stories about bribing some corrupt border police in Myanmar or fixing my broken down motorbike on the side of the road in Northern Laos or tending to my blisters whilst trekking in the Himalayas or trying to cure a vodka hangover on the Trans-Siberian Railway… It is weird looking back on the last few years as they were of such intensity and when I look forward its just the same sort of life I’m living now. Its going to take some getting used to, as by this time I’m usually searching for the eject button.

On the topic of stories and journeys I’m going to mention a bit about yesterdays lecture.

Everything is a story – a story is everything

There isn’t a single set of rules that you can learn to become a good storytelling filmmaker but there are many guidelines and tricks that have been used and refined over the centuries that you can learn and call upon as you weave your storytelling magic. For instance, if we see a tumbleweed go by followed by the sound of a rattlesnake, we’re expecting some kind of cowboy shootout to begin. These kind of expectations we have can be cleverly used to lure viewers into a story and are joined together in a pattern which is called causality- one thing leads to another which leads to another. Our lecturer explained it as ‘you can’t fly from Perth to Broome without being in Perth first…Sounds strange but he’s was trying to explain how important it is to follow a logical progression of events. As you watch any film, you should be able to plot the pattern of causality throughout it, watching a structure develop of events providing the seeds for other events throughout the film…Character development – plot – resolution. Have a look at our graph we made in class showing the emotional intensity seen in the film The Matrix

This week we presented Project Brief Three in a kind of ‘film festival’ style…screening all projects from start to finish with no discussion or explanation. I much preferred this method of presentation. Being first allowed me to sit back and enjoy watching everyone’s projects without having to worry about mine appearing amongst some of the very impressive portraits. I particularly enjoyed Dustys which was on a taxidermist… interesting subject and very well constructed. Check it out.

We were then put into groups to give and receive feedback on our portraits…here is some of the feedback I gave my group members.

I thought Gloria’s was one of the most creative in terms of using found footage. I loved the connection between the subject and animals as well as the use of filters to emphasize that connection. I was told by Gloria that she wanted to incorporate her subjects interests in planes however, I felt these shots were a little out of place and could have been approached differently. But overall I enjoy the sarcastic elements involved and look forward to seeing more of her work.

The opening shot of Ali’s portrait really stood out. Although few words were spoken in this shot it strangely seemed to tell more about the subject than the interview itself. Capturing such meaningful shots like that is definitely something I learnt from this portrait. I also liked the metaphorical connection between the two found footage shots towards the end…showing a man with nothing but a tie and his underwear to a man in a suit floating on a balloon in the city helped to tell the story of his subject.

I enjoyed the simplicity of Emma’s portrait, it had a sense of randomness cutting straight to particular event that happened in Europe…sometimes it’s unnecessary to give too much detail. I did feel as if more B-roll was needed as well as including further found footage to create a better picture of the story being told… but overall a very light-hearted and enjoyable media portrait.

My group members also gave me some helpful feedback that I will take into consideration for future projects. My music volume was too high, which ultimately drew attention away from the dialogue. They enjoyed the black and white handheld shots as it created a very personal atmosphere and my integration of original and found footage was also effective.

Happy days

I made the decision to do my media portrait on Tahj Rosmarin, solely because he sprung to mind almost immediately upon receiving the project task. This was because he is a dear old friend of mine who is made up of such captivating aspects in terms of culture, appearance, beliefs and interests. He is also conveniently my housemate so I was able to infuriatingly follow him around whenever I felt necessary.

Although as an outcome of this project, I discovered accessibility definitely comes with a catch. Switching the dynamic of friendship to subject was a difficult task, especially as I intended on creating quite a deep and pensive aesthetic. At the beginning of the interview I felt as if Tahj were one of those sea creatures curling and tightening up with unease. I also found it difficult to try and encourage the conversation without speaking too much so as to avoid being present in the edit. Out of desperation I made a strange decision to hand Tahj the camera and have him speak directly into the microphone. This was my saviour; I asked the questions I wanted to know and got the exact response I was hoping for. I suppose this was also a problematic aspect as it came at the cost of losing a direct on camera interview leaving it up to B roll to illustrate the entire portrait.

In the editing process I faced the challenge of sifting through the interview to determine what was of value to the story I wanted to tell. I knew from the start that incorporating his drawings were imperative to articulate him visually. But I also kept in mind what Kyla told us about following a story, letting it head in a particular direction and to have the confidence to jump aboard see where it takes you.

I used my found footage as a kind of metaphorical analogy, re-contextualising the footage to give it creative appropriation. As an example, I felt I was successful in portraying the significance of Tahj’s emigration from South Africa to Australia, using found footage of a skipping stone on a lake to represent one step to another.

I think a key aspect that I will take away with me is that short projects like this one need to be textured, have a sense of randomness and have to be ruthlessly stripped apart to what stands bare, even if it’s as simple as a few drawings.

Yesterday I popped into RMITV to have a chat about what went on there and to see if I could volunteer for anything. I mentioned I had a little bit of camera experience and immediately I was signed on to Live on Bowen as their camera operator couldn’t make it…Being thrown in the deep end was a lot of fun. I started at three in the afternoon and walked out of there at 10pm sweating, ecstatic and keen for more. It was addictive, the fast paced environment is something I could definitely get used to. We were shooting a band so after studying the song, rehearsing some shots and angles and overcoming any technical problems with lighting and audio we were rolling! I was given a lot of creative responsibility by the director who worked closely with us to get that perfect take. I haven’t got a permanent crew position as I was just filling in but I am now a member so I’ll definitely be on the look out for positions available. GOOD TIMES!

Today we had a play around with the ZOOM microphones and learnt a bit about how they work as well as some general ‘need to know’ stuff around audio. This tutorial brought me back to my sound design class I had at JMC. It can be a pain sometimes going over stuff I have already learnt in my diploma course. I can’t complain though because getting the basics down pat is important and I definitely won’t be missing anything.

In my opinion sound is the most important element to be able to manipulate and control during production and post-production. Audiences will often put up with imperfect images, but they’re unforgiving if the sound quality isn’t right. The sound in a video production usually isn’t just dialogue; it also includes music and all the background noises you might not consciously pay attention to, but which create a scene’s mood. We did some serious listening today, walking around campus capturing sounds of vehicles, nature, people and the atmospheric sounds of particular spaces. Have a listen to what we recorded…

https://soundcloud.com/jack-connor-3/mic-test