I wanted to do a seperate post for a film clip which Lauren showed us in our tutorial.The song is called 'Stawberry Swing'by Coldplay and we were advised to look it up on youtube for its spectacular use of artwork. The entire clip was a marvelous, impressive piece of art-which would've taken great thought, effort and certainly time. I love Coldplay's music anyway, but I had never seen the clip before and it was definitely captivating and outstanding, escpecially when comparing it to the large majority of meaningless music videos that are out there at the moment.
Here is the video for your enjoyment:
Monday, September 21, 2009
Saturday, September 5, 2009
Consumption and Production
Hi all,
Firstly, uni is definitely starting to become very busy! The upcoming hectic work load is already bringing on the realities of soon to be increased stress leves, caffeine consumption for all night cram sessions (for people who are victims of the evil habit of procrastination like me ha) leading to severe sleep deprivation and finally the social calander will unfortunately become subortinated. The joys of uni life-although we really can't complain when we are rewarded with a lovely 4month break at the end of this semester:) Anyway enough of that, onto things related with new com.
Once again I really enjoyed last week's (week 6) lecture, with the topic being 'consumption and production'. From studying the subject 'intro to screen analysis' last sem, this made the lecture content easy to understand and follow. With most of us in today's society being avid mobile phone users, this also made the content engaging and relatable. Additionally, i also studied 'styles and generes of journalism' last sem so the idea of 'citizen journalists' or where members of the public capture news footage/images on their mobile phones and provide news web sites (lecture example was 'ireport.com') and sometimes news channels with this material. Therefore, the lecture as a whole was advocating the point that citizens of society consume content (that is generaly professionally produced) and can then go on to become involved in the process of producing their own material for community consumption. So the cycle goes from consumer, producer back to consumer. The example for 'mash-ups, re-genres & re-cuts' (being 'thetrailermash.com site) where films such as The Shining and Marry Poppins had their geners (e.g horror to romance, children to horror) completely re-produced by consumers for public consumption were really entertaining, clever and gave us a good laugh.
Here is the example of Marry Poppins being edited as horror film:
Finally we had an example of a short film that was made entirely from mobile phone footage and I though it was not just a really insightful film (due to the strong messages) but you wouldn't have thought it to be produced from a small phone camera. The fast edited clips were put together really well, I was quite impressed!
Here is the film below. Reference: Tropfest NY Winner: 'Mankind is no island'
Firstly, uni is definitely starting to become very busy! The upcoming hectic work load is already bringing on the realities of soon to be increased stress leves, caffeine consumption for all night cram sessions (for people who are victims of the evil habit of procrastination like me ha) leading to severe sleep deprivation and finally the social calander will unfortunately become subortinated. The joys of uni life-although we really can't complain when we are rewarded with a lovely 4month break at the end of this semester:) Anyway enough of that, onto things related with new com.
Once again I really enjoyed last week's (week 6) lecture, with the topic being 'consumption and production'. From studying the subject 'intro to screen analysis' last sem, this made the lecture content easy to understand and follow. With most of us in today's society being avid mobile phone users, this also made the content engaging and relatable. Additionally, i also studied 'styles and generes of journalism' last sem so the idea of 'citizen journalists' or where members of the public capture news footage/images on their mobile phones and provide news web sites (lecture example was 'ireport.com') and sometimes news channels with this material. Therefore, the lecture as a whole was advocating the point that citizens of society consume content (that is generaly professionally produced) and can then go on to become involved in the process of producing their own material for community consumption. So the cycle goes from consumer, producer back to consumer. The example for 'mash-ups, re-genres & re-cuts' (being 'thetrailermash.com site) where films such as The Shining and Marry Poppins had their geners (e.g horror to romance, children to horror) completely re-produced by consumers for public consumption were really entertaining, clever and gave us a good laugh.
Here is the example of Marry Poppins being edited as horror film:
Finally we had an example of a short film that was made entirely from mobile phone footage and I though it was not just a really insightful film (due to the strong messages) but you wouldn't have thought it to be produced from a small phone camera. The fast edited clips were put together really well, I was quite impressed!
Here is the film below. Reference: Tropfest NY Winner: 'Mankind is no island'
Tuesday, September 1, 2009
Short Films
For Week 5/6 tutorial task, we were asked to find 3 short films (under 10mins)on the internet and embed them into our blog. Drawing knowledge from previous lectures, we also needed to provide an explanation as to why we chose these particular films.
Title:'Finite'. Directed by Eric Hyland and Dusty Culbertson.
"When a relationship is forced to change, how does one come to terms with the past and reconcile? Ultimately, relationships like life simply exist, persist, and endure for a limited period of time"
(source: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b6VTsuoBk3M).
I came across this film from searching top short films in google and found the above summary intrigueing. Alot of us can relate to love, loosing someone special, a broken heart or trying to let go of the past and move on into the future. I felt this short film represented these common life experiences and human feelings in a very emotional and engaging way.
The 8:52second piece conveys it's emotion through elements such as the soft song that play's the entire way through, continual close ups (showing the detailed/deep emotion and expression of the character's) flashbacks (illustrating the character reminising on past times and longing/hoping it could still be that way in the present) long shots (which display the beach location where memories took place) alterations of slow to fast pace takes (represeting change in emotion from past to present) along with scenes fading in to one another (presenting a thoughtful feeling). All of these editing decisions helped present an overall touching sense to this short film. I found 'finite' conveyed a strong sense of the emotions of love, loss and longing.
As the famous saying goes, 'it's better to have loved and lost, than to have never loved at all'.
Title:'Finite'. Directed by Eric Hyland and Dusty Culbertson.
"When a relationship is forced to change, how does one come to terms with the past and reconcile? Ultimately, relationships like life simply exist, persist, and endure for a limited period of time"
(source: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b6VTsuoBk3M).
I came across this film from searching top short films in google and found the above summary intrigueing. Alot of us can relate to love, loosing someone special, a broken heart or trying to let go of the past and move on into the future. I felt this short film represented these common life experiences and human feelings in a very emotional and engaging way.
The 8:52second piece conveys it's emotion through elements such as the soft song that play's the entire way through, continual close ups (showing the detailed/deep emotion and expression of the character's) flashbacks (illustrating the character reminising on past times and longing/hoping it could still be that way in the present) long shots (which display the beach location where memories took place) alterations of slow to fast pace takes (represeting change in emotion from past to present) along with scenes fading in to one another (presenting a thoughtful feeling). All of these editing decisions helped present an overall touching sense to this short film. I found 'finite' conveyed a strong sense of the emotions of love, loss and longing.
As the famous saying goes, 'it's better to have loved and lost, than to have never loved at all'.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b6VTsuoBk3M
Categor
I chose this film as I found it original and attention grabbing. The sequence of events (story line) was made more interesting and thrilling by how the fast paced action was filmed and edited. The fast paced music, (which would speed up during more intense action scenes, with the faster beating of drums)a hand held camera effect, (giving the chase scenes where the actors were running, a more realistic effect) and slow motion shots were just a few of the editing techniques which contributed to heightening the interest, suspence and overall entertaining effect of the film. Also it was interesting how when the main actor turned a corner his shirt would change and showed a new person chasing him. I thought this was a clever effect. This short film was a completely different genre from 'finite'.
Title: 'Ten Minutes'. Director: Ahmed Imamovic.
"This short film, as its title indicates lasts only 10 minutes, but it tells a much longer story which unravels only in our imagination upon seeing the end of the film. While 10 minutes in someone's life mean nothing, they can be fatal in another: a boy and his loving family, tragedy in a war-torn city, death and destruction. All in just ten minutes. The film follows two simultaneous story lines: one set in Rome, and one in Sarajevo, in 1994, the worst time of the war in Bosnia...Was not by chance that it won the award for the best European short film in 2002. 10 minutes for me is definitely one of the most moving and powerful films about wartime Sarajevo". (Source: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ppAn0LNU_V8).
I found the above summary drew me to this film, firstly because it was completely different from the first two films (although it's emotional appeal did correlate with 'finite', although in a completely different context) and also for the issues it represented. It is crazy how one's life can be completely changed in the small period of ten minutes. Wedding proposals, birth, death, relationship break ups, winning the loto..these are all life changing events which can take place in a small window of time.
The film showed how in one scenario a man is waiting for his photo's to be developed in a 10min time slot and then within these minutes a child's life is forever changed when his family is killed in his war torn nation.
An upbeat song was playing in the scenes where the man was getting his photos developed, this shifted to slow mustic and dark lighting with the scenes where the young boy was in. Wide shots were utilised to present a clear image of the location/surroundings of the war torn town and fast shots were implented in the action scenes. Again all of these editing choices helped to convey a powerful image and construction.
Overall I found the film delivered a strong message which made you realise how you never know what is around the corner, to not take life for granted as things can change at any moment and also made me realise how lucky we are to live in a safe country where events like this are foreign to us.
Persona, google maps/sketches & site interactions
Week 6 task was to interact with numerous websites which were posted in the nct blog. The first website was regarding persona. The image below, is apparently my persona produced by this site. By typing in your full name, the program collects all the information in the internet that is associated with your name. It segments the information into categories, e.g sport, fashion etc. and shows how much of each category is linked with your name. I'd never heard of this program before, but it amazed me how it collects every piece of information that has every been uploaded to the internet (connected with your name). Very interesting!
We were then asked to create our own google map from our google account. We were to place landmarks on the map for things like places we wish to travel etc. My map (shown below) outlines all the areas I have lived..displaying six location moves in total. By clicking on the snapshot image below, a full size version of my map will display all of the places I have lived, with a little discrption at each marking point. This was the first time I had made a google map, so it was fun to learn.
View Places I have lived in a larger map
The next website was "sketchcast", similar to paint..where you use the drawing tools to sketch an image..but this program records your sketching movements and plays it back in a video format. You can also incorporate voice into the playing movie. Below is my sad attempt at drawing a flower (clearly I am no artist) but I gave it a go nonethless.
From all the various sites posted for this week's task, we had to interact with five of them. The five web site that I chose are outlined below:
This site: http://www.polyvore.com/is an interacitve program where users can view fashions from countless designers. Shoes, bags, pants, dresses, jewlerrey etc. are available in large numbers and varied styles and once the user locates pieces of their choose, they are able to put together an outfit from the different catergory's. This can then be purchased, embeded into a blog and made public for other viewers using the site. I had never heard of this page before, and searching through the large variety of fashion and accessories was good fun! Below is an outfit i selected from the site's range. I published my choices and then embeded into my blog.
The next site http://www.archive.org/index.php is a website which operates as an archiving system (it is not comercial, definings its operation as 'non-profit') which acts as an online library, filing sites or 'cultural arifacts' in a digital manner. The site offers free of charge use for 'reseachers, historians, scholars' and all of society. Therefore this site performs as an online database where users can search for historical information, sources etc. It is great that it is available for free use and consumption, and can be used to locate diverse areas of archived knowledge.
Although it is a known taboo! to never use wikipedia as a source in academic work, it has been used as a link to gather general/background info. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_social_networking_websites.. This wikipedia info provides an extensive list of different social networking sites that are available on the net. The site advises to 'note the list is not exhaustive, and is limited to some notable, well-known sites'. I found this hard to fathom as when i copy and pasted the table of named sites into a word document, the list extended over more than 8 pages. Clearly I could not paste such a long list into my blog, but the length of it illustrated that if the site had only mentioned the main networking sites and did not cover all that are available online, then the full extent of networks available is a eye opening number! Therefore the use of social networking sites is hihgly popular, with the significant number available proving this.
Following on from wikipedia's list of networking sites,http://blog.compete.com/2009/02/09/facebook-myspace-twitter-social-network/ is a blog post written by Andy Kazeniac this year titled 'Social Networks: Facebook Takes Over Top Spot, Twitter Climbs'. The post discuss's the 'social networking giants' i.e facebook and myspace. Kazeniac advises of facebook's 5th birthday and is growing popularity, succeeding it to take the number 1 spot amoung the top 25 networking sites. The sites have been ranked according to the greatest number of monthly visits. Facebook lead, followed by Myspace then twitter. As I'd say most of us are, i'm an avid facebook user..i deleted my myspace account last year, but i can remember when myspace was definitely more popular. Wonder when the tables will turn and facebook will be subordinated to the growing popularity of twitter? Below is the table from this site, outlining the top 25 social networks.
And finally,http://hisz.rsoe.hu/alertmap/index2.php. is a website which operates as a service for providing information on emergency's and disasters happening around the world. The website provides maps which present different icons, represting different issues across global, local or national locations. For example, the icons may stand for an airplane incident, earthquake, flood, Tsunami, plague, tornado, terror attack, snow avalanche and many more. The service is a great source to find out what is happening in the world and where! (People are able to indentify natural disasters etc. and perhaps becoming preperared in their area or cancel a trip to this location). Below is an example of a map that website displayed.
We were then asked to create our own google map from our google account. We were to place landmarks on the map for things like places we wish to travel etc. My map (shown below) outlines all the areas I have lived..displaying six location moves in total. By clicking on the snapshot image below, a full size version of my map will display all of the places I have lived, with a little discrption at each marking point. This was the first time I had made a google map, so it was fun to learn.
View Places I have lived in a larger map
The next website was "sketchcast", similar to paint..where you use the drawing tools to sketch an image..but this program records your sketching movements and plays it back in a video format. You can also incorporate voice into the playing movie. Below is my sad attempt at drawing a flower (clearly I am no artist) but I gave it a go nonethless.
From all the various sites posted for this week's task, we had to interact with five of them. The five web site that I chose are outlined below:
This site: http://www.polyvore.com/is an interacitve program where users can view fashions from countless designers. Shoes, bags, pants, dresses, jewlerrey etc. are available in large numbers and varied styles and once the user locates pieces of their choose, they are able to put together an outfit from the different catergory's. This can then be purchased, embeded into a blog and made public for other viewers using the site. I had never heard of this page before, and searching through the large variety of fashion and accessories was good fun! Below is an outfit i selected from the site's range. I published my choices and then embeded into my blog.
The next site http://www.archive.org/index.php is a website which operates as an archiving system (it is not comercial, definings its operation as 'non-profit') which acts as an online library, filing sites or 'cultural arifacts' in a digital manner. The site offers free of charge use for 'reseachers, historians, scholars' and all of society. Therefore this site performs as an online database where users can search for historical information, sources etc. It is great that it is available for free use and consumption, and can be used to locate diverse areas of archived knowledge.
Although it is a known taboo! to never use wikipedia as a source in academic work, it has been used as a link to gather general/background info. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_social_networking_websites.. This wikipedia info provides an extensive list of different social networking sites that are available on the net. The site advises to 'note the list is not exhaustive, and is limited to some notable, well-known sites'. I found this hard to fathom as when i copy and pasted the table of named sites into a word document, the list extended over more than 8 pages. Clearly I could not paste such a long list into my blog, but the length of it illustrated that if the site had only mentioned the main networking sites and did not cover all that are available online, then the full extent of networks available is a eye opening number! Therefore the use of social networking sites is hihgly popular, with the significant number available proving this.
Following on from wikipedia's list of networking sites,http://blog.compete.com/2009/02/09/facebook-myspace-twitter-social-network/ is a blog post written by Andy Kazeniac this year titled 'Social Networks: Facebook Takes Over Top Spot, Twitter Climbs'. The post discuss's the 'social networking giants' i.e facebook and myspace. Kazeniac advises of facebook's 5th birthday and is growing popularity, succeeding it to take the number 1 spot amoung the top 25 networking sites. The sites have been ranked according to the greatest number of monthly visits. Facebook lead, followed by Myspace then twitter. As I'd say most of us are, i'm an avid facebook user..i deleted my myspace account last year, but i can remember when myspace was definitely more popular. Wonder when the tables will turn and facebook will be subordinated to the growing popularity of twitter? Below is the table from this site, outlining the top 25 social networks.
And finally,http://hisz.rsoe.hu/alertmap/index2.php. is a website which operates as a service for providing information on emergency's and disasters happening around the world. The website provides maps which present different icons, represting different issues across global, local or national locations. For example, the icons may stand for an airplane incident, earthquake, flood, Tsunami, plague, tornado, terror attack, snow avalanche and many more. The service is a great source to find out what is happening in the world and where! (People are able to indentify natural disasters etc. and perhaps becoming preperared in their area or cancel a trip to this location). Below is an example of a map that website displayed.
Back again...
Well, last week's tute involved us being able to complete any outstanding weekly tasks as the first round of assesment was due last Friday. I had already completed all the required criteria, so I was set to get into the week 5/6 task of finding short films (under 10mins) on the internet and embedding them into my blog, however due to feeling unwell I had to leave class early. Now that I feel fully recovered from the flu like symptoms..I best be off on my quest to find some interesting short films and complete this weeks homework (being a written paragrah on what my essay topic and idea's are). See you at tomorrow's tute...:)
Well, last week's tute involved us being able to complete any outstanding weekly tasks as the first round of assesment was due last Friday. I had already completed all the required criteria, so I was set to get into the week 5/6 task of finding short films (under 10mins) on the internet and embedding them into my blog, however due to feeling unwell I had to leave class early. Now that I feel fully recovered from the flu like symptoms..I best be off on my quest to find some interesting short films and complete this weeks homework (being a written paragrah on what my essay topic and idea's are). See you at tomorrow's tute...:)
P.S. Below is a image of Burleigh Beach taken by my favourite photograher Sean Scott. Thought I would include it as our winter weather has been amazing these past couple of weeks, and with living at Burleigh myself, this picture sums up just how perfect and enjoyable our local beach's have been!
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