Question 2

The microphone we use for drama is a Senheiser shot gun microphone. When you plug the lead into the mixer there is a swtich PH / DYN / T – what should you set it to?

A) PH (antom)

Question 1

When you plug your microphone into the audio mixer what should the MIC / LINE switch be set to?

A) Mic

Korsakow Sketch Film

According to Ryan, narrative is the combination between story and discourse and defines its two components as “story is an event or sequence of events (the action), and the narrative discourse is those events as represented”. Narrative, in this view, is the textual actualization of story, while story is narrative in a virtual form. Story, like narrative discourse, is a representation, but unlike discourse it is not a representation encoded in material signs. Story is a mental image, a cognitive construct that concerns certain types of entities and relations between these entries. Narrative may be a combination of story and discourse, but it is its ability to evoke stories to the mind that distinguishes narrative discourse from other text types.

The Korsakow project that I have chosen are from the makers Hannah Brasier, Megan Kiantos,  Melissa Hellard, Michelle Williams, Niadin Harte and the project titled en lest le planeur from 2010. I liked the project not just because it was from one of my tutors but also the reoccurring theme of pattern. I can see that there five video thumbnails, all rendered small and in black and white, but also silent. I also liked how it starts off with introducing all the members and the title on a paper in the brick ground. The black and white seems to be reflecting the visual tone of Melbourne. While trying to load a thumbnail and you get the colour, larger size, frame, data rate, and sound, and there is enough difference between the video thumbs and the video to make choosing them meaningful.

In terms of its interface, there is single line of text that accompanies each clip. I liked how each of which begins with “she”. These all describe the city, poetically and in parts, and its mostly casual, strolling sorts of observations.  The text is also fairly large, making it a key visual element that gives it its own visual authority. It is not a sort of apologetic aside hidden away but wants to be as significant as the image. Similarly, the thumbnails are small enough to not crowd or drown the main video window.

Finally, the content of the work itself seems to consist of at least three clouds. I couldn’t determine the connection between them. The “she keeps secret video” was particularly confusing for me. However, after viewing various clips there seems to be a theme or a sense of RMIT that involves being on the street, then another constellation that emphasies movement, and then a third around colour and pattern that has graffiti, maps, signage, public art. Finally, there is a continuous ambient soundtrack that sits under all, city sounds, the sounds you’d here as you strolled the inner city here. This to some extent solves the production problem that can occur when clips have their own sound and they are all at different levels. This is good work given the constraints. The compression has been done properly for the project, so the larger videos also look good. Overall, I think that the work is creative and innovative in many ways, particularly in the narrative structure and relations of the text, audio and video and one that I will certainly try to emulate for my own project.

According to Bordwell and Thompson, we can consider a narrative to be a chain of events in cause-effect relationship occuring in time and space. A narrative is what we usually mean by the term story, although we shall be using story in a slightly different way later. All the components of our definition, causaility, time and space, are more important to narratives in most media. However, causaility and time are central.

In the short film rolling made by past students screened in the tute, my first impressions that I got out of the film is that it was a funny, comedy love story. I couldn’t remember about it much in detail, but from what I can remember the story was about a guy who likes a girl for a long time. One day, he visits her who works in a store, however he is too shy to ask her out. I think the script, casting, and timing was pretty organized and well timed out. The two main characters managed to play their characters well. The location was appropriate which helps the camera movement as they had sufficient space for the angles they wanted. In addition, I also liked how they made the story well by using toilet papers and particularly when the guy pretends he wants to buy a whole lot of toilet papers to donate to the orphanage. I think in general they were successful in doing what they were trying to achieve.

From the reading about sight and hearing, a couple of points that I picked up or was completely new to me was that if the eye is entirely won, we should give nothing or almost nothing to the ear. One cannot also be at the same time all eye and all ear. Secondly, when a sound can replace an image, we should cut the image or neutralize it. That is because when the ear goes more towards the within, the eye moves towards the outer. These two points stood out for me because of the eye to ear coordination has to be spot on in order for the film to the successful.

I think that sound plays an important role in the short film Clown Train, as it adds the dramatic tension and element to the atmosphere of the film. From the beginning, what I heard was the sound of a train moving and then, and eerie and scary musics at the background from time to time when the clown reappears a to different seats in the train and then eventually right next to him. I also liked that they added the sound effects of the florescent lights in the train, and how the clown was totally making fun and trying to entice passenger. To make reference to another genre film, the clown totally reminded me of the character Joker, played by the late Heath Ledger, who sadly passed away shortly after his role, in the film Dark Knight. From certain scenes, we could draw some obvious similarities between the two. For example, in the interrogation scene between Batman and Joker when Batman was demanding answers from him, they also utilises sounds in a similar way to create drama and tension in a small confined space, which is the interrogation room.

The 2nd week’s reading, Astruc’s main worry was primarily of an aesthatic kind. He maintained that the dominating film industry had failed to grasp that the media products distributed every day to an audience of millions were incomplete in that they were barely able to make use of the communication possibilities inherent in the film medium as language and culture. Astruc’s also contains three implicit conclusions, in addition to the overarching one.