“Now, however, most of us carry devices on our bodies that constantly find ways to commercialize the smallest particles of our time and attention. Thus, bit by bit, what was once shocking became normal, until the shape of our lives yielded further and further to the logic of commerce-but gradually enough that we should now find nothing strange about it” excerpt from Tim Wu’s ‘intorduction’ (the attention to merchants)
from this week reading i was really taken byt he above quote because it encompasses the modern world and its consistent connection to social media and connection to work. even when the hours in your work place are over you can be emailed and expected to respond, thus we are always connected there is no time out. from my own experience i wake up and check if anyone had contacted me and go to sleep making sure i have replied to everyone. this is so different to life before this technology where the only form of connection came from news papers and letters. its interesting to think how connected we are all the time to think that it may not be too healthy but that we’ve also come to far in being able to communicate on a world wide scale because of this technology. i guess its a balance everyone should try and learn to achieve.
this week in the workshop the class was instructed on how to use the Audition tools in the Audition program, thus helping editing for our projects. I was unfortunately unable to be at this workshop. but i am aware that there was editing being taught. i have done my own learning though by watching tutorials i have been able to grasp how to use Audition.
this week we were put into a project brief 4 groups. Gianella, Chloe and i were put together and for the rest of the workshop we spent time brainstorming ideas about attention, what forms of attention there were.
we came up with the idea to focus on the idea of celebrity attention and the amount of social media we consume and how it affects us in particular the attention we give to celebrities.
we organised parts of the project we could individually do, we wrote the collaborative contract together and did our SWOT tests, showing each other where our weakness’ and strengths would be during this project, meaning we could better work with each other to help each other out with those said weakness’. for example mine being confidence with editing.
we also planned when we would meet up to record and when we would book using the recording equipment.
With the rough cut workshop we presented one minute of our project’s progress to a panel of people who were going to give us constructive criticism for what we had already made so that we could produce the rest with what they had to say in mind to only make it a better overall project piece. it was nice knowing we only had to present one minute and it took the pressure off having to have everything ready so early.
We presented the beginning of the whole audio piece, this being the introduction to the radio show we were attempting to make for our project. the first minute consisted of radio hosts (Gigi and Chlo) introducing the theme of attention, celebrities on social media, and social media consumption in general. this part of the radio show was just a small chat that introduced the radio segment in general.
after showing the media we had, we got our feed back:
- add more external sounds: obviously this was going to come up we had only one minute out of the 8 to show, and we had previously planned to add many layers of external audio pieces to create some diversity from our voices.
- keep pace and enthusiasm in our voices (consistency): i think the issue was that we were reading a script off a computer as we were recording and we should try and make it more of a conversation and discussion to mimic the flow of real radios.
at the beginning of this project i was really worried, firstly that it was with a group so that relying on other people and also having them rely on me was very scary. I also didn’t know who i would be working with or where to even begin with the whole audio piece. another this i was worried about was the fact that i was really bad with editing and using the technology effectively to produce such a project that everyone else in the group would be happy with the standard. when i was given the group i was very honest with the other members telling them i was better with the organisation, ideas and writing side of things rather than the editing. they were really supportive and let me have a lot of creative power with how the audio piece would turn out where they took it upon themselves to do the editing.
from the get go i thought the only way to present was through a radio piece. where we could incorporate different layers of sound like music, sound effects, and different peoples voices in order to create a more meaty piece of work, rathe than someone recording an ‘essay’ like piece of information on our main topic of attention.
i also came up with the idea that when looking at attention, the idea of celebrity attention got me really intrigued as it is such a big thing on social media and social media in general and the attention surrounding the amount of time we give to social media. it interesting that social media in particular the celebrities and the products they endorse on social media is so hugely followed almost like an obsession for the followers.
so our group began brainstorming different ways to incorporate radio and celebrities and came up with the original plan to have a song to come out of the song and have two presenters introduce the idea of attention and celebrity culture, ask the public some questions about there own media consumption, have an interview with a media guru and then finish off with a song that reflects the discussion about media/attention/celebrities.
we met up a few times to discuss and plan and record the idea we had come up with, first recording the intro, and then awkwardly walking around the RMIT library with release papers seeing if we could get students to answer our media questions.
the next time we met up we recorded the interview with the media guru, with three main questions one about attention in general, one about the kardahsians and their media impact and one about the infamous Danielle Bregoli the ‘cash me outside’ girl and that encompassed the idea of micro-celebrities and the culture of following people that don’t do much for society. i guess the interview covered the idea of always bing connected as well.
then editing began and although i didn’t really have much to do with editing other than know what was going in and out and helping to find which pieces of media we would add in there was an issue the interview didn’t record properly so there was a slight change in the script and the interview which originally took 15 minutes to record only had a small bit that actually worked.
the team however work really well together there was always communication and even encountering some issues there was a way to work around it and get the final cut done with the theme of attention covered. i feel really lucky to have worked with such cooperative people and such respectful people every idea was taken into account and everyone was comfortable and understanding of each others needs. my initial thought about working in a group presentation made me nervous but i had such a good and successful experience it has completely relaxed me infant three brains is much better than one. not only were we able to pick up each other where we were weaker with skills like for me editing but we were able to manage those weaknesses and even overcome them a bit.
overall i believe we managed to develop and produce a very effective piece of audio work that met all the project briefs requirements, we were able to take constructive criticism which made our product even better in the end. in reflection i’m really happy with the accomplishment of finishing and having i believe a pretty cool piece of work to show for all the effort and time we spent making the project.
So overall thanks to my amazing team i would work with you guys again 🙂
for as long as i can remember i have used buzzfeed, its been there for me every time i need to procrastinate and if ill be honest when i was leaving school my goal was to work for them. HOWEVER recently after a long buzzfeed vacation i logged on and noticed that one of the same people i was used to following were working for buzzfeed anymore. plus the content had changed from funny and informative things to pick a cheese and we’ll tell you when you’re gonna get married? i was really disappointed and upset that those friendly faces had been replaced by some other faces i did not recognize. so did some research to find that most of these people had moved on because buzzfeed could accomodate their individual creative needs, and also owned all their personal content they made for the company. its upsetting that they left but ive since found their personal spaces to follow them and to be honest they’ve taken the hilarity with them and that makes me happy. Laters buzzfeed.
i have been watching the show lost. sound in the show is both artificial and natural as it is set outside the constant noise of wind and animals such as birds within the setting make the narrative more realistic.
then there are also the artificial sounds placed in the show to create suspense and move the narrative forward. like the sounds of trees falling and animals making territorial noises.
the noises and sounds in this show is making me think more and more about how i along with my group can incorporate sounds into the final cut like music with our talking to create more diversity in our audio piece.
Types of sound that can be used:
voice over sounds
reading :scripted
observational voice
studio voice
interview
archival
atmospheric: drags on the background background field sound
spot sounds: at the front sounds, that are apart of a story
music:
audio piece, stings (used to break up ideas into chunks, take one person from one place to the next, transitionally).
quality
(diegetic and non diegetic: music experienced by the characters, being played in space for the audience to hear)
these are types of sound that i can incorporate into my final cut.
We spent 20 minutes listening ‘deeply’ to an audio piece and grasping the idea of sound.
- layers of sound like different voices makes the audio piece more interesting
- thinking of making a radio piece for the final cut because you can have different layers and audio pieces within the whole project.
In this weeks lecture we were introduced to Project Brief 4: the collaborative project where we make an audio discussing the theme of attention.
SCARY!!! working with people at uni and being able to rely on them and have them be confident in relying on you.
But during the lecture there were some things to think about:
Collaboration:
- Good and bad experiences (learn from them take them into each project to make it an even better experience)
- Employers are inclined to hire employees that have worked collaboratively.
- Feed back positive criticism. (be accepting and invite this feedback)
- Good communication (always have a stream of communication between peers working on a project to make sure everyone is on the same page and comfortable with where the project is at)
- Consistency (have consistency with work flow so there is a sense of reliability within the group)
- Respect (culturally/ ideas being open minded/ and actually putting in is respect to your peers).