Yes, another post on this topic. You’re sick of it, I get it. But we actually spoke about it in our Workshop, so hey, why not.

I don’t feel I need to explain my views on victim culture because I’ve already talked about it at length on 90% my blog posts. You know why? Because it has taken over literally even single facet of life. But I probably will anyway…

The grand stage for victim culture is the reality television show, more specifically, one that is competitive-based. In our workshops, we discussed how shows such as The Voice, Masterchef, etc exploit contestants for their own ideological gain. But today, it isn’t just the shows, it’s also the contestants who always want their sob story acknowledged.

Any reality television competition:
Presenter/Judge: You’ve had a rough time haven’t you?
Contestant: Yeah, when I was 6 my father/mother/brother/sister died from cancer/a car accident/etc
OR
Yeah, I’ve had depression/cancer/etc for the last few years.
Presenter/Judge: You’re brave, you know that right?
*Contestant sings/cooks and defies the odds*
*Audience goes crazy*
*Judges start crying*
This is the greatest story of mankind.

So there are two questions to consider. One, as a culture, how did we get here? And two, why do we glorify this idea of victimisation? The former is quite simple. Gen X’ers coddled their millennial children during their upbringing. They didn’t say no. With this came a generational shift of ‘feeling’ rather than ‘thinking’. Can you name the greatest thinkers of the last 10-15 years? No. Because we don’t value critical thought anymore, and as a result we live in a society where art is terrible and we reward morons. The second is because millennials are narcissists. Now, allow me to distinguish the two types of narcissism; one is the celebration of grand achievement, which I have no problem with, and the other is a gross glorification of one’s own thought, meaning that one believes their own ideas are factual and the refusal to engage with differing viewpoints is justified. 99% of millennials have the latter. Victim culture gives these people an excuse to make a tragedy their tragedy, which allows their self-aggrandisement to flourish under the pretense that they themselves have somehow helped a cause with their disingenuous sympathy.

This week’s Workshop involved presenting our group’s audio-essay rough-cut to Louise. It went okay, but the main problem identified was that I spoke too fast during my opening monologue.

Treating the audio-essay like a Podcast, I spoke fast because a) that’s how I speak/present information and b) the Podcasts I listed to (namely the Bret Easton Ellis Podcast (which may I add is back this week – if you’re interested in film reviews/cultural critiques LISTEN)) are delivered at a high speed.

After reviewing/reflecting on the feedback, I have decided that I will re-write most of the introduction to both allow me to speak slower and save time for other the interviews to blossom.

This week we used the oh-so controversial Zaky Mallah on Q&A as a case study for Institutions. Personally, for context, I find Q&A insufferable. It’s incredibly unbalanced, and the discussion generally results in nothing. However, on this particular issue, I think the ABC did nothing wrong.

The actual event was controversial, which shouldn’t (but does) mean anything. People can say whatever the hell the want. It was the subsequent reaction was handled terribly. Malcolm Turnbull questioned the ABC’s impartiality, the very impartiality the ABC prides itself on. And while Q&A is generally far from impartial, having Mallah speak was actually a rare example of their impartiality. Mallah posited his view, however ignorant it may be, towards Liberal MP Steve Ciobo, which he can then respond to. This is a conversation. This is impartiality. This is balance. Tony Abbott changing this into an us vs them narrative is unhelpful. You can question the Mallah’s views and the audience’s reaction, but you can’t question the ABC’s impartiality in this circumstance, especially considering host Tony Jones disavowed his comments. It would be impartial if the panel all shared Mallah’s views.

During this workshop, we discussed how social media has brought more power to the audience, or as I like to see it, how social media has allowed the audience to become Stalinists who abuse their power. It seems everyday someone is either forced to apologise or losing their job because of an innocuous comment they made that was deemed offensive by delicate snowflakes. The formula is generally: comment –> outrage –> apology/resignation/firing –> justice.

We watched The Chasers infamous ‘Make A Realistic Wish Foundation’ sketch as a case study. Because of the outrage, ABC’s Head Of Comedy (COMEDY PEOPLE, YOU KNOW, JOKES?) Amanda Duthie was fired because of her scandalous choice to air the skit. This was seven years ago, where this type of action was considered a rarity compared to today’s ultra conservative corporatised culture where everyone is a victim and justice must be served. Although, now you may not have done anything wrong for you to be in hot water, because today everyone is guilty until proven innocent.

This is an issue of free speech. It’s also an issue of the audience being unable to put things into context. The Chasers are a satirical comedy group, what do people expect? Louise mentioned that nobody will hire Ms. Duthie. This is disgraceful. I’m sick to death of people’s lives being ruined because others deem what they do “offensive”. And this is only getting worse. What’s next?

Jackson – Painting Adolescence
This was shot quite nicely, it’s quite clear that this was the work of someone who is adept at working the camera. Interesting choice of lighting, provided a certain mood. My only qualms were that conceptually it was lacking in focus, and there were certain moments where the sound could have been edited better (long pauses within sentences).

Emily – Maddi and Koenig
As someone who prefers animals over humans, I enjoyed watching this. Really interesting idea, sound could have been a bit more crisp, although everyone (somewhat) failed in that department. Nice job Rosie!

Michael – Blossoming Business
Very informative and aesthetically pleasing. Would have liked to have seen some footage of him answering the questions (rather than just using the audio), but your overlays still worked nicely.

1) What is the ‘controlling idea’ (Robert McKee) of your portrait?
My controlling idea is about obsession. My subject’s obsession is vinyl, but in a more general sense, I want to explore why and how one develops an attachment to something, and what is the inevitable result of it.

2) How is your portrait film structured?
My portrait is structured around my subject discussing aspects of his record collection. This includes his history, where he purchases records, his setup and his collection.

3) What do you want your audience to make of your interviewee?
I hope the audience can relate to my subject; not to his record collection, but the idea of having an interest that is important on an individual level.

4) How is your portrait being narrated?
My subject’s answers act as narration; he is the only one who talks. B-Roll and music both support his discussion, but the focus is always on his words.

5) What role will the ‘found footage’ play in your portrait?
My subject discusses (some) obscure records that are important to him. The audience may not be familiar with these albums, so I have used found footage such as video, photography and audio to give them an understanding of what they are about.

6) Does your portrait have a dramatic turning point?
While not “dramatic” in nature, the turning point of the portrait is the departure from the interviewee answering questions, to him presenting and describing his favourite records.

7) When does this turning point [occur] in your portrait and why?
It occurs towards the end; it’s important to start by providing context of his backstory in order to get to a stage where the audience can focus on and understand his collection.

8) How does your portrait gather and maintain momentum?
The cutting of footage and the audio in general gradually builds momentum. I experiment with shot duration and volume.

9) Where will your portrait’s dramatic tension come from?
There are two cuts to black that represent a shift in discussion. This is to provide the audience with greater intrigue.

10) Does the portrait have a climax and/or resolution?
There is no resolution because collecting records is a never ending process. This video could be updated weekly, as his collection is constantly added to.

As you may know (if you read my blog), my laptop does not allow me to use Premiere freely. Originally, the program would just lag, which is bad enough when trying to edit a video. But there has been a development: the program just crashes now. I open it up and within seconds it’s gone. It’s telling me “don’t even bother”, so I guess I can appreciate its honesty.

I’m in a very awkward position. Apple is set to release a new laptop any day, but I need to edit now. So do I go and purchase a new laptop, only for it to be superseded in potentially a day? I have decided no, I’m going to wait it out.

Due to this, I was unable to successfully edit the ‘Video Interview Exercise’. I have nothing to show. I can say, however, that I was quite happy with the footage we (Reza, Sem and I) collected, considering our tripod was quite problematic.

The poster for the film they made about my laptop’s problem with Premiere:

Despite my best efforts to ignore the cancer that is reality television, our Workshop centred a discussion around ‘lawyer’ Gina Liano, a ‘Real’ Housewife of Melbourne. We agreed that she is an ‘aspirational figure’ – something that is at the forefront of the culture.

‘Reality television’ could not be further from reality; it’s a hoax, like God and WWE. So why do so many mindless people aspire to be like the people on these shows?

In this age of celebrity-everything, many live in a world of fantasy. Celebrities represent our desires and we know we cannot compete with them. So as a defence mechanism, we use things like Tumblr and Instagram to pretend like we are a part of their world.

Gina Liano represents everything these people ‘aspire’ to be; famous, glamorous, rich, successful, etc. She is not the only one; reality television stars have taken over the world.

But this isn’t just a problem with reality television. You see this throughout the mainstream; there’s ‘The Aspirational Figure’, The Aspirational Movie’, The Aspirational Song’, The Aspirational Novel’. Art has been destroyed because this is where we are – there are no thinkers at the forefront of the conversation.

One uses art to create art. Although in today’s generation, one uses art (the aspiration), pretend they are creative (using Tumblr/Instagram), then complain when inevitably nobody cares about them. And nobody cares because there are literally millions of them thinking they have something interesting and/or important to say.

The only problem I had with this task was creating interesting content. As someone who reguarly records lo-fi music and listens to lo-fi sound (whether that be music or a podcast), I don’t really notice or care about its quality. If the task was to record sound, a separate video, and sync it, then it would be a different story. To me, sound quality only matters when it’s used in a visual format.

For the interview, I mixed our sounds on Logic Pro, a program I use everyday. Along with adjusting the levels of each track, I added an echo to Michael yelling “hey” and lowered the pitch on my track by -1. I used three atmospheric tracks that we recorded; inside an escalator, inside a tram, and general corridor noise.

Cover your ears: