Author Archives: Mardi

Korsakow project clips

This week we began collecting our clips for the Korsakow project. I have been having difficulty because the microphone on my phone isn’t very good so I will have to use my DSLR instead and make sure that the files aren’t too big. As the clips are small it shouldn’t be a hassle.

We are doing interviews with members of couples. We ask them four questions:

  1. How did you meet your partner?
  2. Describe them.
  3. What do you love about your partner?
  4. What is one thing you dislike or a weird habit that your partner has?

Each clip is from the mouth down, as we want the viewer to concentrate more on what the interviewee is saying than their appearance. It will be in black and white for this reason as well.

Mastery

What makes it good?

How do you become good. Reflection and application.

What can I do with this?

How did it work?

How can I make it better?

What can I do now?

Ideas.

Ideas.

Ideas.

Everything is an instrument for doing.

It Happened One Night

The thing that I find interesting about this film is that it’s timeless. It is as engaging and interesting now as it was when it came out, despite the technological limitations of the time.

What I’m interested in is how they did this.

The limitations of being in black in white, lower film quality, no ability for special effects, different dimensions and the different filming/acting/story style of the time, have not effected the quality of the experience.

They created a script that used the medium to its fullest advantage.

Characterisation and casting were the standouts of this film.

The characters were so well developed that the plot did not seem to be written, the characters seemed to just react as they would as people, because they were so convincingly people.

Final Lecture, Interactive Media 1

Post-industrial industry. Constantly changing, need to be adaptable.

My edit is not the best edit. It cannot only be cut one way.

What can I do with this? The value of this question.

Scarcity is gone.

Makers are in co-creation with our audience.

html5up.net- free templates

Stop colonising your media work with what you already know and what you expect.

Medium talks back to you.

It isn’t about the sharpie it’s about the writing.

Don’t put up walls. You will be more successful the easier it is for people to find and use your work.

Capacity to make something of value is what is valuable.

 

Blood Simple, by the bloody Coens.

There are cuts between extreme close ups of props and details (the envelope, the photograph, the lighter etc), shots of actors, mostly mid shots and close-ups, and wide shots of the entire scene, as well as birds-eye-view shots. Obviously the scene was filmed multiple times from different angles, including a wide shot from far away, over the shoulder shots, and clean front on shots of the actors. The editing cuts elegantly between them to tellthe story, for example, when the actor goes to put his cigarette out on the bull’s head, we see his body move forward in a mid shot and notice a slight extension of the arm and then we see a close up shot of his hand putting out the cigarette on the book stop. This is clean editing with close attention to continuity, so that the story moves smoothly and aids in the experience of the story as any discontinuity problems make it obvious to the viewer that the story is not real.  There are several shots in which the camera moves, pans or tilts, this as been done with the camera when filming, not during editing.

As for audio, several sounds have been recorded outside of the filming of the scene and added in during editing, such as the sound of vomiting, some dialogue (or possibly even all of it) hand washing and the fly buzzing. There are also foley sounds that were probably recorded off screen and added in afterwards, such as the creaking floorboards and footsteps, the squeaky chair, the click of the gun and the bullet, the swing of the fan blades, the sliding of the gun across the floor, even the sliding of the paper across the desk, all of which have been added in to increase the tension of the scene.

When people are nervous they become acutely aware of the sounds and movements around them. This has been recreated in the scene through sounds and also the video cuts which zoom in on details that are not necessary for the plot but develop the tension; such as, the lighter on the desk where the quick cut is aided by the loud noise of the lighter hitting the desk. There are also atmosphere sounds, such as the cricket chirping which gives a sense of the heat and the time of day, in this instance, night.

Japan and interface

So I spent this week in Japan and noticed a theme that became apparent several times when learning about Japanese architecture, art and gardens.

Japanese culture is occupied with how things change over time. Japanese gardens differ to what I’m used to in Australia in that they are designed with how the plants act during the different seasons in mind. It means that anyone who visits the gardens at different times of the year will have different experiences to people who come at other times.

This is similar to the Korsakow project in that everyone has different experience and I will make sure this concept is taken into consideration the same way that the Japanese plan their gardens when we do our project.

Week 10 Class

We’ve done more work on our Korsakow. We have around half the clips we need, but still have to take more.

From here we need to design an interface and have a strategy behind it, it can’t just be random. There needs to be thought behind it, and I don’t know where that thought can come from.

The clips are of interview questions by members of couples, each person is in four clips answering different questions in each one. The pattern will probably have to do with each question, so one question leads to others that have something to do with that question.

The interface on the other hand we have no ideas about currently.

Brainstorming:

  • Lots of little clips to choose from, symbolising how ubiquitous love is
  • Divide the categories by male and female

Week 9 Class and Organisation

Organisation of our Korsakow project.

We’re really on track with our Korsakow project. We each have given tasks, so this week outside of class we will each conduct 5 different interviews, each consisting of 4 questions. That gives up 60 clips in total. We decided to shoot on our phones, horizontally, and all will be framed the same way.

Then by next week’s class we will have a draft put together to show in class. Then we will work more on the interface design and key words of the Korsakow during that week.

The week after that we will work on the essay. We have already decided that we will each write 600 words on a different topic. I will be covering the content of the piece.

We have all this information tracked in a Gant chart.DSC_4813

33 Objects

DSC_4794 DSC_4796This week I went to visit the NGV, and check out the new works there. Something I noticed was there is now a lot of media art on exhibition, whereas a few years ago it was mainly paintings and stills.

One artwork that seemed relevant to our media class in particular was Charlie Sofo’s video piece, 33 Objects That Can Fit Through the Hole in my Pocket.

This arwork showed the artist’s feet and random objects fell out the bottom of his trousers after shaking his feet. It was list-like, in that the objects were random and were connected by their ability to fall through his pocket. It also reminded me of our Korsakow projects because it was extremely abstract.

When watching these random objects fall out of the artist’s pocket, I had no idea what it meant or what the artist was trying to do. The description of the artwork states that it “raises questions about perceived and actual and resourcefulness or artists, humorously critiquing criteria that claim to separate treasure from trash.”

This is an interpretation that I would never have guessed at, and I think it is an example of how ambiguous media list-like works can be, and how this does not devalue them.