OTF Reflection 3

The manipulation of time is unique only to cinema. A photographer may capture a moment and a painter may choose to artistically develop the world they see, yet time can never continue to move in these mediums. ‘The moving image’ defines cinema, as it lends itself to capturing moments, big or small, as they occur through time. Whenever the term ‘slow motion’ is mentioned, most people conjure this scene from The Matrix. This advanced expansion of time technique is referred to as bullet time, The Matrix Bullet Time

which according to the Isaacs was “conceived specifically for The Matrix” to show audiences they were in a constructed, unearthly space. While being some of the more memorable moments in cinema, the opening of Zombieland, the dream destruction at the cafe in Inception, the elevator of blood in The Shining to name a few, expansion of time is not just used for its ability to up the ‘wow’ factor of a shot. An example of this is the scene in American History X where Edward Norton’s character is handcuffed and taken away by police after killing an African-American man.

American History X

Shot to place the audience in Edward Furlong’s point of view, the toll this event will place on the family is placed on display. It is used to capture the range of emotions the character are going through, the rage and hate on Derek’s face as he kills a man, the anguish and shock that Danny feels is felt by viewers. Slow motion in this instance does not allow the audience to escape the horror of this event in real time, thus adding an even further layer of importance and guttural reaction the scene.

References

Kaye, Tony (1998) American History X, New Line Cinema

Wachowski, Andy & Wachowski, Lana (1999) The Matrix, Warner Bros.

Post #2 – Imagined Communities and Transmedia

Television is a cultural generator, its purpose is to entertain and spark conversation about the events depicted on screen. Narrative programs rely on an audience becoming invested in the story they are telling to ensure they come back to the show as soon as the next episode is available.

The concept of imagined communities is central to narrative television as fan appreciation helps to keep a series on the air. It gives the sense in media audiences that they exist within a large group who share a common interest for instance, an appreciation for a television show. Members of an imagined community “will never know most of their fellow members, meet them, or even hear of them” (Anderson, 1983) yet they feel that they are a part of a larger force.

Created by Dan Harmon, the sitcom Community centres on a diverse group of community college students who attended the fictional school Greendale. It first aired on NBC in 2009 and was met with critical acclaim but garnered rather low ratings for a network comedy. It cultivated a cult following and fans of the show felt as if they belonged to a community that was considered meagre yet rather zealous. In November of 2011, NBC announced it was removing Community from its schedule and this news united the fans to rally support for the show. In this day and age the increased amount of communication technologies, such as social media, has allowed niche audiences to easily find one another. The fan response to NBC’s decision is evidence of this, as the community came together to save the show. Under the hashtag #SixSeasonsAndAMovie, they ensured their voices were heard and in the process found the other members of their imagined community.sixseasons social networkIn addition, Community was cancelled after season five and the fandom showed their support for the show yet again and helped it get picked up by the online streaming service Yahoo! Screen, thus allowing audiences free access worldwide.

Transmedia is the use of various types of media to tell a story, engage an audience and grow a brand. This strategy “allows for the opportunity to create deeper, stronger, and more varied connections between story universes and audiences” (Daryoosh Hayati, 2012). As Community continued to evolve, it began to distance itself from sitcoms by incorporating a ‘meta’ quality to its story telling, often commenting on the conventions of television and appealing to the small its small but devoted fan base. Transmedia was utilised in many ways, one of those being releasing of ninety second clips that were filmed specifically for the internet and were not from the main show.

While these were promotional material for the DVD release, they added to the reality of the world by allowing the audience to see into the lives of the characters that inhabited it. Dan Harmon’s dedication to the fans was shown through his commitment to having audio commentary for every episode on the DVD release.

The link between television shows and their audiences is vital for the longevity in this day and age as the television landscape is awash with choices, content creators must engage with their viewers in as many ways as possible to keep them coming back.

References

Anderson, Benedict (1983), “Imagined Communities”, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism”, Vol. 2, pp. 48-59

 Evans, Elizabeth Jane (2008) “Character, audience agency and transmedia drama Media” Culture & Society, Vol. 30(2), pp. 197-213

 Hayati, Daryoosh (2012) “Transmedia Storytelling: A Study of the Necessity, Features and Advantages” International Journal of Information and Education Technology, Vol. 2(3), pp. 196-200

 Sony Pictures DVD (YouTube Channel) (2010) “Community Season 1 – Mini Episode Study Break – “Generation Gap”, video, viewed 11 August 2015, Found at <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=skYis9qPgVE>

 Sony Pictures Television (2009) “Community”, television show

Post #1 – Female Relationships Representation in Broad City

Created by Ilana Glazer and Abbi Jacobson, Broad City is a sitcom adapted from a web series of the same name, centred on two female friends in their mid-twenties living in New York City. Hailed by critics and viewers alike, the driving force of the show is the core relationship between the two main characters Abbi and Ilana, as it showcases a genuine friendship between women the likes of which have rarely been seen on television. This legitimacy is cemented through a number of aspects, such as the aforementioned creators themselves, as they play characters who share their real life names. Glazer and Jacobson help to pen the scripts which adds a depth to their onscreen friendship as a sense of history is easily identifiable within their interactions. Elaine Blair of the New Republic magazine wrote in her review of the series that “They have so many inside jokes that listening to them can be like trying to decipher a code.” During the first episode of the show, Ilana asks her friend “Can I talk to the Abbi who stole a van?” and Glazer and Jacobson do not elaborate on this piece of history as these inside jokes and pieces of backstory inform the audience of the depth of their relationship outside of what is shown on screen. An example of this can be seen in episode four of season two as Abbi is faced with the choice of ‘pegging’ Jeremy, the man she has a crush on.

In her review for this episode, Caroline Framke of the A.V. Club states that Abbi and Ilana ‘know and accept each other inside and out’ and this conversation is a perfect encapsulation of their friendship. Ilana is not jealous of Abbi for experiencing something she has always wanted to try, she celebrates it and doles out advice and encouragement. Throughout the series, the girls support each other in every endeavour without hesitation and Framke’s proclamation that Broad City is ‘one of the best and most touching depictions of female friendship’ stems from instances like these.

Glazer has been quoted in YES Magazine as saying that ‘the characters on the show are only “15 percent exaggerations”’ of their real life counterparts which illustrates that the events depicted on screen have roots in real life experiences. A situational comedy is centred on characters sharing a common environment and the humour stems from the hyperbolic aspects of the situation. Setting Broad City in New York places the women in the midst of countless other millennials suffering from similar post-college problems. The humour of the show stems from the personalities of the women, allowing them to be fully realised people and not just caricatures whose role it is to make an audience laugh.

Broad City

Abbi and Ilana are regular working class people with cramped apartments and low income jobs who face problems that are common for people in their twenties. Audiences are able to connect with them on a social level because their lives mirror the ones they view week to week.

References:

Aronoff, Kate (2015) “Why “Broad City” Is the Perfect Comedy for the Student Debt Generation” YES Magazine. <http://www.yesmagazine.org/happiness/why-broad-city-is-the-perfect-comedy-for-the-student-debt-generation>.

Blair, Elaine (2014) “The importance of being dirty” The New Republic, Vol.245(9), p.7(2). <http://www.newrepublic.com/article/117702/broad-citys-post-feminist-sensibility-tvs-best-comedy>.

Comedy Central (YouTube Channel) (2015) “Broad City – To Peg or Not to Peg?”, video, viewed 10 August 2015, <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a5uI_-mnojs>.

Framke, Caroline (2015) (Review) “Broad City: Knockoffs” The A.V. Club. <http://www.avclub.com/tvclub/broad-city-knockoffs-214781>.

Paper Kite Productions (2014) “Broad City”, television show.

 

 

OTF Reflection 2

When I was capturing my fifty frames, I found it immensely convenient to be able to whip out my phone and take a picture of something that caught my eye. I thought that not having access to a proper camera would hinder my ability to create frames but the availability of my phone allowed me to capture moments faster than possible with a regular camera. Ever since I was confirmed to be in this studio, I had been collecting photos I had taken in my everyday life, trying to do some hands on research and figure out how to create a beautiful shot. For instance, frames three to six were taken while I was walking my dog. It was a quiet day, the silence filled with only the rushing of the wind and upon climbing up a hill to a rest station, I let my dog wander so I could capture the view in unique ways. I wanted my frames to be grouped or paired together to either show a passage of time or a graphic match between two different views. For example, frames seven to twelve were taken on a weekend away during June and the view over the lake was a perfect back drop for experimentation with capturing a moment. Susan Sontag wrote that there is “a sense that photographs capture reality and not just interpret it” and while I agree with this, I also discovered through this project that there is a sense of personal interpretation to an image. Yes, a frame is developed to guide a viewer through it but two people can look at an image, begin searching it in different locations and arrive at dissimilar conclusion about what they just saw. The beauty of the cinematic frame is that each one can be a personal experience not matter how many others have seen it.

OTF Reflection 1

Discussing films with people who are not as passionate about films as I am, the difference between the ways we approach watching and enjoying movies always surprises me. I have always been taken with beautiful looking movies, always audibly oohing and ahhing at fantastic looking shots and that is why I was drawn to On The Frame. Tuesday’s class was a great introduction to the course and it allowed me to really begin to think about what goes into a visually stunning shot. I rarely stop to consider that every second is made up of (usually) twenty-four frames and being introduced to that way of thinking awoke the connection in my mind to paintings and drawings. Dan introduced the film frame as an “individual snapshot of time” and this connects to Susan Sontag’s views on photography as ‘principle devices for experience something.’ I have always valued candid photographs over staged portraits because it captures a more realistic vision of the event, a more accurate look into the past without put upon smiles and upright postures. Sontag describes photos lend a certain importance to an event and I think expanding on this thought to include the emotional weight each photograph is key to understanding a film’s DNA.

This is one of my favourite shots from Mad Max Fury Road.Mad Max Bike Wheel

It is not a grandiose action set piece, which were spectacular in their own right, but this shot stayed with me after I had left the cinema because it tells the story about the world of the film and George Miller’s creative endeavours all in one frame. The barren wasteland and the costuming speak to the harsh environment while the patterns radiating from the wheel shows how a perverse beauty can be found in every inch of this world if you only looked hard enough.

I mention this to portray how I see film frames and photographs at this moment, at the beginning of this studio. These slivers of time can capture an event, but just like how my friends and I can have differing opinions about what makes a great movie, the core and importance of the film frame is the emotional impact it draws from its audience.

References

Miller, George (2015) Mad Max: Fury Road, Warner Bros. Pictures

Final Reflection

Nerves. A whole lot of them. When I think back to my first week, that is what I remember the first. Having had a year off from school, practically doing nothing apart from watching television and movies and working, the thought of getting back into a routine and applying myself to new sort of schooling was daunting to me. Having created a nice and comfortable nest around myself for sixteen months, when the first tutorial began on Monday the 2nd of March I was relieved to be surrounded by people who shared my interests. The conversation flowed easily, the nerves most people were feeling began to fade away as we discussed everything we loved about media and found a lot of common ground. I have learned more than I ever thought I would during this past semester about media. Coming into this program, my main driving force was that all I am passionate about are television shows and movies and while this semester has cemented this further in place, the knowledge I have gathered about the construction and creation of media is amazing, and we have only scratched the surface. Having begun my journey of breaking out of my “comfort nest” I am extremely excited about what lies ahead and very thankful for all I have learned so far this year.

Below is the learning graph I completed in my tutorial during week twelve. I approached filling this out by basing it on what I learned week to week. The first half of the semester brought an avalanche of new information on everything from media production to collaboration and that is why the yellow line has a sharp incline from week one. The black line dips during the first two weeks as my time away from any schooling environment had made me lazy and Project Brief 1 was the wake up call I needed to get my motivation. It begins to decline towards the end of the semester, not because I was forgetting how to work independently, but because I was working in a group and learning how to contribute to a collaborative project.

Learning Graph

I am not someone who likes reflecting on who I am as a person. I somewhat struggled to define myself during Project Briefs 1 and 2 because of this. Yet I feel these following posts best demonstrate how I engaged with the Media 1 course.

My Reflection on Project Brief 1 – This post reveals my thought process on presenting my collection of media artefacts to the class. This demonstrates how I approached creating my first project for Media 1 and my apprehension of presenting it to the class. As the semester continued, these feeling dissipated as I discovered how deeply helpful my peers’ feedback was to me. If you would like to see the the media artefacts I created, here is a supplementary link to Project Brief 1.

Crossroads – Project Brief 2 built upon my initial collection of media as we were asked to turn it into a one minute film. This post showcases how I have begun to critically evaluate my work and apply the feedback I received from the first project to this self portrait.

Week 3 Lectorial Reflection – This is the first instance of me understanding the nature of the lectorials and approaching them in conjunction with the week’s readings and applying the new information to my own life. While creating Project Brief 3 and 4, I returned to my notes on this lectorial consistently to ensure I was respecting the participants and working well within a team.

Evolution of Social Media Institutions – This post was in response to the week ten lectorial on institutions. I went into that session with a lukewarm attitude, as I prefer creating and consuming media to studying and informing myself on the institutions that run the business side of media. Yet this post was spurned by the lecture as I wanted to share my views on how some institutions have managed to stay relevant in an age of constant evolution and change.

Keegan Mew: Behind the Fringe – This post contains Project Brief 3 and my reflection on its creation and the feedback I received during my tutorial. I am very proud of this project as I believe I captured Keegan’s personality extremely well and produced a quality artefact. This post and the reflection showcases how I applied what I had learned throughout the semester to my work while also revealing how I have evolved in evaluating my own work and considering the feedback I receive from outside sources.

A Final Reflection

What Have I Learned? First and foremost I learned to have more confidence in the media I create and to not be afraid of evaluation and feedback from my peers. They are a unique and irreplaceable resource which I will need to take full advantage of if I am to succeed in the media industry. Project Brief 4 taught me a lot about collaboration in media. Working with Aidan and Cheyenne to create something I had never attempted before, a series of short podcasts, opened my eyes to the strengths and weaknesses of working within a group. Throughout the semester I repeatedly learned that university and working in the media industry requires a strict form of time management and organisational skills.

How Did I Learn? I have always relied on the people around me for inspiration and advice and this semester was no different. Meeting new people and forging new friendships allowed me to turn to my peers and ask them to help explain a concept I did not understand or provide feedback on a draft of a project I was working on. Because this course is centred on the thing I am most passionate about, I was more motivated to attend lectures and take notes to help reinforce what was being discussed. By applying these to the creation of media artefacts, they were given context instead of just being theories that had been talked about and forgotten. This hands on experience helped me to understand more facets of the ideas I had learned about in class than any further literature research would have.

What Did I Find The Most Challenging In This Course? One of the more challenging aspects of the course was its independent nature. Even with a gap year, transitioning from a high school learning environment to university presented me with a lot more freedom than I was used to. For the first time, my education depended on me and the guidelines for assessment tasks were much broader. Project Brief 4 was especially challenging in this regard as I was so used to following strict guidelines for major projects that trying to create a media artefact that responded to the concept of ‘mediums’ without any additional instructions was an obstacle that I had to work hard to overcome.

What Did I Discover About My Own Creative Practice? Presenting Project Brief 1 to my peers revealed to me that I can create something worthwhile and I should create content that appeals to myself and not what I think people will like. I have created false expectations from my peers and burdened myself with them and during this semester I discovered that what appeals to audiences the most is personality. While creating my own self-portrait and my portrait on my friend Keegan, it occurred to me that I tend to create a narrative through my work. This is an exciting revelation as I can begin a new project and no matter how difficult it seems from the outset, I can create a narrative around it and build the artefact around its personal story.

 

 

 

 

Project Brief 4 Personal Reflection

Project Brief 4 was the first group project I completed for Media and Communication. The aim of this project was to produce a media artefact that explored the area of mediums. We decided to approach the topic by focusing in on how the media was used throughout history to represent, report and inform audiences about conflict. From their inception, mediums such as video and print have evolved dramatically, and we attempted to draw lines between specific evolutionary jumps and conflict, specifically during World War II. Overall, I believe the final draft of our project turned out to be an improvement upon our initial idea of a simple website with small videos and text explaining mediums. Yet this change in idea halfway through the allotted time did bring some more challenges. I see our final product as a success yet there were some obstacles that proved more difficult to overcome then I initially thought.

The broadness of the project brief was a big challenge for our group. As we are all first year university students, Aidan and Cheyenne being straight out of high school and myself having taken a gap year after graduating, and the lack of assessment guidelines created a lot of confusion as to how we would present our findings. We decided to present how media has been used during times of conflict which was a turning point for our group as we finally had a shared conceptual idea of what our project would centre on. This revelation highlighted a strength of collaboration as the division of the workload allowed for more clarity for each member and relived the stresses of the large project, as we had a specific personal goal which would contribute to the overall design. We decided to create a website as a platform for delivering information, which was another strength for our project. A website allowed any member to update it at any time from their own homes, instead of having to meet up with the other members to contribute.

Working as a group with members all over Melbourne was a difficult obstacle to work around. As we saw other groups present their drafts during our tutorials, we decided we needed a bigger and more cohesive media component for our website and we decided on a series of audio podcasts. Aidan had a recording suite set up at his home, yet due to assessments from other classes and our out of school commitments, it was difficult for our group to organise a meeting outside of class. Our solution for this was to set up a skype call and record separate audio tracks and send them to Aidan to edit into a podcast. This was a much more accessible way for us as a group to record a podcast as it cut out hours of traveling time. Yet there was a drawback with this way of recording, which was the difficulty of having a regular conversation. The natural flow of a face to face conversation was interrupted by bad internet connection and a lack of facial cues informing us on who wanted to speak next. As a group, we created a plan for key discussion points of the podcast to provide a framework, yet we did not want to script the conversation because we wanted it to have a natural feel. Yet, the final edition of the three person podcast was too long, full of tangents and stilted conversation and so as a group we found a solution to the problem. A two person podcast over skype allowed for a much more fluid conversation and ensured all discussion points would be met inside of the ten minute time frame we had set for each episode.

The collaborative nature of this project was a good introduction into the workings of the media industry, yet it provided a few challenges for myself. Coming from the competitive environment of VCE with little group work, delegating work and contributing to a joint project is something I am not used to. This experience highlighted aspects of collaboration that is relevant to my broader development as a media practitioner, specifically the need for better time management. Although we had a long period in which to complete the assignment, there areas of the project that I left too late which could have been easily dealt with early on to avoid a last minute rush. The first half of the allotted completion period lacked rigid organisation but as we realised we needed to come together as a group we began to implement online meeting times and deadlines which improved our collaborative relationship.

Through the completion of Project Brief 4, I learnt a lot about mediums use throughout history, especially in the area of World War II propaganda. The collaborative nature of the project also helped me to develop as a media practitioner as it revealed what I need to improve upon to be an effective contributor to a group venture. I am impressed with our final product and this is due to our effective team work and this highlights how integral collaboration is to producing a quality media artefact.

Machines Are Becoming Too Intuitive/Intelligent (Wk 12)

During our final Lectorial of the semester, Dan Binns asked to respond to a prompt relating to the presentation on media materialism and what follows is my heavily paranoid response to the statement “Machines are becoming too intuitive/intelligent”

There has always been a fear of machines rooted in humanity since the introduction of technology, the knowledge that we could create the means of our own extinction. I believe this is humanity’s unstoppable ego at play, permeating even the end of life as we know it and blaming the root Earth’s destruction on ourselves. Yet I also see this ego as something that drives the fear that we could create something that is far superior to our own capabilities. This is why films such as Terminator, Ex-Machina, iRobot and Bladerunner depict their artificial intelligence as human figures because we must shape our successors with our likeness. I see two sides as to why these machines are depicted as humans. One is that it is an attempt to bring them down to our level, give them our physical limitations while their intelligence capabilities far outstrip our own. Yet there is also the mythological and godlike act of creating life in our image. It places the end of the world in the hands of humanity’s evolution, speeding up the process that took thousands of years to get us to the point where we could shape our own future. Humanity has the ingrained need and desire to know everything in existence; that is the basis of all science. In doing so, the need to create artificial intelligence and to make machines as smart as inhumanly possible becomes a driving force in furthering technology. The greatest achievement and end goal of evolving technology is for it to create itself, to sit back and marvel at humanity’s ingenuity while the machines do all the physical and mental work. The idea that machines are becoming too intuitive and intelligent can be demonstrated as easily as reaching into your pocket and pulling out your phone. It connects you with people closest to you, informs you of where you are, where you need to be and when to leave where you are in order to get where you need to be on time. Humanity is informed and connected through a device smarter than the person whose hand encloses it and as technology becomes smarter and smarter, the people who rely on it will depend on it for everything in their lives.

As a side note, and because I love films and we are speaking about artificial intelligence, here is a video by the YouTube channel CineFix Now attempting to explain the convoluted timeline of the Terminator movie franchise. Fair warning, it gets messy.

Week 12 Lectorial Reflection

The following sentence is not against Dan’s lecture as he always presents a very engaging and informative presentation but, I have to admit to getting a bit lost throughout this week’s lectorial. The conceptual ideas that were being discussed are inherently interesting and provoked a dense and keen minded reflection. This all could be on the fact that I am running on very little sleep at the moment but the idea of media materialism will take a while to fully sink into my brain. Dan highlighted the three main areas of the concept: Technology, culture and technique. Technology is said to be the constellation of knowledge and products, not just a tool for human use but an all encompassing ideology coupled with cultural values.  Culture is centred around identifying sub groups within a population and the creative expressionism that stems from each group such as art, theatre and cinema. Technique are the traits and skills that are uniquely human such as using our brains to understand the written word, languages and how to use tools.

Another interesting concept Dan introduced was that of technology determinism, that technology as a concept is almost sentient, that it can determine its own path. Murphie & Potts state that it “refers to the belief that technology is the agent of social change” and in the era of Web 2.0 and society’s dependance on social media, technology can certainly be seen as driving social changes. Social media has become ingrained in the lives of a large majority of the millennial generation, the ease at which individuals can achieve a global connectedness in a matter of seconds ensures that the evolution of technology will dictate how society evolves as the further embrace and rely upon the machines.

Week 12 Tutorial Reflection

During the last tutorial of the semester, each group presented the current status of their projects to receive feedback as we entered the home stretch for Project Brief 4. Aidan, Cheyenne and I have recorded the first draft of our podcast and so we could not present it to the class as it had not been properly edited yet. So, we showed the class our new website; Medium Size, were we had the three separate pages: ‘About’, ‘Episode 1: Media Influence’ and ‘Episode 2: Education.’ Aidan explained what each podcast would about. Episode 1 will focus on the influence media has over audiences across various mediums. I emphasised that this will be throughout history because I had focused on propaganda during World War II, specifically how comic books and film were utilised to pander to the sense of patriotism in the American citizens to garner support for the war. Episode 2 discusses how news broadcasting has remained the primary method of educating audiences on current events and world issues as well as how other mediums may be used to fulfil similar purposes.

The feedback given from the class was mostly positive, yet because we did not have a draft of the podcast for them to listen to, they felt as if there was not enough content as of yet. Robbie said he was curious to see our website come to fruition and that the podcasts were a good addition to our project. While I was relieved to be on the right track, I am rather nervous about further recordings of the podcast. Time is running out and while we have set a ten minute time limit on each podcast, editing three voice tracks may be more of a challenge then we believe. Having researched for our initial idea of a plain website, I have a lot of background information to serve as supplementary material to fill out the surrounding website to hopefully add even more content to Project Brief 4. Our group has worked fairly well together but our one weakness, especially me, being poor time management and so hopefully with classes ending this week and a plan for our meetings and recording sessions, we will produce an artefact we are all proud of.