Steve Murray

Self assessed grade for participation in MI2 this semester – HD, 8/10

This post is a reflection on my involvement and engagement with Media Industries 2 this semester. I must say first up that the course has been a lot more work than anticipated. Very early on I got involved with the film production seminar group because that is what I am interested in, and as we were all supremely busy with PP2 commitments, not a great deal of work was completed for this subject across the early part of the semester. As the weeks rolled by and we got closer to the seminar, I put my hand up to be involved in the promotional side of things, so Lionel and I planned out a poster series and had set up a photo shoot when we found out that Emily had already taken care of the posters.

So we both got back involved in our film seminar group, me still with the intention of doing the publicity side of things, but soon it became apparent that we were having trouble getting guests on board, and without guests there is no seminar, no matter how great the promotion is. So I got involved in that side of things, calling a lot of my film industry contacts and people, such as Sonya Pemberton who I had spoken to previously in preliminary discussions towards the PNR. My uncle Rob Murray, although he couldn’t come to the seminar himself, put me in touch with a number of his friends and colleagues such as Ellery Ryan and Allan Cole.

This seminar, and indeed the entire project has been the kick necessary for me, and I know a lot of my friends, to actually pick up the phone and talk to a lot of these people. It never ceases to amaze me haw generous people can be with their time when you are polite and show a bit of interest with what they are talking about. Everyone whom I rang (bar one, Roger Mitchell, who I will come to later), was extremely friendly and only too happy to help, even if they couldn’t come to the seminar. Ellery, although he was filming that week down in Tasmania, said if there is anything I need in the future not to hesitate to call. The one negative conversation I had was when a member of my group told one of our guests the wrong day and time, and I was left to explain and apologise on the phone for the mix up. This was with Roger Mitchell who is a special effects guy, and as you can imagine he was not impressed. But apart from that low point, the only other thing to go wrong was on the day of our seminar we did not have the programs ready to go, and had to quickly print them up in the morning.

I was quite surprised with the turn out for our seminar, in that it was predominantly first and second year media students, with very few from our class bothering to turn up to the seminar. I guess this mean that our promotion was successful, because we can’t really control the group from third year… I think overall I put in a lot of work in organising the seminar, as two out of three guests were ones that I had organised. Also in things like the documentation for the overall site, it was me on the phone to everyone trying to make sure that it all got done on time.

I also engaged with the other seminar series, going to all but two, and both of them were due to film shoots for other subjects, but the four that I did go to I thought worked out really well. The guests by large were great, with generally each seminar having two speakers who were OK, then one who was fantastic. I particularly liked hearing Bobby Galinsky talk at the writer’s seminar, and Tim from Burning Man talk at the festivals seminar. After each seminar I have been going up to the guests to say thanks, and making some connections also, so from that networking point of view it has been a great experience.

In terms of course content fitting in to a future career I think that is self-explanatory. No one particularly likes having to ring up random strangers and ask for favours but like it or not it is a fact of life in the film industry. So being able to do some networking at this stage in the media degree has been important, if for nothing other than to prove how easy it actually is to talk to these people.

In terms of completing my Personal Networking Report, I ended up using both Allan and Sonya from our seminar, which I think is fair enough considering I was the one who organised them. In Sonya’s case I had already had a few chats with her about what she had been doing, so it was more the other way around, that I asked her as a favour to talk to us at the seminar rather than tacked the PNR on the end. With Allan, I met up with him early on the morning of the seminar for a coffee, and we chatted for about an hour about all of his projects and experience, and also his suggestions for me looking to go into the film industry.

My other Interviews came through my uncle Rob Murray, who is a DOP. I interviewed him and also got a few phone numbers and introductions to other cinematographers that he knows such as Ellery Ryan (DOP), and Allan Cole (DOP and Director), who ended up speaking at our seminar.

The reason I choose to interview the people I did, was that I wanted to get a broad viewpoint, on directing, camera work and producing, which are my three areas of interest, and also have a mixture of fiction and documentary. As my interviewees have said, nothing is clear cut in this industry, so to have a broad appreciation and understanding across a number of sectors is necessary for survival, as long as you keep in mind what you really want to do in life and aim towards that.

Making films is a difficult profession no matter where in the world you are, and even more so when you set your career sights on directing features, in Australia. But through talking to people who have succeeded in their various disciplines, and finding out more about the current state of the industry, I realise that of course anything is possible, you have just got to have the determination, grit, luck, friends, contacts and talent to make that dream a reality.

As I am already working at an advertising agency called JMA down in port Melbourne, I have used this as my work attachment this year. Since late February I have been working part time at the agency, although since late last year I have been doing freelance photo shoots and helping with commercials for them. When I first got involved on a regular basis it was more because I was already doing the equivalent of a day a week and bringing some clients through the agency. This happened when I was doing photo shoots for clients, then would sell them a website or re-design, but as I don’t have the capabilities to do that myself, I would handball these jobs straight through. So it has been good working there throughout the year, as I feel I am building up a good number of skills in photography, and cinematography for commercials, but also in dealing with clients and working to briefs.

This is perhaps the hardest part of the job, to have a great idea for a commercial, but to be told by the client that they want something totally different, and then to work towards that and still maintain your passion and enthusiasm. It has been a good grounding for me in people skills and how to find the right mix of creativity and business, as sometimes you have to be really crazily creative and come up with concepts, but other times you have to shut your mouth and think in dollars and cents.

Recently I brought in a big client then called Fillings Catering, the manager of which I had met at a function I was doing photography at. I organised to do a few food photography shoots for them, then began to tell them about the type of work that we do at the agency and managed to organise a complete re-branding of the company and a bar that they are opening up, called Chameleon. We are now in an ongoing relation ship with that client and are currently doing new websites, cards, etc…

An important part of what I have been doing through work this year has just been to learn. As a creative type I knew relatively little about the business end of things, so when it is quite I will sit with Joe, the MD, and we will discuss the business, and how the financials work in this kind of industry, which is extremely useful as I used to be completely useless at knowing how much my time and services were worth. Perhaps the most important piece of advice I have been given is to never undervalue yourself. If you charge a professional rate for your work, they will treat you like a professional and actually like it much more than if they think you are just a Uni kid doing a bit on the side. Also, if you start to do too many favours or changes for free they will start to undervalue your time and you will spend your entire life fixing bits and pieces for clients and working for very little money.

The other positive about working for the agency has been the other employees, who are mostly in the graphic and web design side of things. More and more I have been watching them work and learning how they tackle jobs as well as learning the programs so that I can help out with whatever needs doing.

Throughout the year I have been given a few commercials to do, where I have been working not just in the crew, but in a more production manager role in terms of organising hire of equipment, locations, crew, etc… This has been a good extension of what I have been doing in terms of production at RMIT, but in a more restricted, client dependant setting. This is a good lesson in what to expect after uni when you no longer have full control of your projects and you are working on someone else’s budget.

Overall I have learnt a heap this year, not just skill wise, but in terms of dealing with professional clients, and all that that entails. I can see this as being of great use to be in my career as over the summer I plan to do more of this type of work in TVC’s, viral marketing videos, music videos and photo shoots, before heading to London mid next year.

Our Media industries seminar on filmmaking was last Friday, and was very successful in my opinion. The two guests I organised, Sonya Pemberton and Alan Cole, both had extremely valuable things to say, and were able to show some good examples of their work. Also it was great just to be able to stay back afterwards with them and chat on a whole range of things, gaining some valuable insight into the industry from their perspective.

My role in the group changed dramatically from start to finish, as initially I wasn’t going to get involved in contacting the guests but was rather to help design the publicity for the seminar series. Both Lionel and I were planning to design and shoot photography for the poster series “The morning after” put forward by Kyle and Emily. We had organised the shoot and Lionel had made up some initial designs, but before we could put our plan into motion Emily came to class with a poster already made. Seeing as we were no longer needed, Lionel and I went back to our group still intending to get involved in the publicity for the event.

To be honest, for two weeks around week 6 and 7, I did very little for MI2 as I was involved in the Musical for PP2, which left me absolutely no time for anything else. But after we wrapped up shooting, and I got back involved with MI2 group it became apparent to me that, while we had two guests booked (Alkinos and Anna Brownfield) nothing was happening to get any more. I realized that it was pretty much down to me, so I threw myself into calling all my film industry contacts to ask if they knew anyone or would do it themselves. Initially I had very little luck. My uncle, Rob Murray (cinematographer) was working on the week of the seminar. I got a contact from him for a cinematographer called Ellery Ryan who lectures down at the VCA, but he was shooting a film in Tasmania during our seminar. Rob also gave me the number for Alan Cole (president of the ACS) and so I called him to see if he could come and speak to us, although I thought it more likely he could put me through to one of his contacts. Surprisingly he said he would come and talk to us. I was thrilled about, not just for the seminar, but because I thought it would be a good opportunity to meet with him. I then also called Sonya Pemberton (independent documentary producer and director), who I had met on a few occasions through my work. I pitched the seminar to her, playing on the calibre of our other guests, and she said that she had a meeting but she would try to change it to be there. Luckily she could change her meeting and agreed to come along to talk, and also to show bits from two of her documentaries, the award winning “Crude” and also “Angels and Demons” with Andrew Denton.

Things were running smoothly until a few days before the seminar when Alkinos pulled out. This was a bit of a blow, especially coming at such a late notice, for if he had told us even a week prior I could have investigated some other options, but with two days left to go, I felt it would be more of an insult to ask someone to fill in the very next day at a seminar. I still wanted to have four guests, however, because I felt it was safer, especially as Anna Brownfield had to leave early, giving us only two guests for the panel discussion. Syed organised for a special effects guy called Roger Mitchell to come in but gave me his number telling me to call and organise the details on Thursday. When I called on Thursday to tee up a time and a place I found that Roger had been waiting at RMIT on Thursday morning because Syed had told him the wrong day. I was left to apologise on behalf of my group, and try to plead with him to come in on Friday, but Roger was understandably angry and said he would have to see how his morning played out.

So it turned out we were left with three guests; Anna organised by Gabriella, and Sonya and Alan organised by me. But after a rough start due to an unnamed group member not organising the pamphlets as they said they would, the seminar went very well. Anna spoke first then Alan, who showed the trailer for the first feature he shot. We then had a short break then had Sonya speak to us, using examples from her film “Crude” and “Angels and Demons”. All three speakers had extremely useful things to say, and I think our marketing for the seminar was effective, as we had an extremely good turnout from first and second year, but sadly not many third years came. The set up of the room worked well, also, with the couch and the lighting adding a more relaxed atmosphere than I have seen previously in the seminars.

Afterwards, both Alan and Sonya stayed back for about 45 mins talking to us, which was great, as I had told them both previously about all the projects I have been doing in and outside of Uni, so it was good to introduce them to the rest of the team from Wargame and from the Musical. We invited them to the premiere of Wargame and both said they would attend, so it will be interesting to here their thoughts on that film.

Overall, despite a few minor hiccups, a very effective project, and a great way to establish further contact with our guests.

In terms of Self Assessment I am giving myself an HD, 9/10…

Final Research Report

My Page of the Final Research Report

Role – HD

Because our group was quite large in comparison to the rest of the class (7 people), probably our biggest initial problem was to allocate roles and refine exactly what it was that we wanted to research. Lionel and I were both interested in how new media could effect comedy distribution and so we both elected to research into the same topic, as it was a large and important one in relation to the project.

Because we are exploring the future, a realm of theory and guesswork, most of our role has been to brainstorm ideas based on our collective expearience of this type of media, as well as to research into current trends. Lionel and I split our research so as to cover more ground. After coming up with the initial concept together, Lionel began to research into the viral marketing sector, while I looked at business and popularity on the web, as well as refining our overall reverse distribution model.

The biggest role shift occurred early on in our research piece when we decided to, as a group, tailor our concept more to our reverse distribution model rather then going off on completely separate tangents. This really pulled the end product together and made for a more cohesive project.

Progress – HD

My progress in terms of research this semester has been primarily in the little “r” sector, as our idea required more research into current trends and our own experience rather then academic texts. Both Lionel and I have spent many hours hypothesizing, making connections and putting together other research done in this area to come up with a viable concept. The areas we looked into were: Viral Marketing, Popularity , Web comedy, What comedy sitcoms have done fore their online components, Web VS Broadcast, Hypothesizing on the future of TV, Digital online Rights and Niche VS Mass culture.

My strengths have been in generating ideas, and making connections between pieces of research, also in helping to contextualize the presentation as a whole.

My weaknesses have been that I should probably have used some more academic research, and been more diligent in my posting on this blog, however, due to the nature of our research topic, Big “R” research (academic) was not as relevant as it might have been with a different topic.

Strategies – D

My research strategies, as outlined above, consisted of making connections, research into current trends and existing distribution platforms. Our initial strategy was to hypothesize and use our own experience of new media to see if we could come up with a better method for the consumption, marketing and distribution. This initially consisted of drawing connections between other subjects, as well as knowledge of current trends in the market. Once we had the loose outline of a strategy we used some more thorough research to ascertain if it was possible and commercially viable.

Strategies within the group consisted of initially going our own ways with the loose outline of comedy to guide us. This worked effectively as an initial working method as it allowed us to choose what we were individually interested in and then see if that could be tied in with the broader project. After a few weeks we decided to narrow our scope to focus more heavily on the method of distribution that Lionel and I had came up with because the group thought that the project would have more context, and a more relevant outcome.

Problems – D

Some problems, which came up for our group, were a lack of definition, or perhaps a too broad scope for our project. Our project was initially just comedy, and so thus the initial research was expansive and without a clear central thread. We solved this as a group by honing in on a specific area, namely the researching of what makes a good comedy globally and locally, and then applying this to a new distribution model, which still has commercial grounding.

Lionel and I individually solved this lack of definition by choosing very early in the piece exactly the areas we wanted to research, and sticking to those. Only branching out once we had a clear idea. Other problems we encountered included a lack of group cohesion, at least initially, because we were such a large group and it was hard to find times and places to all meet regularly. We solved this by getting a group blog, and also by finding a constant meeting time a place that everyone had to make themselves available for.

Connections and Intersections – HD

Overall, this course can contribute to our professional development through its freedom and flexibility to explore areas that we are interested in, rather than being given a brief and forced to work towards it. In this industry, work is rarely so clean cut, rather requiring the individuals to interpret a brief and to self motivate themselves to complete work to a given timeline.

Having a large group was also a good learning curve in terms of how to successfully motivate and manage a project over the course of the semester. I think initially we struggled with this but as the semester went on we became more adept at putting in the time and effort required to complete the project on time. Lionel and I were forced to apply good problem solving skills, as our part of the project was essentially a problem, which needed to be solved. Namely: how can a comedy concept be marketed in an innovative way for the least possible money and have a successful commercial outcome. I am very glad that we took this path in terms of a research brief as a can see this application of distribution as being useful to me in the future, either in advertising, or film and TV.

Overall Mark HD 80 %

PP1, overall, was a great kickstart to prove what is actually possible to be achieved in such an insanely short period. Overall I was very impressed by the quality and depth of projects in both the time and control themes. and a looking forward to what can be achieved in PP2

Collaboration

In conclusion, despite what it may sound like, i am happy with the semesters collaboration because we have achieved what i think are two really good films. I think time worked better than control, and perhaps i was too controlling on both projects but in the end i just wanted to put in as much effort as i could to make the best films i could in the time we had…

Jenkins

I think that everyone working in the media industry should be completely aware of how the notions of convergence culture have the ability to drastically influence the popularity of their work in a context of consumption and distribution, but the ideas themselves i think will always stem from storytelling. In our modern world, books, films and TV are still the primary means of storytelling and entertainment, their popularity is augmented by the convergence of communities around them, but is by no means based solely upon that concept.

PP2 Studios

So far I haven’t had too much time to devote to PP2 as all my time has been taken up by PP1…However, I pitched 10 concepts to the class in a variety of genres and styles… (These were part of this post but i took them out because i didn’t want to bandy ideas all over the internet, instead i have sent them to David for inclusive assessment)

Lab Themes and Projects (Time)

As I have already mentioned, based on some feedback by industry people I think we may have been better going with the initial concept as it would be easier to understand, and not as based on the subtlety of performance which perhaps our film lacked in some instances. The feedback from the course was, however, very good with people impressed that we had got such an ambitious project of the ground… Overall I am proud that we decided to go this way as I am pleased with the outcome.

Skills Modules

This semester I attended three separate modules, Writing, Producing and Advanced Camera and Lighting. I couldn’t honestly say that I was taught anything that I had not learned the hard way through making my own projects. HOWEVER I did really enjoy the modules and I think what they teach is very valuable and should be made THE VERY FIRST THING taught in this entire course.

So far I haven’t had too much time to devote to PP2 as all my time has been taken up by PP1…However, I pitched 10 concepts to the class in a variety of genres and styles… (These were part of this post but i took them out because i didn’t want to bandy ideas all over the internet, instead i have sent them to David for assessment)

Overall concept for 654: I think the most sophisticated way of doing this is to explore a similar theme or core message across a number of stories in different genres. This then becomes like a set to be watched together, but not simultaneously, as I think that will take away from the message and effectiveness of each individual film.

Also this is what i am going to be doing for the R&D…

20% concept development: I came up with a number of concepts to present to class, one of which was used by Joycee to write his synopsis…

30% Writing, I have been in touch with Sussan and we have discussed ways to write her idea (a musical) around certain styles of music, also i have been in touch with Joycee and we are getting together as soon as all the PP1 stuff dies down to begin drafting the script…

20% Music development: as soon as the semester is finished i will begin to throw myself into the music side of things so as to present a number of style concepts to the group within three or four weeks. I will also be working with a friend of mine who is a film composer, i have discussed the ideas with her and she is more than keen to get involved.

30% Directing: I have recently directed both my groups time and control assignments for PP1. Both turned out very well, and have taught me valuable lessons in terms of good directing and team management. (I will discuss this more in my R&D report) Also I have a number of projects planned for the holidays which i think will continue to improve on my directing skills, one is a theatre production and one is a performative documentary called “three little birds”

The group collaborative proccess in both my Control and Time projects have been similar but at the same time vastly different. In both projects I took a very central role, always pushing to get things done and taking up the slack when certain things weren’t done. Both projects started in much the same way, with everyone giving ideas and thoughts, but without fail, in the first few weeks of each project nothing would actually be achieved. This is to be expected though, as ideas need time to form before leaping into a project.

I have had PLENTY of bad expeariences at RMIT with collaboration and so that is why this time i just took the bull by the horns and, as soon as the group was happy with a concept, locked myself away and wrote the script. I had learned from past expeareince that if we continued to talk, no one would actually do anything, and we would get to the stage two weeks before the project was due with nothing to show, and the last thing i wanted in third year was to produce anything that wasn’t at the very highest standard possible in the four weeks we had for each project.

In my Time group, Sandra and Jeremy were very helpfull in terms of the scripting phase, giving plenty of feedback and working with me to produce every subsiquent draft of the script. This added enourmously to the quality of the work and also made the pre production much more enjoyable. In my Control project i didn’t get any feedback from my group, who i got the distinct impression didn’t really want to put much work in. In this project, right up until week 3 i was still pushing to have everyone work on the script together, but emily delegated that i was going to write the script, since i had had the idea, and fair enough, i was more then happy to write, since it is what i love doing, but i could see where it was all leading…

After i had the script finished i again tried to get the some of the others involved in casting (since i had already organised the location) but once again nothing happened and i was left to cast with one week to go. This worked out quite well as the actor we got, Nick, was fantastic.

The same happened with the time project, with me left to cast for all roles, which meant spending litteraly hours sifting through over 30 responses. In this instance though Jeremy and Sandra were instrumental in helping to organise the studio, so even though I did a LOT of work in pre production, at least we all collaborated well…

On the Control shoot I arrived early and did the set up, then some photography, and ended up directing and on the camera as the others stated early on that they did not feel comfortable to take the more technical role of DOP, and i really wanted to direct. It actually worked well because of our style as a mockumentary… but in hindsight we would have been better as team if we had had more time to put into the pre production, but due to our timeline we kind of just had to go for it, which unfortunately meant me doing most things… Ying was good on sound, and Em was helpfull but brett couldn’t come to the shoot because of work which was a little disapointing.

The roles of the Time shoot were much easier, apart from all the problems we had, i think that we all worked really well together. In terms of post production, on both films i ended up doing the vision editing. On the control project Ying helped, and Em did the other side of things for our online componant. And on the Time film Jeremy did all the sound mixing (which was fantastic) and sandra helped a little in the edit suite, but mostly it was just me editing for 11 hours a day to get it finished.

In conclusion, despite what it may sound like, i am happy with the semesters collaboration because we have achieved what i think are two really good films. I think time worked better than control, and perhaps i was too controlling on both projects but in the end i just wanted to put in as much effort as i could to make the best films i could in the time we had…