02.04.2013
Each Image Has Its Own Story To Tell
29.03.2013
Over the Christmas break, my family and I spent the holiday in New York for a few weeks to visit my uncle, Jeff, who lives there. We stayed at his apartment right in the center of the metropolis with an overarching skyscraper window view, everything was designed with taste and of character. I thought about the other houses and apartments that I've lived in, this one doesn't feel as alienating when compared to my home in Tawain, neither was it that much of a difference to the many photographs of urban apartment we see in Urban Magazines. It sure is different, yet at the same time, it felt familiar... What is it that made up our perception of a home? And how do we consider a space adorned with furnitures and pleasant views - a house?
I've never been to the apartment, however, the moment I went in, I knew it was a home, not a hotel room. Why so?
That's talk about television now - the must-have of all houses and homes. Whether it's broken or turned off; a dark monolith or a 19th century robot, it dominates the space of every household in its discret way. A living room without a television is like a house without windows. Somehow, we all have television at home not just for its functionality but more so because it's just what a house suppose to have.
Nevertheless, How often do we actually turn on our TV? Personally, I can say that the wide screen television hung on my living room spent way more time being mirror-black than actually being turned on. Even when it's on, I always treat it as more of an ambient, an aesthetic to the space we called a "living room." It it important to point out that, even though, I don't usually watch the television in my living room, I am deeply and hugely obsessed with TV shows. In Australia, we are a day late to US timezone and hence, all the good TV series that aired on Sunday will be the equivalent to our Monday in Melbourne. MONDAY IS MY FAVOURITE DAY OF THE WEEK. Depends on the quarters, sometimes I have Double-Monday (Mad men and Game of Thrones), sometimes I have Triple-Monday (Breaking Bad, Homeland, and Dexter).... Monday is the day that I look forward to each week and it is also the day that is always impossible to do any works.
Watching TV shows, reading reviews and discussing shows with my mates are just as entertaining as the show itself. That in a way, is top notch quality entertainment and I always love the idea that tv shows are different to films. I see film as a piece of art work, made as an exhibit, being showcase in cinemas and theatres around the world, whereas a serialised television show is more of a living art, we as an audience, live and grow with it. We should never underestimate the power of time and space. Although, we as a younger generation with the power of current technology, no longer feel compelled to watch television in a given set of time and space, but instead chooses to watch television series on our laptops whenever we feel like, we are nonetheless still watching 'television shows,' not on TV but still threw different medium. Mad Men is always going to be Mad Men, whether it's on a LED TV screen or on our laptop screen. The influence of television is deeply embedded in our everyday live. I think the current mode of television is an industry that is under change, and it is a very exciting time to be discussing and debating the 'future' of TV, to witness the change in the industry and the way we consume its content is in itself an intrigue.
Our first week in New York living in my uncle's house, though there were thousands of TV channels, we still weren't sure what to watch. In the beginning, I would always click through the TV guide and ultimately ended up watching news or sports channels. The shows that I want to watch is still never on, even though there is thousands of channels to choose from. I would say that it wasn't until we discover the Netflix remote that we began to pay real attention to the 55 inch LED screen! And that's something worth looking into.... No more CNN or Honey Boo Boo Child..... lol
18.03.2013
TRANSMEDIA WRITING & DESIGN
4 Types of Transmedia: Each of the following corss media types influences the design process and requires slightly different skill-sets
Retroactive: original property comes out of feature films and later decided to make transmedia content to it
- Distinct media platforms or artforms are added after the initial creation of a mono-media project. Can be after initial conception, production or release. Most common type of inter-compositional project.
- eg: True Blood - Prequel campaign for Alan Ball's TV series - ellaboration of the experience of the world. (true-blood drink) it's not providing you new information, but it's contributing to your experience of the world
Proactive: Pokemon, Matrix
Intra-compositional: Avatar
Inter-compositional: reality games
* Crucial factor: Determine a theme - the core of what's actually happening - it's a way to have continuity
- Transmedia-suitable themes are "positive" (Gomez), and they can be about "wish fulfilment" (Schell)
Story Analysis
Story
- What is your story?
- Break the story into 5, 10, or 15 plot points
Media
- What is its primary medium? (Tv, theratre, book...)
Content
- Main characters, and groupings?
- What is the theme of the story?
Jimmy Thomson - How does the character generally see the world; how does the world generally see the character?
10.03.2013
Creative Boom and Economic Shift
"Our economy is moving from an older corporate-centered system defined by large companies to a more people-driven one."
Florida mentions in the text that in the age of high technology, "geography is dead," which is very true and interesting. However the notion of "location" is more important than ever as she further explains, 'Creative people don't just cluster where the jobs are. They cluster in places that are centers of creativity and so where they like to live.'
"Great cities are places where people from virtually any background are welcome to turn their energy and ideas into innovation and wealth," Jane Jacobs.
- Multidimensional and diver is the key
- Creative climate and business climate is interlinked.
"Where people once found themselves bound together by social institutions and formed their identities in groups, a fundamental charaacteristic of life today is that we strive to create our own identities. It is creation and re-creation of the self, often in ways that reflect our creativity, that is the key feature of the creative ethos."
The texts emphasises on the importance of staying ahead and pushes developments of new forms of cohesion appropriate to the Creative age.
The New Economy is the "emergences of a new society and a new culture - a new way of life..."
The transformation of everyday life
The big questions of the emerging creative age: What do we really want? What matters in our lives?
The reading clarifies the many changes and shifts in modern cultural but I think might over glorified the creative class as the major driving force of economic growth... perhaps sensationalises the creative types? However, I find Florida's mentioning of the change in our conception of time, completely morphed and reformed fascinating. It sort of relates to Roland Barth's "From Work to text" except on the notion of Make and do!
"We are in fact work at times when we are supposed to be off and play when we are supposed to be working."
- it's also a lot to do with the way the new gernation desires a different way of living/ lifestyle one that can be quite idealistic but comes with great potential
- embracing the creative way of doing things and how that has changed the approach to our work (Make and Do)
It's sort of quite rebellious if you think about it, the desire to break out from conformity.... choosing a creative path rather than a secure one?
"Why are we choosing to live and work like this? why do we want this life or think that we do?"
The 3T of Economic Development: Technology, Talent and Tolerance
"Greater and more diverse concentrations of creative capital in turn lead to higher rates of innovation, high-technology business formation, job generation and growth."
I think its correct to say that diversity and creativity are crucial to innovation, but it is supplementary to economic growth and at best propels it.... In the current economic climate, companies and corporation that failed to value the importance of both won't withstand and hence be taken over the ones that does. Because their product won't be desirable for vast consumers.... You don't want your product to seem old, cliche, predictable and boring...
"In virtually every industry.... the winners in the long run are those who can create and keep creating."
It is also interesting to think that if I were studying in asian countries, we would never be given these kind of reading. It doesn't necessarily mean that it's a bad thing, just showed the difference in culture between the west and the east... In asia people values efficiency and productivity and view them as the crucial factor to economic growth, whereas in Western cultural, the value of innovation and creativity is much more prominent.
"The deep and enduring changes of our age are not technological but social and cultural."
Key Principles:
- Creative agents cluster around other creative agents, reinforcing each other's productivity.
- Creative agents then come together to form larger economic units or firms.
- These firms then locate in cities where they grow and develop. Cities in turn grow and develop as locations for creative agents and firms.
07.03.2013
Public service annoucnements....
- Work attachment's - you mandatory 80hrs must be completed my end of MI2 - but DO IT NOW (Make an appointment to see me or Paul ASAP)
- Career Development and employment is a student service open to you all! (Student service center, build 14.4)
The MI I Challenge...
"In virtually every subject area, our knowledge is incomplete and there are problems are waiting to be solved. We can address the holes in our knowledge and those unresolved problems by asking relevant questions and then seeking answers through systematic research."
Pay off
By the end of the semester...
you ough to knoe more about your chosen topic than US (or quite frankly you haven't done enough work).
you should be able to claim to have real insight and expertise within your selected field (and be able to prove it with your report!)
The work
- The work must be published - via a website
- Mandatory presentation sessions - all day Thursday 6th June. Extra marks are allocated to those who stay the whole day
- Also (brief) progress presentations in Week 8-9 lecture time.
- The final reports will equate to approx 2500 words of authored content per student.
Key Due dates
Week 4 - project brief
Week 6 - individual annotated bibliography
Week 8-9 - work in progress presentation
Week 13 - Thursday 6th June all day presentation session!
Week 14 - final report + reflective self assessment
Media industries - link to this notion
- Creative class (reading: Richard Floria)
- The notion of the Creative industries is a recent one (massive research centre in Queensland)
- Research needs to be relevent and engage directly with industry issues
We want to extend an invitation... to consider media and content prodcuction from a different point of view...
Tutorial:
- What big picture 'media issues' does this clip alert us to?
- How might the issue apply/ be experienced in a different national context?
- If you were researching this area what sort of things would you want to find out/ learn?
- How is research being practice in this example?
05.03.2013
Learning Outcomes:
- Design and produce a transmedia artefact
- Work collaboratively in a multi-disciplinary project group
- Investigate and analyse the convergent landscape as expressed in theory and practice
- Be able to direct and evaluate your own learning
Learning Tasks
Research presentation (30%)
- Research the practice and or theory of transmedia production and give an 8 minute presentation (Live+digital copy)
- Completed in pairs
- Staggered delivery in workshops weeks 4-1
Transmedia Project (50%)
- Develop, produce and present a transmedia work based on an existing royalty-free short story.
- Completed in group of 5
- Peer Moderated
- Deliver the project and project bible Friday of week 11 - present the project in Monday seminar space week 12 (digital copy 1 week later)
Learning Tasks (20%)
- Develop and monitor and individual learning program and write and 800 - 100 word report
- self assessed
- We will track your learning prgram in the workshops at key points during the semester
- Submit grades, written report and learning program document in week 13
Resources
- Seminars and Workshops
- Blackboard
- Libary Guide
- Prescribed text - Andrea Philips. A creators guide to transmedia storytelling
- PP1.13 Research Repository
- #pp113 on Twitter
- The techs and Building 9 basement
Seminars...
- intro to PP1
- No seminar (labour day)
- Intro to Transmedia - Christy Dena
- Producing Transmedia - Sue Maslin
[Easter Break] - Transmedia Audience - Emma Beddows
- Transmedia in Practice - Astrid Scott and PP2 studio selection
- Gamification - Huge Davies
- Designing for the web - Michael Dunbar
- - 11. - No Semiars
- Student project presentations
Workshops
- Intro and Set up - weel 1-2 (2w)
- Develop concept - week 3-5 (3w)
- Produce project - week 6-10 (5w)
- Deliver and present - weel 11-13 (3w)
RMIT - Libary Guide http://rmit.libguides.com/pp1
Focus: Transmedia, collaboration, self-direction
Convergence culture
- Technological convergence
- Economic convergence
- Social or organic convergence
- Cultural convergence
- Global convergence
- Media convergence...
- (What does convergence mean?...)
What is transmedia narrative?
" Transmedia storytelling represents a process where integral elements of a fiction get dispersed systematically across multiple delivery channels for the purpose of creating a unified and coordinated entertainment experience. Each medium creates a unique spin on the content.
Emma Beddows
Defining Transmedia Storytelling: A difficult task
- 'The flow of content across multiple media channels' (Jenkins, 2003, p1)
- Adaptation versus transmedia: an emphasis on narrative expansion rather than textual expansion
- World building as cultural geography
What is not Transmedia:
- Current franchise licensing system generates content which is typlically redundant, watered down, or riddled with sloppy contradictions (Jenkins, 2006, p105)
- Didn't expend, just replicated, franchising
- Rebranding versus expanding - like batman
Contemporary Transmedia Projects
- The term transmedia storytelling did not enter the public dialogue until the end of the 20th century with the release and success of "The blair Witch Project (1999) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a_Hw4bAUj8A
What is The Matrix?
- The matrix is an example of transmedia storytelling
- 'Each medium does what it does best'(Jenkins, 2003, p3)
- Synergistic storytelling - the cooperation of various creative hands (Jenkins, 2006)
09.11.2012
04.11.2012
The city is the lights that illuminates its scape,
Like the surface of the moon,
When without its source, a Bel Air.
27.10.2012
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