Project progression

Byrichard
Reading Time: < 1 minute

I’m only a few words away from the completion of the dissertation but over the past two nights I haven’t had as much sleep as I would like to have had, thanks one night to myself and thanks the next night, to the people I’m living with.

It’s a problem when you’re kept awake till 4 am and sometimes I wonder whether I shouldn’t take a hotel room and sleep there every few nights, just to catch up on the lack of sleep. of course it’s a waste of money so I would prefer not to.

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Rag week is fun

Byrichard

I was at the Roxy bar a few days ago in central London and people were cheering. They had just seen the proper version of the Rag week trailer and they loved it. I had been asked to shoot some material and edit other material for Thursday evening when the rag review took place.

I went to two or three of the events. I went to the school disco night and it was great fun, between people dancing, others being hit by the death squad and others just being really friendly it was a really good night. I met a lot of friendly people and there’s such a contrast to my own university. When media students see a camera they’re going to be so angry at you for filming, being to used to being behind they don’t appreciate it as much. I must admit that I feel the same way.

One individual that marked me is a girl that was on crutches who wanted to dance for the camera. there wasn’t quite enough light so we don’t see as much as would make the video great fun but it’s still entertaining.

I was on a platform and three girls came to join. Sandstorm was playing so I had to dance, in memoriam of when I was a fresher back in the South West of England.

A girl took the camera from me and I danced for her so I’m going to have to include that footage in the edit as a good laugh.

Moonragger had a different feel to it, partly because I was tired from the previous night. Some people needed to look futuristic and whilst some took aluminum foil and wrapped it around others took cling film. One person was in a spacesuit but I didn’t manage to get that on tape.

Lot’s of people danced, lot’s of people enjoyed the night. One attractive girl told me to “f off with the camera” so I moved away and filmed more people. She came back and told me to f of again. It’s to be expected but what people haven’t understood is that I film movement, I film when something interesting is in front of the camera. Turn your back to the camera or stop dancing and I’ll understand you’re self-conscious therefore the camera will stop rolling. There’s no point in filming people standing around.

I went to sit down and had some nice moments with people I had only briefly seen in the past. As a guest to the university, I really liked the way people were friendly and open. They want to chat, they want to be filmed, they enjoy the camera and appreciate my company.

It’s so refreshing.

I’m going to add the video within the next few days for people to enjoy.

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It’s been a twelve hour day of editing

Byrichard

I’ve spent around twelve hours editing today and it’s finally getting to resemble something, as I’d like it to be. It’s involved two days of video capture of a variety of material from a number of events around Europe in particular. It’s starting to be a good edit.

Any creative person will tell you that the hardest part of the work is not the work itself but finding the inspiration and finding how to tell the story the most efficiently. If I understood the brief correctly then the edit I’ve done should be well accepted. I should find out by tomorrow morning normally.

I love the editing phase because it’s one of the more creative phases. You’ve got all the material and it’s a matter of sifting through it, finding the best and then applying it to the finished product.

If I get good feedback then I’m looking forward to tomorrow.

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We are living through the media’s golden age.

Byrichard

When I started using comptuers they were nothing more than ega displays with the large floppy disks and games were text based. As I grew older so the games grew to be more complex, from 2d to 3d and then the quality improved.

The television of my youth was limited to five channels and by the 90’s had expanded to twenty plus channels. By 2000 the number had exploded to several hundred channels and that’s just counting the English ones.

The media have progressed. I am in constant contact with everyone by mobile phone for over a decade. I have had minidisk players, i’ve had phones and I’ve had a television in my room.

Now the mobile phone I have replaces all these devices if I so wish. The ipod replaces the radio and the television, the phone replaces the laptop, the minitel and the fax machine.

I have access to the world’s media within two clicks of a mouse, which is no more than a trackpad on an ibook.

Video editing is far simpler. When I wanted to learn to edit I remember that you’d need to get two player/recorders and a third device to control the two machines. We bought Adobe Premiere and the Miro dc30+ and there it was. I spent a weekend learning to edit with pictures of the Mer des Glaces, a glacier in the French Alpes.

Since then I upgraded through the years and my laptop can do all this seamlessly.

We discussed video on demand years ago and that idea was novel, was something which would be hard to implement. Today video on demand is so easy it’s syndicated via RSS feeds. I get my televisual experience via downloaded streams on a daily basis. Radio on demand is certainly here and doing well.

In this week in media one of the presenters said that in the near future media content would become more valuable than oil. It’s an interesting idea.

Are media studies a mickey mouse course when you’ve got free newspapers, you can watch television whilst commuting to and from work? When you share your pictures with friends around the world and computing is no longer the realm of the computer geek I think we’re in the Golden age of media studies and that it may have been one of the most interesting topics to study with the exponential growth of media outlets.

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People love photographs

Byrichard

Video is one of those mediums that is great because it captures several moments and amalgamates them into a sequence. Those moments are with the voices and sounds, the excitement, and more. It’s too much information for most and that’s why video is a hard medium to use at parties.

The more impersonal a video the better it works, within the realms of you being at the event with your friends.

In contrast, photography is far better accepted. People have been using for photographs since before they comprehended what that box with a big piece of glass actually does. As a result, they were desensitized to being photographed. There are no objections and by the time they realize you’ve taken their picture objection is futile.

With video, you point the camera and watch from a distance. It’s not because you’re a stalker or a voyeur but rather because that is the nature of cinéma verité – Kino Glaz.

How can someone be comfortable when they know that what you’re doing is getting a precise recording of both their conversation and expressions. It makes them uncomfortable. It makes me uncomfortable.

That’s why the camera points up as soon as people realise they are being filmed. it’s my signal that I know that they don’t want to be filmed anymore and I move on. Over time people are desensitised to this “invasion” of privacy and there are occasional video lovers. Theatrical people are one example.

During the last two years of High school every night, I would go down and shoot their theatre performances and they’d buy the tape from me. of course, I almost got in trouble with their lecturer but I was not breaching copyright. I was providing them with a visual record of their activities.

Performers also enjoy having copies of their work. Ingyama a few years ago, Anarachic hand and of course last year’s first-year music students. It’s a way for them to show the world what they have produced. Sometimes it’s not good so they prefer to forget about it but when it’s good they’re happy and post it on their websites, whether myspace or specific domain names.

The World Wide Web and the network of networks are not ready for the proper sharing of video at the moment. It’s fine for three or four-minute segments but any longer and you’ll find your audience disappearing. That’s because internet service providers aren’t always giving their customers enough bandwidth. In other cases, it’s just that it’s boring.

The Silent Disco was really well received within a small community in part because it’s anonymous but also because it’s made up of good memories for them. it’s good memories for me too by the way.

My collection of undercroft pictures ended in October and I want it to continue. we’re in March now.

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Time For The Dissertation Re-write

Byrichard

Now that I’ve achieved my goal of getting most of my dissertation written I’m going to take a day’s break and work on another of my assignments to clear my head and also to make sure I complete all assignments by the required date. It’s been a long effort but last night I spent several hours working on my dissertation, getting it up to 8800 words.

The word limit is from 10-12000 words and having almost 8.8K means I’m 1200 words away. With re-writing and clarification of certain points I should easily get up to the word limit that was set out initially. I’m happy about the state of affairs. Over two weeks for editing and cleaning up of the text.

There’s another assignment that I will work on the 22nd of this month and another which I will start working on later today. With the way things are going, I should quite easily be able to meet all the deadlines and have time to be human by the same opportunity. It’s a great feeling. Finally, the glacier that was pressing down on me is starting to melt and I’ll begin to rise up as the pressure is released, much as England is doing since the last glacial age hundreds of thousands of years ago.

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An ode to lost votes

Byrichard

One girl lost my vote a year ago when not turning up to a live interview she was meant to attend, deciding an hour before to cancel

Another lost my vote for not having the strength of character to campaign for herself through a medium like facebook or Myspace.

One lost my vote for her slogan, which I do not appreciate.

Which people are we talking about? We’re all equal. Some have the luxury of misbehaving around uni before going home to their parents to recuperate. Others don’t.

I will vote for those individuals I know. I will those whom I have seen work as a team and those whose friends I know. I will vote for those whom have attempted to make themselves visible or known to me whether in person or online by their own steam.

In retrospect the campaign has been surprisingly dissapointing. Where’s the student newspaper with the candidate’s applications. Where were the flyers for the people running. Where’s the presence of the UWSU elections anywhere within smoke media.

You’ve got voting starting yet do we know any of the candidates outside our circle of influence and friends?

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