Monthly Archives: April 2015

NARRATIVE SEMINAR

Let’s be honest, everyone’s seen a pretty shit film. I watched Grown-Ups 2 once and it probably goes down as the worst I have seen. I have some respect for Adam Sandler, his SNL days are some quality half-baked viewing. But Grown-Ups 2 defied all logic of filmmaking and still made $247 million in Box Office revenue. I’m not here to rag on about Grown-Ups though; it’s just an example of a shocking narrative, or lack thereof.

Dan’s summary of Narrative was pretty much what I’ve been taught before, and almost completely contradicts Grown-Ups… All the key elements of Narrative were there; character development, plot and resolution. But I haven’t ever visualised a story as a graph with peaks and troughs relating to emotion. I found this mapping of emotions an effective way to summarise key events relating to the protagonist.

It was when we were watching “We Have Decided Not to Die” though, that this mapping process became difficult. As it is, WHDNTD is a possible example of a film with no narrative. This is very arguable though. The soundtrack of this film reminds me of a lot of house music, where an emotional atmosphere is constructed to provide a form of narrative. Just like in WHDNTD, the similar elements of the soundtrack tie each evident section together to form parts of a bigger picture. On this basis, I felt it possible to construct a visual map of the plot points.

Twisting Narrative and recreating old stories captured my attention. The unexpected nature of ‘Red Hot Riding Hood’ was great because our understanding of the story was challenged. This is what I enjoy about film and Narrative; being taken by surprise, and I took this as the main point of the seminar.

– ‘We Have Decided Not to Die’ and ‘Hot Red Riding Hood’ can be viewed below.

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Tex Avery – MGM 1943-05-08 – Red Hot Riding Hood by barayluis

 

– Gabe

TRIVIA IDEAS

It’s been a while since I’ve attended a trivia night. The last time I turned up was in September last year and I had just shaved my head for the first time. It was a gooood Grand Final weekend.

But things have changed since last time. My good friend Daniel has taken over from Michael “Chuck” Norris as Trivia Master and besides a couple of minor hiccups, he did a damn good job! Finding out that Danny was $150 the wiser for his services got us all thinking though. $50 an hour plus beers and a meal is a recipe for a terrific story.

My friend Caius introduced me to the idea that Danny would play the part of the perfect Corrupt Trivia Master. Friendly enough to be in with the pub owners, but responsible enough to give his mates the answers. And the reward, a $40 bar tab. Between 15 people.

As silly as an idea it is, there seems to be a bit of stuff that I can work with. Regarding plot points and character development, the story basically writes itself. I suppose now the next step would be to take the idea and twist it so that the narrative isn’t too predictable. If anything eventuates, I will keep you posted…

– Gabriel

PROJECT BRIEF 3 REFLECTION

The collective production quality of each project was significantly better than last project. People obviously benefited from using the high quality cameras at our disposal. Each project was different from the last, and I give credit to those who tackled quite serious subjects with people other than close friends. It can not be easy.

Chloe Abbot’s project on Fraser, an aspiring fashion designer and tattoo artist was very clean and specific. It conveyed information in a visually pleasing format. The background music complemented the black and white footage well, and was cut in and out when required.

I think it could have been improved by providing more information, particularly on what Fraser is doing at the moment to get further into the fashion industry. After viewing, I felt compelled to learn more about this. Chloe says she is in the process of constructing another edit for Fraser’s label SIRAP.

Chloe’s blog can be viewed here, and her portrait of Fraser can be viewed below.

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– Gabe

FORGOTTEN SILVER BLEW MY MIND…ONCE

The first time I watched Forgotten Silver, I was going in to year 11. My media teacher at the time played it to us for orientation. I distinctly remember as soon as it finished he said, “It’s all bullshit”. This was the point that I began to think more critically about filmmaking, and specifically documentaries. I’ve hated him since.

Making an event out of “exploiting the gray area between fact and fiction”, as Jones puts it, is common practice in documentary making today. The magical sense of ‘reality’ that shines through adds a dramatic effect that can’t be replicated in strictly fiction narrative.

Watching Forgotten Silver for the second time, I felt all the years of film analysis catch up to me, and couldn’t help but laugh at how foolish I was back then. Perhaps the closed environment in High School with such assurance from a teacher led me to believe what I was seeing to be the truth. It was this excitement of uncovering unknown information that led to the enjoyment I felt the first time watching.

Which begs the question Jones asks: “What does it matter what’s staged and what isn’t?” Peter Jackson is obviously aware of this conundrum and felt compelled to make a humorous ‘documentary’ about a Colin McKenzie. This story of Colin McKenzie, is so playfully absurd that it flirts with the concept of reality. A wise man once said (me): “Blow my mind once, I’m convinced. Blow my mind twice in quick succession, I’m sceptical”. Mastering the technique of mind explosion is what these hybrid filmmakers are all about.

But even if the story of Colin McKenzie were true would it really matter that much to anyone outside of film studies courses? I mean who knows the Lumiere brothers anyway?

 

Reference Material

  • Jones, Kent “I Walk the Line” Film Comment, vol. 41:1, January-February 2005

– Gabriel

 

PROJECT BRIEF 3 – SEDGWICK

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I felt a lot more comfortable with Project Brief 3 compared with PB2. I’m going to put this down to the fact that PB3 allowed me to depict someone else’s character. Instead of me being judged, my friend Sam will be judged, right? Or was this task just setting us up to be more critical of other people’s filmmaking ability? Either way, the shifting of focus allowed me to create something that I liked, rather than something others were supposed to.

I’m happy with the found footage I used within the short. The retro vinyl advertisement slides in nicely with what I have filmed. It not only relates to the sound from the short, the colours make it visually pleasing. And because almost all of the found footage comes from the one source, there isn’t a huge variety of picture quality. I think if there were more than a few sources of footage, it would lose the sense of rhythm and flow I believe it has.

I’m not so happy with some of the sound in the interview; I had to do a lot of cutting with audio files and fades in and out to make it sound decent. As it was filmed on my balcony with a variety of mics, unwanted sounds such as traffic were picked up. When the sound matched the footage of Sam on the balcony it was good, but it was when the audio was placed over the top of other visuals that it sounded out of place.

In terms of producing portraits, I think a key discovery would be that b-roll footage is always good to have. There are a lot of places you can just slip in a bit of footage to show characteristics rather than tell them. Although not all of mine was used in this project, it’s handy to know for next time.

As a media practitioner I found using public access footage to be really useful and is something I want to explore further. There are heaps of cool and weird bits out there that will certainly serve a purpose in my media making over time. I suppose more generally, using Adobe Premiere Pro has got me thinking more about pre production and the actual filming side of filmmaking. i.e what I need to film to ensure it looks alright during editing.

Sam’s music can be found on his soundcloud:

– Gabriel

APPROACHING MEDIA TEXTS

Gill Branston, besides having a pretty sweet name, analyses text in ‘Approaching Media Text’. As Branston says, “‘text’ originally referred to sacred writings, such as the Bible”, but more recently, a text has been described as “anything which is to be investigated” (2010 p11). From this we can assume that texts surround everyone in everyday life, and cannot be avoided.

Branston refers to the semiotic analysis approach established by Ferdinand de Saussure (and later used by Roland Barthes) as a primary method for understanding texts. Semiotics is defined as “the study of signs, or of the social production of meanings and pleasures by sign systems, or the study of how things come to have significance” (Branston 2010, p12). Texts are filled with a variety of signs, signifiers, signifieds, referents, connotations and denotations which create meaning. These terms suggest that whilst there are intended messages, all texts are highly interpretable across different demographics and cultures.

Branston links the study of texts to the Structuralism theory prominent in Psychology. This theory deals with audiences subconscious responses to texts and how they react to them in ways that they aren’t fully aware of. This is the genius of advertising, pinpointing target demographics, and convincing them to purchase a specific product, or instilling subconscious beliefs.

What Branston provides is a variety of methods used to understand different media texts. He quotes McKee as saying “textual analysis [is] an educated guess at some of the most likely interpretations that might be made of [a] text” (2011). This sentence reinforces the notion of texts being very ’roundabout’ in nature. Although information is presented to an audience in a specific way, there’s no guarantee that the intended audience will fully comprehend the desired message.

Just as a side note on the topic of subliminal marketing, advertising and blatant brainwashing, a friend of mine showed me this video:

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“TRUST THE US GOVERNMENT”

The message doesn’t shock me as much as it first did. But I think that’s just because Tony Abbott is running the country.

References:

  •  Branston. Gill, Stafford, Roy. The Media Student’s book, (p, 9-26, 31) 5th ed. New York, NY : Routledge 2010

– Gabriel

RECORDING SOUND…

Field recordings are always a bit tricky. Right in the middle of the city there is so much interference which often ruins the quality of the recording. To get a great recording, you have to be in a very quiet space, which is why band recordings are done in sound-proof booths most often. My experience with sound goes back a fair way, but I still have problems with recording fluctuating sound sources. I am fidgety with the gain knob which goes a long way to wrecking an otherwise nice recording.

Many of the sounds captured in todays session were full of noise and unwanted background sounds. I ended up looking at the list of sound files as potential samples for tracks. At some stage I will post a recording of a song which uses these samples in one form or another.

The thing with sampling is, you can use almost anything and make something sound good (subjectively) with it. Take for example these videos that have been doing the rounds recently on the webs. Read article here.

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Now I’m not saying that I like the ‘Melbourne Bounce’ sound (it infuriates me), but I can respect the fact that they are using anything and everything to make music. Good on ’em I suppose.

-Gabriel

PROJECT BRIEF 2 REFLECTION

Overall I am happy with what I produced for my second project brief. There’s plenty of stuff that could be altered, but I managed to convey what I wanted. There’s no doubt there is too much going on though. I struggled to cut down all the footage I had into the space of 1 minute. I think by the end of filming I had roughly 20 minutes of footage and 100 photographs. Although it was nice to have this amount of material to work with, it just made it harder to select which bits had the most meaning. I need to learn to be more focused with my approach.

Going around the classroom, everyone seemed to do a pretty tidy job. The quality of the footage varied quite a lot, but the basic principles were all in place. Playing mine out loud, I probably needed to adjust the volume levels a bit more before exporting. This was something I experienced a bit of trouble with. Over the next few weeks, once I update my computer, I plan on spending a lot of time filming and editing to boost my skills and get them up to scratch for project brief 3.

– Gabriel

SAWYER’S BASKETBALL GROUP FLOW

I have copped a bit of stick for my obsession of numbers lately. So much so, in some circles I am considered ‘The Stat-Man’. And it’s something to boast about… I’ve had a numerical mind for as long as I can remember which is partly why I have developed a passion for Basketball over the last 12 months. I watch a game whenever I get the chance, but due to the spenno price of a League Pass, I have followed most of this season by looking at scoresheets and highlights. I can tell you that James Harden, Russel Westrbrook, Stephen Curry and LeBron James are fighting out the MVP award; but I’ve come to learn that stats are not always indicative of a quality team performance. Watching the game allows you take in to account each player’s interactions with the rest of their team, and is a much better assessment of quality team mentality.

Keith Sawyer’s article regarding group flow was intriguing. The focus on Pickup Ball had me entertained. Comparative to the NBA, games of pickup ball are less confined by rules and can be altered depending on who’s on the court at a specific time. I wasn’t aware of the elimination of free throws in (some) street ball games, which would boost the freedom of the sport. As Sawyer writes, “Competition, mixed with loosely specified goals, can be just the right recipe for group genius”. The analogy of a recipe seems very fitting. Substitutes can be used and still the desired result can be achieved. All depending on how well each player, or ingredient feeds off the rest.

Sawyer writes of Mihaly Csikszentmihalhi’s four important characteristics of ‘flow’. 3 of the 4 are quite straightforward but the other one is contentious. A challenge of skills, concentration and instant feedback is understandable, but I believe the concept of flow isn’t always measureable. Musicians write music with no clear goal, because a goal would implement a restriction. Creativity breathes when improvisation is apparent, much like the Jazz ensembles mentioned further in Sawyer’s piece. As Sawyer puts it “There’s no creativity without failure, and there’s no group flow without the risk of failure”. Jazz Music, the ultimate form of improvisation is about balancing deep listening with creative contribution to try and avoid failure. I can imagine playing in a Jazz Ensemble would feel like being in a state of limbo. There’s no real expected outcome, it’s all about being in the moment, neither here nor there. I suppose more broadly, the goal with music is to create something pleasing to listen to, but even still, music is limitless.

It’s expected that we will learn to work in groups effectively to create a variety of artefacts over the coming years. From Sawyers’s article, it appears that compromising to create vision is the key of collaboration and group flow. Bouncing ideas off one another and working within each others boundaries will eventually lead to rewards…

Reference Material

  • Keith Sawyer, 2007, Group Genius: The creative power of collaboration, New York: Basic Books, 2007, pp.39-57

– Gabriel