Yesterday’s class had bungee jumping… Not really, but I hope this post has sparked some ideas for the lecturers if they want to have incorporate activities in their classes. Anyway, yesterday had us covering the area of bibliographies and how not only to get good information, but how to annotate and elaborate on them. However before we got onto that, we had to finish the collaborative contract of which is slightly more difficult than you’d think. You have to think of conflicting situations weeks in advance, and how you’ll deal with them. But either way, that was finished and now my friends it is time for more and more of the exhilarating researching of sources to annotate!

I now realise this blog post may have some of the most boring content in the history, but thats the real fun of it I suppose…

Like in the library you may ask? Well yes, in the library. The catalogue and complexities of the RMIT library are surprising. I don’t think I ever expected a lecture like this one, (which happened to be a week ago) But knowing how useful the content can be in the entire researching process is crazy imperative for the life of Uni. And I’m not going to lie, at this point I don’t remember all of the intricate details but long term it’ll really e helpful to not have to rely on travelling to a physical library, but be able to rely on an online database which will constantly be at my fingertips. Now that’s pretty cool. Thank you internet, and thank you RMIT online library.

Texts: crosses the line between fiction or non fiction, it embraces both.

• Textual analysis is mentioned in content analysis mode coming from communications tradition within the 20^th It’s about counting particular things,
• The bobo dolls are early examples of how texts can influence people, especially children.
• The second is referencing the rise of consumer mass culture,
• Texts help make the world make some sense is Alan Mckee’s opinion, can be seen as the producing of values and ideas socially.
• Its not always about wondering if a text is accurate,
• Alan Mckee also theorises that texts are hypothesis’ of how texts are interpreted. I think, its hard to summarize quotes a ot of the time.
• It’s a gamble to communicate, not all will realize values or interpret things the same way.
• For example Reagan reinterpreting Springstein’s ‘Born in the USA.’ Springstein was not impressed.
• Signs have signifiers and signified. Signified is what you do with the signifier (the word of a dog.) It makes you imagine something from a signifier. For example: denotation is literal, connotation is a second/ deeper meaning.

So. With another project brief, comes another round of presenting your video to the class. And how do I feel? A lot more free…dback. Any way, after that cringeworthy and punny segway I found this feedback really helpful. What people liked apparently was the unexpected twist found in the format of how I filmed Grandma; you expect a heart warming story but get a hilarious prank worthy of Jackass. That is what people liked. They also found the intercutting working between the found footage. However the things that weren’t as effective were obvious. It would have been great to include the middle portion of the story which was one for the ages.

I personally feel that the audio at some sections feel slightly disjointed. However I also feel that the lack of music helps to aid the idea of a more personal, sentimental story as if she was telling us directly, which helps with the surprise twist. I also felt that the old man works in reflecting the anger my Grandpa would have had, but I would have rathered pick somebody else than the old Bigot from 12 Angry Men. BUt overall I felt it went well, and hopefully you peoples liked it too.

Another brief is done my friends, and a lot has been learnt. Of all the people, my Grandma was the perfect choice. I was hoping to capture her sense of humor, which is a massive part of who she is in my eyes. I found that the editing process was fairly effective, even with syncing audio. I have to admit though, a pretty large weakness of the video is that I had to edit down the content to a fairly large extent. Grandma had given me around 5 minutes worth of story for me to edit into around 2. Unfortunately in this was the middle bulk of the story, which is what happened on the plane with the ‘after dinner mints.’ Also I felt the found footage intercutting was tricky to be creative with, and at some points it feels forced. I decided that to make it feel more personal I decided to keep the sounds to be limited to just Grandma, and not adding music I think was also pretty effective. I realize that the audio isn’t perfectly flowing from one sequence to the next, and that’s something I still have to keep practicing.

I learnt how not to edit video and external audio together though, and for next time I’ll definitely sync the bulk video and audio together, export it and then edit it. I wasted way too much time separately attaching audio to edited video. I also found that intercutting the found footage video can seem slightly jarring when it’s included for the sake of it. I learnt that sometimes you have to sacrifice different sections of the story, which I’d really like to include, has to happen otherwise you can get carried away.

Finally I think that the entire process of recording audio/video simultaneously was really helpful, it’s an obvious part of making things but I’m looking forward to learning how to make the final result better. Having separate audio continuously playing whilst intercutting with different imagery is also an artistically cool thing I’ve learnt from this assignment.

So, the media workshop class was quite eventful, filled with good times, memories and learning for the ages. And I missed it. Apparently we learnt about how to use cameras, recording equipment and how to survive a fall from an airplane without a parachute… But I think perhaps instead of dwelling on missing out on these things, I should learn on my own how to do these things.

I recently got a new camera, so, that’s a good first step. Hopefully that should take some nice things. The recording equipment though is really quite a cool thing. I found that if something was definitely sub par within my project brief 1, it was my audio. So a good audio recorder… that’s something I’d like to get acquainted with. But either way, I’m sure that when the time comes I can survive a parachute-less fall from a plane, I’ll know what to do. Fun fact, try not to land on your front or back but on your side, there are less important areas to injure on your side… Although probably take a parachute.

I’ll finish this title later. And this post

I think I should probably not do this as much. Have an assignment due soon? Yes. Want somebody to do it for you? Yes. Well you’re in luck! Because you have to do it on your own. I have no idea where this post is going, but I think you do.

So, moving on. I have one week to do the new media assignment. So thats fun. But in some strange way I just expect things to work out. And I think it will. I’ve found that if having been in education for quite some time, I’ve realised that the longer I leave things, the more stressed I become and the better the final product. Pressure can be good to you sometimes. There was this one time, in high school, when I only got 1 hours sleep before my English exam. The year 12 one. What happened? It went fine. God is good.

Pressure can be good you know, it pushes us into new places where we’d feel uncomfortable. It helps us learn. And again, you, Mr. and or Mrs. Reader, are feeling as if this post is going towards a motivational message. And you’re quite right. But I have the feeling that I need to stop blogging and start on the assignment. Maybe. Or maybe not. But probably maybe.

It may not be Planet Earth. But either way, up until probably forever, sharing something about you to others is scary. That’s what I’ve found this week. Whether it people asking about your faith, what’s your favourite colour or where were you when you showed up late to that thing that you needed to be at on time but you weren’t. It seems that the idea of peers judging you is scary; period.

Presenting the self portrait to the media class brought on all the usual feels of stress, anxiety and self doubt. Same old. The thought that you’re video, which happens to be about you, may not be good enough didn’t help in the comforting process. But even if it’s not made to a level of perfection, which mine wasn’t, it turns out that it’s only communicating something about me. And thats good, people now know what my hobbies and (hopefully) my strange sense of humour. Most of you probably don’t really know that I’m also a Christian, I like rainy days, I have a great dog and that I often question what I’m doing here in life. Everybody has their own identities, but I realise you now know a bit more about mine through the video, and through this blog post.

Life often makes you feel uncomfortable and this week, and I guess the writing of this post, has helped me know that when others know more about you, it helps for you to be yourself. And I’m sure other people feel the same way too.

Good. I got your attention. Now I’m going to be honest, this is going to be life changing in almost every way. Also not really true. But, can you think of an essay you most definitely don’t want to do? Well don’t worry, somebody already did that for you. But now you have to proof read it. “Greaaaaat,” you think. You think that until you realise that this essay is a 50,000 word thesis on horticulture of Ancient Egypt compared to horticulture of today. “Greaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat,” you now think, with violence on your mind. Now this waste of time thesis that somebody else most likely spent 50 years on will now take up 48 years of your life as you’re trying to finish it. Unless you skim read. But is that okay?

Well, it turns out that without skimming, you may struggle to take in the main points. That’s right. Horticulturist thesis writers everywhere may be out of the job. Not really though… Moving on. Even if it’s equivalent to only looking at the pictures in a book, it can help construct arguments within minds, but that isn’t enough. If you want to learn about Ancient Egypt’s horticulture completely (insert yawn here), you need to complete this book. Instead of struggling to connect each word, it helps to connect ideas. So that these ideas can help for us to… (insert epic drumroll which lasts for at least 2 minutes and 10 seconds) … COLLABORATE with one another.

Okay, again I’ll be honest, it’s not my greatest Segway, but that aside from that, collaboration is highly important. Collaboration, which is to work with another, helps have ideas become connected between people. When people group up to collaborate, there should first be a goal set in place of what needs to be achieved. But this goal cannot be fulfilled by just one of the team members. One would only do the job very basically. Lets say this job is reading ‘horticulture in Ancient Egypt compared to horticulture today.’ One person reading may never truly be enough to get every last exhilarating detail about ancient plants that you need. But what if you get a team of people? Get each of them to study a different, equal area of the book, thoroughly? Then what if they all equally collaborated and shared these thorough ideas? Then you have a team of some of the greatest minds in history who know every possible detail about Ancient Egyptian plants. People who skim only look for an end it sight may tend to lose some crucial details, such as the fact that the following paragraph will be instructions on how to collaborate and not cook an egg.

Now skimming can be okay. It can give a broad idea life, it’s definitely helpful a few minutes before exams. But how does one really get the most out of something? They find someone, or 50 somebodies to read that book. But for it to work, people must work together, put aside differences, be determined and talk with one another. Now despite the somewhat difficulty that this process can cause, it helps complete something completely, whereas skimming only presents a portion of what can be meant. So for all of you who skimmed this entire post and looked straight at the end, know you know how to cook an egg properly…