Month: March 2017

A group of first year students and myself had the awesome opportunity to sit in on a 2nd year media studio class titled “Old’s Cool” and see what it was like.

After very kindly getting us first years up to speed on what the class had been looking at, tutor Daniel started off with a discussion about older sources of audio, be it music recordings or tapes of voices.

As one of the requirements was for the class to bring in examples of old audio, we went around the class and listened to the stories behind what students had brought in. The different variations of audio included old microphones (such as an old crooner), a vinyl record and some cassette tapes. When talking about the reinvention of more traditional forms of music such as vinyl, someone talked about the physical element to it and how it can create a strong emotional effect.

This made heaps on sense in a way, in terms of older, lower quality pieces of audio. You grow up with something and you create a connection to it. Its why VHS is often still loved by people and their families. From this discussion the idea was brought up that music can have such a significant effect on people specifically Alzheimer’s patients. As it is something that can bookmark events in our lives and we are constantly inundated with images, audio and music can have a unique effect and even bring back memories that we don’t realise we can recover.

That being said, a topic that was raised within the class was that streaming is potentially killing music and the 2nd years were to debate against each other in order to prove their point. Us first years were to watch and also be the adjudicators.

Seeing the arguments from both sides of the statement was really great to watch. Both sides were really passionate and worked well in their teams (being only given their task 20 minutes earlier) and made the debate of a really high standard. Overall we as the adjudicators came to the decision that the against team were the winners as we felt they always went back to the statement and were strong in their rebuttals. Regardless, both sides were brilliant!

It was a great experience to have a little taste of what its like in a 2nd year studio and it definitely made me eager to explore what I’ll be doing in my second year as a media student.

For this weeks tutorial, the main activity was getting feedback on our projects from our classmates and adjusting them before we hand them in for assessment. Seeing what other people had done for their video’s was really interesting and fun. I enjoyed giving feedback and also finding out what they thought about my video and if I needed to improve upon anything.

In terms of things that the people on my table liked, included the photograph of the tickets, the music and the tone of the video, which was really nice to hear. Later talking to my tutor about what he thought of the video, there were a few things in the rough cut that needed some editing. In the original version the photographs aren’t placed together one after the other, the car video is only used at the end of the film and the visual materials weren’t edited or enhanced. As he really like the coloured pencils and the end quote about colour, it made sense that for someone watching for the first time, the video didn’t really seem connected as much as it could be and the shot of the back garden felt slightly gloomier looking than the other materials which are generally shot in warm high key lighting (something I forgot to notice 😏).

Totally agreeing with this I made some changes for my final product and decided to run with the idea of colour, adjusting the saturation of the images/ footage and making the car footage black and white at the beginning of the video, with a cross fade to make it colourful again. I also decided to re shoot the garden scene after the tute and make sure it was lighter and more fitting to the rest of my material.

Hopefully the final edit reflected what I was hoping to get across and everyone else had an equally fun time making their self portraits.

For my project I wanted to create a video replicating that of a home movie with a sense of warmth and history to it, to show who I am. I decided for the images to place them one after the other, but with a gap, so after each one was played their would be a cut to black. I did this as I thought it resembled a  family projector slide show that displays random pieces of photographs and footage that due to closure you understand is all relevant in some way, and also would keep the hyper attentive viewers engaged.

My images included coloured pencils, to establish a sense of beginning and end, as well as to tie in the idea of colour and how I think of myself to be a visual, creative person. I decided to show this by raising the saturation in each photo/video as I wanted it to create a link and flow between everything and felt it complemented my text which was a quote about creativity/colour (I also used a cross fade to transition the car shot back to colour for this). The video’s were edited into a montage to also help create a sense of connection that the common denominator of the materials is me. The sounds and music I used were intended to create an emotional response in the viewer- the slow, gentle piano conveying reflection within my portrait, the typing conveying how technology is an influence, and the train sounds (the conductors call & the train pulling up) to connect the Melbourne central clock and the car.

Overall I felt the colours and the music worked well in my project as it showed different sides of my personality. I liked the shots of the clock and the kettle, as well as the pencils as they felt well framed. In terms of improvements I want to work on the quality of the shots, time management, and the transitions from each shot to be smoother in order to achieve a more professional look.

Reflective Practise. By definition It is a process by which you: stop and think about your practice, consciously analyse your decision making and draw on theory and relate it to what you do in practice (yes that was a lot of practice’s). Critical analysis and evaluation refocuses your thinking on your existing knowledge and helps generate new knowledge and ideas. Reflection in action, and reflection on action. This is a central methodology and approach to media making. When you see a cinematographer talk about what they do, often they are not sure why this is.

Why it is important:

When you go out and make media as work, the client you give your work to will not often tell you what to improve upon. So naturally it is important to have the skills to be able to reflect on your own work and learn from mistakes, risks taken and what worked.

How you can do it:

Blogs. They are a tool to improve, and refine this reflective process. They help train you in the reflective process. Not just that you made a good video, but the things in the background. It helps to:

-Document your practise

-Record your achievements & progress

and many more.

“The Passion Mindset and Deep Work” 

We dissected the reading from this week through a video of author Cal Newport. Newport talks about Steve Job’s presentation to a Standford graduating class. In particular the idea of “The American Dream” through a quote of his, “You’ve got to love what you do. If you don’t, keep looking and don’t settle”. Newport suggests how this is often a bad strategy of achieving that goal of finding something that you love, that you can do. A psychology study looking at Canadian University students found that their passions had a very low compatibility with potential career options or goals. Newport explained that Jobs actually stumbled into Apple and developed a passion for it, instead of following “his passion”. He stated that in terms of finding something that you love, that you can work at, the strategy of achieving this is more about what happens when you get started, rather than following your passion at the beginning of your journey. Another example was of a writer, who had to go through many years of writing bad or below average pieces to get better and eventually become really good at his work and passionate about it. The more you refine your skills, practise at them, the higher your confidence goes up. This can make you feel more positive about what you are doing and encourage you to focus and work at it. You become better and more passionate in the process.

In short Newport suggests to:

Develop and work/ build up your experience at an invaluable skill and use it as leverage. The passion you develop is a side affect of becoming better at something. Also the state of persistence of deep work in an intense cognitive task will make you better in your working life. The three concrete ideas of achieving this,

1.Time Blocking- Planning out your day in advance: forcing you to think strategically. Absolutely necessary in making sure deep cognitive tasks are delved into.

2. Be so good they can’t ignore you.

3. Training- It is important to build your ability to focus. To add ten minutes each ten sessions of focusing for a certain period of time.

As a final quote from Cal Newport “If you wan’t to love what you do, do what Steve Jobs did, not what he said.” As a reading I really enjoyed it and found it to be really relatable to media. Cal Newport’s piece explores the craftsman mindset and the passion mindset. The craftsman mindset focuses in on the idea of working at your craft and becoming better at it, with passion developing later. He spoke about 24 year old musician Jordan Tice who will spend time playing through his music at a slow tempo to truly familiarise himself with it and refine his musicianship skills. Newport praises this approach more so than the passion mindset which explores the idea of focusing on what the world can give to you rather than what you can offer the world, as it can create chronic unhappiness and lead us to concern ourselves too much on if we have found our passion. As with the video of Newport, his writing suggests that adopting the craftsman mindset will help you to build a compelling career. I feel like there is a lot of truth and merit to his points as the brain is naturally curious about things and the more it decides to work at something the more interesting and engaging it becomes even if it was slightly boring in the beginning.

Recently on the American vogue youtube channel, the fashion magazine began producing two to three minute video’s narrated by Sarah Jessica Parker on the history of Vogue throughout the 19th and 20th centuries.

As well as being incredibly interesting and educational, I’ve found these video’s to be particularly unique in combining different types of media. The creators elegantly show old vogue covers within the decade they are focusing on, whilst providing context to what was happening socially and politically at the time. These factors are also used as a basis for why and how fashion evolved within the U.S.

The video’s in particular were a great example of editing. The visuals for the most part consist of a swift photographic slide show with images relevant to Parker’s narration and a musical score to match. Finding the correct tone and pace of each video as well as making it seem consistent in information, historical context and direction reflects a great knowledge of the Vogue brand and the qualities they wish to convey to their reader & audience. As we looked into editing and what it means to be a good editor this week, I felt like seeing so many different styles of editing made me think about how it is not always how many cuts there are within a video, or the colour grading, visual effects etc. But more so how well the editor can convey something in the best and most appropriate way possible. To enhance their production and story, whatever the definition of that truly is. Because each story is different and requires a different pace, look, rhythm and emotional attention.

The Vogue youtube channel I feel acknowledges the new fast paced tendency of its younger, newer hyper attention reader through the use of generally short videos, jam packed with information and engaging content,  whilst always maintaining its sense of history; as it understands how important history is in the process of reinvention. On that note, I think I’ll have a look at more editing variations to see how things have changed  🙂

For this week we began class off with the presenting of some Haiku’s and feedback that followed. Considering that all of us were given the same brief, similar pieces of footage and audio, it was really cool to see how everyone displayed their creativity differently. Editing I’m learning is one of those things that can really distinguish people and show you how differently they can work in a creative environment. Going through the good and not as good parts of someone else’s work was a worthwhile experience because I think it naturally educates you on what’s possible and how you can make your work better, funnier, sharper or more unique. Which is definitely something I need to work on.

We moved on from watching some of the other Haiku’s and were given some time to work on our next Project (Brief 2) or to learn editing techniques some class members wished to know more about. I joined the little mini class with my tutor and we went through skills such as how to fade out music, creating titles on your piece and learning how to fade out footage. I had a rough knowledge of how to create titles from previously using an older version of premiere pro, however I was unsure of how to create a fade out for sound and video, so that was a really useful thing to have learned. It was also a really comforting feeling that most of my other classmates were in the same boat in terms of their experience with editing and premiere pro, so we sort of stuck together and made sure to help each other out when we needed it.

The next Project Brief is very similar to the first one. However it uses slightly longer materials and involves the use of editing. Liam showed us some examples of the self portrait exercise which were a really helpful starting point in terms of how students combined photography, sound and video together, which is not an easy thing to do. One student used all four photo’s at the beginning of her video with a sound effect of camera taking photo’s which I thought was a great idea as it enabled a smoother transition to the video’s she had taken. Another student decided to record her grandparents talking about the day she was born and visually showed this through the use of home video’s in a dark yet colourful tone, which was a cool contrast to the previous video.

At the moment thinking and creating ideas on the first project brief is really cool to do. I’ve decided to do a mixture of previously shot material and new things as well so that I have a little more freedom to edit my project together in a different way. Hopefully it looks and also sounds good. 🤞🏻

This week we were to create a short Haiku Film on Premiere Pro using footage shot by the first year Bachelor of Media and Communications Class. In short I loved it and had a ball editing with premiere again 🙂 The following is a screenshot of my editing sequence and a link to my video as posted on   Youtube 🖥

This week we looked at Editing. Editing is in fact not about fixing things, as the lecturer stated, it is about breaking things up. As editors if we put two shots together, we say that there is a link or similarity between them. Something that when combined creates or enhances the story we are trying to tell.

We cut things out, move things around and make way for new connections our audience to experience.This was a different way to think about editing and I really enjoyed looking at something that I as a media student don’t always stop to admire and look at.

During the lecture I learnt about something called The Kuleshov Effect: The idea that for film editing 1+1 equals 3. Even though we cut up two clips and edit them together, often they can have another meaning and in saying this, the phenomenon highlights the idea that we can find more meaning in an edited sequence than in a single still shot. We were told the story of how in the soviet film makers snuck in old footage to edit together as they could not afford new blank film. It was really cool to understand more of the historic side of film making and editing. This lead on to the next question of the lecture…

Why do we edit? 

As soon as you break footage and cut it up, you begin a creative process. Its to introduce gaps. Generally the wider the gap between footage the more challenging it is to the viewer to see how these video clips are connected. an example of this was a scene shown of an early American Film titled The Great Train robbery clip and a Jessie James film starring Brad Pit. The difference between them -In The great train Robbery, everything was filmed in one shot. In the newer film there were several cuts, and also was examples of slow editing, adding to the suspense. As we discussed the differences in class, Liam talked about how during the early decades of film, a cut generally used to signify the end of a scene. However nowadays there are several cuts in a sequence, and this is generally expected from an audience today. In fact quite ironically, in can make a film quite unique to have limited cuts in today’s world.

Looking at Rhythm and Pace

Another aspect of film that we looked at was editing to Rhythm and Pace. Often this does not always have to coney an absurd amount of meaning and help engage audiences emotionally. Sometimes it can serve as a cue for the pace of the sequence of even the film as a whole. We looked at an example of this in the film Cabaret. In the scene Liza Minelli is performing a high energy, fast paced Jazz number. As the rhythm and beat are heard from the instruments and her singing there are numerous cuts to different angles of Minnelli’s performance. This shows us how music can be a key component in the choices we make as editors. As a scene, the editing to the rhythm of the music was a sharp addition and really made the scene flow.

Editing to establish pace is often something that I have used in the past and has often worked quite well for me, serving as a fun challenge in my amateur skills as an editor. We concluded the first part of the lecture with answering the question. As editors we do what we do to figure out how we can see create meaning from editing together new clips. This lecture reconfirmed to me how important editing is and how much of a difference it can make to ones work if done really well and following patterns and rules in place.

“Blood in the Gutter”

The Reading for this week was less of a reading and more a very long narrated comic strip (and a very cool one at that!). The piece by Scott Mcloud looked at the idea of closure. Closure is when our minds connect, finish or fill in the blanks visually on something that we may only see parts of. This is something we do everyday. It is crucial for our survival and takes several different forms. Some simple such as a cartoon cut off at the waist (we use closure to assume that they do have a body even though we cannot see the lower part of it). Or sometimes a more substantial form, e.g. a circle with two dots and a line = a face.

Comic books are a great example of this. As there is limited use for detailed illustration, we are made to assume or fill in the blanks. This is where the idea of The Gutter comes in. The small area between two panels (little horizontal lines) in a comic strip is referred to as a gutter. There is nothing within it, but it still makes meaning regardless because our brains assume something must be there. This is an article I remember reading part of in my high school media class, yet it was really cool to look through it again and get a better understanding. Here is a little example of closure within a comic. Its also to be noted that this can be used in film and television as well as other types of media 🙂

There are different transitions such as

Moment to moment transitions: e.g blinking. It is slower. These types of transitions where

Action to action: e.g someone picthes the ball, and someone hits it. There is a sense of cause and effect, and an implied order.

Subject to subject: Someone passes the finish lines, then a stopwatch sounds off

Scene to Scene: e.g space and time cutting from Paris, to Milan there is a transition to the different space. Another example being

No secular: No logical connection to anything at all. This creates a different meaning for the viewer

Something that i’ve been interested in talking for the past couple of weeks is the idea of colour in film and what it can do for us as audience members and media makers.

Last year when I was researching the director Wes Anderson for my high school media project, I saw immediately how he often repeated several colour schemes throughout his films and how striking they were visually and in the ways they conveyed meaning.

This lead me to a website discussing a new trend within the film making scene. In the last twenty years or so a trend of the combination of oranges and bluish tones within the Mise en scene of the film has become quite mainstream. Examples include Night at the Museum, Transformers and Step Up:

So, why is this combination to lovely to look at? Well if we have a look at the colour wheel:

We see that Orange and Blue are directly opposite one another and naturally cancel each other out. One represents a warm and the other cool. Which in a film to have that variety of potentially cold characters, but compelling emotional relationships or another representation like this is what we love to experience.

I remember watching Laurence of Arabia for the first time last year and seeing the vast desert scenes with the orange, sandy landscape combined with the light blue desert sky was striking to look at. It was a massive step in film making for a film shot in 1962, and followed the same idea, possibly without meaning to. Blue and Orange, or orange and blue. However you word it, its a trend in colour grading. So for the Future film makers out there take note. Colour, at least for me will decided whether or not to see your movies. That and the story, good looking actors, soundtrack etc. etc. etc.

For this weeks tutorial after uploading our self portraits for project brief 1, we looked at a classmates post of her own self portrait and analysed in in terms of the six De Bono thinking hats. These hats were a way of giving feedback to our classmate about all areas of her project and had different uses per colour.

And to be completely honest, her blog was one of the best and funniest blogs I and my classmates had ever seen. It was really cool to go through and see how she decided to represent herself and the amazing commentary that justified her creative choices. I found the de bono hats to be an effective way of analysing and critiquing someone else’s work. My Tutor talked about how ultimately it is a great skill to have; it improves our work, and gives us the tools to use feedback from others and see how it can be useful to us. For my portrait, this was what I received from others.

Blue: The planning behind the way the Melbourne Central location was included into some of the audio and footage was effective, as it could flow well if edited together.

Green: Creativity wise, maybe instead of drawing or creating pictures of the Panda and the My family stickers, I could have looked at finding other representations such as different objects or metaphors to portray this.

White: There is a diverse range of facts represented in the self portrait.

Yellow: The footage of the Melbourne Central glass roof was very striking to look at, the typing audio was a nice contrast to the train sounds. The visuals felt very well thought out and were fairly simple to connect to the commentary explaining my uses for them

Red: Overall the self portrait was nice to look at and conveyed a sense of family, love and excitement for the future.

Black: Weaknesses or things to be improved upon included, making sure that the footage was all shot in the same way so that the transition between these clips would be smoother in the future. The escalator footage of the hi sign could have been a bit stronger, or at least the reasoning for choosing this as one of the videos.

It was great to have more opinions on my project as I was able to see things from a more objective view.

The second part of the Tute was looking at our first editing technical exercise which I become more and more excited about since we were to start using Premiere Pro. I’ve used premiere Pro for the last few years in my high school media classes and feel really confident in editing things together on that program. This week we were to go out and make little 5-10 second video’s, upload them to a share google drive folder with the rest of the class and make a small haiku film with selected music. This once again was to represent something about us and was the first big collaborative project we have done as a year level. I for one was very excited about it.