Everyday Media

An everyday blog about media by everyday blogger Louise Alice Wilson.

Month: October 2016

Reflections

I’ve learnt a great amount throughout this studio, first and foremost I was taught: how the art world functions, how specific galleries such as Gertrude St Contemporary run and how artists earn a living. The studio also provided me with basic filmmaking skills such as how to: create a shooting schedule, write a shooting script, set up three-point lighting, conduct an interview, utilise visual storytelling and edit a short film. Throughout the shooting process with my artist I also developed my abilities regarding how to use a: Sony Zoom H2N (and other such handy recorders), a lapel mic, my own Canon EOS 60D and Adobe Premiere Pro editing software. Overall I think the studio functioned quite successfully, it was great to be in a studio with nineteen people who all were interested in the same topics as you. I felt that overall, the studios had a very happy and supportive environment, and you walked away knowing a great deal about the art world and how to make short documentaries.

 

The project itself taught me a great deal about how to work with talent, as well as my group members. Having to work independently forced me to be completely all over every aspect of the shoot, whether that be choosing which questions to ask, deciding what to focus on, where I wanted the shoot to happen, deciding what gear to use, getting to the shoot, carrying all the gear, what I wanted to shoot, managing the audio, managing the lighting, managing the camera set-ups, managing the talent, editing the film, and finding a great soundtrack for it.

 

I’m a pretty self-conscious person and I often doubt the decisions I make or ask someone else for their opinion (should I shoot this angle, or what do you think of this question etc.). Working independently pushed me to go with my gut instincts, to make decisions and to not seek others approval. It forced me to develop my aesthetic as a filmmaker and to own the work that I ended up producing, so ultimately I was really glad with how everything panned out.

 

Overall I think the artist portrait I created is pretty successful, we get to hear Claire discuss creativity, what it means to her to be an artist, what inspires her work, what her work often focusses on and what she plans to do next in her career. Which gives great insight into her as a person, her as an artist and her work itself and we also get to see shots of her work and her studio. My creative portrait constructs a great narrative, with enough pauses in between to provide audiences with breathing room to digest what is being said, ultimately leaving audiences looking forward to Claire’s next endeavours. The shots themselves are set up nicely and are of high quality, similarly the audio from the SONY H2N sounds amazing. It was really fun to look around Claire’s studio and decide what to shoot, then weave them into the narrative of the interview. I think my artist portrait leaves you with an understanding of Claire, an understanding of her process and an understanding of her work, which is what I ultimately set out to achieve.

 

Edited version of my reflection, full reflection available via Google Drive.

 

Catch you later,

Louise Alice Wilson

Anti-Social Media

This week we discussed what the social media strategy would be for our artist portraits. As a class Louise divided us into two groups: one would work on the final presentation of our artist portraits to the other studios, whilst the other group would work on a social media strategy for the artist portraits. I ended up going with the social media strategy group, which is quite exciting because I’m interested in getting some insight into how people promote their own work.

 

We eventually decided that we would create a Facebook page and an Instagram page called ‘Exhibit A’ to exhibit our artist portraits, as well as accompanying photos and artist’s biographies that we’d come up with. Our group decided to get everyone in the class to upload at least three publicity photos to the google drive, as well as a short biography on their artist. We then decided to use these photos by uploading them to our Facebook and Instagram pages. We decided to use excerpts from the artist’s bio’s or from the artist’s portraits themselves to match with the publicity photos. I think it is such a great idea to manage the social media for the artist portraits collectively as it allows us to have a wider audience and build up a greater amount of momentum.

 

Catch you later,

Louise Alice Wilson

Draft Punk

Showing my artist portrait to others after working on it by myself for so long was quite a nerve racking experience. However, everyone seemed pretty happy with the piece, I think everyone really likes Claire’s work, which really helps to engage them with the artist portrait. The only consistent feedback I received was that I should think about adding slightly longer pauses within the audio track, to allow viewers to fully digest what Claire is saying before moving on to a new topic. I totally agree with this sentiment and have expanded my artist portrait slightly to give it more breathing room. When you’re working on a project by yourself for a long time, it’s things like pacing and visual rhythm that become hard to analyse as you get used to the pace that you applied at the start of the piece.

 

Catch you later,

Louise Alice Wilson

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