Angus's Weblog

Final project reserches started in the holiday

chy55223 — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 22:41:00 +0000

I went back to my country in Christmas holiday and looking back 6 months ago, I was not very familiar with my homeland because I was not much concern the news happned in my country when I was in UK, however, that earth quake which happened in May 12 in Sichuan was the most impressive for me. In addition, my home is located in Sichuan Provence which bring me a lot ideas and motivations. Moreover, when I was home in X’Mas I read a book named We Have Choesn To Be Strong When Facing Disaster. This book is mainly talking about the young generation’s story and teaching the public in some touching stories.

Therefore, the book insproed me to think about my final project idea should be related to the background of earth quake in Sichuan, and there must be something people want to know and see.

First idea for the final project

Our final project will be totally finished in May 15, it is almost the same time with the earth quake just happened in last year on May 12. I gona see something changed or some people even then children here grown in the only one year.

Background: On January 2, the CCTV (china central television) report a news about a famous boy called cola boy because when he was saved out form the collapses and he said immediately that I want to drink a glass of cola with ice, and now he has a successful amputation and came out the hospital. However, his life is chaned by this disaster, there must be something we concerned.

http://news.163.com/08/0527/03/4CU0UVAC0001124J.html

My idea is that make an interview with the boy and his family and shot around his new life, from a sound boy to be a disability, and we could dig more detail and changes from himself.

Second idea fo the final
Last term, we have already reserched on theme of memory and I wrote the final essay of 300MC, it is talking about the disaster fime with Cloverfield, and at that time I showed a picture the girl didn’t want a Chinese student embraces and farewell with the Russian counselor before leaving. This is a very big memory for everybody. And in the UK, news report has not told audenices the detail of someone’s story and I recongnize the chinese people living in UK who does not know one year later what changed in people.

Mollon (2003) mentions about memory in the journal of The Scientific Review of Mental Health Practice which is talking about Freud’s Theories of Repression and Memory, he says that “a person’s life were all recorded accurately somewhere in the mind, like a continual video-recording, ready to be accessed if only the memories could be released from repression.” http://www.srmhp.org/0202/review-01.html

Therefore, people must be attracted.

My idea is make a serial program last about 20 mins and we collect 3 or 4 stories behind the earth quake and focus on the people.

Researches on My Artefacts

chy55223 — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 18:21:14 +0000

1. Spectacle

Online dictionary shows us the word “spectacle”: something exhibited to view as unusual, notable, or entertaining; especially, an eye-catching or dramatic public display by an object of curiosity or contempt.

This is the online dictionary’s explaining of the theme. “Exhibit”, “unusual”, “notable” etc. are the key means of spectacle. And at the first time of my first artifact I want to show my idea about it using pictures because pictures can exhibit something directly and I should use some photos in unusually, notably, eye-catchingly and the subject should be public display. Therefore, my opinion is that show something not very usual or common. However, for a foreigner, the best pictures are not common and usual which must be our country’s society or views.

Through another module 300MC, I learned a famous people – Debord (1967) made out one famous theory – spectacle of society and published the book of the society of the spectacle. He was a Marxist theorist, French writer; also as a filmmaker, he made six films between 1952 and 1978, and one of them named On the Passage of a Few Persons (Through a Rather Brief Unity of Time). He points out that “People can see nothing around them that is not their own image; everything speaks to them of themselves.”

I think Debord’s respective tells us if people do not see anything around them they cannot image the spectacle in their own image. So I want to show the pictures which are not every Chinese people see them before and these are the original spectacle of China. For me, the trip of Tibet is very valuable so that it is a spectacle of china and fantastic views. Back to the first sentence, the sights of Tibet itself is a kind of public display; actually, using the pictures can show the basic spectacle in my opinion.

2. Memory

On this theme, I am mainly researching on two films. One is a disaster film which we saw it in seminar group named Cloverfield; another is an old movie titled Face Off as this one is very close on “changing memories”.

Mollon (2003) mentions about memory in the journal of The Scientific Review of Mental Health Practice, says that “a person’s life were all recorded accurately somewhere in the mind, like a continual video-recording, ready to be accessed if only the memories could be released from repression.”

In other words, people in the real life records all the time in their minds included everything good or bad. Then, film as a media form just likes the “repression” as the catalyst to recall the memory of people’s recordings in mind.

My Firstly opinion is that, I choose Cloverfield (2008) as my research subject because the film made me recall something happened in my homeland, the earthquake, and this film talks about something unknown attacked New York City and the sense is very truthful because the director Matt Reeves use the home camera to shoot this film and made it in a truth way. And the frightened people, the Brooklyn Bridge collapsing and the destroyed Statue of Liberty just like the “repression” to make me memory the earthquake in China.

I got an official number of the earthquake of Sichuan causes 69,197 people to die in an accident and 18,222 people are missing, totally, the number is 87,419 people. (http://news.sina.com.cn/c/2008-07-21/170415971186.shtml)

And this is a picture about the girl didn’t want a Chinese student embraces and farewell with the Russian counselor before leaving. [The picture comes from Xinhua Agency]

Therefore, one of my opinions is show the memory of the Earthquake in China. I think it is a worth topic to make. But it is a hard to finish without sources.

My second opinion is from researching the film of Face Off (1997) directed by John Woo and played by John Travolta and Nicolas Cage. This film is very enjoyable but easy understanding, it just talks about two men change the face and continuing their story, and makes them change identities. In other words, for other people, they have the other side’s memory.

Therefore, I think changing memory is an easy story to shoot and edit in my artifact of memory.

3. Power

First research is about the day of IDDP (International Day of Disabled Persons) [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Day_of_Disabled_Persons].

It is international disabled person day on annual December 3. On October 14, 1992, the 47th United Nations General Assembly passed a resolution, confirmed December 3 of every year as International Day of Disabled Persons. The day of this year is coming soon, in addition, I saw a disabled man on YouTube and this is a TV program in Korea so that there just is a brief clip on it, but it is enough to prove how powerful of him. (http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=Tv1gCa5Us7Q&eurl=http://chy55223.wordpress.com/)

The second research I want to focus on dream, as according to Freud (1976) in Chapter Ⅲ- The Dream As Wishi-fulfilment of The Interpretation of Dreams, he indicates that “the wish-fulfilment in dreams is often undisguised and easy to recognize, so that one may wonder why the language of dreams has not long since been understood.” Which means dream can dream something you wish in the real life and it will happen in your dream. In my view, Freud tells us this is the power of the dream.

Therefore, I think I will link the two opinions together and make a story about a disabled person can run in his dream.

Artefact 3 – Power of Dream

chy55223 — Thu, 27 Nov 2008 19:54:19 +0000

The third artifact I also choose video to illustrate my idea of the theme – power. Last time Karen said I have a big improvement but I know I need more practices on editing and demonstrate, still, I create a video of story to show my third artifact. And this time I was trying to play the role by myself in my story, and tried to make use of special effects in my clips.

The story is about a man he was in his dream that he was late for his class and he got up very quickly and ran his way from his house through the street and subway to his university building, however, he could not open the door and there was no one answered it. Suddenly he woke up, however, in the real life he is a disability person who doesn’t have the left foot … … (It is reaaaally hard to pretend my left foot …^^) That’s the story I want to show the power of dream because someone cannot do something he really want to do in the real life but the dream can give him a platform to get the experiences, and in their dreams it must be eager for the things which cannot do it in their real lives, but dreams can make it happen. That’s the power of the dream.

I got this idea from the TV program from YouTube to show the person who lives strongly in the world without arms and legs. (I have already posted it on my blog – the last article below) that’s very very deep impressiveness for everyone who watch it. So I got one idea about my artifact. The second idea – dream came from my classmate Carrie’s first artifact that someone could dream the future. That means dream is a magic phenomenon in people’s daily life but still common. However, dream filled with powerful imagination, people can dream anything you want, therefore, that’s the point of my artifact’s idea – mix the two idea together because disability people can make their wishes easily come true in their owns’ dream. So I made the story come out.

Research on my artefact 3 – Power

chy55223 — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 01:32:46 +0000

Today I watch a TV clip on YouTube which talks about a man who hasn’t legs and arms. I was shocked and I cried for the power of human ability of living. I am sure everyone will have something want to say after watching it. That’s a vivid human power and I think as a media person we need to find something true in our lift surrounding us which those that give us an unimagined power. That’s the reason why I watched it I feel a strong powerful human life come to my mind. Hope everyone can watch it.

Reflecting on my Artefact 2

chy55223 — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 22:36:31 +0000

In my second artefact I found it was not a very difficult work to do but hard to do it very well.
I know in this artefact I made a big improvement on my first artefact and from a no self-confidence new media student to have more confidence of changing my produce skills. I learnt a lot from my first artefact, at least I know how to organize simple videos.

In the second artefact, I think I need to make my analyses ability stronger and stronger, and I should try some new idea, sometimes I have a good idea and theme but I cannot illustrate it in a comfortable way to show. In this artefact, the story is old but I always worry about maybe people cannot understand what I try to express. But now I found it is unnecessary because people can understand a simple story from my video not script. However, if you want to try something new, scrip is going to be a best way to show. I will absorb the experience of this artefact into the third one, scrip is just helping to record and act but the scene is the best way to play.
Further more, I need to improve my shoot skill of camera, and I also think I still have to change a lot in my development. And thanks Karen gave me lots of useful suggestion.

Reflecting on my Artefact 1

chy55223 — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 21:57:14 +0000

In my first artefact, I just put me into a fresh level of media production, and I think I was totally misunderstand what is a real video or a film that must should be a story or something you want to tell audiences. So this artefact I just used some photos I was taken before in china and that’s fantastic pictures but lacked of story because people who saw them just got the sight of it and there were no any relationship linking together. It was a unsuccessful show.

However, though this artefact I found that how to organize a video, firstly I need to think about the theme of my video idea or make a story. Take this artefact for example, I selected many pictures that are very amazing, but I need a story or some kind of theme in that picture which means pictures not just pictures, there must have something want to tell. That’s the biggest issue in my first artefact I need to improve and learn. But the first artefact is a very good experience for me in my research study. Therefore I have much space to improve and I am looking forward my second artefact.

Artefact 2 – Memory

chy55223 — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 04:17:18 +0000

Change Memory

Something I Need To Say

Last week I talked to Karen about my study situation and she gave me a lot of good suggestion on my media study, I think I could do and I know that I choice this subject means I have to face to my weakness and I shouldn’t fear it so I made the decision to take a short video for my second artifact. And this is my first time to do a real video recording and editing and I learned lots of basic editing technique skills through this time and I researched these softwares by myself, so there must be some disadvantages but I have confidents that I will improve my skills better and better.

Ideas From

For this memory theme video I watched some MVs and movie clips and I found and built my idea from a short Chinese video named Special Task J (part 1)

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=tsiUxIKrOKU.

At the end part of this video clip it showed that they burned her photos and that means her memories were burned too, and they took all her old memories and made her a new life of killer. And last month in 310MC class we saw lots of surrealist films, and in my view surrealism is a big strong expression way to tell audiences a truth. Therefore, I thought out of my own idea about the cards and memories and made the surrealist video named change memory.

My Story

This is story about a boy who thinks himself is unhappy and there is no happy memories in his mind. And also there is a fortune teller in a small town and he owns 8 magic cards which can copy anyone’s memory. The boy has a neighbor and she is always laughing and he had never seen her sadness. So he finds the fortune teller and asks him to copy some of memories of her and change them to his memory. Then the teller makes his wish comes true but the boy find that the girl’s memory are not all nice when he opened these memory cards he chooses. At the end of this story the fortune teller tells us a truth of life and principle.

Method

In my artifact I invited my friend Daniel to help me and play the role of fortune teller and Lisa hold a light to help my recording. And I used Sony HC28E Mini DV to shot and some frames with tripod but some of them by my hands. And I used Premiere Pro 2.0 to edit the whole video.

Artefact 1 (Final Version)

chy55223 — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 23:25:15 +0000

My understanding of SPECTACLE:

Spectacle is a special scene in any media products such as videos, news articles and photography, and it is a kind of communication of creation.

⑴ In videos, it is presented by every moving frame. Viewers can get this feeling directly by their eyes.

⑵ In news or magazine articles, words are the only way to present it, just the reader needs through imagination of it with his or her mind.

⑶ In photography, spectacle is a special theme because audiences cannot get it directly from the stop scene, they should add their minds and figure out what is this picture’s communication.

My artefact initial idea:

For me, I am going to choose photography to present my artefact in 3 reasons. Firstly, I am totally a freshman in the subject of media production and my major in China is broadcasting. So I don’t really know how to make a video but actually I am learning it now. Secondly, I am very interested in photography and how to create a powerful picture. Therefore, I use photos to make my first artefact. Finally, I took a lot of photos in the most beautiful and interesting places this summer in China. And I will select some of them to make them into video.

My artefact promotional idea:

From my feeling of spectacle I think “nature” is the best idea to present it because god created the world and human, just like the people created the films. So I will create some pictures in three places of China – Tibet, Jiuzhaigou and Chongqing City. I believe the nature sight can present the original spectacle.

My artefact working process:

Definition of my photos‘ source:

① Tibet was the most popular “key word” in the West media in 2008.

② Jiuzhaogou Valley in Sichuan Province where was hit by an 8 magnitude earthquake on May 12^th.

③ Chongqing City is a beautiful modern city which called small Hongkong included the night view and very famous food, also my hometown.

Research method:

All the pictures are original photos and I would like to make it into a video and add the sound of music.

Research process – some problems and difficulties:

At first, I want to make all the pictures together and insert the information in front of each place photos get started. But I have some troubles with using editing software that means I don’t know how to insert words and information into the middle of the video. However, I want to make sure everyone can understand and clear that where were them taken. Fortunately, I have used this simple software before – Windows Movie Maker, so I divided my video into 3 clips and each clip is going to show only one place.

After done that, I use Adobe Audition 3.0 to cut 3 Chinese musics and match each clip.

① First sound: Zhang Liangying – Impression of West Lake Rain

② Second sound: Yulan – Every Dog Has His Day

③ Third sound: 3^rd Coast – Bye Bye Love

Finished all of them, the last step is using my WordPress username to sign up a YouTube account and upload my clips: http://www.youtube.com/user/chy55223

Analysis my photography：
Tibet

It is a magic and mystical destination. They said that the sky, the land and the water here are all given by god. It is a pure and sacred place. And it will give a presentation of original spectacle; I took them in Potala Palace, Qinghai Lake and Lake Yamdrok.

Jiuzhaigou Valley

In my mind, it is the most beautiful place in China and many travelers are attracted by the water here. The water here called crystal water and a “paradise on Earth”. So I took a lot of water pictures and show to show the spectacle here. That is the point inspired me.

Chongqing City

The main point inspired me to take pictures here not just because this is my hometown but also this city has a great night view and famous food such as hotpot and Szechuan. It is the biggest municipality like Shanghai, I am very honor to show it to everyone.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chongqing

P.S. Original Pictures

Artefact 1 （draft）

chy55223 — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 22:35:21 +0000

Group 2 – Spectacle

Spectacle is a special scene, and it is in any media products such as video, news article and photography and it is even a feeling of creation. In my opinion, nature itself is filled with strong spectacle, city and his culture as well. Their spectacle is powerful. In my media artifact, I would like to choose some photos about nature and city which have been taken by me. I believe this kind of photography can present the original spectacle in my artifact and I want to research this theme from the natural products although it is simple.

It is very honor for a Chinese student to present our own country to British students. Therefore, I selected some photos to complete my artifact into video clips. My photography is presented three places in China which are that you perhaps want to know in 2008 because two of them have happened something this year. The first destination is Tibet which was the most popular “key word” in the west media. The second is Jiuzhaigou Valley in Sichuan province which was also hit by an 8 magnitude earthquake on May 12^th. At last, I will show my hometown including the night view and very famous food here. All the photos are original pictures. Hope u would enjoy and understand my feeling of that nature is the original powerful spectacle.

Part Ⅰ Tibet

Part Ⅱ Jiuzhaigou

Part Ⅲ Chongqing City

Jan Švankmajer

chy55223 — Sun, 12 Oct 2008 21:24:11 +0000

Jan Švankmajer is a famous Czech animation director and also a surrealist artist. He is good at using stop-motion technique, and his ability to make surreal, nightmarish and yet somehow funny pictures. I saw some parts of his films on YouTube such as Dimensions of Dialogue and Food. And we saw Little Otik (Otesánek) in class which is a deep depression in my mind. It tells about a childless couple really wants to have a baby but they cannot. The husband digs up a tree stump that looks like a baby. He cleans it up and then presents it to his wife. She starts to treat it like a real baby and the baby grows up every day. In my opining, surrealist film is a kind of satires. It is a best way to tell and educate people what is the real. And his films like a children’s story and every frame has different purposes. The surrealist film is aim to contrast the real life, and through this way, people will have a different experience, however, this experience is just the people real thinking and really want to do in their deep hearts.