Month: May 2015 (page 1 of 2)

The end of a semester – week 12

Today’s tutorial was the last of the term. It’s quite a feat I believe, to have gone through these last 12 weeks of my first semester in University. It’s been an experience to say the least. Something that I have had to become accustomed to in a variety of ways, but have finally done nonetheless. It kind of feels like its been a life time, and in this small lifetime of 3 months, I have definitely grown in many ways. In today’s tutorial we were asked to draw a line for the 12 weeks for each in a different colour on a graph based on these points:

  1. How much have I learnt about making media objects/stories?
  2. What is my ability to work independently in unfamiliar ways or with new systems and tools?
  3. How much do I understand and think critically and creatively about what I make?
  4. What is my understanding of the role/value of the blog?

Sitting there thinking about how and where I would draw my lines, determined to make them as accurate as I could, it almost forced me to reflect on these past weeks. I’ve learnt a lot. Coming into the course, there was mixed feelings of knowing what you’re doing and not having a clue. After the first week it completely leaned towards having no idea what I was doing with anything, something that I accepted and strived to actually learning something. Being around such creative minds has encouraged me to think about things in a different light and to approach everything with a chilled and eager aura. I suppose your time spent anywhere is what you make of it and although there have been moments of doubt and boredom, it’s been a great first half of the year.

Lectorial – week 12

Humanity has become highly influenced by technology and its capabilities of further progressing the human race as a whole. Various films have delved into the concept of the creation of another being, usually some sort of complex mechanical robot, and each time they outline the positives and negatives of these beings on the human race. This encourages the idea of whether or not humans will ultimately have power over themselves; will they loose themselves to technology? This comes to question whether or not humanity is in charge of its own future. The vast amount of issues the world is currently facing, including catastrophes such as global warming and the manner in which it is being managed shows that if humanity does not chose to be in charge of its own future, it simply will not. It is up to human beings to be the action they wish to see, otherwise it will not take place. Who else will do it? This is where the future of technology lies, will human beings resort to the creation of other technological beings to carry out the work they should, leaving the future of humanity in the hands of those who are not actually human? On the other hand, as we are the creators of these robots, does that mean that we are in fact in control of our futures as we control how they are used? This is seen in every single robot film in which the creation of the robot figure begins as an all assisting and helpful construction, but then progresses into a where they deem that they must have ultimate control over all, which in turn is stopped by the human protagonist and the robot protagonist who is the only robot who feels emotions. Humanity I believe, will be in charge of its own future if it chooses to.

Week 11 – St Kilda Film Festival

On Thursday evening, I attended the Opening Night of the St Kilda Film Festival. I had never experienced this festival before and was eager to see what all the hype was about, especially since it is the focus of our latest project brief. I have to say however, I do not think I was completely satisfied. After making our way in, and the showing finally beginning, I feel as though the audience spent more time listening to speeches made than enjoying the glorious art that is short film. Understandably, as it was opening night there needed to be many individuals and bodies acknowledged and yes I was interested to hear about the funding from the government, but the only speech I was somewhat interested in was Festival Director of over 15 years Paul Harris. Perhaps this was because I just wanted to hear about film and cinema, and who better to listen to that the individual who choses what the audience sees throughout the duration of the festival.

Once the speeches were finally over, the shorts were screened. I was impressed by what was chosen, they were a great quality of film and commented on a range of things through the forms of documentary, drama, and a beautiful animation that I believe really stood out from the rest. Although it was brilliant to see this Australian talent and skill, I wasn’t completely satisfied. I don’t believe that I saw enough. I know that is an active choice that was made to entice audiences into returning to see more, but as the nights aim was to give insight into the entire festival, I feel like I wasn’t given a big enough taste. Maybe my taste has been broadened from being exposed to a larger range of cinema since starting my degree, and that’s why I wanted to see more, due to my vast interest in foreign cinema, however this festival obviously isn’t about that but the embracing of Australian talent – which it achieved successfully. Overall it was a lovely night, it just ended too quickly. It will help immensely in the formation of our project brief 4 artefact as I can now give more of an insight into how programming is used to entice audiences.

Week 11 – tute

This weeks tutorial consisted of Dan having a look at our artefact for Project Brief 4, and getting some much needed (and wanted) feedback. After having him listen to the first draft of our podcast, he seemed happy with it. The general consensus was to have a play around with the technical aspects, work on how we record our pieces perhaps separately and then edit them together. He also suggested to increase the exaggerated aspect of our audio, something that I believe is simple and easy for our group to fix up in order for it to sound great. I’m really happy with the place we’re at. We are where we need to be, we know where we are going – fixing and tinkering with the things previously mentioned by Dan, in order to create something great.

To mix again (11)

There is no such thing as an original idea – in film, music, any sort of medium out there, this is what we were told in our lecture this week. Generally you take from things that you like, you borrow ideas, use the parts of something that draw you in. This is what a remix is. You construct a new creation due to the things that sound the best and fit in well with each other.

I for one absolutely love a good remix. Don’t get me wrong, sometimes there is nothing better than hearing the rawness of an original (?) song, however when someone chooses to take the song and completely switching it up, changing the beat and creating something that somehow resembles the first version, it can truly sound brilliant. I was not always into remixes, I think you have to have a specific taste in music for it. It was not until a friend played me a few tracks that I started to gravitate towards it, but there are still a lot of remixes that I am really not into. You might not be into club music, but you might appreciate remixes of your favourite songs – you might not. It all really does come down to how people can change ideas to in some way attempt in making it their own and whether or not you enjoy it.

I suppose I have never really thought about the legalities of the practice, I would always just look at it as someone expressing their creativity and individuality by spinning a song in their own way. Obviously I was wrong. Everything comes back down to copyright, always. I was speaking to my Dad, explaining that our lecture was based on remixes and how interested I was because I am generally extremely intrigued by music as a whole, and he – a man who works in the steel industry for gods sake – brought up the fact that copyright is such a big deal in the modern society that we live in. I cannot believe how blind I have been. I understand that it is necessary, as people need to respect the fact that others have created something and it needs to be protected, but remixes literally oppose this entire ideal. There is something great about using other peoples’ ideas and creations and putting your own footprint on them, I honestly think that it is one of the biggest compliments. However, obviously not everyone would agree, and I do not know if I would if I was the one creating the music myself. Maybe I will just stay away and just say “lets just enjoy the music”?

Advertising as an institution (wk 10)

Celebrity endorsements are a popular way for brands to achieve meaning, however, the success of any endorsement may be dependant on the correlation between celebrity and brand, which is known as the “matchup” effect, coined by McCracken in 1989. This has seen individuals such as McCracken, Amos, Holmes, Strutton, Kahle and Homer approaching their research in a similar manner, their school of thought outlining that the effectiveness of an endorsement is tied to how well the image and / or personality of the celebrity fits the product and the selling idea. The consumer – seen as the “fan” in a certain aspect needs to see the correlation between celebrity and the product.

Kahle, Homer and Kamins believe that in most cases, it is the attractiveness of the celebrity that strengthens the intentions of the consumer to purchase the advertised product. However, Zwilling and Fruchter believe that there are many contradictions and findings that can strain the task of creating a match between celebrity and product. For example, Shimp’s research outlines that “trustworthiness and attractiveness are emphasied over a celebrity’s popularity”, however his past studies have found that repeatedly pairing pleasant images with brands can result in favourable brand attitudes by viewers of those advertisements. Kahle, Homer and Kamins each agree that effective endorsements are not necessarily based on the “attractiveness” of a celebrity, although it assists in curving the attitudes of consumers. Kamins implies that celebrity endorsement influences consumers positively, with this influence somewhat partially due to the desire of a consumer to identify with the endorser.

Advertising, as an institution, is used on many occasions to sell the product they wish to. Young consumers may somewhat “borrow” from a celebrity they admire in the construction of their identity, by purchasing and using the product endorsed, constructing a self satisfying self-concept. Advertisers target their audiences perfectly, and use celebrities to do exactly so. Such a sweet deal for usually, a large price.

 

Week 10 Lectorial

Institutions

Ranging from things such as marriage to Newscorp, institutions are everywhere. In this week 10’s lectorial, we sat and discussed Facebook as an institution. In retrospect, it seriously is such an everpresent aspect of our lives. It has seemed to become a force to be reckoned with, everywhere that you turn once you are online.

I have a friend who only recently signed up to Facebook earlier this year. Last year, due to her lack of online presence, she missed out on much year 12 discussion and many party invites – out of sight, out of mind. Due to her lack of an account, she also couldn’t ask for lives on CandyCrush, and use apps that required a Facebook profile. These days, you cannot even comment on news articles etc. if you don’t have  a profile to log in with in the first place. This year she jumped on the bandwagon. It followed with a hoard of “OMG finally!”, “Where have you been?” comments on her timeline and her being tagged in every photo that has been taken of her since year 10. Facebook is a powerful institution, you may not be online, but somehow you are, you are always online, it is as if Facebook hasn’t given you a choice.

tute no.10

In today’s tutorial we presented our artefact for project brief four. A work in progress, we are aiming for our creation to take on a variety of caricatures that encapsulate the epitome of different vibes around different film festivals. While in the creative process, we are being careful to ensure that our research is fully communicated throughout our end product, and not lost by the exaggerated characters. We’re working on bringing together our three scrips that we have made for the different festivals and sectioning them off, with interview questions ( that we have devised today ) focusing on the thoughts surrounding the idea of film festivals.

audience (wk 9)

Recently I’ve been thinking about how much artists cater to their audiences. As the audience is everything, everyone really plays on that idea, uses it to their advantage, use it to make money – it’s all business. TV uses their audiences, obviously. My sister and my mum are watching TV as I write this and the former, in a thirteen year old fashion is squealing about how she has waited three seasons for these two characters to get together. She then proceeded by watching their much awaited steamy get together, and when I asked her if it was up to her expectations she looked at me, grinned, then looked back at the screen grimacing every so often. She has literally grown into an eighteen year old in front of my eyes. Coming back to my main point, it goes to show how active audiences are these days while watching TV shows. These producers, directors, everyone involved know what they’re doing. They deliberately don’t let two characters get together so this happens to viewers across the country. Yes, the audience controls ratings, but the producers control the audience’s emotions and that is television. This is what I love about it, being able to produce something that thrusts such a plethora of emotions onto a vulnerable and antagonised mind. This is television. This is media.

Tutorial week 9

Todays tutorial was spent discussing our ideas and artefact for project brief 4. After finishing our annotated bibliographies, a long winded task that is now eventually finished, we shared what we had found – following on from our meeting that we had last week, realising again that we had three different areas of research integrated nicely. After much discussion and deliberation, we have seemingly come to a group decision that we would like to focus on programming of film festivals and how it is used to capture audiences. As a group, we are extremely interested in the manner programs are used to control and influence audiences, through advertising their films, usually in particular categories and genres.

With our artefact, we have decided that we are interested in creating a small news snippet type video, edgy and interesting, that links to the format of films in film festivals whilst almost reporting on the ins and outs of specific festivals. In this, we look to describe, analyse and recommend festivals, mainly based on the wants and needs of an audience. This taps into the field that I have researched greatly – the battle between the “business” model and “audience” model of film festivals.

Our other ideas consist of; a podcast, vlogs, a feature article or a program itself – this list is a work in progress, consisting of our other ideas of what we can execute. By our next meeting as a group we aim to have prototypes of scripts and ideas to get our work moving from the bland researching stage that its currently in.

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