Self-Assessment

Posted on October 10, 2012 by krnmcg

Contribution and collaboration

  • In early stages, I attended relevant meetings regarding direction of the seminar and how the process would go.
  • I willingly volunteered to host the seminar, knowing the skills I had in conversation with potential guests would advance the quality of the day
  • I took on the role of production assistant to Ellie, though I believe I fell short in delivering in this role. I should have taken more action, perhaps in chasing up progress of other members of the team or by assisting in communication with relevant members to developed the seminar goals.
  • Overall I would say my contribution to the group was average, though my work as host was certainly above average, and this helped the group immensely as it took a lot of strain off the organisation
  • 15/20

Proactive Learning

  • Following each seminar, I took on independent reading and discussion with relevant texts/parties to further the information presented to me
  • By collaborating with members from other seminars on unrelated projects, we were able to share our combined learning and experience, ultimately resulting in a more holistic learning and education
  • 13/20

 
Participation

  • I believe I contributed well to the group discussion, submitting questions via twitter for each of the seminars I attended, two of which were selected and discussed in depth
  • I attended most meetings, and collaborated well on the promotional video, in which I performed and marketed via social media to great success, judging by its views and critical reception
  • I did not participate to the highest level in post-production, as this role was designated to another member of the team, which was seen to be balance in the eyes of other group members as my level of participation during the seminar was so invaluable
  • 16/20

 
Connections & intersections

  • Overall the value of the seminars was probably in our networking ability and our ability to admit we do not have all the answers. In discussion with other class members we have learned to admit that we do not have supreme knowledge or even expert knowledge in any area, we must learn to ask more questions.
  • My learning, I have noticed, is primarily engaged during participation. I learned the most in the seminar which I hosted than in any other, because I was forced to participate and navigate the flow of the seminar. By paying particular attention to the flow of discussion and organisation of the day as a whole, I learned much more than by simply listening to others.
  • My key knowledge learned from the series is that most of the jobs I saw are not suited to me, for reasons independent to each job. It is the exposure to such people and jobs that the series brought on, however, which has shown me this. I am thankful for the series as it has given me a number of jobs which I can eliminate from my prospective list of potential career goals.
  • 15/20
Overall mark – 59/80

74% - Distinction
Peace.

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“Dawn Of The Digital” – MI2 – Seminar Critique

Posted on October 3, 2012 by krnmcg

Week 10
“Dawn Of The Digital”

Guests:

  • Christopher Harrop – Online producer at the ABC
  • Dan Monheit – Director of strategy and owner at Hard Hat Digital
  • Misha Ketchell – Managing Editor at The Conversation Media Group

Host: James Clark

1.    Seminar content is focused & relevant.

The material in this seminar was really quite interesting particularly due to the conversation between the three guests. Christopher Harrop was particularly interesting to hear from as his position in such a new media role at an older media institution like the ABC is quite interesting, when juxtaposed with the new model of the Dan and Misha.

2. Guests relevance to topic & career development

Dan’s testimony struck me as the most interesting and useful for my career prospects, as having started his own company with little or no contacts is basically where I will be going if I choose to produce my own work. Overall the guests interacted well, and I liked that they used the model I had initially wanted for my own seminar, where they sourced couches, brought one guest up at a time and kept them there until the very end, and they stayed during each others interviews.

3. Quality of seminar facilitation (including set-up, staging, refreshments, audience interaction, flow, technical eg sound, IT, rapport with guest, guest briefing)

The facilitation was excellent. There really isn’t much else to say. Apart from one small glitch with a slide, the execution of the catering, the mood, the video, everything was just fantastic. Even Michael was in costume while filming. That’s commitment.

4. Opportunities for audience inclusion, participation & integration

Unfortunately I had to escape briefly before the audience participation really got going, though I heard the first few questions come through, and though it was great they inspired some conflicting conversation among the guests, a true indicator you’ve hit a topic that is relevant and worth defending ones convictions over.

5. Promotion of this weeks seminar (timely and visible)

Naturally as this was the final seminar in the series there was plenty of time to promote, and it was done well. And, despite the fact that they probably could have if they had wanted to, they didn’t promote too early and overlap the Eventception week.

 

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“It’s Alive: Why Radio Survived The Death Of Traditional Media” – MI2 – Seminar Critique

Posted on October 3, 2012 by krnmcg

Week 8
“It’s Alive: Why Radio Survived The Death Of Traditional Media”

Guests:

  • Lauren Brain – newsreader and presenter at Nova FM
  • May Hu – senior producer in the Mandarin language department at SBS radio
  • Jennifer Bowen – freelancer at ABC Radio National
  • Jack Post – Cacklin Jack(via pre-recorded video)
  • Damon Hughes – producer of Triple J Unearthed
  • Live performance by Lurch and Chief (Triple J Unearthed Band)

Host: Rose Houghton (MC Rose)

1.    Seminar content is focused & relevant.

I really liked how much range this group managed to achieve in their guests both in the seminar as well as through video. It was great to hear from some real journalistic documentarian types such as Ms Bowen as well as the more contemporary, “cool radio kids” like Lauren and Jack. Overall I felt like I got a decent view at a cross-section of the industry.

2. Guests relevance to topic & career development

Obviously all being employed in the radio industry the guests were most definitely relevant, though in terms of career development I felt as though it was a little journalism-focused. This, however, may be a reflection of the industry as a whole and not on the work of the seminar team. After all, Jack probably had the most technical job of all of them, and he managed to come up with the gem: “I learned how to turn it on and off.” (referring to his SYN Radio training)

3. Quality of seminar facilitation (including set-up, staging, refreshments, audience interaction, flow, technical eg sound, IT, rapport with guest, guest briefing)

There were a few hiccups along the way with the running of this seminar. A few times I struggled to hear the guests, and I know there were issues with the microphones. The guests appeared to have been briefed appropriately, and despite their very large number of guests they managed to get through everybody before their allocated time ended.

4. Opportunities for audience inclusion, participation & integration

Unfortunately the opportunity for audience participation was hijacked by a crazy man who was insistent that his voice be heard on what seemed to be a political rant, though I didn’t hear most of it. Overall the opportunity was there, and Rose did an excellent job ensuring there were more voices heard.

5. Promotion of this weeks seminar (timely and visible)

Promotion of the seminar was really great, and it was clever to put all the promo text in caps, BECAUSE PEOPLE PAY MORE ATTENTION TO YOU WHEN EVERYTHING YOU TYPE IS IN CAPS. ALTHOUGH IT CAN SOMETIMES BACKFIRE AS YOU COME OFF MORE AGGRESSIVE THAN YOU REALLY INTENDED TO BE.

 

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“Filmenstein” – MI2 – Seminar Critique

Posted on October 3, 2012 by krnmcg

Week 5
“Filmenstein” – Guide to Narrative Film Making

Guests:

  • Glendyn Ivin
  • Don Linke
  • Sue Edwards

Host: Alex Switzky

1.    Seminar content is focused & relevant.

This seminar was well structured and the discussion topics were all very much on track with what I as an audience member was expecting to hear. Though narrative film isn’t necessarily my current career path of choice, it was great to hear from a number of people who had a better idea of what the world is like. The pitch idea was genius and the trailer alongside it worked really well, even if the guests seemed a bit taken aback.

2. Guests relevance to topic & career development

Glendyn and Don I found to be particularly useful in terms of what I was expecting to hear when I turned up for the seminar. At first I wasn’t certain Sue’s testimony would have been quite as relevant, though upon reflection I decided the area of gathering funding is so key to this world, it really is a voice that needs to be heard in this context.

3. Quality of seminar facilitation (including set-up, staging, refreshments, audience interaction, flow, technical eg sound, IT, rapport with guest, guest briefing)

Filmenstein had food at the beginning of the seminar which made seating a slower process, and there were a number of people towards the back of the seminar room standing. The panel made it a little bit difficult to see and because of the positioning of the microphones sometimes was difficult to hear or seemed to make it awkward for the guests.

4. Opportunities for audience inclusion, participation & integration

Naturally a Twitter integration was used, and to great effect. Alex did a great job reading off the new questions and managed well to moderate discussion.

5. Promotion of this weeks seminar (timely and visible)

Promotion was not as strong as some of its later weeks, but they did well to get the hashtag out, and to get the video up and running so quickly. The poster also looked great and was really engaging.

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Production with Franziska Wagenfeld

Posted on June 1, 2012 by krnmcg

I really enjoyed this workshop. Before this one I did a Direction workshop, since I felt I would benefit from hearing some tips and tricks when it comes to direction. Unfortunately that turned out to be more of a showing off, “look-at-me-and-all-the-big-movies-I’ve-done”, rather than an actual hands-on explanation of what to expect if one were to work as a director. This workshop with Franziska was much more down to earth. She engaged the group first-off by actually gathering some information about us and our interests. Towards the end I gathered this may just be a skill she has gained from wokring in this job for some time, knowing what skills and interests the people you’re working with have and want to have will actually lead to a more productive process.

Anyway, Franziska learned from this that many of us were interested in online production and (possibly predominantly due to our being immersed in PP1 at the time) transmedia storytelling. We proceeded to discuss a number of big budget features which had used this method, and we eventually got onto the topic of promotion. This part was a tad hit-and-miss, because a lot of the time as a student, when listening to people talk in millions of dollars, it can be hard to ever imagine yourself working with that kind of money. And when it seems unrealistic you don’t really engage with the material. Where I really picked up my interest and engagement was when we started talking about runsheets and how to actually organize a callsheet and a film set.

This is more an area which really interests me. As somebody without a large amount of film-related technical skill, I have always wanted an insight into the world of somebody who works in film and TV but simply works WITH these crazy camera-heads and engineers. The actual technical layout was interesting to see, but more than that was the real consideration taken to account for so many different departments. Franziska also acknowledged that in smaller budget projects, these departments may combine and different jobs may be performed by the same team, including the producer himself (or herself). I was particularly impressed with how she categorized these departments when marking a script. But then I’m always a fan of things being over the top organized, colour coded and categorized.

There’s a number of things I hope to take into my own work from this experience with Franziska, not the smallest of which is that I would love work as a Producer. I never particularly felt like I destined to work behind a camera or in an editing suite. But seeing the capacity for creative expression by facilitating the specific skills of others, at least in the way that I saw it demonstrated by Franziska, is a facet of the industry I could really get in to. There were, of course, a number of technical skills which Franziska also mentioned which would lend themselves well to my work.

The way she showed us to mark a screen play up to categorize requirements for a production was particularly important, as well as the specific call times for departmentalizing a production call sheet. These are all things which I would really like to test out and develop my own style, but I really appreciated the demonstration. IN addition, there were some great random pearls of wisdom too, such as getting a small theatre to show your film for an extra week or what kinds of child actors to hire. All valuable pieces of advice from somebody who has been there before.

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PP2 R&D – ‘HUMAN BEINGS’

Posted on May 29, 2012 by krnmcg

https://vimeo.com/36890881

A more complex film than Apricot, HUMAN BEINGS deals with more teen angst related drama. The relationships, friendships, the revenge plot as well as just teenage social dynamics are always an interesting point for me when it comes to story. I really liked what the Director has done with this piece, it’s alays interesting to look at a film like this one and ask yourself, at what point did they decide to dress them up like animals? Was it the writers decision, or was it something they did in collaboration which they decided would help communicate the story at hand? In this instance I would have to assume it was the writer, but it is hard to say. I felt the story on its own would not have been interesting enough without the hook of the costumes. This is the key to making this film work. It has a massive amound to do, also, with how they have scouted their locations as well as affecting their budget and other crafts, including sound design and obviously their art department.

The narrative arc is very traditional. The filmmakers have made a linear story, about a select number of people in a relatively normal setting, a party. What is more innovative is how they have played on these locations to convince us they are in fact not traditional at all. Turning a house party into a jungle by making everybody in it an animal is quite genius. I particularly liked the group of lions set off in another room, very possessive and above all others. The play on den here was nice, though the dialogue was not spoken. The room in the house is what one might call a den, often the domain of the man of the house, and this house really did resemble some high-priced manor. And then obviously the lions den in the jungle, being the home of the dominant pride. Production wise this is quite interesting, though fitting this many people into this kind of space would not be easy. Casting would have been a nightmare, not to mention finding a location that looks that expensive that can be trashed, smoked in, and filled with countless teenagers drinking and dancing. The outdoor space looked expansive, though this could have been clever camera work. Regardless it would have been difficult to locate, and even more difficult to work around travel expenses, as it appeared to be in the middle of nowhere.

From this film I may take inspiration regarding the creativity and how a simple twist on something classic can make a nice film quite spectacular. I would also note that finding the right location can make everything look much more expensive that it really is, though in this case I think the location might have actually been quite pricy. It is more of a precaution to me though, I would try to stay clear of such a production, as I’m not sure we would have the means t suport such an ambitious project.

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PP2 R&D – ‘Apricot’

Posted on May 29, 2012 by krnmcg

https://vimeo.com/8076064

Straight away the thing that intrigues me about Apricot is that I don’t understand who these people are. The opening contains very little exposition. I appreciate the tension between the two characters, but I don’t know how to place it. To me, this is what really works about a drama or narrative between two people; an ambiguity regarding their relationship. When things are too certain it can make the audience or reader a little bit too comfortable, and when there is a shift in dynamic they may reject it. The flashbacks are particularly nice, and serve as a way of enhancing the primary narrative rather than to distract from it. What I feel may be a mistep in the narrative, however, is the casting. To me I read the male as being significantly older in the primary setting, though in the flashback (and I am led to believe the boy in the flashback is the man in the cafe), he appears around the same age as the little girl. This I feel is an oversight in casting and lowers the level of finesse from a production perspective.

The film is quite traditional in a number of ways. The dialogue is straightforward and unbroken. The soundtrack is emotive and serves as a tool to motivate the drama. Even the flashbacks move in mostly a time-consistent manner as the girl ages and her relationship with the boy progresses. The resoltuion at the end is perhaps expected, though there is enough ambiguity to leave the viewr questioning the certainty of the ending or even the motivation for the beginning. Moving the little girl character into the same setting as the woman and man was perhaps a tad untraditional, though in context I didn’t find it jarring. Too often these types of moves in a film can make me feel uncomfortable and I question why a Director would upset a perfectly fine film by making the audience feel what they’re watching is too surreal or that they may be too stupid and “just don’t get it”. I appreciate that this film did not make me feel this way.

The production of this film looks glossy, and the value of cetain aspects is notable. It doesn’t appear that there are any major expenses, and that is something that is always of some concern to me. When working on these kinds of small films (with little to no budget) one must be aware of a number of things which can blow out. Casting, locations and even just time spent in production can blow out a budget to a point where it becomes more of a quest than a project. The cafe scene could have been shot in one day, and the outdoors scenes could have also been shot in a day providing the location was secured. There are things I would take into consideration when producing our film. Some of the casting I choices I felt may have been a misstep, though creatively perhaps that is not the producers domain. I however felt that it was a tad unreadbale because of the lingering feeling that these two people could never be from the same age group. I intend to take this minimalistic approach forward into our production.

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“Karl” is Fast Cheap and Out Of Control

Posted on October 1, 2011 by krnmcg

I would’ve loved to do a full review of this documentary, but I don’t feel like I have the time or energy.

I would like to bring it up for 2 reasons. Firstly, for it’s fascinating way of engaging with a kind of subject within a subject. The goal of this doco investigates the nature of fascination, of intrigue and a love of ones hobby or occupation. It does it through sit down interviews undertaken with 4 men, all of whom have interesting occupations which have nothing in common. The men do not know each other and they do not interact.

I think it’s such an interesting model of presentation for us to remember for “Karl”, because we’re getting bogged down in footage of his sit down interview. I actually think it would be more appropriate for us to try our hardest to ignore this footage, because it seems to be putting a hold on the editing process. If we focus on editing together pieces of beautiful footage (which we have, without a doubt), we should be able to piece together segments or anecdotes from Karl which are much more interesting than his chronological sit-down interview.

The other reason I wanted to bring up the documentary above is because of it’s soundtrack. FastCheap achieved cult status after it premiered in 1997 and its soundtrack was a large part of it. We have not talked extensively about soundtrack but it is something we will need to tackle soon. We have a great piece for our introduction, but I feel like we will need some string music or maybe some old Austrian music to layer under Karl’s anecdotes. I think perhaps some Viennese Waltz music would lend itself well to the section where we watch Karls home movies of his family. His background is not explicitly dealt with but the audience will wonder, im sure, where his accent comes from and this would be a cheeky nod from the filmmakers.

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Tumblr, you suck.

Posted on September 22, 2011 by krnmcg

Ok so here’s my beef.

I’m having the most trouble with our IM tumblr right now because I cannot for the life of me fix how it looks. The tumblr format is not rigid enough that it can cope with me fiddling with settings and hope that it still works, but it is also too rigid in that it won’t allow me to alter the previously adjusted custom HTML themes

If there’s anything I’m learning so far, it’s that Tumblr really wasn’t a great choice to host this project. The idea of an online magazine is wonderful, but Tumblr I feel does not have an appropriate format, especially in how it is read, for this medium.

For example, I started up my own Tumblr, but my of what I read, I either reblog or “like” using the tumblr like button. Rarely do I answer questions, comment, produce material, or really engage at all other than reblogging somebody elses material. On Facebook however, I am really very likely to comment or engage. Perhaps it is because I am more familiar with the medium, but I think it is probably just the format. Tumblr doesn’t lend itself to community engagement. It’s more about broadcasting than participation.

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Shooting Karl

Posted on September 22, 2011 by krnmcg

The process of filming Karl’s interviews and other such materials took a much different tack to what I am used to. In the past, I have not had to opportunity to work with people who understand as much about cinematography, framing, lighting-point structures and such. Naturally this had led to my work being of a far lesser quality, though admittedly the process didn’t take long at all.

Arriving on set at Karl’s what struck me most was the amount of time we really took to analyse everything we were doing. The time spent on properly constructing shots was much more than I had experienced in the past. But the result was incredible. For example, I have never given as much thought to reflective surfaces when shooting than I have this semester.

When shooting Karl’s opening sequence, we were mindful of seeing reflections in the windows and plastic sheets behind him. Not only were we worried about seeing the camera, we had to watch for booms, light, prop, chair, empty space (where in previous shots the space had been filled by Karl’s alter-ego’s), the sound operator, director everything. I though, surely this is only something which occurs in extreme circumstances where there are large amounts of very big reflective surfaces. Not so.

When shooting extreme-close-up’s of Karl, I was waving a light cutter in front of a red-head light set to simulate a flickering projector. The big wash of light was flickering nicely, and had it been left to me I would have contently wrapped that shot and moved on. But when we stopped to further analyse what we were shooting it became clear that the large black light cutter that I was waving was in fact being reflected in Karl’s eyes. I was visible literally in the eyeball reflection of our subject.

There were a number of issues all which I am realising become solved when you just slow down and really think about what’s happening. We thought we had digital interference on the soundtrack when it was actually fine, but I never would’ve heard it unless I had really sat down and properly listened to the headphones without any disturbance, something I overlooked previously. I generally just accepted up until this point that if you can hear anything the mic hears then you’re good to go. Wrong.

Anyway my blogging has been woeful lately and I’m gonna try and get some good posts maybe about some readings or about some doco stuff. I’ll be focusing on finding music soon so I expect I’ll be posting about that. Catch.

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