Everyday Media

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

Category: Project Brief

Statement of Goals

Having completed a degree before beginning my media degree taught me a few things:
Completing a degree is hard, it takes time, effort, money & hard work, but it does pay off in the end.
Time goes SUPER fast, before I knew it I was in my last year, then before I knew it I was on to my second degree.
If you don’t keep track of your learning and you engage in a lot of ‘cramming’ then it’s likely that you will forget a lot of what you learned.

These three gems of wisdom, combined with my slightly perfectionist nature led me to follow this mantra: If your going to do something, do it right THE FIRST TIME.

That is why, before starting my capturing creativity artist profile I have decided to write a statement of goals. This way I know what I want from this subject, can keep track of my own learning and will end this semester with a number of shiny new skills. I know it’s dorky, but I skateboard on weekends, which I think makes up for it.

The aforementioned ‘Statement of Goals’

By the end of this semester I want to:

  • Learn about the history of Australian art and the current influences shaping our artistic landscape.
  • Develop an understanding of known signs, references and meanings often found within art.
  • Develop an intricate understanding of ‘the art world’ as a financial and social system.
  • Investigate the notion of ‘creativity’ and develop a personal understanding of what ‘creativity’ means to me.
  • Discover novel and interesting ways to express specific notions via documentary film.
  • Understand how art galleries such as Gertrude St Contemporary are funded and function.
  • Develop a close relationship with my allocated artist from Gertrude St Contemporary.
  • Develop a greater range and more in depth understanding of camera techniques, skills and abilities.
  • Learn how to construct a compelling narrative within documentary films.
  • Increase my understanding and skill set regarding Adobe Premiere Pro.
  • Develop an intricate understanding of lighting setups and how optimise current lighting.
  • Become a better collaborator by helping others make the most of their abilities.
  • Learn how to ‘let go’ of projects and let spontaneity break predefined patterns.

This goals will most likely change over the course of the semester, but I think I’m off to a good start.

Catch you later,
Louise Alice Wilson.

It’s The Final Countdown

It’s the final countdown and it’s also my final reflection.

Take Me Home

My first ever blog post, entitled ‘Take Me Home’ reads: “Media is the home for our practise and theory, a place of experimentation, individual customisation and inherent filtration and workshopping of all that is presented to us.” However on reflection, at this latter stage in the course, I’ve learnt that this home does ‘exist’ but only for those that seek it. Throughout this semester I’ve been challenged to appreciate and grab at the opportunities presented to me throughout this course. Seeing this original statement reinvigorates that drive, to be all that one can, and to learn and engage from everything that is presented to me and I hope to take that drive into second semester.

Don’t Follow Your Passion

‘Don’t Follow Your Passion’ for me is a record of my lightbulb moment achieved after reading Cal Newport’s statement: “If you wan’t to love what you do, do what Steve Jobs did and not what he said”. That statement as well as Cal’s various articles killed the little anxiety bug in my head that constantly attacked my creative process often asking questions like: “why are you doing that”, “your not that good at this”, “but would you really be happy being an video artist?”. I realised that it was that anxiety, rather than my ‘inner self’ that was killing any chance I had at finding or enjoying something I love to do, which revolutionised my thinking.

Blood In The Gutter

I still stand by this statement: “Scott McCloud’s ‘Blood in the Gutter’ is a great comic and probably one of the best descriptors of editing that i’ve ever read.” The concepts I learnt here: closure, gaps and transitions have since completely changed the way I think about media. Being quite a visual learner, Blood in the Gutter was a major impact on my understanding of how we as media viewers interpret and subtly change the narratives we view, purely based on our individual creativity and preferences. As well as how the manipulation of each concept can completely change one’s own interpretation and engagement with events.

My Lo-fi Self

This post for me represented that first hurdle I had to face, that question of revealing yourself to the world through your creative endeavours. It was a challenge to sit down and show other people what i’d done, to reveal myself and to explain myself to others but it was ultimately rewarding. It also permanently switched me from ‘half creatively engaged with the world’ to full blown ‘see’s every view as a potential film shot, motif or angle’. I remember that moment when I sat on the tram, looking at the world, wondering what aspects of it I could frame, use, or take inspiration from for my project, and I love that I’ve permanently maintained that ability.

Be A Media Maker

The whole idea of Media Studies 2.0 in general as presented by Brian Morris, as well as by David Gauntlett and William Merrin was a mind-blowing lightbulb moment for me. Having only learnt about media in regards of the old broadcast model I’d never thought about the aspects of current media that were actually more influential to me than any ‘archetypal’ text. Since reading Gauntlett’s blog i’ve thoroughly adapted my understanding of media, i’ve also felt a greater sense of creative importance regarding the media I make. And I also pay more attention to what is often truly influencing me, such as my peers, artwork on tumblr and instagram constructed narratives & visuals.

Premiere Pro Is A…

Premiere Pro was one of the first tech related challenges I had to face, when I first viewed the program it seemed impossible to understand and use, and I even struggled with sequencing. However I can now navigate the program quite easily and understand the basics of editing, I do have a long way to go, but I now see that as being obtainable considering my progress so far.

Everyday Me

Everyday me was a struggle. Coming up with a creative idea, planning it, attempting to execute it, editing it, re-editing it, that was my first taste of the video making process and it really taught me a lot. It’s also one of the first creative things I am proud of, I showed this video at Melbourne Filmonik, which was cool getting to hear audience feedback, everyone actually really loved it, which was a surprise to me..haha.

A Tutor A Day

Having guidance from tutors, for me has been invaluable. I’ve learnt a lot from mine, and I also feel that your tutors enable you to make your creative ideas into a reality. You tell them your jumbled thoughts and they decode it into something legible, something structured. Slowly I am learning to do this for myself, to follow their guidance, to sit down, to plan it out, to think about what’s most important, maybe I will master it one day.

Sound on Sound

I have still have 75gigs of hard drive space taken up with this project. This project was amazing and so extremely difficult. I spent along time thinking about my idea, planning what shots I needed, planning my interview questions, writing up a minute by minute script, searching for hours through archival footage and then putting the whole project together. It taught me so much about each one of those processes and by doing it all myself I learnt invaluable skills, that I hope to utilise throughout the rest of the course.

Catch you later,

Louise Alice Wilson

Sound on Sound

For all you music geeks out there I hope you picked up on my Sound on Sound reference, for everyone else Sound on Sound is also the name of a great music recording magazine, that I quite love.

Synopsis:

“Sound on Sound is a creative portrait that explores one Melbourne musicians lifelong obsession with sound. From past to present this documentary touches on themes of obsession, dedication and a love for ethnomusicology that extends to exploring sounds very roots.”

Reflection:

The successful aspects of my piece were the creation of various visual montages that add rhythm and pace to the piece as well as the utilisation of interesting stock footage to visually display audio topics that keep the audience engaged. I think the piece was also successful in overall pacing and flow that provide attention grabbing interest at the start, mellow reflection in the middle and an inspirational ending that leave audiences on a high note at the end of the piece. The section in the middle of the piece (focusing on the instruments Chris plays and his recording space) features a simplistic piece of music; him strumming on his bass. This quiet, emotional piece, performed in his studio, underscores the fact that we have been let in to his life to see these private moments. I believe this creates has a strong emotional resonance with the audience as they get to see Chris as most people don’t get to see him. It’s also quite an informative piece that has the potential introduce topics like Jazz and Ethio-Jazz to audiences that would otherwise never engage with such a topic.

The problematic aspects of my piece are potentially that there’s too much going on visually, which could disrupt audiences from ‘truly bonding’ or understanding the central character, but I think we see enough of Chris to ensure that this doesn’t happen. Another problematic aspect is the poor quality of the stock footage that often appears grainy, but I think in a way this can add to overall charm as well as evident the fact that it is indeed vintage footage.

Key learning discoveries I made about creative portraits are that they are one of those mediums where you must define your through line, in order to know what questions to ask, shots to get, stock footage to find, music to add and edits to make. Creative portraits challenge you to be creative, if you don’t, they often end up dry and boring, however if you are creative you can create a truly beautiful and highly engaging piece. Creative portraits allow you to use abstract footage to illustrate aspects of a persons character or story that create a stronger representation of the idea than any real footage could, thus they have an ability to stir resonances within people that other forms of objective documentary making can’t. Creative portraits also allow you to focus in on a particular aspect of a person or their life, that they may not consider defining or that they may hide from most people they know. You can present this aspect in any way you see fit which adds interesting new layers to that persons define character.

More broadly I brushed up on my filming, editing, interviewing, typography and sourcing skills. I also learnt how to find the needle in the haystack and how to focus my ideas into one whole and complete image in order to make the best possible media that I can.

Project Brief 3 – Sound on Sound from Louise Alice Wilson on Vimeo.

Catch you later,

Louise Alice Wilson

Everyday Me

When asked to define ourselves we often use broad brushstrokes. Without thinking we consult our internal list of “things that make me, ME” and find ourselves recalling words like “creative, outgoing, photography, guitar” before we’ve even had a chance to fully process the question. But how much does this internal list define us?

I believed that my internal list was the best representation of myself until I read a quote by Annie Dillard that states: “How we spend our days, is of course, how we spend our lives”. This quote hit me like a punch in the gut, it’s blatant truth so indisputable; how I spent my days, regardless of what I told myself about myself, was ultimately who I was. Or at the very least would be how I had spent my life. This is why, when completing my self portrait, I decided to focus on the everyday.

Within my self portrait I wanted to present the viewer with a familiar yet abstract sense of reality through which we get to see amalgamated glimpses of the everyday acts that define me, rather than a linear narrative or a simple re-telling of ‘a day in the life’. Thus combining to create a picture of: my daily life, through an abstracted version of ‘the everyday’.

To create a sense of ‘the day’ or linear progression of time I segmented my video with four still images of the sky in various stages of daylight (morning, midday, afternoon, evening) that match the lighting seen in each concurrent video segment. The everyday acts that define me were presented in a series of short video segments that include scenes of me catching the tram, recording music and riding my bike. To disrupt the sense of linear narrative the visual segments are bluntly edited together, with nothing linking the sequential shots and a quite abrupt ending. I also attempted to create an overall sense of confounded time and space by overlaying audio from certain video segments onto others. Long, singular focus, handheld shots were also used to enhance the sense of voyeuristic glimpses.

Project Brief 02 – Final Video from Louise Alice Wilson on Vimeo.

Catch you later, Louise Alice Wilson

 

My Lo-fi Self

For my creative self portrait, I decided to stick with what I enjoy on the daily, and those things are: art, friends, plants, skateboarding, music, art blogging and finding beauty in the most unlikely places. I believe it is the things that make up our daily lives that best define us.

My 3 Audio Recordings:

  1. Traffic Light Beat

  • I like finding art/beauty in unexpected places. For awhile I’ve noticed that a lot of inanimate objects create cool beats & rhythms. For a long time I’ve wanted to create a soundcloud/blog that creates all of them. I think that musicality inherent in nature is quite impressive, especially in the often chaotic world that we currently live in, it’s nice to come across a moment of random beauty.

2. My Song

  • I often write songs in my spare time and try to record them when I get  a chance. Here is a segment from one of my songs, I guess it shows a lot about my likes & taste in regards to music and how I like to produce my creative work.

3. Chris Practising Bass

  • Having a partner that is a musician is a both a blessing and a curse. It often means I end up listening to a lot of Chris practising , but I do enjoy listening because even practising can be immensely interesting.

My 6 Photos:

  1. My Recording Studio

Recording Studio

  • My recording studio is the place where I spend a lot of my time. It’s also the place were I expend a lot of creative energy. I practise music here, I edit my photos here, I do my uni work here, I blog here, I record my music here, I hang with friends here.
  • It’s probably one of my favourite places to be. It’s beautiful, calm and I can be productive here.

2. My Skateboard

Skateboard

  • My skateboard is often tied to my freedom because it’s literally how I get around but I also use it to escape.
  • My twin brother (when we didn’t live on opposite sides of the country) used to go skateboarding together in the middle of the night. It would be dead quiet, there were no cars on the road, just the two of us hanging, often for hours. It was an exhilarating way to bond and it was a beautiful way to see the city, you’d get to see another side of the city you live in.

3. My Partner

Chris

  • Chris and I spend a lot of time together. We play music together, we hang with friends together, we eat together, we laugh together. Your partner get’s to see a side of you that no one else does.
  • We’re very similar and in a lot of ways were very different, meeting Chris allows you to know me better.

4. My Plants

Plants

  • My mum is a horticulturalist who runs a plant distribution company. Growing up my back garden was an oasis of various different palms, ficus’s and vines, waiting to be distributed to various companies.
  • Plants was a way I could bond and learn from my mother. She taught me how to take care of them, how to care for the earth, how to respect the environment and how to be a balanced person. Through plants, you can learn a lot.

5. My Music

Records

  • I love music and I listen to it a lot. I always love art and album artwork. Records are a wonderful mix of the two. You have great quality audio and you have these beautiful large album covers that display a lot about the individual artist.
  • I listen to a lot of SBTRKT, The Lijadu Sisters, Ladysmith Black Mambazo & Emma Donovan. I love all genres but my favourite are: electronic, r&b, african, blues & soul. My own music is often a mix of electronic, r&b and soul.

6. My Art Blog

Art Blog

  • I love art blogging. I originally started blogging art because in my daily life (work, uni, friends etc) I didn’t feel like I didn’t get to see enough visual beauty/creativity. Creating the blog was a way to feed that desire.
  • I can also pick the art that I like, which is great, I can create a collection of all my favourite things and see them all next to each other. I also get to share unknown art or old art or forgotten art with people and re-contextualise that art.

My 3 Pieces of Video:

  1. Blow Improvising

Blow

  • I love going to gigs and I especially love watching gigs were the musicians jam or improvise with each other. This is a video of some friends of mine Bob (keys) Dixie (flugelhorn), Adrian (trumpet) Ted (drums), Pete (sax) & Gareth (double bass).
  • Impromptu art is both impressive and fascinating. It’s a once in a lifetime moment.

2. Patti Smoking

Patti

  • This is my friend Patti smoking. It’s Patti doing what Patti does best. She’s the nicest person I know and she’s also a total badass , I think this video weirdly encapsulates here quite well.
  • I like people that are interesting and unadulterated.

3. PTV Tram

PTV

  • I’ve literally spent years of my life on public transport. I guess that comes with the poor, uni student territory.
  • PTV can be annoying to no end, but also have a strong admiration and respect for it. I’ve had some of my best ideas on public transport and seen some of the wackiest and most beautiful things. I think this video shows how even a tram can be beautiful or at least interesting, when framed correctly.

Catch you later, Louise Alice Wilson

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