Author Archives: jasmijnvanhouten

Sony MC50 Camera Exercise

As you can see in the finished result of this exercise embedded above, we faced a few challenges. When we struggled to even set up the tripod properly, we knew we were in for a fun ride (we did figure it out eventually!). It was hard to find a suitable place to conduct the interviews that was quiet enough, had an interesting background, and decent lighting, we ended up having to compromise on all three of those points.

Upon viewing the final footage, I realised that some of the shots weren’t properly focused on the interviewee, so this is something I will have to make sure of in the future, as this really affected the quality of the shot. It was also hard to make the reverse shots of the interviewer look consistent as we didn’t have control of the lighting and were inexperienced at setting the white balance of the camera. It did help us to realise that framing the interviewer and the interviewee properly had a significant effect on the consistency of the interview.

I think the establishing/wide shots were the most successful, as it was easy to get a shots that reflected RMIT life in and around building 80 due to the interesting architecture and large numbers of students.

Audience Research Thoughts

Alan McKee raised some interesting points in this week’s reading, ‘A beginner’s guide to textual analysis’ about audience research. Interviewing audiences regarding their interpretations of texts can produce interesting and unexpected insights. However, McKee also focuses on its drawbacks; it can be cumbersome and expensive, as often research is not as simple as asking audiences to tick a box.

McKee notes: ‘audience research does not find out ‘reality’: it analyses and produces more texts’. He argues that there is a difference between what a person thinks about a text, and what they say they think about a text, to the person who is interviewing them. People may change their answers to appear more sophisticated, emphasizing programming that they think is perceived as better quality.

This prompted me to think about how often people change their behaviour and what they say in order to influence people’s perception about them. For instance, if for whatever reason a person is asked to list their favourite TV shows, or hobbies, they may curate that list according to the impression of themselves they wish to create. An obvious example would be online dating profiles, where almost every person lists ‘travel’ as a hobby.

It is relevant to the way we curate a social media presence, using selection and omission, to highlight parts of ourselves that we think will appeal to others, especially a broader audience.

Week 5 Lectorial + Readings

Textual analysis was the key topic from today’s Lectorial. In order to analyse texts, as the topic suggests, we first have to realise what a text is. Texts are vehicles for the production of cultural meaning, or the evidence of the way other people make sense of the world. As Alan McKee proposes, ‘to understand the world we live in, we have to understand how people are making sense of the world,’ and it is through textual analysis that we can attempt to do so.

Therefore, textual analysis is an attempt to guess the most likely interpretations that may be made of a text by its audience. There is no ‘correct’ interpretation, just as no text is an accurate or ‘real’ representation of reality. We can use certain methodology, such as semiotics, however, to attempt to make ascertain the most likely interpretation of a text. Semiotics is the study of signs in texts, which can be visual, linguistic, aural and more. There are two parts to a sign: the signifier, and the signified. For example, the colour green is a signifier, which can signify jealousy, or nausea, or nature.

Importantly, the context in which these signifiers are place alter its meaning. Context is always needed to accurately interpret a sign. As McKee demonstrated with his example of the colour ‘brown’ not existing in Welsh, signs can mean different things to different people or groups of people. The majority of a certain society may interpret green to be related to jealousy, a different culture may more strongly associate it with something else. Similarly, placed within a different context, like a garden, it can be seen as natural and relaxing.

According to McKee there are three levels of context that can affect textual analysis:

  1. The rest of the text
  2. The genre of the text
  3. The wider public context in which a film is circulated.

These must be kept in mind when analysing a text, as they are important in interpreting the signs accurately within their context.

Workshop Exercise: Intro To Recording Sound

This week’s exercise included running around campus pointing our trusty zoom recorders at things hoping to produce something resembling a ‘clean’ recording. The initial challenge was finding a suitable place to record the interview part without any background noise – seeing as quiet places in the CBD are hard to come by and there were 20 other students with the same idea. Once we’d find a suitable hideaway, however, another issue presented itself. Namely, how does this thing work? How far away do we hold it from the interviewee? How do we know if it is recording at the right volume?

The answers mostly consisted of ‘I don’t know, but let’s give it a shot.’ After listening to the interview recordings, I feel that the recorder should have been held closer to the interviewee to record clearer sound. Also, the spot where we recorded the interview was a bit too echo-y, and this affected the final recording.

We also had issues recording particular sound in public spaces, such as the noise of a tram, as there was too much background sound, and you can hardly tell the population of Melbourne to be quiet, please. The more successful recording is therefore the interview one, which was recorded in a comparatively more quiet space.

Bringing the sound clips into Audition was fairly straight forward after coming from learning Premiere the previous week. Although I had some what-am-I-doing moments, thanks to some trial and error this was quickly resolved. I layered a few different sounds to create the clip embedded below, trying to keep in mind the figure-ground-field technique. The figure in this clip is the interview, set against some ‘Melbourne’ sounds – casual chatter, music, and the dinging noise of a tram, that create the atmosphere. I had to move around the levels a lot in order to bring forward the interview recording, and I applied some fades to make it more smooth.

 

The Power of Sound

In the spirit of our lecture on sound, I attended a gig that same night by Lord Huron, a band from the USA. Naturally, this got me thinking about the points raised today. The physicality of sound stood out to me. Not only in terms of the vibrations emitted by the speakers – which I was standing to close to, rip my ears – but also in the feeling the sound invited. Also, I especially noticed the power the combination of different sounds had on the crowd and the atmosphere in the room.

I see sound, especially music, as a very powerful, emotional medium. Certain sounds can instantly evoke memories, feelings, and nostalgia. One of my favourite sounds is torrential raining pounding on a roof, especially at night. This sound brings me back to a week my family spent camping in Belgium when I was younger, during which it rained non-stop for the entire time. A sound that I hate is the noise of a vacuum cleaner. It makes me want to make like my cat and hide under the couch; it is too constant, loud and overpowering.

Whilst most sound elicits some sort of reaction from its audience, I adore music especially for its ability to create a strong emotional response.

Listening VS Hearing: The Modes of Listening

The process of hearing is the ability of perceiving sound through the ear. One can’t consciously turn off this process; we are constantly absorbing and filtering the landscape, sorting out which sound is important and which isn’t. Conversely, listening is an active process. It requires effort and attention. If you’ve ever tuned out in a boring lecture you’ll know what I’m talking about. I certainly frequently struggle to listen.

For example, at a party, if several conversations are occurring at the same time, I constantly switch between listen to them. One conversation might be more interesting at some point than the other. Sometimes, both conversations are worth listening to but its impossible to split your attention equally between both. This last point can tie back to the modes of attention discussed earlier in the course. Just like one can’t truly multitask, doing two or more things at the same time, one can’t truly listen to multiple sources.

So how do forms of media get you to listen rather than hear? Certainly, some radio stations don’t intend to get their audience to listen closely. A lot of radio stations think they can get away with playing the same Adele song 6 times an hour – I’m looking at you, Smooth FM. After all, this kind of radio is mostly intended to be heard as background noise to kill silence in a home, office, or car.

However, podcasts for example, are intended for listening. They are often discussions, or a narrative that requires high engagement, which is created through the rich texture of the soundscape. Producers of this kind of media, for example in the Podcast “Welcome to the Nightvale.” Created by Joseph Fink and Jeffrey Cranor, employ the three stage plan (figure, ground, and field) to create a rich and engaging narrative.

Like most things, these modes of listening have their own uses and pros and cons. It is important to be aware of them, especially as a media practitioner.

Week Four: Sound and Its Importance

This week’s reading, by Theo van Leeuwen and Jan Roberts-Breslin, focused on sound. My interest has always more been with visuals, so the readings raised some interesting points I had not previously considered.

Van Leeuwen’s theory relates to perspective, and how this hierarchizes elements of sound. According to the three stage plan, soundtracks can be hierarchized into figure [the focus of interest], ground [the setting or context], and field [the background.] The listening exercise in today’s lecture definitely highlighted how these three stages work together and can be manipulated to stimulate an audience.

Sound is definitely a powerful tool. Our sense of hearing is constantly working; we are unable to consciously turn it off. As Roberts-Breslin outlines, it is equally important as visuals, if not more important, in film and TV. Without sound, the narrative is difficult to make out, but without visuals and just sound, the audience is inspired to create visuals in their minds, and the narrative is still relayed.

Moreover, sound is also a physical medium. You can feel its vibrations – especially obvious when standing in front of a speaker at a concert (something my poor ears have experienced too many times.) It is also intimate. We speak more softly to those within our personal distance rather than those with whom we have formal and public relationships. The quality of voice or sound can reveal emotion to the listener.

Going forward, I hope that I can learn how to utilise sound effectively in my future media practices. As I expressed in my reflection for Project Brief Two, I was disappointed with the quality of sound I was able to record, and it let down the quality of my film.

Week Four: Project Brief Two and Evaluation

 

 

A Girl from Jasmijn van Houten on Vimeo.

My background is a big part of who I am. I also like foreign films, so I thought that for Project Brief Two I’d blend these two. My intention was to create a video that was a parody of/inspired by foreign, especially ‘art’ films. However, to reflect my nationality, the narration would be in Dutch.

I tried to achieve this effect in several ways. Firstly, I shot the footage in the 4:3 aspect ratio, to create a more vintage look than widescreen.

I wrote a short script for the narration and then asked my father to help me record the voice over, as he is more proficient in Dutch and his voice suited the style of narration I was trying to achieve. I wish I could have used better recording equipment to record this, but I was limited to my phone, so the audio quality wasn’t as good as I would have liked. Similarly, I also wanted a higher quality recording for the forest sounds at the end, as my phone’s microphone wasn’t able to pick up on the subtle sounds.

It was difficult to get some specific shots as I was working by myself. If I were to do it again, I’d plan my production so I’d have time to ask someone to help me.

Whilst initially I imaged the film to be in black and white, I changed it to be in colour because it looked better. Whilst this distances my project from the stereotypical ‘art’ film I was trying to imitate, I think it is still an improvement.

Since my first foray into Premiere Pro with the Haiku exercise, I already felt like I improved a lot. The overall production process of PB2 went quite smoothly. I knew what I wanted to do, I created a storyboard, got the shots I wanted, recorded the voiceover, and was able to edit it all together with relative ease. I’m a lot happier with PB2 rather than PB1, and I think this might be because I put a lot more time into planning before I actually started the exercise.

Ruminating About ‘Making’

According to David Gauntlett, media studies should be about making.

Yet, only 3 weeks into this course, I still feel anxious about my ability to make, and to be creative – most of importantly of all, to share this with others. I stopped making Facebook statuses in year 9 when I realised that everything I’d post would humiliate future me a only a few weeks later. Welcome to the world of the always self conscious. This blog is really a trial by fire in all ways, except there’s no fire. (Insert fire emoji here.)

Ironically, however, I have less qualms about Snapchat or Instagram. Sharing photos of the morning sunlight shining on my maidenhair fern seems to be almost second nature. Perhaps it is the fact that I am always aware that these images are for a public audience, and therefore carefully curated, that makes it more comfortable, as it this an awareness that I, and surely many others, did not possess in year 7.

Anyway, here’s to my next challenge.

Week Three Cinema Studies Blog

Experimental film is about testing the limits of film, and what questioning what film is. It challenges our notions of what film can be. It can have a range of functions, whether it be to express the experiences and viewpoints of the director, or be a form of self expression. I think experimental film can also be important in refreshing our palette, by providing a break from the mainstream norms of Hollywood cinema.

In the vein of Holy Motors from last week, this week’s films at the screening further manipulated the audience’s expectations. Ballet Mecanique is unquestioningly abstract, as demonstrated by its lack of narrative form. The film presents a form of mechanical dance, through its focus on shapes, lines, and movement. By repeating these elements, Leger sets up a pattern which the audience strives to follow, in order to find unity within an otherwise chaotic film.

My personal favourite of this week’s screening is La Jetée, which creates narrative form through still photography and sound. This technique actively engages the audience’s imagination in order to animate the images and the characters and scenes they represent. Moreover, it also highlights the aesthetic qualities of each individual photo.

The Illustrated Auschwitz explores a unique way of telling a real life story. The harrowing tale of a Holocaust survivor is created by remixing images and shots from films. The images shown correlate closely with the woman’s narration, yet they do not show actual images from the Holocaust in order to simulate the horror. Footage from the Wizard of Oz is given an entirely new meaning through this change of context.

These films demonstrate that experimental film has a broad scope, and allows directors to disrupt the illusion of space and time that conventional films create.