Feed back rough cut

In todays workshop we had to show our rough cut to Jon who works in the industry and is very well versed in audio pieces. It was a nerve racking situation because I felt our group was really under prepared but mostly to be completely honest I don’t think the entire group is committed to the main idea of the project. Pitching an idea that you don’t agree with was a useful thing to learn and being able to purely focus on what we had been doing in the project.

 

Jons main criticisms were about smoother transition. He said that we should specifically think in ways of allowing the audience to think about what we’ve said and transition into the next idea. He did although say we made sense and that he enjoyed the content of it (I know he is very polite).

Another criticism he had was that during the vox pop we had put an old cigarette commercial with a lot of lyrics and talking behind it so it would be best to keep the tracks instrumental especially when there is a lot happening in the background since they were interviews done in the field.

He gave us tips on how to best makes changes to the background music when someone is speaking and to make sure we were increasing and decreasing the volume of the music as people would speak and as a transition happened.

He understood we still didn’t know where exactly the project was going because he was able to notice some of our own internal tensions within our group as to how best to talk about the subject. He said we needed to have longer discussions as to how best conclude the story.

 

This was super useful in going forward with our assessment because it made us really focus more on the editing and less in the ideas. Even though we still have a bit of a way to go in terms of concluding what we want to say it was a good task to do because it is always super useful to have someone look at your work with a pair of fresh eyes…. or ears in this case.

The Workshop

The workshop

I have a new deep respect for sound. I think we can take for granted crisp audio pieces. The exercise was about going out recording an interview and being able to put it together. I think I thought sound would be way easier than filming but I think I was wrong. Even when you do film what makes or breaks a good shot (or at least one where they are speaking) is good audio. It was kinda difficult to work in our group because two of us have very strong opinions on how this should work.

Editing- I think I got the hang on how to create different textures with the different background sounds. It was good to identify how to change the volume of each clip and be able to change the loudness as you needed to create certain effects of transitions. This was super useful in terms of understanding how to put things together in the mix and be able to have full control and understanding how to piece it together.

I thin what I need to practice more is identifying when you need to record in mono or when to use the other mics on the zoom recorder. We had lots of cool ideas as to what was the way to best integrate all of the electronic sounds we had recorded but ended up not using them because we didn’t have enough time.

 

Theo van Leeuwen “Perspective “

 

 

Notes on Perspective:

Figure(thing you are supposed to be listening)focus of attention

If a sound or group of sounds is positioned as Figure, it is thereby treated as the most important sound, the sound which the listener must identif)r wirh, and/or react to and/or act upon.

Ground (less involved, less prominent, creates the listeners social world, context) giving a sense of where we are

Its a sound or group ofsounds is positioned as Ground, it is thereby treated as still part of the listener’s social world, but only in a minor and less involved way. We are to treat it as we treat the familiar faces we see every day and the familiar places we move through every day. in other words, as a context we take for granted and only notice when it is not there any longer.

Field (provides spacial volume most distance, sounds you can’t really decipher )

If a sound or group of sounds is positioned as Field, it is thereby treated as existing, not in the listener’s social, but in his or her physical world. We are to treat it as we would treat the people that crowd the streets through which we walk, or the trees that populate the forest past which we drive. 

Perspective is realized by the relative loudne~s of the simultaneous sounds, regardless of whether chis results from the levels of the sounds themselves, from the relative distance of the people or objects thar produce chem, or from the way a soundtrack is mixed.

Intimate distance

The relation benveen the sound and the listener is one of real or imaginary-intimaq-what is presented or represenced by the sound

is regarded as one would regard someone with whom one is intimate. In speech, intimate distance is realized by whispering or maximaJly soft voices.

Personal distance

The relacion between the sound arrd the listener is a real or imaginary personal relation – what is pre.sented or represenced by the sound is regarded as one would regard a friend with whom one can discuss highly personal matters. In speech it is realized by a so Ft, relaxed voice at low pitch and volume.

Informal distance

The relation between the sound and the listener is a real or imaginary informal relation – what is presented or represemed by the sound is regarded as one would regard someone with whom one has a businesslike but nevertheless informal encounter. In speech it is rea)ized by a full voice at somewhat higher pitch and volume.

Formal distance

The relation between the sound afld the listener is a real or imaginary formal relation – what is presented or represented by the sound is regarded as one would regard people to whom one speaks in a formal or public concexr. In speech it is realized by an overloud, higher and tenser, ‘projected’ voice.

Public distance

The relation between the sound and the listener ‘stretches che limits’ and is regarded as one would regard someone who can only just be reached when one shours at the top of one’s voice – hence it is realized br the maximally loud sound.

We listened to a podcast about Lobotomies. They used to call lobotomies “surgery of the soul for people who were mentally ill.” I think the subject of the podcast combined with the audio piece makes it really strong and engaging. I think this has made me think about how to layer your sound pieces in creating not only a podcast but an actual sound piece. If your subject isn’t good I feel like no matter what you do it’ll be boring but if you have an interesting angle then it becomes interesting. For example when they talk about lobotomies they talk about how messed up they were, not exactly an original perspective but their hook was that they interviewed the son of the person who pioneered lobotomies so there is a hook there, and hearing the stories of so many people who were victims of this. I thought the sound was personal because of the way the piece was formed they want to win you over to their side of the story they don’t want you to be a neutral spectator they want to win you over to their side.

Figure: the main character was the narrator

Ground: Hospital background noises

Field: some at the hospital some at the old peoples home, some in closed rooms

 

Week#9 Media Literacy readings

Did media literacy backfire?

It was an interesting article, I found myself disagreeing with a lot of what was said but also agreeing with it. I think we live in a society that is ruled by profit, where profit is taken into account above everything. I think the reason why people are so distrustful of the news is because the “normal” or “popular” media is known to lie and fail ordinary people. Its positive to question where you are getting your information but I do think that there is no such thing as unbiased information. Regardless of trying to just state facts I think there is always a side that rules over.

I think the argument I disagreed with the most was the one put forward in the section Experience Over Expertise.

While I don’t disagree that now we are more likely to google “sore throat” than go to the Dr, I don’t think expertise are better than experience. For me the author sounded a bit elitists when he said that, ordinary people, well lets face it poor people don’t have the ability to build themselves up straight away to have expertise on certain things but experience pushes them at the same level if you think of trades theory means nothing without practice. Now there are always exceptions but I do think that people, ordinary people don’t get a voice the same way people with titles do. If you have letters before your name you are taken more seriously by the establishment.

Fake news is everywhere, even when they are technically speaking part of the establishment. I think the question to ask instead of fake news is who benefits from this piece? Why is it there?

 

 

Week#7 NO EDITS! “Pursuit of Chocolate”

Intruction: Rehearse-Shoot-Upload

This week we created a short film that had to be shot in sequence with no post production. The theme was pursuit, so our group decided to do the theme of pursuit of chocolate, the story of a girl who gets a mysterious message about free chocolate but is not able to get it because she gets there too late.

We had to keep these three things in mind:

  1. “Placement of people and objects in the frame”- this is about the relationship of the objects within a space (frame) that suggests more than what we can see.
  2. “Movement of people and objects within a fixed frame”- whenever there is movement within the film the composition changes. This is about the movement of people to allow the viewers a more 3d experience without it being a reminder that they are not physically there. This is where you can build the creative impact. This is where the people can come from the background into the foreground or vice versa.
  3. “Movement of the frame itself”- The ability of the frame to move to be able to have a more flexible role and to allow the viewers to enter the world of the film.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=09Zua6Tm0o4&feature=youtu.be

The complex thing about filming this was that we only had one actor to do this film so you couldn’t really have much of an interaction of people within a fixed frame to make it more interesting. What did make it great was the movement of the camera angle that allowed for the story to be told. Working in a group is always challenging because its hard to work with everyones ideas but also be able to critically accept when something is going to work and when something is not. We had a few cool ideas about a robbery but we quickly came to terms with the fact that we didn’t have all of the actors available nor did we have the time to do it properly and rehearse it, coordinate people etc.

 

Week#6 “Long take”, “single shot”

Long Take

Rehearse. The key to making a successful single shot. I found this exercise challenging because I thought our takes were kind of monotonous because we were limited to a hand held camera, and were also time restricted but it was challenging beyond that. We had to come up with an idea, the rehearse it, film it and not mess up. We came up with a few different roles.

  1. Lead Actor
  2. Two Supporting Actors
  3.  Director/spotter
  4. Camera woman

It took us 2 rehearsals and 3 takes to get it right. When you film these kinds of scenes it really makes you think about everything in your surroundings, walking slowly when the camera is trying to get from behind you to infant of you. Making sure the other actors remember what they are doing and that we do it together, forming a relationship with the characters in camera. Other Aspects were the location and what the purposes of having these different scenes within the single take.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YYtpy7NHsps&feature=youtu.be

Week #5 Workshop “Interview”

This week we had to test out our filming skills. It was really good to think about how we are going to do our project. When you see an interview, there are all of these close ups and the audio of it is impeccable and everything is run so smoothly. Usually when its live they have at least 3 cameras to do this but we only had 1 camera today. I found it quite challenging because I was thinking of how these videos looked and thought I had to capture it in that way as I was filming it which meant that the recording didn’t have the best shots. Its good that we took turns with being infant of the camera and behind it.

thoughts on Week 4 readings Cal Newport, ‘The Clarity of the Craftsman’

“As my graduate student career had been wind- ing· down, I had become obsessed with my research strategy-an obsession that was manifested in the chronic working and reworking of the description of my work on my website. This was a frustrating process: I felt like I was stretching to convince the world that my work was interesting, yet no one cared. Martin’s axiom gave me a reprieve from this self-promotion. “Stop focus- ing on these little details,” it told me. “Focus instead on becoming better.” Cal Newport, ‘The Clarity of the Craftsman’

This is an excerpt from week 4 reading and I think this perfectly captures the process you go when you edit or produce media. Because you are the person who sees it basically daily you become one of your personal worse critiques. the phrase about not focusing in the small details to have a better understanding of what it is you want to communicate. Thats media, its about getting better at communicating with the public but make the public feel what you want them to feel, of course theres room for people to feel their own emotions Its about creating a habit of communicating.

Week 3 Scott McCloud, ‘Blood in the Gutter’

Blood in the Gutter

by ScottMcCloud

 

This comic toys with the idea of object permanence, something which to babies seems completely unnatural, but to adults an entirely normal process. But the comic tests us: what, if anything, has changed? We still can only see what we see, hear what we hear, sense what we sense. And yet for adults, we could not live our lives were it not for faith in what we expect to exist, when and where we need it and “know” it to be true, and yet we cannot prove sensually, individually.

 

What would that mean, anyway, to prove it exists? If the individual is the only measure of what is real, what is our definition of real? Can we even say “our” definition, when my definition is the only one that I can prove?

 

What “we” can say, for sure, is that these gutters between the comic panels, when all of our senses are mustered to fill in the blanks, can only be proven to be true in retrospect. We cannot fill in the gutters until we have looked at the panels on both of its sides. We need to inspect the panels of other works of the same author, of the same era, genre, location, to piece together our one, simple gutter. And all of this would take place without us even realising it.

 

If we spend our lives wandering, our minds interpreting and filling in the blanks, if anything, the truth between the panels can only be true if we all have all of the panels. I think this is also true for film. In film we can only see on the screen “chopped up bits” of what the director wants us so see. Media can portray so much more than what we see with our eyes, it also makes us feel, it doesn’t necessarily need to be an action it can be like in a video we saw about eyes conveying more than anything.

Week 2 workshop on David Gauntlett

David Gauntlett’s ‘Introduction’ to Making Media Studies

We learn about the world through making things and communicating through these senses. These are different ways in which humans can communicate with others. I had never thought about communication in that way, about the process of expressing your ideas but through media you leave a lot to the people that are watching or looking at your piece so everyone gets something different out of it.
 
David Gauntlett says we should think of Media as:
“conversations, inspirations, and making things happen” 
so its not just about a cool concept(although thats always a bonus) but for me media is about changing ideas and I agree with David Gauntlett’s point on “media should be about making the world better” I want the media that I create to be that. To challenge ideas that are backwards and make a change through it.