What I gained from Future Machina this year.
Future Machina has been a great studio for me to be a part of this year. Firstly, my eyes have been opened to the vast capabilities of technology and AI, in our not-so-distant future. Concerning these aspects, I think it has been valuable to hear the ideas my classmates have had in their assignments, as many of them contained technology that helps people in many ways. Beyond my media-making in class, this was a huge gain in terms of the scope of learning this semester. Additionally, my conceptual skills have developed tremendously as each assignment came. Throughout each class, we were consistently discussing our ideas for the assignments and for the content presented. Even though we had physical barriers, I was able to still create media techniques that I had not explored before – animation, green screens, and photoshop to name a few. We had requirements to meet in terms of the technologies we used and portrayed, but we were also able to develop our own interests in the world of AI too. For me, this included AI in the beauty industry, and ethics and sustainability enabled by technology. I thoroughly enjoyed being able to explore these topics within the context of the assignments. Overall, the studio was fun and informative and I am happy to have taken part this semester.
Collaboration in the Studio.
Week one and two were filled with collaborative work. We interviewed each other in week two on what we imagined the workplace of the future to be like, which I found to be a great way to hear what other people were thinking about based off their own experiences. Both Shaun, Lauryn and I all had quite different concepts, based on our current or past workplaces and how that may be done in the future. For example, as a retail worker, I assumed quite a few things could move to an online space and physical interaction is maybe not as important with huge technological advancements. In later classes, we took photos to edit in Luminar 4 – For this I was taking photos with Lauryn, Neve, and Ben. throughout these smaller in-class activities, I got to know a few people – which proved handy matching names to faces come time to work online. I think as a class we were good at discussing our ideas, both regarding future technologies, and then later assignments. Also when we presented to each other our futurology starter packs, that was a good way to see what people were interested in, and how they came to choose the studio. A lot of Black Mirror viewers, of course. Hearing everyone’s different concepts and ideas was my favourite part of collaborating with my classmates this semester.
My work on this Assignment.
Planning
To plan for this assignment, I knew I wanted to have an angle of sustainability and ethics. Since it is for an ‘alternative future’, I wanted to make something that reflected a direction I actually want to see the world go in. I started my research fairly basically but gained a lot of insight into the direction the various technologies are going in. I also kept seeing the year 2050 as a date for some of these to be realised, so that was what I selected for my piece. I found the Global Goals reading extremely engaging too and that provided a lot of inspiration. I also liked the idea of economic inclusivity and the idea that a ‘smart village’ could be universally found, and would be the same in every country. As seen in the following image, these were the sort of things I was thinking about at the end of April:
Further down the line, I focused my ideas based on my interests. This included sustainable fashion to combat the fast-fashion phenomenon, and lab-grown meats (as I have already explored in my assignment 1). I felt these fit into a smart village day-to-day quite well, and I then introduced the ideas of sustainable energy which goes along with the concept of having a completely ‘zero-waste’ lifestyle. As shown in the second image, I worked more on the structure of the narrative, possibly shaping the story around a family’s everyday life. Eventually I realised this narrative did not quite work with the structure that the piece ended up being – which was more of a 3-part advertising campaign rather than one longer story within the advertisement.
The Introduction
Originally I intended on taking all of the footage myself. As the piece was to be a 5-minute production however, given my limitations I decided using stock or archival footage that could juxtapose with my own footage to make the message more impactful. I drew out a rough storyboard of what I wanted this to be, even at this point I thought narration would work, but eventually as seen in the piece, I thought the quotes worked better for an audience, given the narration throughout the rest of the piece.
From there, I found a few good websites for stock footage (especially Pexels.com). I cut together a few versions of what I wanted to achieve. When I first showed the class a draft, this is what I had: https://youtu.be/mXsPtcLzOQs
I was happy with the rough structure, but wanted to find better stock footage to further my point. After I constructed the introduction with the basic layout that I wanted, I trialed the footage with this music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kZYl4NthsHo
I think it worked to create the soundtrack dissonance effect (in fact it reminded me a little of Wall-E in that regard), but I felt it to be a little too jokey, and not serious enough for the subject matter I was trying to tackle. Additionally, it did not suit the tone of the next segment of the piece as well as the Vivaldi composition.
The Final Product
Overall I am happy with how the piece turned out! I would not call cinematography my strong suit, but I did get a few nice shots given the camera I was using (Canon 700d) and the limitations of the setting. I have always liked the use of extreme close ups and playing with depth of field, so I was satisfied in my work with these elements in mind. Similar to my last piece, I did have more issues with my sound – I have a tiny rode microphone with a windsock but it still turned out with some unsettling variations through the different recordings. Given our constraints of copyright free materials, I am always satisfied with the range on YouTube Audio Library, and I think the music choices properly conveyed the mood I was aiming for. I think given some of the topics are prevalent in our society today, and very impactful on many groups of people worldwide, it was important to not take a completely satirical or ignorant sort of stance – these technologies are definitely more than just a novelty, even though a smart village concept is fairly fictional. I am proud that I could create a piece of work within studying media that may inspire thought to how technologies can save our planet and help us to live better lives, whether that be smaller steps such as sustainable, optimised fashion materials and ‘fake’ meat, or larger-scale issues such as carbon dioxide recycling.
A Week 9 Presentation Reflection.
I have decided to reflect on Julia’s Obie: Virtual Counselling Assistant presentation from Week 9. I found the concept interesting to explore as it was something that tackles an extremely common yet not commonly understood issue of mental health. Obie is definitely one of those things that could well be a part of our near future. The presentation gave an informative insight into the functions of the technology. This includes how it is accessed, and what it provides in terms of counselling services. Additionally, there was mention of the narrative structure which gave me a clear vision of what piece would look like. She also addressed the current issues surrounding mental health, and subsequently why something like Obie is so important. It fits well with what the studio is about, and how we have learned to look at fixing issues in our society with advanced technology. The aesthetic of the powerpoint also provided an image of the aesthetic of the piece, possibly having a chill vibe and a modern perspective.
I think with some storyboard ideas, such as the character’s journey, or how Obie looks and interacts with the character, would have helped to further the visual understanding I got from the piece. That being said, I understand that it is still early days in terms of forming our ideas. Additionally, the time allowance was only three minutes, so given that limitation, we got a great insight into what Obie is and how it could impact our society in the future.