May 30

Footy fans attention drawn to the sights & sounds of the red centre

I was riding my bike towards East Richmond Railway Station when I went past a stunning portrait of an Indigenous boy in a Hawthorn jumper. I put on the breaks and wheeled around to study the image further. He’s barefoot, standing on red earth, holding a yellow Sherrin, and has a determined gaze that exudes dignity.

The photo is part of a photographic exhibition called “Red Earth Footy”, featuring images taken by local photographer Adam Haddrick. I walked into the gallery and see images of grown Indigenous men playing Australian Rules football. There are action shots, portraits and some quite evocative close-ups.

One image shows a long shot of a group of footy players. They’re scrambling for the ball in a cloud of dust at sunset. The plumes of red dust, and the setting sun create an illusion that could just as easily be described as a company of graceful dancers, carefully choreographed around a roaring fire. Very similar to Bangarra Dance Theatre.

A man introduced himself as Adam the photographer. He told me that he took the photos about 300ks west of Alice Springs. It was originally for a newspaper shoot, but he has returned many times since, and is now working on a book. Adam told me that the footy plays a vital role in the Indigenous community he visited; the different teams travelled vast distances to meet, camp, socialise and compete. He said that the rivalry between these teams equals that of any AFL team, and that the brand of footy they play is very rough, and the ground they play on is even harder.

In the background Adam had an ambient soundscape playing on loop, which he recorded it with his phone. It sounds fantastic and really adds to the atmosphere. You can hear a footy crowd enjoying the game, the players running and kicking and the constant hum of a generator that I didn’t think to ask what it was powering. All of this gave me some ideas for my own group project, which is focusing on modes of attention and AFL;

With that in mind, I asked Adam how he felt going to the MCG after experiencing footy in such a remote part of the world. He said that the players and spectators aren’t that different; there are hard men, thrilled kids and proud mums. The only thing he says that is blatantly different is the level of commercialism in the AFL. But these leagues in outback Australia are supported financially by the AFL, so he thinks that’s money well spent.

 

May 28

Audible feedback that doesn’t hurt the ears

Today’s workshop we got the chance to get feedback on our rough cuts for project 4. It was really helpful to hear from Catherine who works in the industry. Her advice was to focus on what is real and to edit out parts of our audio that doesn’t sound genuine. I knew that this was the case subconsciously, but it was fantastic to have it said out loud. We got the chance to listen to one of the other groups audio rough as well. I found this very handy, as it gave me some ideas. I felt that my audio spelled out too much to the listener and I learned that with audio it is a good idea to grant your audience enough respect to be able to put a story together themselves; they don’t need to be spoon fed with bowls of exposition.

May 24

So, how do I think I went?

In today’s lectorial, the final for the semester, Brian gave some very useful advice on backing up work. It might sound logical, but it’s something that is easy to forget to do, especially when one is chasing a deadline. When making editing decisions it’s useful to save different versions as the editing process evolves. Brian suggested that we should not only regularly save our work, but to also save to a cloud based drive and an external hard drive.

I also completed a ‘learning graph’ the purpose of which was to plot the trajectory of how I felt about different facets of my learning experience this semester. My graph displays a gradual improvement; the dips in confidence come from when I became aware of what I didn’t know, or when I hit a roadblock. I found this a useful exercise as I can see where my strengths are and my areas of potential improvement.