theOven

Part of our assessment of my Media Project 3 subject is that I have to hand in 8 blogs, 2 on my individual project, 2 on my collaborative project 2 on my modules and 2 on topics related to media production. And as always I struggle to get inspiration for the last blog. I know that I would find a perfect topic to write about tomorrow, when I’m riding my bike to footy and my real worry should be kicking a couple of goals against Canterbury so we can get the first win of the season. But it will be too late then.

I have all my blogs except the last one, that is suppose to be on one of my modules this semester. Now I have to admit that this semester has been all about producing work, and I haven’t attended as many lectures, seminars, modules etc as I should. And at the moment I can’t even remember all of the modules that we had. I remember our last module that was on publicity, but I have already done an entry on that, so that’s no good. I do however recall a module on some DVD authoring software, Pro-tools…I don’t think I attended, but I wish I had now.

I just don’t like attending classes where we have to sit and learn software. Watching someone else use a program, will never be as good as trying it for your self. I actually like to go on the Internet and find tutorials (there are so many) and learn it by using it. I always do it with when I want to learn new things on some of my favourite software (that doesn’t sound like a nerd at all…). Especially Photoshop and Flash has a lot out there available on the Internet. Sitting in a classroom and watching was how I started to learn, but isn’t for me anymore. I like to run my own modules, learn from trying, and that’s maybe one of the most valuable things that University has taught me.

Hmmm, I wonder if this will count as a log on modules…?!

I have finished putting together the Master of Media Production showcase for 2006, and I have to say that it is a diverse group that is showing their projects on Monday June 19. It isn’t any secret that the master’s of media this year is a mixed group with different cultural backgrounds, which is reflected in the wide range of topics, format and visuals desicions in this years projects. As we are expecting a full house and 170 people in the cinema, so it should be a good night full of intersting and engaging media productions. Hopefully everyone that will attend are able to join us at Transport bar after, to have a chat and to celebrate with the graduates.

Venue: ACMI (Federation square), Cinema 1
Date: Monday June 19
Time: 7.00 pm

For a production to be a commercial success, a strong marketing campaign paramount. Huge amount of money and time is put into making a film or television production a success. Just have a look at the new Tom hanks film, The DaVinci Code, which it is impossible to ignore, even if you haven’t read the book, or want to see it at the cinemas. It is everywhere, on billboards, on television and in the newspapers.

This kind of attention, doesn’t just come by itself. It is a prosses, including a whole crew of people working to draw attention to the movie. The same goes for television shows. Normally all television networks will have people working only on getting their program space in the newspaper, radio and other media. I recently had a couple of lectures with one of these persons, one from the ABC.

What supprised me was how little this person knew about design. It is clear that she knew what should be in a Press kit, which is what they call the dokument that they send out to media outlets to promote a production. It should include profile shots of actors, action shots, graphics etc. The marketing department at the ABC gets all this and have to put it together into a press kit. This is where the supprise comes in;

With all these professional material these people get, the sit down and write a press kit in microsoft WORD. And then they copy and past pictures… Now for a profeesional company like the ABC they should have a marketing department that know something about graphic design and software like Photoshop, Illustrator and InDesign or Quark Xpress. It nice to have a good catch frase and a good synopsis, but if it is in word I would think that it would loose some of its appeal as it looks very unprofessional. When you put so much money into a production and marketing, putting a nice design would make a difference and it wouldn’t cost much.

I know that the aim is to get information out there, but word is not a software that should be used on professional printed work. I just wonder if they all do the same or if 7, 9 and 10 does it differently, anyone know?

This semester I have done two projects where I had to receive footage from others, and I found this to be a pain. I have received everything from VHS to BETA Digital, and that is very time consuming to deal with many different formats. The thumb rule when passing on footage to someone to edit, is to keep it digital.

VHS is a format of the past, because when you transfer from analogue to digital and visa versa, you loose quality. When transferring from digital to digital, you can still lose quality, but much less.

Since footage has to go through a few processes before it has been finalised, it is important that the loss in quality is kept to a minimum in every transactions.

It is possible to do mistakes when dealing with digital formats as well. Remember that if people ask for a DVD, don’t burn one with menus, buttons and extra features. Burn a DVD with a data file that has non-or minimal compression. DVDs with menus and all that has to be ripped, or dubbed, and those processes include loss in quality. Regarding the file format on the data file, it all depends on which editing software the editor is using. QuickTime’s .mov files and Microsoft’s .avi files will work on most systems. However they do have different codex, so as a rule use .mov if the editor is using a Mac or Final Cut and .avi if the editor is on a PC and using Avid.

However the safest option is to give a digital tape, like miniDV, DVCAM, DVCPRO or BETA. It is smart to ask before you deliver you footage to prevent problems later. Which digital tape is best depends on how advanced the person’s system is. When I received my BETA digital, it was too advanced for all the systems that RMIT could provide, and I had to send it back, and got a DVD with a data file back. However BETA Digital is the best quality you can get in digital tape.

Have a look at this link for explainations to what each format stands for.

If you click on the Redbacks Handball link on top of this blog you can check out the newest, biggest and best handball club in Victoria. Redbacks Handball was established in June 2005 and is already one of the most dominating clubs in Victoria.

Handball is not a big sport in Australia and it’s mostly played by Interantional students and people with connection to Europe or French colonies. Handball is the second biggest team sport in Europe after soccer, and is a huge sport in all former French, German and Spanish colonies, even the small former French Island of New Caledonia has more registered players than Australia. In total the sport is played in over 150 countries and is one of the most popular sports during the summer olympics (only sport that sold all the tickets during the Athens 2004 olympics, and voted the second most popular sport by the spectators, after swimming, in the Sydney 2000 olympics).

The Redbacks is a part of RMIT Union Sport and Recreation and has at the moment two men’s teams and a womens team in the Victorian metropolitan competition. The webpage is the main resource the club has to recruit new players, and even if the club has lots of International players, Redbacks also has one of the highest numbers of Australian players in their teams much thanks to the webpage.

The players comes from different background, from the most experienced international players, to those brand new to the sport. At the moment we have players from: Australia, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, France, Germany, Canada, Mauritius, Hong Kong, Malaysia and Turkey. If you think this sounds exciting, have a look at the webpage!

The Award of Excellence is the Annual VIS (Victorian Institute of Sport) award of recognition. I just went to the Award of Excellence 2005 recently and had a blast. The Awards was at the Crown Casino, in the Palladium room. You can read about the winner on this link. The ceremony was only one hour long, followed by three-hour cocktail party, with drinks and finger food. And I have to say that I was glad I didn’t have time to eat dinner that day because the food and drinks were awesome!

The reason for me being there was not that I’m an excellent athlete, well I am, but the VIS doesn’t recognise that. Before Christmas last year the VIS’ PR department approached me if I could do a little film for their awards night as a part of my masters degree. I accepted with joy and since I have a passion for sport, this was the task for me, however I had now idea what the award of Excellence was or what I was in for.

The task was easy enough, make a 10-minute long video with the theme: A day in the life of a VIS athlete. I was to shoot some of the footage and then the different coaches would provide me with the rest. The filming went ok, but when I started to receive footage from the coaches that’s when the trouble started… I got everything from VHS to BETA Digital, the difference in quality was huge and it was hard to see what I could do with it. To my surprise my University was not able to convert or play the BETA Digital, so I had to send it back to the TV station that I got it from. So I couldn’t use half of the footage because it was too bad and half because it was too good. It was a mess and I got more and more frustrated. Then to my luck I got some really good footage that saved the project. However, this was only 4 weeks before it had to be finished. To other students frustration I booked the editing suit at Uni and sat there for 3 weeks plus my Easter break. I finished it the day before my deadline and I was ok with the end result, not happy, just ok. I then had to give it to a TV channel that was doing all the multimedia for the event.

I showed up for the event with my suit on, and butterflies in my stomach. I have never showed one of my projects in a forum like that before. When it was time for my project to be filmed, I was far from confident. It didn’t help that the TV channel had colour graded it darker, and changed it from 16:9 format to 4:3 format… The quality was also worse that I delivered it in. because even if they told me that a QuickTime format was ok, it wasn’t and they had to convert it which meant loss in quality.

I was glad it was over when they started to hand out awards again. However people liked it and the VIS was very happy with the result. I guess that is the most important part, and I’m glad that not everyone is a media person. I still feel that it just wasn’t good enough, however, there are few things that can’t be fixed with a good beer and gourmet food…just which they had a cheese platter there.

Bollywood has become a very popular genre in the last couple of years, however I haven’t been able to follow this trend before recently. Lately my flatmate and me have, for no reason what so ever, started to watch the Sunday Bollywood film session on SBS. I have only had SBS for 2 months, and therefore haven’t had the choioce of watching non-western programming on my television. I turned it on one Sunday and there it was, and I ended up watching it.

The first Bollywood film I watched on SBS was; Don’t say a word, a filming claiming to be one of the most successful movies coming out of Bollywood the last couple of years. It is a film that has a very thin storyline about a woman with a kid. Her husband has left her to go to America 7 years earlier. The story starts when her boss gives her the task of finding a wife for his son. Instead of finding a wife for him, she falls in love decides to marry him. When they are preparing for the wedding, her former husband comes back from America to reclaim his wife. The women have to decide; what is most important of a wife’s loyalty and her happiness? She chooses happiness.

Even if the story is thin, it does show that the Indian society have evolved from what still happens in it’s neighbour countries and it gives a powerful message to countries like Pakistan where Bollywood is big. Visually it is a very interesting composition. The cinematography varies from old fashion musicals with Swiss Alps etc, to scenes that more reminds of P Diddy’s new music video, and sometimes I thought that the main female character was back in the bikini contest under the waterfall at the Miss World pageant.

The next movie I saw was: Devdas, this is more of historical drama including struggle for social acceptance, revenge and family honour. Again there are a lot of moral dilemmas and quests for explanations. This one was more traditional and therefore full of lectures about how a woman should behave. When the man hits his wife as a sign of love, so she can have a scar to remember him by, then they have taken it too far.

The movies are almost 3 hours long, which gives heaps of time to play around with music and cinematography, however the stories are not strong enough for 3 hours, and you visually feel pretty full when you’ve seen a Bollywood film. It’s full of clichés, which I found very amusing and entertaining like; crying in the rain, walking away from each other and turning around when the other person just have turned, that happened, twice in the same scene. And then there was the classic Bollywood dancing scenes. I didn’t know that Bollywood had elements of western culture in them, like nightclubs etc.

I have to say I mostly enjoyed it, so I understand why they are popular and are becoming more and more popular. However, there are two things: why do they randomly say stuff in English when they speak? There is no English in the lyrics when they sing, and it’s not like they use certain English words, as the use of English was very random, and words were sometime spoken in English and other times in Hindi. And second, what is it with Indians and Switzerland? There were a couple of scenes with the main characters dancing in the Swiss Alps, which did not fit with the storyline, cinematography or anything else connected to the film, why did it have to be there? Anyone have a good answer? I’m very fascinated, it’s a good alternative to the Hollywood culture.