Week 7

This week I mainly focused on getting my MPI304 seminar together as I presented on Tuesday. I am the worst public speaker in the history of man kind but I felt the best way to do well at this was to be prepared. I practiced my speech over and over again, made my Power Point and made sure it worked which meant checking all the clips I was showing worked as we could loose marks for technical problems. For some reason the clips I put into my Power Point would insert but would only play the audio no visual, this freaked me out of course. I spoke with Hannah and worked out the best way to view them was just to create a link to the clip on my thumb drive rather than trying to insert it.

I wanted to check everything worked in the theatrette and put my presentation on the computer to check, luckily I did because the one clip I was showing the was on the internet did not want to work because  Flash Player 10 was not installed and it would not let me. I found Patrick who was more than happy to install it for me. 

Knowing that everything worked eased my stress and made me feel more prepared. The presentation itself went fairly well, a few technical issues where I thought I was safe to minimize a clip playing and continue talking only to have it start playing again, luckily I was quick in resolving the issue and hopefully it won't hinder me too much. My presentation went for a good 19 minutes which is great and on a personal note I was quite impressed with myself for not speaking at a hundred miles an hour! I feel my presentation was interesting and informative and was not just endless talking on my behalf but having many visuals makes it less boring for the audience as well as not having endless text on each slide.

Because I had to present this week I was not expected to have done any work on my MPI303 subject so that sits waiting for me to look at the footage I filmed of Marty.

For COM123 I saw the film Inkheart which was very enjoyable. It's a children's movie about "silvertongues" who are people that when they read allowed from a story book whatever the read comes to life and the film rotates around a certain lot of bad story book characters one particular silvertongue accidentally let loose and they do not want to return to their book. Was quite dark in some places and I got scared a few times but I enjoyed and it was well done.

Update on exchange is that I emailed Johannes with the syllabus' of the two subjects I need him to approve and am yet to hear back from him. Fingers crossed!

Happy Easter to everyone and enjoy your holidays or should I say non-contact period!

Week 6

Well over the weekend I attempted my first rough edit. I chose to use the footage of Liam to see if the footage I did have really was usable. Took a bit to sort through all of it but I did put an edit together that wasn't too bad. I had to play around a fair bit with culling out parts that were too long, then I tried to speed up certain sections, I put in a couple of transitions and cuts that I felt worked, as well as freezing a frame (copying and pasting the still over and over again) where the text would eventually go for his answer to why he dances. However the freezing frame getting going jittery and the section just before it was freezing as well but I couldn't get a good look at why because my computer was lagging massively! I defiantly need to work in the Animation Lab to make sure lagging doesn't happen again! Then I turned it into black and white as we had talked about the week before.

Jenny wasn't excited by what I had done but she wasn't upset or anything she could just tell it really was a working rough edit but at least I had started and put what we had talked about into practice. She said similar things to what I thought of cutting it down to only a small amount necessary and speeding sections up, and working more with colour grading. She says it needs a lot of work done to it.

I also still need to work out the timing so it has a stop motion look so that it continues to keep with my original idea even if it's done in a different manner.

I also mucked around in Photoshop with the different text fonts I would use for titles and the question part of the documentary. This is what I created:

In class we all decided the last black strip with white writing would be appropriate for my film for titles and asking the question "I dance because..."

On Thursday I re-shot my footage of Marty. I had decided I wanted to use the corrugated wall outside New Residences on campus or by the corrugated shed just behind there. I also put in for permission to film at the amphitheater behind the council buildings. I couldn't be bothered to film in town so just stuck with my ideas for on campus which is lucky because I was denied by the council. According to the Proddies some students haven't been putting in the proper permission nor following the rules or allowing for enough processing time so they have suspended filming on council property by CSU students until further notice. I think this is really slack because CSU brings in a ridiculous amount of money for Wagga would it really be too much for the council to treat us nicely for once?!

Back to filming Marty he was a lot more relaxed in one sense because it wasn't public property but not in another because it was right next to an open area where many students live. He was dancing really well when someone we both knew decided to come over and watch and this made it awkward because she kept trying to put her two cents worth in for what he should be doing. I found this very frustrating and didn't know how to tell her to go away because our relationship is already tense. It was another learning curve for me to have to ignore an outsiders input as well as give direction in the way I wanted the filming to look. 

It ended up being quite good footage I feel and looking back over the first lot I did I can see that I have improved greatly myself camera wise as well as preparation for each shoot. Being prepared is a must for any assignment but particularly for practical ones as it makes the day run so much smoother and more quickly, another learning curve!

I did a little bit of work on my MPI304 seminar, put into order what I was going to say about each person in each section and where I would place clips and sourcing appropriate clips. Then it was finding appropriate sources on Ladyslaw Warwicz and Willis O'Brien much easier to look for information on O'Brien because he is American.

I finally got to show my photographs for PHT220 to Chris who really liked them which made me feel special for once because usually I'm told they will do and I could possibly use them where as this time Chris was quite complimentary which felt good! He picked out ones for me to use, and a few will need colour correction and cropping but nothing to hard. I am really enjoying this class.

For COM123 I had to see the film Milk which was fantastic. It's set in the 70's in San Francisco and is about Harvey Milk a gay rights activist and the first gay person to be in a government position. Really enjoyed watching this and would recommend it to everyone!

Also this week I had my COM123 first assignment due. It was an essay on the use of Realism and Expressionism within films relating to ones we have watched in class as well as the ones we are assigned to see each week at the movies. I am fairly happy with what I produced I had lots of sources and I felt it made sense by giving lots of examples and I didn't leave sentences and ideas only half finished, so I am quite proud of myself. Fingers crossed Fred thinks so!

Update on me going on exchange to America, well I've been accepted by CSU and have been given a Vice Chancellors grant which is rather lovely! I managed to catch up with Jamie who is one of my course coordinators and he was happy to sign off on the Photography subject I want to take over in the States. Getting hold of Johannes is more difficult he wants me to provide in writing why the two subjects I need him to approve are suitable substitutes to for the subjects I would be taking here that outline workload and content etc. I've emailed Louise who is CSU's exchange program coordinator and she has emailed Leo the Western Illinois liaison for me and I am now awaiting reply for what I am to put in writing for Johannes because I have no idea what each subjects fully entails, I barely no what the ones I am taking over here entail!