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Film and TV – week 1

In 200 words or less please outline your goals, desires – what you want to get out of this semester. You will review this later in the course.

My goals for this semester include being more active in the filming and editing process. I tend to lean more towards organising the group I’m in and screen writing. I want to be more confident using equipment and know the set up I need to get the audio and visual results I’m after.

And although I enjoy the writing process, I haven’t yet written for screen, or any type of script, so I look forward to writing something that can be translated onscreen. I think that I will learn a lot this semester.

Consider  Jasmine’s lecture on Screenwriting and briefly describe one point that you have taken from it.

One point I took away from the lecture was about creative a character. I am quite drawn to characters that are relatable and ‘human’/average. However Jasmine make me realise that these qualities aren’t enough to make a character interesting to watch and drive the story.

If they want something badly enough, or do unexpected things, it makes for a better plot. Characters should be bold and decisive – this helps to drive the story.

Select from one of the readings from week 1 or 2 and briefly describe two points that you have taken from that reading. Points that excite you, something that was completely new to you.

Reading: Getting An Idea, Robin Plunkett

1. An idea for a film can root from anywhere – a photograph, a person you know, a news story etc. You don’t have to know what plot you want to tell to start.

2. French filmmaker Jacques Rivette started making a film by identifying budget and restrictions, and finding a script that would work within those limitations. I found this interesting and relevant for our semester assignment as we need to produce something on a non-existent budget and it can only be 5 minutes long.

 

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Week 10 Reading: Manovich

“Database as Symbolic Form” by Manovich.

New media objects do not nescessariry tell stories, they are instead correlated as databases and don’t have a traditional beginning or end. They are void of any form of element organisation or structure. Instead, they are collections of individual items.

Database: a structured collection of data. Data is stored and organised for fast searching and retrieval by a computer.

Databases can be hierarchical, a network, relational, and object-orientated; using different models to organise data.

 Web page: a sequential list of separate elements: text blocks, images, and links to other pages.

Online, pages are ever-growing and evolving. New elements and links can be edited and added at any time, making the Web an anti narrative made up of collections, not a story. As Manovich asks, “how can one keep a coherent narrative or any other development trajectory through the material if it keeps changing?”

Algorithms and data structures have a symbolic relationship. The more complex the data structure of a computer program, the simpler the algorithm needs to be, and vise versa. According to a computer, data structures and algorithms are two halves of the ontology of the world. In contrast, narrative forms do not require algorithm-like behaviour from their readers.

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Week 9 Reading: ‘Culture’ and ‘Technology’

Murphie, Andrew, and John Potts. Culture and Technology. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003. Print.

Culture and technology incorporate many interests and disciplines within their dynamic field. Both are prone to rapid change and constant growth.

Technoculture therefore needs to be assessed in a similar, dynamic way when relating it to theoretical perspectives.

Technology: (tekhne – craft, logos – system)
The application of a body of knowledge, or science, in specific areas. Also defined as the ability to measure, predict, and control natural forces.

Technique:  the use of skill to accomplish something. Technique is what makes technology useful to us, if we didn’t know how to operate technology, it would lose it’s value.

Culture: Is difficult to define. generally, it involves all human activity around the world. It’s specific meaning refers to self-contained cultures, such as ‘French culture’. It brackets off into other areas such as news, finance, sports etc.

Each of these definitions is prone to change and development, so their core definitions will also change over time. Technology plays a crucial role in the large-scale and popular forms of culture.

 

 

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Week 8 Reading: Barabasi 80/20 Rule

Barabási, Albert-László. “The 80/20 Rule”

The 80/20 Rule: Vilfredo Pareto first discovered what is now known as the 80/20 rule as he noticed that 80 percent of his peas were produced by only 20 percent of the pea pod. This observation is now considered a ‘Murphy’s Law of management’. For example, 80 percent of decisions are made during 20 percent of meeting time, 80 percent of the population receive 20 percent of the overall income etc. Few large events carry most of the action.

When mapping the networks of the web, it was discovered that the distribution of links followed the mathematical expression called the power law. Peaked distribution – a bell curve. A power law is the opposite of a bell curve. A histogram following a power law is a continuously decreasing curve, implying that many small events coexist with a few large events.

Random networks: ie. City road map (organised structure leading to few main highways)
Power Law: Aeroplane route (a few hubs link many airports)

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Weekly Reading 07

The Long Tail” by  Chris Anderson.

In this article Anderson explores the consequences of a world with hypertext and the network. He explains that the market is no longer restricted by physical boundaries. Online stores can ‘house’ an endless selection of products, regardless of the age size of the product. This is revolutionary for the sales of products that are not new releases. Buyers can search for the exact item that they are looking for, as well as browse the online store at whatever time suits them.

Online shopping is readily available for not only our entertainment needs (movies, books, music etc), but also necessities like groceries and clothing. The consumer is saving time, as well as getting to choose from a wider range of products, and the producer can save on the expenses of operating a physical store, such as rent and staff salaries.

The market gets bigger and creates niche markets that may not have been easily accessible or available to mass markets before. The idea of ‘mainstream’ is then greatly altered, as consumers are exposed to a wider variety of genres and styles.

Part of globalisation. Geographic location is not as important when comparing sales. This has changed the type of movies that are released. No longer does a film have to be a blockbuster to be successful, most films will find an audience.

Examples of online stores:

Quick Flix 
Coles Online
Amazon
Spotify

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05 Reading: Critical Theory and New Media in an Era of Globalisation

Hypertext 3.0: Critical Theory and New Media in an Era of Globalization by George Landow.

Axil structure characteristic of electronic books and scholarly books.
Network structure of hypertext.

A new ways of using and interacting with books. The reader can enter and exit the text at any page, they can search for words or phrases, and its borders aren’t as defined.

Webs electronically link blocks of text. metatexts can start as self-contained, and grow by having links to other locations online, and being open to added material such as comments.

Simplest form: author creates a HTML template and only uses links to navigate the text.
Writing in the presence of other texts: The author links to outside websites as references, and they act as annotations to support their work.
Networked documents:  can stand alone or be part of a larger set of networked documents.

 

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