We didn’t end up attending the electoral this week. We had to compromise this to go and shoot some footage for PB4. We have a hectic schedule of interviews.

First of all, today at 10.3oam we need to be at Classic Comics on Bourke Street to interview two men who were happy enough to answer our questions about the comic book industry and how they as a small business survive in distributing physical comic books. I think their answers were very interesting. I think it was a good idea getting the perspective of people who didn’t work directly with an industry but rather were impacted by them greatly.
We asked if they think comic books would survive in their physical form. I assumed they would say, in time they will become redundant. But instead, their answers were quite positive and even pointed out that comic books, and the comic book industry had been around longer than cinema and will continue to survive.

Our next interview was with Mark O’Toole in Fitzroy. This was the one I was most excited about. This was Eliza’s screenwriter contact and I was really interested in what he had to say for two reasons. First of all, I’m a fan of the shows that he’s written for such as Black Comedy and I think anyone who is behind the writing of that show is a genius. Secondly, because it is my aspiration to become a screenwriter and write comedy shows for an Australian audience. So interviewing someone who is quite literally living my dream was just amazing for me. In conducting the interview, I felt very privileged and I felt like I should have praised the Media 1 gods for giving me an opportunity to speak to such a spectacular person.

Audiences.
It’s my firm belief that the audience is the most integral part of making media. Media is all about communicating so I believe it’s the media’s job unto their audience to create relevant content and to engage their audience. After all, it’s the audience that gives them the opportunity to roll in cash.

I’ve always found the idea of passive and active audiences very interesting. Mostly because it’s interesting to see how the media affects them. Nowadays, audiences are more active – they don’t always believe what they see on television or what is written in bold letters across a Facebook newsfeed and, thanks to social media, are given platforms to voice their opinions in ways that weren’t available beforehand.

Media is powerful – it is one of the most dangerous tools that humans have created. Their are many theories surrounding how much power the media has over an audience. In my personal opinion, I believe there are constant shifts in the power the audience has over the media and the power that media has over the audience. Brian provided this quote for us to dwell on:

EVERYTHING IS STORY. STORY IS EVERYTHING

I think this story and story making is a big part our humanity. From a film to a book to even the stories you overhear fourteen year old girls telling each other on the train, stories help us to relate to one another as humans. From a young age, stories become a vital part of our lives and even the stories that were so important to us as children have resonated into adult life. Our whole life is surrounded by stories and storytelling and, as Dan said, it’s what really separated humans from animals.

CAUSALITY = CAUSE & EFFECT

This is how  Narrative progresses.
Through causality, the characters and the plot develops and a resolution is met. Dan points out that these (character development, plot and resolution) are the three key elements of causality.
1. Character Development: here we are introduced to a person, a blank canvas, someone we know very little about. Throughout the story, the audience discovers who this person is, what their motives are, how they see the world and why they have an importance to the story. Good characters and properly developed characters become what we, as an audience, find most relatable. For example, the introduction of the character Dolores Umbridge into the Harry Potter books had left the readers hating her more than they hated Lord Voldemort. Why? Because everyone knows a person as sinister as Umbridge and related to Harry’s hatred for her. Character development can also cause shifts in how people see characters. In the start of a television series, you might feel as if you really like a particular character, but by the end of season two, you can do nothing but hate them.

2. Plot: the skeleton of a story. Every intrinsic aspect of a story revolves around the plot. According to Dan, the plot revolves around action; a person carrying out an action, the action itself and the person that the action is done to.

3. Resolution: Is it always a happy ending? This is the last point in a sequence of cause and effect. It is where the action ends and, usually, most plots and sub plots are resolved. A resolution can leave the audience satisfied, hungry for more, or just plain confused.

“The stuff of story is alive, but intangible” (R Mckee, Story. Page 135)

In the end, stories are just thoughts. They are created from memories and experiences that the human story-teller develops in their brain. However, in saying that, they are still very much alive, because, although it may just be a story, it has the ability to touch your heart and your soul.

According to the reading from G.Branston & R.Staffords ‘Approaching Media Texts’ (Ch.1) in The Media Student’s Book, the word text as deriving from the word ’tissue’ in latin. I think this is very poignant. If you look at ‘text’ as a tissue, I think you can really relate it back to society itself. When I first read this definition, my mind didn’t go to muscles tissues or anything biological, but more towards paper tissues. It might sound silly, but tissues are always there. There in your home, they’re in the doctors office, they’re on planes, even KFC wraps them up and gives them to you for free as ‘hand-wipes’ (God bless them for that). That’s sort of how media and media texts are too, all in different forms, they’re there whether you need them or not. I think that the forms the media takes can be described as this thin layer, like a tissue, that engulfs society and one in which we all rely on from day to day.
Texts are the forms in which the media manifests itself essentially – we use it for a manner of things, but most basically to communicate a message of some sort.

I found Brian’s talk this week particularly interesting, I especially enjoyed talking about semiotics, and picking apart images. I think I enjoyed this mainly because I get a kick out of analysing things, especially images that are seemingly mundane. I think it’s interesting to look at how photographs are set up to communicate messages. Even the most spontaneous photo can relay an array of messages. A task I did once a few years ago, that was made to help understand the messages that images portray to us was to simply look at people’s profile pictures on Facebook and analyse how they represent themselves. It’s interesting to note that just by the way in which a person holds themselves or what is in the background, a lot about the person in revealed.

In more sophisticated forms of media, however, the layers of what a creator is trying to portray is very deep. In this modern era of technology, the media is layered with subtle messages and is supposed to speak to the subconscious mind. This is most probably more because our culture is extremely consumeristic and to sell a product our subconscious mind becomes the easiest target. Despite this, however, looking at how things were advertised towards the general public during WWI and WWII is very interesting  in comparison- especially the propaganda.

This weeks lectorial I didn’t find too beneficial. Maybe, as time goes on, I will find that what was taught in the library session will come in handy but, mostly, I was disappointed that the lecture wasn’t more media orientated. I found that the prospect of Project Brief 3 was creating a distraction for me and I wasn’t fully aware of or fully concentrating on what was being taught. What was being said was just flying straight over my head as I thought and planned how to use my time wisely in creating PB3. 

So here is my plan for the project brief: I am using my sister as the subject of the portrait because she’s an artist and her opinions on modern art are interesting especially because most of her life revolves around exploring, researching and creating art. I want to completely capture her passion for art and her opinions on ‘A World Without Art’. I want to ask her thought provoking questions in which she can answer openly and passionately. I also want to capture what art means to her specifically and how she explores and is inspired by art to create what she creates.

This is, however, the audio component to the portrait. I want to  compliment this with visuals of my sister in her space of work – the place where I know she allows her imagination run wild. Essentially her bedroom. I want to capture the paint, paint brushes, sculptures, pictures, paintings and books that she has in her room.

In terms of found footage, I’ve already found what I need. It was very easy to find footage of artists and art to compliment the original footage that I will capture myself.

What I’m having trouble with is finding music to play over this. We’ll see how this goes, I guess. I’m giving up on this front a bit.

Found footage <–> Original footage

According to ‘A Dictionary of Film Studies'(2012) found footage is:
‘pre-existing film footage appropriated by a filmmaker and used in a way that was not originally intended’
Until now, I’ve never really considered the use of found footage in anything I create or, for that matter, even really noticed it in the film or television I watch. However, as I think about it now, I’m starting to make more connections. For example, and as I am a big lover of Australian comedy and television, I made a connection to Adam Zwar’s ‘Agony of Life’. Throughout the programme, the found footage is edited together with the interview footage to be relevant and appropriate.

Above is two different shots from The Agony of The Body (2015). This demonstrates the seamless transition from original footage to found footage. Companied with the fact that the entire episode revolved around women’s clothing, the use of found footage is appropriate to the topic.

My aim for the project brief 3 is to create flow when merging the found footage and the original footage. When  selecting found footage and material, I want to make sure it’s relevant to the topic and to what my subject is saying.

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Collaboration

This weeks reading came from Keith Sawyer’s Group Genius: The creative power of collaboration. In really short terms, this reading pretty much claims that a collaborative task cannot be achieved by one individual person.
From primary school to now, the dynamics of a group never really change. There’s that one person that listens and nods along and agrees with everyone, pretty much not contributing at all. Then there’s the one that has their opinions but isn’t willing to put in the time. And then there’s the one that picks up everyone’s slack and just does it themselves. The latter is usually me. I usually do prefer to work alone because I trust myself and I think I am dependable, however, this is a media course. We are making and creating products that cannot be made alone. So, I have no objections to group work, but I do agree with Keith Sawyer in saying that it cannot be achieved by one individual.

I’m ready to use my strengths, develop my weaknesses into strengths and become a better filmmaker with the help of a team. Bring it on, Brian.

• Keith Sawyer, 2007, Group Genius: The creative power of collaboration, New York: Basic Books, 2007, pp.39-57.
• Australian Broadcasting Corporation. (2015). The Agony of the Body. [Online Video]. 15 April. Available from: http://iview.abc.net.au/programs/agony/LE1447V001S00

Blood In The Gutter

The article draws attention to the fragmented spaces in narratives that appear in comic strips. Although most people can argue that a piece of media such as a comic book is a less ‘intellectual’ form of reading. Maybe this is because some people feel that because a comic book is more visual, it is somehow a lesser form of narrative. However hard it may be to ‘read between the lines’ when reading a book, I believe the comic strip, like film, can be more intellectually stimulating than just text.
As Scott McCloud points out, the negative space between graphics in a comic strip suggests to the reader numerous things. This I think allows the reader to use their imagination and critical thinking a lot more and requires an active participation from the reader. Think about that. Just a fragmentation – a bit of space between two different graphics – can pull an audience and create suspense. That’s amazing.
I connect this with a concept that I read in my cinema studies textbook that I find very interesting. It said that the framing, mise en scene etc.  can suggest ‘offscreen space’. A director will lead the audience to the place they want to take them. A multitude of ideas can be suggested through what is not shown – less is more as they say – in creative mediums.

Copyright is the biggest headache.
Usually, when I’m creating a Media product and I need music or a soundtrack for it, I tend to not bother with bands that are with a big company like Sony or whatever. I always look at places like Triple J Unearthed for many reasons. Firstly, it is that it’s much easier to get permission from these artists to use their music and usually you can just get (unofficial) permission from them through a Facebook message. Secondly, they usually offer it to you for free as they just want their music heard which I think is admirable. And finally, I’m a big supporter of underground music and especially Australian music, so if the use of their music in some stupid video I make helps out, I am more than willing. Really, no point signing forms and paying heaps of cash to some fat corporation when you can actually get good music for free and easily elsewhere.

Anyway, keep your options open, you don’t always need a One Direction track for your videos.

Notice me, notice me, notice me.
As the Media 1 cohort set out to notice media as it surrounds us, I, along with the people in my group, ventured forth unto the fortress that is Melbourne Central. It did not take long to ‘notice’ the media that surrounds us. We sat for five minutes in the food court and had already filled in more than half the worksheet given in that one place alone. Here is just a few of the media we noticed:

• menus
• lighting
• shop promotions
• Melbourne central clock sounds
• exit signs
• school uniforms
• newspapers
• promotional bags
• branded water bottles
• branded t-shirts
• train announcements
• train timetables

What I found most profound was that, although I see these things all around every single day, I never really NOTICED what they are really telling me, or their significance at all. Living in the this modern media generation makes being subject to the media almost inescapable. Using all of the senses, we could analyse all of the media that we were immersed in, even if it was the sound of Mariah Carey from someones earphones.