Tag Archives: tasks

Task 2 update

This blog entry is for all the workshops (but with a specific focus on the Tuesday workshops who have missed out due to the ANZAC holiday).

Working backwards from the upcoming group essay. I have provided notes on this in the week 8 tutorial available here on the blog.

Looking ahead and back as a recap:

Week 7 – Online video blog entry based on video lecture and readings (it should be done and added to your group assessment doc by the end of week 8).

With Medium most group members have signed up to this blogging service and created a publication that you all can edit into. As a collaboration you can decide how you collectively write up blog entries. My suggestion is to work on sections individually in medium then get one group member to collate the shared effort into one post and add the link to that post to your group assessment g-doc.

Week 8 Case study – Groups are to chose an example of online video practice to examine as their case study. In The Friday workshop many groups found that one video was usually in most cases part of larger body of practice produced by an individual or group. This meant their case study and close reading in the first instance would start from looking at one specific work and extend to the larger body of practice, and then to the service it is published on. Groups focused on videos on Instagram, facebook and YouTube with the option also to look at other services.

We workshopped their choices against the case study questions to test how they worked in relation to this analysis and looked at using this example of online video practice to make video content in weeks 9 and 10.

Remembering that the focus is on the form of the video and its relation to the affordances of the services it is published in – rather than the quality of what is made in relation to the topic or content. In other words your group is making content to get an extended understanding on authoring, publishing and distributing online video. The making of content extends the case study analysis from just looking at a practice without getting your hands dirty. Therefore, as a starting point to select the online video practice you will examine – look for examples of practice that you think make good use of the affordances of the service they are published on.

Week 9 -10 Video making. In week 9 your group will present their case study to others in the workshop. Refer to the notes on this presentation. The other half of the workshop will focus on determining with your teacher how much video content will need to be made. The agreed quantity will be documented in your group assessment g-doc. The quantity of video content to be made will varying depending on the context of the online video practice you analysed in your case study. (See the week 8 workshop notes for more on this…)

Week 11-12 – Will focus on three analysis blog entries that reflect on the case study and the making of content as a transition to the essay which will be drafted and workshopped in week 12. The task 2 group essay will follow the same format at the individual task 1 essay.

Case Study Presentation (week 9)

(In the week 9 workshop) Each group will informally present their case study within a 5 minute timeframe. The main aim of this presentation is to share the findings with other groups in each workshop – along with providing your teachers an insight into your research for assessment.

To help you focus your presentation I suggest groups work from these selected case study questions:

Affordance (reading)

Describe what ‘affordance’ refers to conceptually in this context?

What is a ‘constraint’ within the context of the affordance reading?

Online video (context)

Why have you chosen this online video work? What influenced your decision?

Service (context)

What is the service that the online video is published on?

Provide an overview of this service in relation to what it affords authors to do with online video?

Week 8 Case Study – online video practice

The aim with this group exercise is to produce a close reading (case study) on a specific example of online video practice. Choose an online video example and analyse the work and the service used for publication.

In relation to thinking ahead – following this case study as an extended way to understand the online video practice you are analysing, you will be asked to make some video works. For instance, if you chose to analyse for your case study an Instagram video, then the expectation is that this research will lead to making videos in the Instagram service.

Case Study framework (cut and paste this framework into your group blog entry):

What is the link to your case study example of online video practice?

Affordance (reading)

What field of study is the affordance reading situated in?

Who originally conceived of the term ‘affordance’, in which field of study?

Describe what ‘affordance’ refers to conceptually in this context?

What is a ‘constraint’ within the context of the affordance reading?

Online video (context)

Why have you chosen this online video work? What influenced your decision?

What is the subject?

What type of material is used? (i.e. archive, found footage, live action, interview…)

What do you think the video was recorded with? (DSLR, smartphone, webcam…etc)

What is the point–of–view? (i.e. the position of the camera, framing, focus, sharpness, light, exposure, colour, motion…) How are these techniques used to communicate a particular perspective or point–of–view?

What type of sound is used? (i.e. music, atmospheric, voice-over, narration…). How is the sound used in regards to the effect created for the viewer?

How important is post-production in the realisation of the work?

In relation to the narrative of the online video – what is the approach stylistically? For instance, is it abstract? Is the work held together with a voice-over/narration track? Does it consist of one shot that is unedited? Is the work nonfiction or fiction? Does the work use a repetitive cut-up technique?

Service (context)

Provide an overview of this service in relation to what it affords authors to do with online video?

Are the videos shared natively on this service or hosted elsewhere? Or is it capable of offering both options?

Describe the playback of videos on the service.

Is there a restriction on duration?

What are the constraints imposed by the service on the publication of video?

Describe the functionality of the service in regards to authoring and distribution? For instance, do the videos have to be authored in another application beforehand? With distribution – is there an option to share internally and externally? Can the users add comments? Can the producers add tags?

Documentation framework

Produce a blog entry of 250-500 words that addresses the following questions:

What? Describe the types of online media practices you engaged with and produced today. This many include (what you listened to, watched and created online). Write this description as if you are explaining to someone step by step what you did. Explain what you did like for instance if you added a video to YouTube. What was the content of the video? This part sets up the context for the next two questions.

How? This part focuses on the authoring, publishing and distributing part of your activity. For instance, if you are adding a photo to Instagram – What did you take the photo with (what type of camera)?, How did you author the content then publish it to that service? How did you distribute the content you added? Did you link it to other social media services like Facebook, or a blog, for example.

Why? This part concentrates on the question ‘What do I do with online media?’ For example, why did you post a photo to Facebook? Was it because you wanted to show family and friends what you were doing that day at that particular time? Another example – Why did you watch a particular video on YouTube? Was it for entertainment purposes or to learn something?