What week is it again?

So… it’s already nearing the end of the semester. I’ve almost completed 1/6^th of my course. Last night, I was gearing up to do the readings for this week when I realised there were no readings for this week. This was accompanied with that strange feeling of emptiness I always get when things are coming to an end.

I’ve settled very easily into the routine of going to uni. If I am anything, I am a creature of routines. My go-to cafe in the morning knows my name and my order. I take pleasure in my routine morning train naps. The slow ride up the escalators at Melbourne Central because I can’t be stuffed walking up them in the morning – all the while that stupid clock plays Waltzing Matilda.

This has been my life for the last twelve weeks. And as the semester comes to an end, I realise that these routines are coming to an end. Next semester I’ll build up new routines. They won’t be better or worse, but they’ll be new.

I’m trying to look forward to new things. Anyway, here’s to change, and the near future.

Sound Feedback

After watching all our Project Brief 3’s in class, the main criticism for almost all the videos was sound. Often, the background music was too loud, or the audio was just recorder poorly.

The consensus was that more thought needed to be put in on where to record (apparently cars are excellent places for recording sound). In a live room, sound bounces off everything, like rooms with lots of hard surfaces, which is why big old churches are so echo-y and it’s hard to hear your friends in you resident white tiled and concrete floored hipster cafe. In rooms like the one in which our workshop is held are designed to reduce reflected sound and thus be better for recording. Fun things like carpet and acoustic panels (pictured above) can help absorb sound.

I know that the audio in my PB3 is very mediocre, due to recording most of it on a DSLR without a separate microphone. Recording better audio will be important especially in the upcoming audio essay for PB4 so these it will be crucial to keep these issues in mind.

Afternoon shadows at RMIT

Today I decided to notice, mark, and record some of the shadows I saw on my walk across campus. It was late afternoon and the shadows were getting quite long and pretty which was fun to observe until I entered into the dark abyss of building 9.

(Pro tip: it looks nice if you zoom out your browser so the photos look like a triptych)

What type are you?

If you came here expected a Buzzfeed quiz in the vein of what dog are you?, you’ve come to the wrong place. If not, feel welcome to keep reading.

Whilst discussing the readings in our workshop this week, regarding teamwork and communication, we touched upon the topic of the type of people the media industry attracts. In general, the media industry is a creative one, and therefore attracts creative types. These types, as we discussed, tend to have traits such as being obsessed with details, extremely passionate, eccentric.

One trait that we couldn’t really pinpoint was if these types are likely to be extraverted or introverted. From my experience, no person is fully extraverted or fully introverted. How people behave and express themselves is dependent on the situation they find themselves in, for instance, a person may me introverted at work but extraverted at home. They may be introverted when they are sad or extraverted when they are happy. I know that when I’m happy and comfortable around people I know I can be extraverted, but these moments are more rare than moments that I’m more quiet and reserved.

In the end, it comes down to empathy. People may behave in different ways, but to help you work with them, it’s important to understand how they feel and where they are coming from. So, in the eloquent words of Luke O’Dell, introvert, extrovert, doesn’t matter.

How do we communicate?

One of the topics covered in this week’s Lectorial was teamwork, and how communication is crucial to a successful team. However, different people can have different ways of communicating, which can be a cause for conflict. Personally, I’m a big fan of communicating through messaging on Facebook – it’s quick, easy, and has almost instant gratification as you can tell when a person has received a message. But I do recognise the flaws of this way of communicating. Some people are not active often enough, or will give you the dreaded ‘seen’ treatment, whether this be intentional or not.

I’m not one to make a phone call unless it’s absolutely necessary. If it can be done through a message or email, I’ll take the easy way out. Other people, particularly older people (I’m looking at you, my grandparents) are of the sort that believes mobile phones are solely for phone calls, and will call for anything. There are also those who are difficult to communicate with via any media, and who will prefer face to face communication in almost any situation.

In all aspects of life, you’ll meet people who communicate differently. Whilst it may be difficult, a way to work around this must be found, especially when having to work as a team. This will be especially relevant going into Project Brief 4.

Noticing things on my daily walk

Every day I walk to and from the station to make my way to uni. Today, however, freshly inspired by the Media 1 workshop and John Mason’s Researching your own practice: The discipline of noticing (London: Routledge), I decided to make a deliberate effort to notice, mark, and record (right here!) some of the interesting things I saw. So without further ado, here you go.

The smell. The first thing that I noticed emerging from the sub-terranean kingdom that is Boronia station was the lovely smell in the air. I remembered that I’d noticed this same smell last week when I got home around the same time, and concluded that this smell must just be evening.
The sky. As daylight savings has ended, my walk home on Wednesdays now occurs when the sun is setting, granting me some beautiful vistas.
The girl walking behind me. I realised she was the same girl who I’d witnessed awkwardly missing the bus yesterday morning. I was the only one who saw and she tried to brush it off but know I feel I know some sort of secret only shared between us.
An abandoned trolley with an empty can of beer in it sitting all by its lonesome on the naturestrip.
A bus stop covered in empty cans of beer. I’m not kidding, an entire mountain. The only explanation I can muster is that the empty trolley and the bus stop are somehow related. I’m imagining some sort of incident involving someone very drunk pushing a trolley full of beer down the road and it not ending very well.
The roadworthy assessment place on the other side of the road is actually closed, and has been for some time. I can’t believe I never noticed this before – I always just assumed it was a quiet business.
A weirdly exposed backyard. When I walked past this morning, I was thinking that it was very odd everyone walking past could see right into this house’s entire backyard, and how it must be awkward if people were in it. Of course, when I walked past the same backyard that very afternoon, there was some one it, and we made very uncomfortable eye contact.

These are only a few of the things I noticed that I was able to mark and record. I quite liked this exercise – it was a fun way to get more acquainted with my neighbourhood and add some life to an otherwise mundane walk.

Editing in ‘Enemy of the State’

One of the aerial shots in ‘Enemy of the State’

Tony Scott’s Enemy of the State (1998), is a 90s action film that addressed themes of authority and security that are highly relevant even to modern audiences. At its heart, however, it remains a true action film, starring Will Smith as a lawyer who finds himself in the midst of a plot to compromise the privacy of United States citizens.

From the outset, Scott sets up the fast pace of the film through the opening credits. Editing and cinematography work hand in hand in this sequence to establish the idea of surveillance. Shots of cameras, tinted blue, are rapidly cut together almost like flash frames, amongst POV shots from security cameras and satellites. The ‘found footage’ style of these shots make them seem more realistic, and enhances the idea we are constantly watched, even outside the fictional world of this film. It is through discontinuity editing in this sequence allows the editor to convey a disconcerting to the audience.

These surveillance shots are used frequently throughout the film. A majority of scenes involve the main character, Robert, being surveyed by the NSA. The use of cross cutting between Robert, and what is happening to his character, and the NSA characters creates the idea that these scenes are happening concurrently, even though the characters are not in the same room, and the scenes were not filmed at the same time. Also, insert shots similar to those of the opening sequence here provide the point of view of what the NSA characters are seeing through their cameras and satellites. The combination of these different shots elevates the action, as it allowed the editor to cut rapidly between different shots, and show the action from the perspectives of the different characters, as well as the perspective of the omnipresent security cameras.

I HEREBY DENOUNCE THE EFFECTS OF SOCIAL MEDIA

It’s only Monday and ‘Murica has already delivered the goods.

The highlight of the news today is the Southern mom shooting up her children’s iPhones with a rifle, denouncing ‘the effects social media’ as the cause of her children’s disobedience and disrespect. The whole incident was filmed, on what I can only assume is another iPhone, and ironically posted on social media. Naturally, as a blossoming media practitioner I found this interesting on a variety of levels.

Firstly, the mother’s overwhelmingly negative view of social media is noteworthy, as it highlights a distinct discord between her (the older generation) and her children (the younger generation). This generational divide is quite common, not only in regards to 21^st century emerging media, but also throughout history. When the printing press became easily accessible, older generations were concerned that children would spend all day reading and never go outside; when radio was introduced, similar concerns were expressed. Fear of change, especially fear of changing, emerging media, is cyclical; change is almost always met with a negative reaction.

DailyMail author Anneta Konstantinides writes that as the children watch their phones be destroyed, “the only outlet they’ve ever known to a social life disappears.” This reinforces the generational bias I discussed earlier, suggesting that the author believes that children no longer know how to socialise outside of social media. One could certainly argue that social media is a large part of how 21^st century kids socialise, but is difficult to substantiate the argument that it is the only way they know how to socialise. It’s not my place to comment, but one could suggest that the mother’s reaction is more a reflection on her method of parenting than the presence of social media in her children’s lives.

Moreover, the incident is an interesting case study in terms of the saturation of the media in our lives, and the speed with which news travels.

The Art of the Interview – Masterchef Style

In the spirit of Louise’s lecture on ‘the art of the interview,’ I decided to focus this post on the function of this ‘art’ in one of my favourite guilty pleasures – you guessed it, Masterchef.

The interviews in this show, as with most reality TV shows, are interesting because they are recorded after the action has occurred. It’s always a bit strange to see a contestant talking how much they want to win a challenge, when you already know that they already know if they won or not. It’s a prime example of interviewers asking the right questions to get the response that they want. Moreover, they have already been assured to be ‘good talent’ because the casting directors for the show have made sure that the contestants work well in front of the camera, and the other contestants.

Masterchef is the only reality TV show I can watch because of the high production quality, which also extends to the settings of the interviews. They are recorded in a controlled studio environment, where the lighting and sound is manipulated carefully, and the backdrop relates to the show (usually cooking utensils or something else relevant).

Of course, this type of interview is different from, say, interviews for a documentary, but it is still an interesting example to look at.

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.

RMIT Media & Communication

Jasmijn van Houten

Tag Archives: thoughts