This week, we had a guest lecturer, Louise Turley. She talked about the interview process, breaking it down into the 5 W’s (who, what, when, where, why). Within in these, she gave us questions to ask ourselves before, during, and after an interview (eg Who is my audience?, Why was this interview good/not good?). I found this really helpful, as the reading this week got very stuck into the specifics of interviewing professionally, and I found it difficult to connect to the basics of HOW to conduct a good interview. Louise was very easy to understand, and while she stressed how difficult good interviewing skills are to develop, she made the whole process seem more ‘doable’.
After she left, Brian went over narrative structure, and how this can be incorporated into a good interview. He explained the three act structure… ACT I: Setup – who is the character? what is the character’s goals? what is the environment the character is in? FIRST ACT TURNING POINT (action begins) ACT 2: Escalation of complications: antagonist causes trouble, protagonist tries to solve problems, SECOND ACT TURNING POINT (character hits lowest point) ACT 3: Climax – confrontation of issues, character solves (or doesn’t solve) troubles, action dies down, character returns to old world/begins new life.
This structure is clear to see in fiction, but it can also be seen in non-fiction. Most wars fought, for example, fit into this three act structure in some way. By the same token, interviews can be constructed to fit this three act structure, even if it is a short interview.
The following things are what I hope to explore after this lecture…
-Having the interviewee as the antagonist in the story (eg John Oliver interviewing Philip Van Cleeve for The Daily Show)
-Constructing narrative in shorter time periods (eg 1 minute interviews)
-The development of questions that don’t explicitly pry but manage to open a can of worms
-Reality TV interviews and the manipulation that goes on behind the scenes to help construct narrative
This week’s reading and lecture was about not following your passion because you’ll hate it and, because I hate this concept so much, I’ve decided to focus on people who prove the opposite for this weeks initiative post.
Red vs Blue is an online video show created by Michael ‘Burnie’ Burns, Gustavo Sorola, and Geoff Ramsay. It was started in 2003, being made in the spare room of Burnie’s house. All three creators were already successful in other full time jobs when they decided to enter into the video production industry.
The first episode they ever uploaded reached a massive audience, receiving 20,000 downloads in the first day. The animation style is ‘Machinima’, where the creators use games and other computer graphics to make a show or film. The base for Red vs Blue is the game Halo. Red vs Blue, despite not being the first machinima show, is cited as being the first success of the genre, and they became pioneers of this industry,
Eventually, the original creators (which also included Matt Hullum and Joel Heywood) decided to leave their jobs to pursue this new passion. They started a company called Rooster Teeth, which is today one of the biggest online video production companies in the world. They have many other online shows such as RWBY, Day 5, and Immersion, but have also created a feature film (Lazer Team), games (both video and board), podcasts, and expo’s. The company has grown so large that they have major divisions that are famous in their own right under them, such as Achievement Hunter and Funhaus.
Red vs Blue has continued to this day. It is the longest running internet show, with 14 seasons and 5 mini-series. They have been nominated for and won multiple awards.
Obviously, this took a lot of hard work, and there are many instances of the original founders talking about how tiring it was going to work all day and then spending all night working on the show.
This being said…
Not bad for some guys who dropped their successful careers to follow their passion.
We spent a brief moment at the beginning of the workshop discussing this week (and last week’s) readings, but a majority of this workshop working on our project brief 2 videos. We first showed our videos to our table to get feedback.
For me, this exercise didn’t really do anything, because I didn’t really get any feedback. It just devolved into a discussion about how hard it was to give feedback which was frustrating because that isn’t feedback, and as my project is less obvious, it would have helped to hear whether it makes sense or not.
There’s not a whole lot else I can say about this workshop. It was a doing work workshop.
With this project, I was looking to find a balance between the harsh and the soft. In this case, the harshness is obsessiveness and anxiety, which is shown in the first half of the video. The softness is comfort, intimacy and friendship. I was hoping to show a gradual progression to this side of the video, and thus create a journey for the viewer. The audience should feel like the person behind the video has grown, but also that the journey is not over. This is also why I chose to add the tribute to my friend at the end. It was to show that there are things that, no matter how light your journey becomes, will always stay with you.
There are some elements I really enjoy. The quick flashes of words in the dead flowers and avoid parts of the video are, I feel, very well done. I also really like the timing of the ‘Future’ title over the tarot cards, in terms of the sound effect. I think that the start especially tells a story of obsessiveness, with ‘Death’ flashing after every three flower evolution’s. The door comes on screen and the thunder sound plays after there are four flower evolution’s in a row, which throws off the pattern.
I’m not too happy with the second half of the video. For one thing, I wish that I had swapped around the train and bookshelf videos, as the colours better match the pre/proceeding images and their stories. Also, the train video would have been a more obvious transition from the negative to the positive. I’m also not sure about the font I used for the ‘Life’ title. It seems angry, or hell like, which is the opposite of that part of the video. I also could have done some work on the colours of the photos of my friends, to make them brighter and happier.
Or rather, I don’t like his ideology. I agree with him, on some level. People who work hard at one specific skill will ultimately be better and have a better job than those that don’t work hard but are really passionate about it. Better job tends to equal happiness (ie: a writer who is writing about something they truly care about on a large scale will be happier than a writer who is writing page 13 one paragraph articles for an unpopular newspaper.
However, there are many things that contribute to people losing passion for their work. And it is rarely just ‘Oh I have to actually do this’.
For example: women are typically discriminated against in the workplace. A woman doing incredibly hard work for a newspaper may not be seen as on the same level as a male co-worker, even if that co-worker is not working as hard as she is.
Another example is, one that was mentioned in my tutorial, capitalism. If someone wants to make jewelry, they may work incredibly hard at this. They may make the most beautiful jewelry ever created. However, the stress of capitalism, of supply and demand, may be too much for them. If they are having to work from 5am to 3am, and never make enough money to pay for supplies and food and rent, it is only natural that they will be unhappy. It’s not their passion that is hurting them, but their society.
Cal does not take this into consideration. Rather he ignores the variable of society, and his studies are therefor incredibly skewed. There are some variables that are excusable to ignore but the entire world is not one of them.
I understand that his work has merit, and this advice is very useful for people who may not have found a passion as of yet, but for me, a Scorpio moon, this advice was kind of ridiculous. Follow your passion kids, and be the best you can be. You don’t have to choose.
We worked more on our haiku’s briefly this week and I think I found my calling: I give good feedback!! I’m not sure how to make money off this discovery but I’m sure there’s a way! However after I gave a bit of black hat feedback I was told be the creator that I wasn’t listening, which absolutely crushed my spirit, especially when I heard what they were referring to on the next listen. I have to work on not taking negative critique personally, even though that specific critique wasn’t about my work.
We also looked at past student’s self portrait videos which further cemented that perhaps I should not be an editor. I have past editing experience, so I expected coming into this that the editing portion would be a breeze, but I’m really struggling with finding a flow. My editing seems to be very stagnant and cold. This is perhaps because I can’t find a specific story within my self portrait. I have concepts and ideas, but it has been difficult for me to form these into a coherent (or incoherent) story. I find myself getting bored watching my work, even though the pieces by themselves are good (or, at least, I think so).
My previous editing work has been on projects that I spent months (or years) developing. The concept for my last video (completed in October 2016) was something that I began planning as far back as 2013, even though the actual pre-/post-/production took place over two months. I have been developing another idea since 2012, and only now am I able to find shape and story in it. Time management is something I will also have to work on, and the fact that I am posting this blog right before week 4 begins shows that.
Many people in my class seem to be naturals. We watched one girl’s haiku and it was honestly stunning. The way that she found relationships between seemingly unrelated objects was so beautiful. I’m just going to have to work super hard to get to the same level.
This blog post will be a lesson in doing things in a timely manner because my notes for this lectorial are terrible and my memory is worse…
This lectorial looked at editing, specifically why we do it. The Kuleshov effect stood out to me, as it is such a common phenomenon (both on a cinematic/spectacular level and a cultural level) but we never look that deeply into it. It stands out especially in comics, which relates back to our reading for this week. Readers (and viewers) are required to make relationships between the two panels (or shots) in order to understand what is happening, and to derive meaning from it.
(The reading this week was fantastic, by the way, and I’m not just saying that because it referenced Osamu Tezuka’s Buddha series, which I grew up reading and is possibly my favourite book series. It offered a new way to deliver information, which helped me because I don’t do well with big chunks of text. It was also interesting to see the difference in communication styles between Japanese and American media (with Western media using virtually only action-to-action, subject-to-subject, and scene-to-scene edits, and Eastern media adding in moment-to-moment and aspect-to-aspect edits, and using far less action-to-action edits))
The lectorial also showed how editing has an impact by comparing two scenes of train robberies, one with edits and one without. The edited version clearly had more of an impact, with it’s new ability to build suspense, draw the audiences attention, and an overall clarity. This also cemented my dislike of long takes. Unless you have a great director who knows how to handle this choice, it will be boring. Hitchcock is the only director whose use of long takes has kept my attention. I’ll never understand why directors choose long takes for fight scenes. Unless it’s one on one, it just looks crowded and messy and, worst of all, slow.
Finally, we underwent a task that had us trying to piece together a short story that had been cut up. While we weren’t asked to piece it together the same way it was written, that’s what a majority of us did, or tried to do.
Reflecting back, I did not do too well. I started trying to piece it together without reading all of the pieces, which is like trying to do a jigsaw puzzle without looking at the picture or any of the individual pieces. My method was to put all of the images into a video editing software and put it together in sequencing. This was actually a good idea as I was able to see the story so far and group together parts that I felt went together without having to give it a definite order. However I didn’t finish the task. I don’t think I’m cut out to be an editor…
I LOVE reality TV. My main is reality competitions (like Project Runway and Rupaul’s Drag Race), although I take issue with reality cooking competitions. This is because it is far easier to rig cooking shows. You don’t get to eat the food being served, you don’t know if it’s good or not.
This being said, all reality competitions are rigged, to some extent. So much work goes into them to make sure that the audience is rooting for the right person, someone who isn’t perfect but is obviously extremely talented, and is a little bit vulnerable, and overcomes some kind of odds, whether that be personal situation or the ‘villain’ of the series.
One of the best examples of this structure is Rupaul’s Drag Race season 4. The three finalists were Sharon Needles, Chad Michaels, and Phi Phi O’Hara. Sharon Needles won, in one of the best reality tv decisions ever documented (in my opinion). Chad Michaels was extremely talented, and likeable, but there was very little vulnerability. She seemed almost too perfect, and the audience wouldn’t relate to her so much as idolize her. Had she won, the audience would have been upset as she was too professional and successful already (she did end up going on to win All Stars 1, as the producers had promised her a win. This season was not successful). Phi Phi O’Hara was the villain of the series. Had she won, there would have been a riot among fans. Despite her being incredibly talented, no one could see past the way she treated the other queens, and the show would have lost many fans. Sharon Needles was the perfect mix. She was incredibly talented, but her drag style was one that was not widely accepted at that time (horror drag). This made her vulnerable, as several queens on the show wouldn’t consider her a threat and treated her as less. She overcame these odds, and it was shown best when she had a legendary showdown with Phi Phi O’Hara, after Sharon attempted to apologize for something that was said during critiques. She was relatable and interesting and, most importantly, gave the audience an inspirational story that told that you don’t have to ‘fit in’ to succeed, and if you be yourself you’ll come out on top.
Sometimes shows have to change the outcome last minute. Project Runway season 8 had a very clear story arc set up. Early on, contestant Gretchen was set up as the villain, after winning two weeks in a row and becoming very controlling over the other contestants. Contestant Mondo was slowly set up as the eventual victor. In the second episode, they showed him feeling isolated and lonely, but still working hard to get good results. Over the course of the season, he gained momentum and won multiple times in a row towards the end. He also revealed his HIV+ status, which made the audience empathize with him, and care for him more. As he was building up steam, Gretchen was losing hers, being in the bottom more than the top by the end.
However, when the show came back for the final two episodes, something had changed. I have a theory as to why. The show gives the final contestants three months off to design their final collection. In this time, their main consultant Tim Gunn visits and gives them critique. I believe that while filming this, the producers realized that what Mondo was designing was too pre-teen/teen oriented, whereas Gretchen’s collection was aimed at the same audience as the show. In the final two episodes, there was a major shift that took place in the subtle manipulation of the audience. There were more ‘kind’ close ups on Gretchen, showing her sympathizing with other contestants. There was more of a push for the audience to see Mondo as disorganized, despite the issues he faced being out of his control (models not showing up to the final show). When the judges discussed which contestant should win at the end, they had the two most credible judges (a fashion designer and a fashion editor) prefer Gretchen’s looks while the two least credible judges (a model and a musician/actor) prefer Mondo’s looks. In the end, when Gretchen won, it felt in line with the finale, but very out of tune with the rest of the season.
I could talk about reality tv all day but this is already my longest blog post so I’ll leave it here!
I have no clue where these questions came from but they’re apparently important so…
Were you nervous about presenting your work?
Yes, as when I saw other people’s projects I felt as though I had done the task incorrectly (despite there not really being an incorrect way to do this task).
What kind of feedback did you get?
My feedback was generally good. The people I presented to said that is was a very calming set of images, sounds, and videos. However, they didn’t really ‘get’ my concept until I explained it to them.
What is most difficult about the process and why?
The most difficult thing about the process for me was trying to give negative critiques. As this was such a personal project, you could see that it was difficult for people not to take criticism to heart, even though the positive feedback often far outweighed the negative.
How might you get better at this hat system?
I can use the hat system in every day life as practice for when I’m in class. For example, I could watch a television show and give it feedback using the hat system. By developing these skills in an objective manner, it may be easier for me to use them in real life.
What might be a good way to separate moments of receiving feedback and actually evaluating and doing something with it?
Recording the feedback (whether it be writing it down or recording the audio) when receiving it will help to evaluate and use it later on. This is a method that doctors recommend when giving bad news, as often people start thinking about the news (or in this case, feedback) they receive rather than actively listening.
Is it worth reflecting on the feedback both close to the experience and a bit further on?
Yes. Reflecting on feedback that you received at the beginning of a project should be just as important as reflecting on it towards the end. The original feedback usually includes the basics of what the work should be, such as ‘does this make sense’. Towards the end of a project, feedback can become far more specific and finicky, such as ‘does this sound come in a fraction to early’, and we can get wrapped up in these little things and forget to look at the big picture.
We also started working with Premiere Pro. I have experience with video and sound editing, so the Haiku project was pretty easy for me. But I know a lot of the people in this course have very little experience with any editing software, and are confused about why we aren’t learning more of the basics in class, especially given that this semester focus’s on editing.
Anyways, here’s my haiku…
