The final blog post for the semester… What a journey! It feels like just 12 weeks ago we were all walking into media 1 for the first time. Which we were. It was only 12 weeks ago, and honestly it feels like so much more. I wasn’t 100% sure what would be appropriate to do for this final blog post, because my god am I sick of talking about myself and my own work. So that leaves me here… I’d review a movie I watched over the past couple weeks, but if I’m being 100% honest, i’ve hardly had the time to sit down and watch anything that wasn’t related to my university work/studies. For this exact reason, i’m going to do something a little different…

For this final post, I’m going to do something extremely professional and extremely thought through.

I got my friends to send me names of movies that I haven’t seen and don’t know a lot about. For each movie i’m going guess the basic plot based only on the cover, compare it to the actual plot outline given by wikipedia/imdb, and give myself a score out of 10! Enjoy.

Zootopia

Brooke’s Interpretation: A fox and a rabbit create an unlikely friendship when the fox is given a speeding ticket, by said rabbit. The pair become a power duo and the fox is recruited as an undercover cop.

IMDb: In a city of anthropomorphic animals, a rookie bunny cop and a cynical con artist fox must work together to uncover a conspiracy.

Score: 6/10

Arrival

Brooke’s Interpretation: Giant egg arrives down on earth. Aliens take over, nobody knows why they are here. The aliens take residence in the antarctic, they don’t really cause anybody any trouble.

IMDb: When twelve mysterious spacecraft appear around the world, linguistics professor Louise Banks is tasked with interpreting the language of the apparent alien visitors.

Score: 3/10

Ant-Man 

Brooke’s Interpretation: A spin off of ‘Alice in Wonderland’. A man drinks a weird potion, finds himself very small, fighting crime and terror within the bug world and becoming the leader and saviour of bugs everywhere.

IMDb: Armed with a super-suit with the astonishing ability to shrink in scale but increase in strength, cat burglar Scott Lang must embrace his inner hero and help his mentor, Dr. Hank Pym, plan and pull off a heist that will save the world.

Score: 5/10

So this had absolutely nothing to do with the final class, however I would like to take a minute to talk about, as the famous quote, “don’t judge a book by it’s cover”, implies, we must also not judge a film by it’s cover. I obviously wasn’t very good at predicting what each film was about just from the cover, and I must say, the IMDb plots sound much better than mine, so maybe I might have to go watch the films now that I have time! Happy end of semester, thank you for following my blogs (even though I know you’re being forced to read them, Hannah). I’m going to leave it here with the only appropriate song for this occasion. Take it away, Vitamin C.

p.s. I am aware we aren’t graduating and we have only been at uni since March, but i’ve been waiting 3 damn months to include this song somewhere.

Yes, I know we’re studying podcasts, and this is a media course, not a music course, but I thought this week might be my only chance to have a shitty ramble about my love for film soundtracks…. Because film soundtracks are audio obviously, it’s just a podcast… With rhythm? ANYWAY let’s just role with it.

The soundtrack for Submarine, by Richard Ayoade. One of my favourite movies of all time, paired with also being a super wonderful soundtrack. It could however just be my slight bias towards Alex Turner, but we’ll ignore that for the sake of this very serious, and (obviously) very professional review.

Track 1: Stuck on the puzzle (intro). Arguably the best track, despite it only being 53 seconds long. The guitar paired with piano works so perfectly in unison, and if any of you have seen the film, it’s pretty much just an musical representation of all the feels you feel. Also, not to mention that Alex Turner is definitely the human embodiment of EMOTIONS.

Track 2: Hiding tonight. The one I don’t care for so much. Still great. Still love Alex Turner.

Track 3: Glass in the park. Again if you’ve seen the film, if you listen to this track, you can pretty much see the main character, Oliver Tate, having an angsty, melodramatic breakdown whilst this song accompanies him. Personally, I think this song sums up the entire movie, or at least Oliver as a character, in the space of 4 minutes. BRILLIANT.

Track 4: It’s hard to get around the wind. Aka the one that makes me cry. Not sure why. A solid 10/10.

Track 5: Stuck on the puzzle. This one kind of makes me angry, because I wish it was just an extended/full version of track 1. But that’s okay, good song, giving me all of the emotions!

Track 6: Piledriver waltz. A joyous conclusion to a soundtrack that tugs on all the heartstrings. This one definitely has a different feel to the rest of the songs, which I can appreciate. On the flip side to track one, I think it closes the narrative, it definitely feels like the end of a story.

Where does this bring me? Much like the films themselves, or any sort of visual piece that has a narrative, as does an audio piece. Much like podcasts, whether or not it’s explicit, they all tell stories. There’s the beginning, middle, and you guessed it, the end. Maybe it’s not as obvious in a film soundtrack, as it may be in a podcast, but trust me, if you have the time to listen close enough, I guarantee you’ll hear it.

In this weeks workshop, we listened to a podcast by Kyla Brettle, called Making Up. Unfortunately, because we didn’t have enough time, we only got the chance to listen to about 10 minutes of the piece. Before this class, I had never really been into podcasts, maybe listening to one or two in the process of a research task back in High School, but even then, they were always very lengthy and just too damn wordy. Brettle’s piece came as a pleasant surprise. I was impressed, and interested by the number of layers she had within her piece, and how this helped create so much texture to the piece. Listening to a podcast like this made me excited about PB4.

I thought Brettle’s piece was amazing, and I should definitely credit her in being the inspiration behind the way my group and I approached layering, and sound in general within our podcast. Something that I found very prevalent in ‘Making Up’, was the way small soundbites were used to break up the piece, making it super engaging for us as an audience. I definitely didn’t want to be approaching our final podcast with just a script that we recite back onto a microphone, and Brettle’s podcast has definitely served as inspiration on how we can avoid doing that.

I don’t want to sound as though we plan on copying the structure of ‘Making Up’ to a tee, however I think it’s only fair to emphasise how much the piece served as inspiration when our group got together during class to discuss. As a group, we wanted to create a narrative, but also make it exciting and interesting for the listener. By the end of the class we came up with a few ideas, to use soundbites to our piece sound like it’s being played on an old school radio station. Obviously we want to build on these ideas to make our podcast as good as possible. I think it may be time for me to listen to the rest of Brettle’s piece.

Todays lectorial was pretty relaxed, Brian took us through review of the semester, as well as giving us some preparation for beginning our studios next semester.

Brian gave us some review questions, to look over our semester.

What and how did you learn that you think was really valuable? I think definitely the most valuable thing I learnt this semester, was how to use Premier Pro and Audition. Obviously both of these programs will be ones that we use throughout our course, and learning to use them both proficiently this early has set me up well for my future as a media student. In class tasks, as well as all of the project briefs have given me a tonne of opportunity to grow my skills.

What did you find the most challenging about the course? Although it does sort of contradict my last answer, I think the most challenging part of the course was getting out of my comfort zone and learning to use the new applications. I went through VCE using final cut pro, so it was difficult to learn how to use the adobe applications, and not just fall back into old habits, by using final cut.

What have you discovered about your own creative practice as a media maker? I’ve been happy with all the work i’ve produced this semester, however I think i’m holding myself back in a number of creative aspects. I tend to come up with lots of ideas when we are given a task, but leave it too long to have enough time to put them in practice. I’m great and planning, but not so much implementing when it comes to my own creative practices. That’s something I definitely want to work on next semester, so that I can create work that I am 100% satisfied and proud of.

The graph below was what we worked on it class. It shows how I felt about each other skills or statements throughout the semester.

Overall, I think I had a pretty successful and enjoyable first semester, and I’m hoping it can only get better from here!!

Despite the title of this post, this has absolutely nothing to do with the movie. What I wanted to do instead today was talk about the good, the bad, and the ugly parts of group projects. Yes I am about to get extremely narcissistic.

The Good: 

Getting to work with new people! I wasn’t sure which category to put this one under. Working with new people can be a nightmare at times, but luckily I’ve been put into a group with people that (so far) I get on with pretty well.

Sharing the work load. With big assessments like these, the last thing you want to be doing is all the work… Group tasks mean we can split up the work, and as long as everyone keeps their end of the bargain, it works out perfectly.

The Bad:

Clashing schedules. The biggest obstacle when it comes to group tasks. I already find it difficult enough juggling study, homework, and a part time job, now with a group project in place, I’m juggling other peoples schedules as well as my own. No thanks.

More people, more work. This one sort of clashes with my note on ‘sharing the work load’. When there’s more people working on a task, aka group projects, you’re expected to do more work. Well I guess maybe not actually more work, but it seems like it… It’s coming to the end of semester, i’m tired, okay?

The Ugly:

Clashing opinions. The word clashing is becoming a common trend here. With more people trying to come up with an idea, you’re bound to butt heads at some point or another. Yes, it’s good to discuss different options and ideas, but if someone is willing to compromise, things can get ugly.

Group expectations. Obviously we all have different goals when it comes to assessments. Some of us are aiming for a much desired high distinction, where as others are just aiming to pass. Group members with higher aims will often unintentionally be swamped with the biggest work load. Works in favour of the person just trying to pass, definitely not fair at all though.

And there you have it, The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly of group projects!

Before delving into my reflection, I think the most important thing to note is how successful I believe our group was in working together as a team, in order to create the best possible podcast for this project. After creating our collaborative contract, I think as a team, we were all committed to staying in contact, via FaceBook, and we were always willing to meet up in class time to work on the project. This alone, I think played a huge role in us being successful in this outcome. Our time management and communication meant that at no point we have fallen behind, or ended up having to rush through aspects of the task. This has allowed us to be successful in testing out multiple different ideas for our final project, ensuring that we ended up with the best plan. Other than our teamwork, I think that the most successful part of our project, was our use of layering in our final podcast. In the final piece, we used a number of different spot sounds, in order to build up the piece. This will help keep it engaging for the audience, as well as showing our proficiency with using Adobe Audition as a media tool. The most problematic aspects of the work we submitted I believe is the structure of our podcast. The opening and closing I think give it justice, however due to the time constraints, I think we gave the structure of our body the backseat to everything else. It would have been beneficial for us to spend more time planning a more clearly defined structure for the bulk of the podcast. It doesn’t run quite as smoothly as we would have liked, and at times I think there is the possibility it may be slightly confusing to listeners, especially if they have to predestined idea of what they are about to be listening to.

When it comes to the concepts and theories that we have discussed in class this semester, I think ours links back quite strongly. We focussed a lot on layering when studying podcast in class, and I think that our podcast strongly reflects that we have taken this all on board. It would have been easy for us to just use dialogue and a few sound clips, but with the knowledge of what we learnt in class, we were able to branch further out than this. We used the layering of sounds to create a textured piece, replicating that of a strong piece. Stepping away from learning about audio in class, we linked back our information to our topic, The Ecologies of Attention pretty well. As was told to us in class, we tried to stay away from looking into the psychology behind attention, and focus on the impacts of, and on the media, like we have been learning and discussing throughout the semester. We approached it in a creative way that showed our own artistic capabilities, whilst showcasing all that we had learnt and grasped in class discussions, and lectorials.

Throughout the process of creating our podcast, as a team, and as an individual, I learnt even more about how audio works, and the process of creating an audio piece. I discovered how important all elements of audio are, not just the research and dialogue aspects. Finding music, sound bites, and atmospheric sounds is just as important in creating a piece that flows well. In audio works, the sounds have to play a role in telling the story and creating the narrative, as their is no image to accompany it. Throughout the process, I’ve learnt how to create different meanings, through the use of sound and structure.

Working as a group, in any circumstance always comes with it’s difficulties, however in this case, I think it was a bonus. I learnt how important it is to be open to other group members’ ideas, because even if you think your idea is the best, there’s no harm in hearing what someone else has to say. I found that in my group, we all think very differently, and my group came up with ideas that I would have never even thought of. It’s opened my eyes to approaching tasks like this in a less literal way, and creating a more personalised approach towards it. Learning to work as a group on such a creative, but also research based task has been extremely beneficial, not just for the creative side of me, but also the side of me that isn’t always the most punctual worker. Having to meet deadlines, and knowing that my work is going towards someone else grade and outcome, not so much forced, but encouraged me to work harder and keep myself to a higher standard. All of this will help shape me into a greater team member for future and current group projects.

To say I’m unfamiliar with using Adobe Audition, would be an understatement. If i’m being completely honest, I hadn’t even heard of it before I began this course. I guess now is as good a time as ever to learn how to use it though… In this weeks tutorial, we were given the task to create our own one minute sound piece, regarding distraction, or something like that.

I wont talk through exactly what we did, because I think that parts pretty obvious. To bit it simply, we recorded some dialogue, some spot sounds, and some ambience noise. Now we had to put it together into something that somewhat~ made sense. The aim of this task was pretty much to familiarise ourselves with using Audition, as well as learning to understand what it meant to give an audio piece layers, and texture.

I’ll be honest, this first attempt is quite terrible, but I have been familiarising myself with how audition works, and I can promise you that I am getting better… I hope…