Archive | April 2014

Inspiration is Everywhere.

Apr6

You may not know this, or if you have read my about page, than you might actually know this, but I am a giant fan of the band Good Charlotte and Joel Madden is my idol. So obviously, I am a fan of the tv show The Voice Australia, and yes, you guess it, I am #TeamJoel 🙂

So anyways, a bunch of my friends and I have been going to the pre recordings of this season, and the talent is truly amazing this year. The singers are incredible! But whats more real for me, is that being in The Voice audience so many times over the past three years, has made me even more excited to be studying media and be aiming to work in this kind of industry. Watching all the crew work and film and produce and just get it all done, is really cool! And then yes, there is the fact that my biggest idol in the whole world sits metres away from me every time we are in the audience, that helps make the experience even greater 🙂 I love going to The Voice, it reminds me that inspiration is everywhere, and that we can make our dreams come true if we work hard enough for them.

The new season of The Voice starts on Channel 9 after Easter, here’s the latest sneak preview:

Reading 5!

Apr5

Paul Arthur proposes: “Galvanized by the intersection of per- sonal, subjective and social history, the essay has emerged as the leading non- fiction form for both intellectual and artistic innovation.”

According to Giannetti, for instance, “an essay is neither fiction nor fact, but a personal investigation involving both the passion and intellect of the author.”

 An essay is the expression of a personal, critical reflection on a problem or set of prob- lems. Such reflection does not propose itself as anonymous or collective, but as originating from a single authorial voice.

So this weeks reading was all about the ‘essay’ and the ‘essay form’ of documentary making. I do feel like it was quite a long reading and I didn’t completely take it all in when reading it, but in saying this there were some interesting ideas presented. The above quotes/extracts from it are just some things I found interesting or useful to my understanding of what I was reading. I really like the statement by Gianneti – ‘an essay is neither fiction nor fact, but a personal investigation involving both the passion and intellect of the author.’ I think that when creating documentary it is the directors passion that drives the story, and this statement embraces my view on essay films – that the information presented is a ‘personal investigation’ on a topic or situation rather than a bunch of facts being thrown at the audience.

 

Korsakow Case Study Essay

Apr2

FILM ESSAY – Korsakow film discussed available here: http://vogmae.net.au/classworks/2013/Love.html

The Korsakow film from 2013 entitled Love was created by Ka Mun Chen, Inocensius Valentino, Nikki Liu and Rachel Moreiro. This film demonstrates how simple technologies can be used to create and experiment with alternative narrative and non-narrative video. It incorporates one simple idea, what is love? And provides many different people’s various answers and interpretations on the topic.

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 Love makes use of quite a simple interface, adhering to Adrian Mile’s statement in his 2011 integrated media notes, that ‘just because you can use everything doesn’t mean you should.’ It’s use of a plain black background works well, as the video and images on the screen are vivid against it. The interface includes a single screen with three previews to the right of the main viewing window. This Korsakov film also is simple with its interface, as it does not incorporate any background soundtrack, just having the sound of the subjects on screen’s voices. The decision to create the film in this way allows for the audience to fully embrace what is being discussed in each video, as the people talking and the opinions they are talking about are the main focus of the film. Love also includes a ‘continue’ and ‘replay’ button at the finish, a creative interface decision that gives the viewer another choice when watching.

Love relies on three patterns that are obvious to the eye and that help make the interactive film flow in a simple way. As the film is fully based on people discussing their thoughts on a topic, the patterns evident include repetition with shot selection, as some of the people on screen are shown with their faces purposefully cut out of the shot when being filmed. Others include people having only their noses to their chins shown on screen when talking, and others have only an extreme close up of their eyes being shown.

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These patterns play a role in the way the audience receives and interprets Love, with the interface having three preview screens, the audience is able to interact and engage with the film based on such patterns if they chose too. For example, when watching this Korsakow film for the first time, after one video finished I was more inclined to continue my viewing by clicking on one of the previews that had a similar shot structure to the one I just watched. This being said however, it is also possible that the creators intended for the opposite effect on the audience, wanting them to view different scaled shots after each other.

Within Love the interface and patterns present work together to portray the content to an audience in an easy to understand manner. The film is based on its title, Love, as it tries to get various people to express what love is to them and what they think love means within the context of the world. This is done by incorporating speech and creating a number of videos where males and females, most prominently in their late teens to mid twenties, individually discuss and talk about their thoughts on love. Some of the answers given are quite deep and meaningful, such as this quote from one woman in the film, ‘love is a word that I think you can apply to everything and nothing at the same time.’ As this is a non-linear film, it is evident that there is no story line or sequence of events, just a film purely based on peoples various thoughts that can be read by different audiences through their interaction with it. As Love is multilinear, it can begin anywhere and end anywhere, meaning that every person who watches and interacts with the film can have differing viewing experiences, some watching and hearing all about how great love is, others getting mixed feelings towards love, and others possibly hearing about how love is something that has no explanation.

Love gives it’s viewer an interactive look into the way people perceive the concept of love, and it does this quite well through the use of Korsakow. It’s evident patterns and it’s simple interface work together to create a film that enables its viewer to control what they see on screen, however not allowing them to control what opinions they hear or what particular kind of thoughts on ‘what love is’ that they will be presented with.

Week 5 already?!

Apr2

So I came on here to check up on the course blog, to make sure I was up to date with the readings and to see if anyone  had posted anything interesting to read, and then I realised that it is week 5 ALREADY! Seriously, these first 5 weeks have gone by so fast, and I still feel like I’m confused by Korsakow and how exactly to work it… But I have been trying the program out, practicing adding key words and such. I think after more practice it should become a lot more simpler to work with. And by the end of the course I hope that I understand it really well!