Not too much to report about On the Frame this week, as it was week eleven and we’re nearly done for the year (so weird that academically 2015 is nearly over and it’s only October!)

We had a bit more of a look at what we were going to do for our presentation at the end of semester, and decided on some templates. Other than that, we were all focusing on our upcoming brief fours (briefs four?), due in just a few short weeks.

We all presented in class on Thursday a bit of an update on how we were going. Some people had really changed their ideas since the original proposals so it was good to be able to see how they were getting on. The projects look really fascinating and I hope to be able to see them all; we have some very talented cinematographers and editors in our class it appears!

My own project is moving along slowly but surely. I was in the edit suite this Friday past and I reckon I spent the first hour just setting up everything for simultaneously editing three projects. I had my laptop with me for the third – and most simple – screen, but I wanted to use the two monitors in the edit suite for my two major screens. This led to a few problems. Firstly, you’re not actually supposed to be able to open two Premiere projects at once, so I had to look up an internet hack to cheat my way through it. Then, as I’m pretty unused to a Mac environment, I took a couple of minutes to work out how to get that second project onto the other monitor. Finally, once I had that done, I realised that when you play your project in Premiere it automatically extrapolates the playback window onto the other monitor – covering the second Project that shouldn’t have been open anyway but that I needed to be watching simultaneously. After much hunting around on the internet, I found a way to switch that off and then I was all set up.

All that took around an hour, I think, but after that I got on swimmingly and managed to complete my entire first sequence without a hitch (well, at least without any hitches specific to a multi-screen project). Continuity has never been my strong suit but I’ve got my fingers crossed it’s not too noticeable (and also I figure I can just say in my exegesis that as that wasn’t the focus of my project it doesn’t matter anyway!). It took me a while to get out of there as well, as I discovered that my hard drive is actually a Windows hard drive (because apparently yes, even your hard drives can be Windows or Mac), but the projects are all saved to the RMIT server and safe for another day. I’m hopeful now that I know what I’m doing I’ll be able to move at a good pace and get everything done in time for the exhibition.

This might be my last post for On The Frame; next week is week 12 so it’s been designated Mad Max/going to the pub week, and I can’t imagine I’ll have too much to write about.

So, for the time being at least, so long, thanks for all the fish, Merry Christmas and a happy New Year and I’ll see you next March for round two!

It’s that time of year: feedback time!

In week fourteen, each of the media studios has to present a reflection on its learning and achievements throughout the year, so that students can know what to expect when they’re submitting their preferences for next year (we’ll ignore temporarily the fact that all the studios change every semester anyway).

Dan is going to be assessing our contributions to the presentation as a final assignment, so when I heard that the speakers didn’t have to make a written contribution I immediately put up my hand. There are three questions we all have to reflect on, though, before we get to writing up a script so this is what we have to think about for now:

1. What it the studio investigating/exploring? How did it do this?

2. What did you discover in terms of your current/future professional practice?

3. What about this studio would you recommend to potential future students?

In terms of the first question, I’d have to say that the answer is in the title: On the Frame. I would say we looked at both theoretical and practical elements of cinematic framing, in terms of how they are created, their aesthetic impact and the meaning that is contained within them. This involved looking at a range of different readings from film theorists, analysing various films for the way their frames were constructed and, of course, creating our own frames and exploring the importance of the frame for ourselves.

I think the element of On the Frame that was most relevant to my future professional practice would have been the analysis of the individual styles of various directors. Understanding that link between what the director did on set and how that manifested itself in terms of a visual and stylistic aesthetic on screen was really helpful to me in understanding how directors create their own style and how to personally go about constructing my own cinema.

I think I would recommend this studio to people who have an interest in studying films for meaning in the way that people study books for meaning in literature disciplines. I found it really fascinating to be able to look at the way in which what we see on screen conveys certain meaning to us as an audience, whether that be obvious symbolism (the skull tattoo representing the protagonist’s violent past), or the more subtle construction of mood and tone (the blue light evoking melancholy in the audience).