An RMIT media student reflecting and blogging on her experiences at uni, on making and learning.

Hmm…difficult. How do I show you ‘me’? It seems kind of like giving you my iPod, putting it on shuffle and telling you to judge who I am from the first five songs that pop up. I just did that then and I got Dawn of the Dead (Does It Offend You, Yeah?), Space They Cannot Touch (Kate Miller-Heidke), All I Want Is You (Barry Louis Polisar), Murder City (Greenday) and The Last Day On Earth (KMH again). Seriously, what does that tell you about me?
I’m generally a happy person – but that doesn’t mean I don’t have bad days. I generally like people, but that doesn’t mean I don’t dislike people. Indecisive at times. Shy. How do I show this?
Maybe sentimentality is the way to go…..objects/things that mean a lot to me? Abstract? I feel like I want to edit something in time to music this time…I have a nice little waltz that I could play. And as I’m writing this, I feel like light – nothing dark or shadowy….somehow optimistic? We’ll see how it plays out….

….editing in camera, in about fifteen minutes. And at this point, I recognised the disadvantages of having a group of four. I would really have loved an extra person to hold the boom mike! (*Note – ask about getting someone to help out on actual shooting day by doing that for me!) It’s rather difficult to operator the recorder and managed the boom at the same time. It doesn’t help that the casing/bag the recorder is held in is a fiddly thing with velcro everywhere. I’m starting to become more reassured with that recorder, having used it for a second time, but the bag is just – ugh! Manuals should help…I like manuals. Basically it’s just familiarising myself with the whole set up process. It should be second nature – like Robin said in the lecture today, when people start to talk ‘technological’ people get scared off. I’m one of those who gets scared off.
And I used to think wrangling cables was annoying!
Okay, back to the Lenny! I’m wanting to know if I can find a full script to this – I want to know what the hell Lenny is doing! In the quick scene we filmed he seems to have been shot (?) compared to the sort of ‘hand off’ scene we edited. I’m starting to understand why that footage wasn’t the best, because we were actually quite rushed! Hopefully there will be an improvement in the sound at least, otherwise EEEP for me!

So yesterday after some more helpful coloured hats critiques in class, we had another glance (well, more than a glance really) at Korsakow. We had a little Q and A session with Adrian about problems we encountered, and as I updated in my previous post, I found out the reason why my Korsakow project wouldn’t work when I uploaded it to Cyberduck. The data folder had to be uploaded as well, or it doesn’t work. It’s there now, and even though it’s a bit rough, I just proved to myself that I can use this technology. I’d like to try and do one with a continuous musical theme playing over the top of the all the clips, but I’ll try and do that another time. This week we are focusing on working out how to get text attached to the video files. I plan to start doing that later today after my Film-TV tutorial.

Another thing Adrian noted – don’t just export/save Korsakow files to the desktop, because then we’ll end up with a heap of ‘Data’ folders and we’ll get confused, and we won’t upload the right one and the whole project won’t work, etc. etc. Felt a little sheepish when he said that, because I’d just done the very thing. Won’t be doing it again any time soon though. I will be taking Adrian’s advice, and making separate folders for each individual project.
In other news, Peter, Kathryn and I are pretty on top of sharing our video files – we all use Vimeo and we can download each others work really easily. By next week all five video projects will be completed and we can each get to working on our individual K-film projects. I have a feeling they’ll probably end up looking rather similar, as we are all sharing the same fifteen files, but seeing as it’s more about how well we use Korsakow rather than video quality it doesn’t particularly matter. I’m going to have to pay special attention to the In and Out words used. In the quick one I did just up there, I gave each video two lives (they can only be played twice) but I noticed that it would take a while for some videos to appear – it was like I kept seeing the same ones over and over again and I didn’t want to. I’m going to have to be creative to make sure the project doesn’t come to a dead end too soon.

Just a quick post, thought I’d expose my idiocy to the rest of my fellow students for a second. Had a bit of a panic moment when I couldn’t put on out word in while I was SNUifying. After a couple of minutes I got it (by myself I might add!), but still rather annoyed at myself. We just got shown how to do this Monday for goodness sakes! Well, moving on from my embarrassing gaffe, I thought I’d check out the Korsakow site to see what was there to help me if any other *ahem* technical difficulties arose. And there is a manual. I like manuals – I know that playing around with the software is encouraged – and I did, and I worked it out – but it’s comforting to see that there and know I can refer to it if needed!

Hrrrmmm….I’m not entirely sure what happened, but I made a quick K-film thingy-ma-bob using some of the raw footage I shot over the past couple of weeks and a couple of the free vids I downloaded. Because Cyberduck and I don’t really get along, I have a feeling it’s something to do with that, but the K-film exported okay. I uploaded it via Cyberduck, and went to open the url – I can see the black screen and the little Korsakow logo in the bottom corner, but nothing else loads. Here, take a look-see. Maybe it’s just me. Maybe I’ll come back in a few minutes and it will have fixed itself. If not, at least I have Integrated Media tomorrow and I can ask Peter or Kathryn or Cassie or Adrian or anyone else!

I have to go and do other homework right now, so I’m going to leave it for a bit. Maybe my brain will clear! Then I’ll check….the MANUAL!

**Update – asked Adrian in the lab today – I forgot to upload the data folder as well, which is essential. The link works now, you can see my quick and easy K-film!

I had some troubles. I found it difficult to edit this for two reasons – one: continuity and two: sound quality.
This course has stressed the typical Hollywood style of film making, and when I think of Hollywood, I think continuity editing. There were some shots here where the actors positions were changed slightly from shot to shot, and it annoyed me to no end.
The audio quality is not the best either. This was obviously just done rather simply, so sometimes I couldn’t really hear the actors voices. And there was interference from construction works going on at RMIT!
I think this looks a little choppy in places, but I’ve followed the marked up script as closely as possible. The quality of the video is not the best either, which I think has happened when I compressed it. If I can re-do that and get one of better quality, I’ll upload that instead.
I tried to upload this using Cyberduck, but again, didn’t really work for me! I seem to be plagued by my own technical inefficiencies! So it’s up on Vimeo until I figure that out too!

Lenny exercise from Ruth Richards on Vimeo.

So, they day we got this as our fourth video task, it hit me that I would be driving home that night, around tenish. It would be dark, I’d be going over the Westgate, the Princes freeway etc. So I messaged my Dad (he picked me up in the city and I drove home – still on my L’s, bleh) and asked him to bring the camera I’d be using. At certain points along the way I asked him to turn it on and film a bit. I also used the camera on the train in the mornings. I found it a bit uncomfortable, a few people gave me odd looks! But I shot mostly out the window anyway. Still, after I looked at all the footage this weekend, the first bunch of clips that had been shot were still my favourites, and the morning footage didn’t really fit. This is how I’ve been doing these video works really – filming it on the go and deciding what to do with the footage afterwards. I guess it’s the informal nature of these works. Overplanning can’t really do anything to help, so why do it?
Nocturne in E flat, Op 9 No 2, Chopin. I was tossing up whether to go with Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata, but this seemed to fit better. The piece has a name this time to – Nocturne, just after the piece. “A nocturne is a musical composition that is inspired by, or evocative, or night.”

Nocturne from Ruth Richards on Vimeo.

…and was pretty impressed. I should just point out that this course has already changed the way I watch films. I found myself noticing the shots – angles, close ups (cinematography in general really – they did this really cool thing, which I don’t know what to call, that was a kind of zooming/tracking effect). Colour design – whenever Eddy (Bradley Cooper) took the ’smart’ pill, the world would changed from chilly blues and greys to a richer, yellower colour scheme. Fast, snappy editing. I even found myself observing the 180 degree rule. Hmmm….good thing I guess that I’m paying attention to all of this, but I was pretty surprised when I wasn’t even really trying to analyse it. I haven’t even deconstructed it really, it was just things that I noticed.

Robert Deniro and Bradley Cooper in Limitless

So I am a part of the most organised group ever!

We met today – Nelson, Zach, Rikki and I – met up in the common room (I swear, everywhere I looked I could see Film-TV groups meeting). Our last meeting was to choose a story idea (we ended up picking Elena’s, I’ll put that down below). Today, it was all about discussing how we were going to transfer it to a script, how certain things could work, if we were going to alter things slightly. We set out a rough timetable of when we want to have things happening by as well, types of shots, rough ideas all round, thinking about locations. Next meeting via Skype on Friday.

This isn’t to say we haven’t talked since choosing a story idea, Facebook threads have been going and Rikki (so, so organised) has set up a blog for us to use.

As far as sound goes (and this is what I was thinking too thankfully!) was that we wanted it as naturalistic as possible. We’re going for a comedy, so there will obviously be a little comedic aspect to it. I’m definitely thinking music will help with that (in the right moments – we don’t want music to overwhelm the moment obviously). Just little things like the sound of a ring going down the drain and will be quite fun.

Now, we all need to think of possible locations…hmm. Finding and getting locations will not be hard, as there are plenty of places to go, I’m just not sure how many I know of. Will look though!

Lucy, 24, invites her friend Tina over for a couple of afternoon drinks. As usual, she’s forced to put up with Tina’s ‘look at me’ attitude. This time, she’s showing off her new gold ring. After Tina leaves, Lucy, slightly tipsy, stumbles over and spies her friend’s prized ring on the floor. Lucy smirks, puts it on and prances around the house, mimicking her friend’s self-centered character. As she swans through the kitchen, she accidentally drops the ring into her sink’s shredder. Her demeanor changes instantly. She freezes, unable to stop the machine, before realising she can pull out the plug. But it’s too late, the ring’s ruined and Lucy’s frantic. She quickly runs out of her apartment and to the shops, but finds that the jeweler’s closed. She sees a jewelry store open and contemplates buying an identical ring, before realising the obscene price-tag. For a moment, she even considers stealing one of the rings from the shop, before coming to her senses. Eventually, she collapses down on a bench. Distraught, she beings rehearsing the line’s she’ll have to say to Tina, admitting that she’s destroyed the ring. Suddenly, her mobile rings. It’s Tina saying she’ll pick up the ring in the morning. Lucy tries to act calm. As a desperate last attempt, Lucy rushes home and spends the night soldering and filing the ring, trying to get it back to normal. By the morning she’s succeeded. It looks almost identical. Tina returns to collect the ring, announcing ‘I’m never going to let it out of my sight again’, squeezing it tightly. But as she does, it slips from her hands, and before anyone can stop it, it rolls into the gutter and down a drain.

I’ve been looking a bit at production design in my last couple of posts, and have neglected to post about (though it’s been on my mind) sound. Specifically, it was suggested we deconstruct the sound from a favourite scene in a film. I’ve decided to go back to year 12 media, and listen to the sound from the film we watched then – The Silence of the Lambs.
When we deconstructed that film, we did look at sound, but it was never really just listening. And I”m going to do that here – specifically the scene beginning from the point Clarice Starling heads down to Doctor Lectors cell for the first time, to her leaving that interview. It was pretty intense to watch, but I’m not going to watch this time – just listen.


What I hear:
Birdsong at the begining.
Dialogue – Chilton and Starling
Background – sounds of people moving around in an office.
Footsteps, hurried.
As the conversation continues, voices get more echoing.
Background voices die out – less people around.
Opening and shutting of heavy sounding metal gates. Buzzing of alarms. Gaurds on walkie talkies.
“….even when he ate her tongue….” – foreboding, atmospheric music track.
Lots of mechanical beeping, keys, more gates.
“He’s past the others, last cell, you keep to the right.” That’s when the music starts. Hear Clarice walking, slower and more hesitant now. Music still playing over this, hear the other inmates. Last gate clangs. Music stops when she and Hannibal start talking.
Sounds of other inmates not there (oh wait, a random coughs). Clarice rustling jacket for credentials. I can hear a slight hiss and I think it sounds like it good be an air conditioner or something down there. Very little background noise, their voices are slightly echo-y – underground, reflects the cold and harshness of the place.
We actually hear Hannibal smell for Clarice’s perfume. Papers rustling (foley is very apparent here – I can still here the occasional clang of a door, though its very distant.)
Silences between statements of theirs – “Most serial killers keep trophies from their victims.”
“I didn’t”
“No. You ate yours”
BEAT “You send that through now”
Music starts again when Clarice sends through questionnaire, slowly building as Hannibal expertly (and cruelly) surmises her past and childhood. And stops again when Clarice talks.
“A census taker once tried to test me. I ate his liver, with some fava beans, and a nice chianti” (Creepy hissing/slurping sound Hopkins does). There is a sound here like a slow intake of breath or sigh – but it’s one of horror and disgust. Not Clarice though, part of the soundscape. Clever. And no music while he said that, just his voice.
The music starts again when he tells Clarice to go, and it builds. ‘Multiple Miggs’ causes some havoc when he throws his semen at Clarice as she walks past and then the whole cell block just erupts – clanging and shaking the bars, shouting and swearing, the music as loud as its ever been. Even Lector is shouting (the only time he does this in the film I believe – I have seen it a fair few times). We can still hear her footsteps. A cacophony of sound to finish off a pretty intense scene. The next shot is of Clarice walking outside, and all of that sound is immediately cut off (but that is the start of a new scene).

Okay, just a few things – I said there was birdsong at the start, and this is because looking back at it we have an establishing shot of the ‘Baltimore State Forensic Hospital’ as it’s called. Dr. Chilton (the head doctor) has a brief voice over, before we cut immediately into his office, with the dialogue maintaining it’s fluency. He is answering Clarice’s question from the previous scene – ‘What is Hannibal Lector?” We can hear the general sounds of a bustling office in the background, which I’ve never noticed before (I guess I was always paying attention to the dialogue). I like it. The whole scene pays close attention to small details, and takes note of sounds that we only register subconsciously in reality – but if they were missing, you’d notice. If I couldn’t hear the crickets outside for example, or the hum of my mac right now, it’d feel unnaturally quiet.
Okay, as Chilton and Clarice head down to Lector’s cell, their voices grow more echo-y, office sounds are replaced with clanging gates, footsteps are rushed and have a frantic feel to them. This all gives a sense of urgency and heightens our anticipation (we’ve never seen Lector before) and like I said above, there is good use of atmospheric music to create foreboding feelings. Music in this entire scene is only used in brief intervals (I counted three times – when Clarice is walking to Lector, when Lector is psycho analysing her (sort of) and at the scenes climax. Only at the most dramatic moments. Then it’s just their voices, occasionally a distant cough of another inmate or a door closing – so distant we hardly notice. Their voices are echoing again, which gives a feeling of coldness and distance from the rest of the world – it’s just the two of them alone. I even feel like Anthony Hopkins voice (as Lector) was muffled a bit by the glass that separates them…possibly.

Wow, this is a long post – the sound design here I love, and it all works together to create this kind of tension and to help keep the audience absorbed. When Lector says that bit about eating the guys liver, the sound of his voice is completely chilling.

Well, this was me, deconstructing sound in a blog post. Maybe it feels a bit disorganised and informal, but blogs aren’t where I write formally. To an extent I am, but not always.

Oh, and something Rikki noted today when I mentioned this film (I’m pretty sure she did anyway) – the sound of the moths in Buffalo Bills home. Yep. Awesome.

So because we missed out on class last week, yesterday we had two videos to critiques – My Living Things and Round Things. We just did it in table groups, otherwise it takes far too long. I’m glad that I had some positive feedback on mine, but I’m even more interested in suggestions for improvement. Peter for example, noted that some of my shots were quite shaky compared to some smooth ones and maybe I can even that out. Adrian suggested adding several different shots of the one object (this was in relation to ‘Round Things’), because I’d only shoot on object from one perspective. That could be an interesting point, and I’m trying to think of how I could maybe incorporate that into ‘My Journey’, which is our travels to and from uni mostly. I take the train in every morning, sometimes taking the bus to the station, but usually getting a lift. Last night however, I drove home (I’m on my L plates still, my Dad was the supervising driver) and I messaged him to bring the little camera I’ve been filming with. I got him to film parts of the freeway and stuff on the way home from the city. It was night, and I think that it could look really good visually (sorry, lack of coffee, that wasn’t the best description). Anyway, I’m still going to film a bit of my journey in each morning this week, and see how it all plays out.

I got a bit sidetracked there talking about the next video when I was meant to be talking about the critiques on the second and third. Silly me (is this something Barthes would do? haha). Anyway another thing Adrian said to us was adding titles to our work, and not just calling them ‘Round Things’ or ‘Living Things’ (which is what I’ve been doing *headdesk*). It can create a context for our work (I think those were his words). Next one, I will do it, I swear!

Okay, now on to Korsakow. Now, last week I decided I’d have a little play around with it. I opened it, looked for a few seconds, then decided my time would be better spent doing my cinema reading log (which was due the next day anyway, so I kind did need to do that). That’s my problem though. New software, new technology, kind of wipes my mind the minutes I look at it sometimes. Not all the time, but with Korsakow it did. However, Adrian took us through it and showed us how it works, and having seen the basics, I breathed a massive sigh of relief (internally – would have gotten odd looks in class if I did). I overreacted again, it is much easier than I realised. I have downloaded the video library and hopefully maybe today or tomorrow (damm you work) I will make something really quickly with it, and have a proper look at the settings and such. I was the same way with Final Cut Pro when I started, and I can use it now…sort of….

Just a final note here: I haven’t been posting as much under the Integrated Media category as I have under the Film-TV category. It’s not that I don’t like blogging – I actually enjoy it muchly, and I have a blog that I use outside of my uni course (check it out, I like followers and comments). I’m having a bit of difficulty though getting back into a routine this year for uni, and then I have Film-TV to blog for, which is serving as our reflective journal. And I don’t like neglecting the other blog either. Right at this moment, I’m thinking I need to wrap up and go and do some posts about sound design!

P.S – Delicious. You can see my tags over to the right there. It’s not that I don’t think it’s a good idea, but I am barely using it. I need to go back to it more if it’s going to become an automatic thing, but most of the sites I really use are bookmarked on my browser anyway. At least you can see what I’m bookmarking as well I guess.