A Remote Journey

Here we are, the day of our seminar, finally able to see where our hard work has gotten us!

Rundown:

So us camera crew (Miguel, Dan and I) met at the tech office in building 9 at 2.30 to collect our gear and take it to the lecture theatre. At this point we had a pretty clear idea of how we wanted it to be set up and how we were going to work with the audio, but we were still going to play around a bit with positioning to see if we could do better.

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Miguel and Jenny with the camera gear on our way to the seminar

 

Once we got to the lecture theatre we had to wait for the previous class to finish, this gave us time to relax and have a brief meeting to go over everything with everyone else in the group. We then went and unpacked everything and began setting up the cameras once we were allowed in to the room.

I operated the stable camera that had a wide shot capturing all the guests and the screen behind.

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When the seminar started, everything was going so amazing until the fire alarm went off and interrupted everything! Luckily 20 minutes later we were back in the theatre and continued, and it still managed to be a great seminar and the guests were super interesting.

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We ended on a great note and then packed up the lecture theatre as best we could.

Dan and i edited the highlight reel for our seminar as the final contribution and submitted it in.

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Overall I was super happy with how our seminar turned out and I think our whole team did an amazing job!

Progress

So after meetings and almost controversial discussions on Facebook, not only did we come up with a poster (with my Mona Lisa idea incorporated):

But we also managed to book all 3 guests which is such a relief given that it has been such short notice for our group to put all of this together.

  1. Our first guest Steven, is a drama development exec who works at Matchbox Pictures
  2. And our second guest is Stuart who is a television screenwriter
  3. Our third guest is Gareth who is a writer/producer

I’m really glad we have people that are doing various jobs in the industry because it will give our seminar a little something extra and more exciting information.

What I did:

  • All the camera operators (there are 3 of us) talked about what camera’s we want to use, what equipment has been put aside for us, audio questions and also when we should book it. We then went and discussed it with the tech guys
  • We also created a plan of how we wanted the camera’s set up on the day, and by witnessing the Social Media group set up their camera’s we got a good understanding of what we needed to do, and what we can do better.

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(this is some of our notes for the camera set up)

  • So far I have been to every meeting and class and participated in everything that I can!

Seminars for days…

So as a part of Media Industries, we have gotten in to groups to put together a seminar, my group and I are doing the Television industry “A Remote Journey” with the theme of Epic Adventures.

Early stages:

I threw around a couple of ridiculous yet visual ideas for our seminar (both set and poster):

  1.  Mona Lisa holding a remote (poster)
  2. Stack of old TVs as a back drop (think 80s Less Than Zero when McCarthy walks in to the party)

Job Roles:

We sorted out our job roles significantly early on when everyone was here and was able to do so quite quickly. I put my hand up for camera duty, so booking cameras and filming on the day which will be pretty fun!

Guests:

Unfortunately I don’t know anyone in the TV industry personally, but we were lucky enough to have a couple of people know some producers and writers for various tv shows and some that worked for Freemantle Media! It’s still to be confirmed but we have 2 weeks before our Seminar so hopefully that will work out!

Structure:

We still haven’t sorted out a structure yet because we have no booked guests but we want something interactive and our guests to speak about their journey of getting in to the Television industry and little tips on how to start and the kind of things you need to think about when working in the industry.

Radio Reflection- Semester 2

Beginning with the first show of the semester (21/07/14), which was drastically pulled together very last minute with almost everyone being out of state and working with new people was an absolute challenge for all of us. Imogen was on panel, Vanessa (former group member) was producer, Elizabeth and I were hosting and Ryan took the role of online producer. Arriving early at the station and finally meeting each other properly and sorting out the last quick fixes to the script and adding those extra questions was really helpful and we somehow managed to pull off a really great show. Each interview was really great and chatty, although nerves did at times get the better of me, presenting is a tough job when you aren’t very inclined to do it, I’ve learnt that 2 cups of coffee before a show is not the best idea no matter how great the roast its. However I think that this show was a really great start to the semester with the new and improved group 3.

Our second show (01/09/14) again was another step up. With Imogen and Ryan hosting, Liz producing and I panelled for the first time, which I really enjoyed most out of all the roles. The show went smoothly and we were perfect for time, I think the improved confidence and being much more comfortable working with each other was really evident and helped make the show more successful.

Finally our last show of the semester came around (06/10/14) probably at the most stressful time possible (assignment due date time) but we did incredibly well. Liz and I were up hosting again, Ryan panelled and Imogen took a crack at producing. We did come across a few problems; the Saturday before our show we had an interview pull out, which left us in a bit of a sticky situation, however quick thinking on Imogen’s part had a great package piece ready to play, which we know is something you should always have prepared in case of this situation. Next we had an interviewee show up with more than herself (that being two other people who were planning on being interviewed also and she did not make this clear in the emails). We had only prepared questions for one person, luckily Liz and I were able to put our heads together and quickly resolve this and the interview was a smash! Our final interview was also really interesting and we were able to make up the time we lost with our missing interview with an audio piece that she wanted to play as an example of her work which was absolutely fantastic.

We got feedback after this show from RRR’s Elizabeth, who began with how our intro did sound a bit scripted, however went on to say how great she thought the show was, the philosophy interview was interesting and that the package piece was really good. We were astounded because we have never had such good feedback from her and to here that the problems we had prior to the show that we resolved actually worked out really well.

I can honestly say that I have learnt a great deal about working in the ‘real world’ of radio and have thoroughly enjoyed my time at Triple R and hope to use these skills of producing and presenting a show in to more than just radio.

Ghost Chips

As a part of my Radio 2 course elective, an assignment called Audio Arts arose at the beginning of the semester and had me pondering on the many things I could do creatively.

I settled for something reasonably close to home. New Zealand that is.

New Zealand’s sense of humour is a rare and unusual sort, captured perfectly in our original advertisements and films.

One of my favourite directors, Taika Waititi, known for Boy (2010) and more recently What We Do In The Shadows (2014)

 

Using audio from various drive responsibly advertisements and the film Boy I have created an audio piece inspired by the kiwi sense of humour and my native culture.

What you are hearing:

Classic audio snippets from Boy (2010), New Zealand’s ‘Legend’ stop a friend from drink driving advertisement and ‘Blazed’ anti-drug driving advertisement.

Tracks

I begin the piece off with a snippet of Shooting Stars by the Bag Raiders just to set the timing up of the piece. A classic maraca shaking in the background, simple and very effective.

The “sick beats” of OMC’s classic track ‘How Bizarre’ is the next song to grace your ears, one that has been classified as New Zealand’s unofficial National Anthem.

Now I couldn’t have passed up the chance to play some MJ, Rock With You was in my opinion the perfect song to demonstrate “some Michael Jackson dance moves” 

Next up is a reggae song, a classic style representing every New Zealand summer and bringing nostalgia on to the many, finally followed by Foux Du Fafa by the iconic Flight Of The Conchords.

What I tried to do with this collected audio, was to create something that sounded almost like it interacted with each other, for example the part when it says “hey Chardonnay wanna see some Michael Jackson dance moves?” <insert MJ song here> and then another vocal piece replies with “Nah bro like this” <Insert reggae tune here>

The idea was to portray some elements of NZ that I love, without having the help of visuals, a difficult task for sure but I very much enjoyed trying to piece it all together.

Here it is, the audio piece you have been waiting for:

 

 

#82 Hactivism and all that

So I watched some of the documentary and found it completely ridiculous- mainly because people are literally way too extreme and need to calm down, they are actually psychotic. Also partly because I don’t know why we are watching this at all- leading me to the actual point of this class- which I have come to the conclusion that there is none. It is irrelevant, it’s just filling up that extra space that us media kids need a 4th subject. It’s social media, we don’t need to study it- in today’s culture it’s common sense.

Anyway.

How does this documentary alter your understanding of Internet? I suppose it just goes to show how open the internet is and how many people it reaches (no shit)

How is social media used to create a community of people who share a similar interest and politics? How? Through connecting people worldwide- hello? websites, Facebook pages and all other forms.

What ideas does this documentary raise in regards to designing an event that asks people to participate and become part of a community? The same as it always has, getting people involved and coming together is needed to create the event, spreading it around, word of mouth etc.

What basic questions. This class is pathetic.