Week 8 Tutorial – Hopes and dreams destroyed :(

In week 8s tutorial, we brainstormed ideas for Project Brief 4.

 

Because our topic is Medium, we thought it would be a good idea to present our artefact should be presented in a multi-medium form.

 

We listed every different medium we could think of, and thought of different ways we could present our Project. We unanimously agreed that the best way to showcase a multidude of mediums was a website.

The idea was to have a website with multiple Tabs each focusing on a different medium. On each tab there would be several embedded artefacts, such as videos, images, sound-clips, etc….

 

Each “thing” would display what embodies that particular medium in a creative and interesting way. Some ideas we through around were: a short (2-3 minutes) film that showcases what makes cinema different from other mediums. Another idea was a different video showcasing the medium of television: it would be different to the cinema by being a different aspect ratio, and shot in a newscast style and break to advertisements to showcase Televisons uniqueness as a medium.

Other ideas included recording a 2 minute audio clip that was a fake radio show to showcase Radio as a medium, and having a photo gallery showing off that medium.

We also listed down the main types of medium, and dot-pointed the main points about each one.

We were very enthusiastic, and everything seemed to be going well and our ideas looked to be shaping into a tremendous Project Brief.

But alas, tragedy struck:

When we eagerly showed our mind-map of ideas to Rachel, we expected a resounding complements and encourage meant to pursue our ambitions. However instead we were greeted with “em, maybe not…….”

We discussed with Rachel and she was of the opinion that our Project Idea was too broad, and too big for the time allotted. That we should narrow down and focus on either how different mediums could be used to show a single Media text or an in depth analysis of a single Medium.

This was quite disheartening, but we managed to get some new (and simpler) ideas that we will research and discuss on our Weekly meeting next Monday.

Until then: Back to the drawing board.

First meeting Minutes

Project Brief 4 minutes

 

MEETING ONE

  •      Idea for doing a website. (Because unique, and can incorporate multiple mediums into it).
  •      Annotated bibliography, doing 2 types of medium each.
  •      Sandy – Video Games and Cinema
  •      Kristian – Radio and Social Media
  •      Ali – mobile phones and TV
  •      Filled out Collaborative Contract.

Decided what we are all going to have completed by the next meeting.

Sandy-edit and refine the collaborative contract ready for submission.

Kristian-research methods of hosting a website for the final Media artifact.

Ali-Draft some creative ideas of how to present the information/ideas in a website format.

In addition: everyone will find 6 references in their chosen 2 mediums, as well as each coming up with a definition of Medium.

-end of first meeting.

Feedback for Project Brief 3

People said it was mostly well done. Everyone enjoyed the humorous bits and suggested that I make the video more humorous throughout. The only technical criticism people had was sometimes the audio was inconsistant and the effects made it hard to hear in some bits.

 

Here is the rest of my groups Projects

Daniel

Tim

Jac

Haylee

All the Project briefs were very different, and all offered something to add to my own.

 

 

 

Project Brief 3

This is my Media Portrait.

Written Reflection for Project_Brief_3


My Media Portrait was of Georgie Kemshal-Bell, a friend of mine. I asked her to be the subject of my assignment because I thought she was interesting and had a personality suitable for making an interesting video (I will also admit, partly because she is one of the few people I know in Melbourne).

 

I am fairly happy with the final product, although there are a few issues that I wish could have been improved. Producing the Media Portrait was troublesome, mostly due to scheduling conflicts which limited the amount of time I could spend with Georgie. This meant it was not really a true “interview” but rather quite scripted and filmed over roughly a week. Although in my opinion, this “artificialness” doesn’t negatively impact the finished product, everything in the video is still Georgie’s opinion, except that the wording was timed and structured around fitting it with the footage already recorded. I am happy with how the finished product turned out, as during editing it was a series of completely isolated clips, one technical flaw is in order to have footage match narration, I had to leave un-cut video run and I am visible turning off the camera.

 

My biggest regret is the lack of Found Footage, I found it incredibly hard to find anything that matched our narrative, so almost everything was shot specifically for this video. The Found Footage I did use, was various music clips, and some rain. The “Dance music” was needed for the scene, and the other audio clip gave an ominous vibe which was intended for the at night shot, but I felt it worked well enough to continue to the end of video. The Rain was in-actuality me desperately trying to find anything that fit in order to add more to meet requirements.

 

I also became quite frustrated with the limited editing software of iMOVIE, having to abandon much of my initial ideas of editing. I will attempt to acquire a more advanced program soon.

 

Bibliography:

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3A%D0%94%D0%BE%D1%81%D1%82%D0%BE%D0%B9%D0%BD%D0%BE_%D0%B5%D1%81%D1%82%D1%8C.ogg

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AFL_Studio_loop.ogg

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3A20141103Regen.ogv

Aspect Ratio’s on TV – Continued from a while ago

In a previous Blog post I talked about Aspect Ratios and there history, and gave a brief discussion about how they are dealt with when transferring to screens of different aspect ratios than the original.

Over the past few weeks I have been taking conscious effort to notice how different media is dealt with when the aspect ratio is an issue.

4:3 programs on TV (usually reruns) are usually displayed with 2 black bars going vertically up each side when displayed on a 16:9 screen. One such example of this that was prevalent was episodes of The Simpsons from earlier seasons which are displayed this way.

But other methods are used as well, another common method I observed was to still leave the image un-cropped, but instead of simply having Black Bars a faded, blurred version of the image is used. This allows the original footage to be un-altered, as well as the screen to be completely filled (even if its just filler). The advantages of this are removing the stark contrast the Black Bars give, the edges of the screen are the same colour palette as the actual video, it also moves which prevents “burn in” on older Plasma TVs. I observed this method on the ABC show Good Game, where it was used to show footage of older video games made for 4:3 screens.

As far as I know, I did not encounter any 4:3 media that had been cropped to fully fit a 16:9 screen on television.

 

Sound Vs Noise

At first glance “Sound” and “Noise” seem to mean the same thing. However, especially in producing Media they have very different meanings.

Sound refers to the audio that is intentional (such as Speech, music, sound effects), while noise refers to audio that is unintentional (EG wind in outdoor areas). This difference is related to “Listening” Vs “Hearing”: Listening refers to actively paying attention to a sound, and concentrating on it. Hearing refers to the sound registoring  in your ears, but not paying close attention.

For example, whilst in class we were listening to the teacher, but we could also hear the music playing outside. The difference being we actively focused our attention on what was being said, and could probably recall what had been said, while we were aware of the music, I personally wouldn’t have been able to say what the lyrics were even a few seconds after.

Found Footage: Illustrated Auswitz

Part of this weeks class using the notion of “found footage” in media, where you incorporate media materials from pre-existing source and re-purpose them for your own.

This technique was used in the short Film “Illistrated Auswitz” which we recently watched in Intro to Cinema.

The film (which can be viewed HERE) involves a survior of the infamous Nazi concentration camp recounting her experiences during the holocaust, the sound of her voice is accompanied by footage from “The Wizard of Oz”, with scenes setup to match what she is talking about, the childlike wonder of the film deeply contrasts the horrors of which she speaks and it creates a haunting and affecting film.

“Illustrated Auswitz”shows how found footage can be used to create meaningful films, that are the polar opposite in tone than the sourced materials.

The history and social context of the ZOOOOOOOOOM

Zooming refers to moving an object in a shot towards to camera without the object or the camera moving, but rather lenses being manipulated.

Zooming is rarely used in a serious manner because it takes the audiance out of the film, because it is so obviously removed from immersion, since zooming is something human eyes cannot do, in order for us to look closer at something we need to move closer or bring it closer to us.

The concept of enlarging an image without any movement removes immersion, so it can only be used in specific circumstances. These could be if the shot is seen through the “eyes” of camera (such as a robot in the film) or used for comedic purposes.

One such exampe is in the comedy televison program Arrested Development in the season 2 episode “Meet the Veals” a serires of zooms are used for comidic effect to show the tension as G.O.B and George Senior are almost caught (George Senior is wanted for “minor treason”). For added comedy a zoom is also used on G.O.B’s puppet Franklin.

In Quentin Tarintino’s Django Unchained (2012) a camera zoom is used to introduce the character of Calvin Candie. The effect is deliberately jarring and “movie like” because it was Tarintinos intention to make Candie over-the-top, as well as paying homage to the 70s B-movies which inspired Tarintino (and made extensive use of Zoom effects, due to it being a new technology at the time).