Assignment 4 Reflection
Obviously during this time of Covid-19 and the world being in a global pandemic, our media product has turned out differently to if we were to take the class as it was expected to have run. I can appreciate and am very proud of the approach we have taken with the rotoscoped/masked face, paired with a literal representation for their body, and having been exposed to another aspect of editing and post production that I would never have known outside these circumstances, but I cannot see myself using this same technique if I was to do this kind of work again. So if life was normal and we had access to the RMIT facilities like usual, I would have loved to approach the filming of our idea much like a stereotypical dating show; with good quality camera equipment, a green screened confessional area and characters’ whole human bodies being captured and displayed (clad in a costume that represents their human equivalent). I believe this approach could make the content more relatable and familiar to the viewer whilst playing further into the parody/comedy troupe, whereas the abrupt and quirky style we’ve undertaken, whilst eye catching and engaging, may present overly obscure and make people apprehensive in engaging with it.
Another avenue I would love to explore is the idea of doing a collection of episodes, each focused on one individual energy source with all episodes following a similar format but made unique by their ‘human characteristics’ influencing that episode’s comedy style. This would be more effective in informing the viewer of a broader range of energy sources (especially renewables) than our final product was able to.
At the end of the day, our aim for our media product was to slightly inform but mostly engage our viewer, and I believe we achieve that. We took the broad subject of climate change, a very serious and heavy topic for many people, and made it digestible with the disguise of humour. Videos such as ours, and hopefully more of a similar nature in the future, will introduce a place for climate change to come into conversations and peoples’ awareness that standard news reporting wouldn’t have.
Another positive of using humour as the main vehicle for the information and content, is that we were able to worry less about our content contributing to viewers’ emotional numbing towards climate change that media such as general news reports, constant social media attention and high shock films such as Al Gore’s documentary ‘An Inconvenient Truth’ can often contribute to.
For me personally in regards to what’s ‘taken’ from our videos, I’d love if the viewers 1. laugh and 2. gain a positive knowledge about hydro or a new knowledge of coal. During my preliminary research for this assignment, I was shocked to find out how much Hydro is relied upon in our country (let me repeat myself from the script ‘40% of Australia’s renewable energy comes from Hydro energy’), yet Wind and Solar are getting all the media coverage and public conversation.
It was widely accepted within our group that whatever we made, we would want the content and the format to be compatible for social media, most likely Facebook and YouTube. This lead to decisions such as turning the concept into numerous episodes rather than one long skit, and shortening the length of the episodes considerably (I will admit that this plan did not come to fruition and the episodes are longer than we had anticipated… but it’s the thought that counts), and even being explicit language free. All of these decisions helped us create a product that is more widely accessible and digestible on these social media platforms and giving us the highest chance that someone in their 1.6 seconds, will decide to stop and spend more time on our media.
In the Major Work description of Assignment 4, it is stated that we should ‘Work collaboratively, cooperatively and fairly with your group members’. Unfortunately, this aspect of the assignment was difficult to follow on a number of occasions. The disharmony did create tension and unwanted stress that had an impact on our overall work, which is an unfortunate but truthful reflection. But with every unpleasant experience, my appreciation for the good grows, and throughout this project I kept witnessing my fellow group members who truly wanted to do their best and were willing to go above and beyond to make the best television show about a government that wants to find their energy match.
MAJOR WORK LINKS
Episode 1
https://vimeo.com/mediafactoryrmit/review/423992661/e996b25df1
Episode 2
https://vimeo.com/mediafactoryrmit/review/423994491/2bca630c8e
Episode 3
https://vimeo.com/mediafactoryrmit/review/423996260/82089c5717