Don’t you hate it? All you do is work and work and work, and it feels like as if you have accomplished NOTHING. I seriously hate this feeling! I feel like that’s all I am doing is working my ass off to finally finish something, but I cant do it. Today my group partner and I got together and with the help of my wonderful/amazing boyfriend Geoff, we were able to knock something together =) Though it took a lot longer than I thought and Geoff has a lot of study to undertake, so I spent the whole time thinking that he should go home, but I needed him so badly and I was in this contradiction. I just feel at the moment like nothing is going my way. Geoff says to me, tell me everything, use me as someone you can talk to about anything that is troubling you. Yeh that is fine and I sort of already do but I know how much work he has and it would kill me if he failed or wasn’t happy with his result. He doesn’t realise how much he means to me and all the things I would do for him. I never want to interrupt him, cuz I know he needs to study, but it kills me inside that I cant talk to anyone… I mean I can, people say they are always here for me, but I don’t want to put my stupid problems on anyone else. I cant do this essay!!! Its terrible and I feel inadequate!!! Its horrible…why do I feel this way???!!!
I just feel so snowed over and I suppose you didnt want to read that either….
For the Production B Project I decided to do the Vimeo/YouTube video which looked at the site as a whole and how it operates. Testing its ability to broadcast yourself and let the world see what you have to offer. What is found on YouTube is pretty much anything you type into the search engine, the more tags and views a video has the more likely it will come up in the search and therefore the views and conversation of a certain clip go up. I decided to delve further into to YouTube and show through my own film what I felt YouTube was doing towards to society.
Youtube was first activated on the 15th February 2005 by two men who combined their engineering and creative skills, Chad Hurley and Steve Chen but it was not until November 2005 when the backing came from Sequoia Capital that the YouTube product took off. By summer of 2006 YouTube had become one of the fastest growing sites on the internet and the success for this site was “off the charts.” As stated by the creators themselves Hurley and Chen. As presented by www.evanmichael.com the site claims it is the 5th most popular and outwardly beating the rapid growth of myspace. Hurley also says that the company is now four times larger than Google Video (www.googlevideo.com) and yahoo (www.yahoovideo.com) both of which are trying to take over the top spot, where YouTube now sits.
My video that I am presenting as a YouTube clip goes for 2mins and 2secs. I found this time limit to really suit as for a regular user on YouTube; I find it easier for more people if the clip is shorter does not take so long to buffer and watch it quicker. I believe this is a positive as most people these days want something instantaneously and sitting around for waiting for a clip to load, most people get irritated and go onto something else. So I took the approach to make it shorter so more people would watch it and think about the messages I have placed throughout.
The short film looks at how people are spending more and more time on this site, typing in words that come to mind. There is a high chance that something will come up as there is so much material that has been placed on YouTube it is hard to find a word that something would not come up with at least one clip. I have proved this theory through the middle of my sequence from 26seconds to 1minute and 5seconds. This is the largest piece non-cut in the clip but it was also made the longest to show the audience how there is a large amount of clips to be searched. Throughout the clip it skips from people watching YouTube to a vacant lounge room, park, shopping aisle, road and petrol station. This is my contrasting against the idea that people would –prefer to sit and watch YouTube rather than be outside. As well as the fact the internet has a large quantity to offer a user and it is therefore more inviting to be on the computer than outside or in public places. Prefer to stay in the comfort of an individual’s own home.
The music I used for the clip is simple. A simple bass song performed by my brother with my mum singing in the background, I thought this would be very effective as I want my audience to focus on the screen shots rather than being taken into “another” world by the music. I like the music, feel as if it it doesn’t take away from the film but gives more substance than just being a silent clip, which is something that is hardly ever found on YouTube.
The clip delves into random shots of people posing in front of the camera. This part I placed in to show all the variety that is found on YouTube just from having a video camera and filming someone, adding it to the computer and then uploading it to YouTube and hoping that it will get many views and end up half way across the world being shown and talked about. It is the 15minutes of fame everyday people can get so that they can become their own celebrity. They can feel like people are interested and want to know what they are doing and then go around and chat about it.
It is part of human nature to express and show off to others and YouTube is the perfect medium to use to excel at this. Thus why through my clip I have got different people to do things for the camera to bring to light the idea of what YouTube is used for.
YouTube is the phenomenon that everyone knows about and is quoted all the time. It is a big part of youths lives as well as many adults. Doing this clip was fun and hope my audience understand and get further knowledge of what YouTube’s ultimate influence is on the society.
Over the semester everyone in network media were asked to keep a blog to respond and make more sense of what we have been reading and doing work on. It was a new concept to me as I have never kept a blog before and it was a bit hard in the start getting use to every week making sure I had written something. I was never one to keep a diary or anything, so reflecting for me was a bit hard, and considering I was not quite sure what was expected from a blog for the audience. I have tried throughout the semester to make sure that my blog responds to the criteria, as well as networking it to other sites and informative and looking at the idea of how the audience would enjoy the site.
Looking at my blog, it is suited to teenagers; I have used simple language and a very conversational tone throughout to make it more personal between the user and myself. Nothing too technical and I think the audience are people just beginning with the internet and blogging. Words that most people would probably not know are linked to sites and I think this helps my audience understand what I am trying to say and give them more background on the terminology used through the blog.
Every single one of my blogs has a background on what the lecture and tutorial were like as well as my own personal opinion. I think it shows more understanding especially when you look at it from your own point of view rather than just the lecturer or the tutor. As looking through my blog the audience can grab a light, interesting and simple look at how the internet works and what happens behind the scenes of the World Wide Web. As well as how every user on the internet makes an implication on how the internet works.
From having to use a blog all semester it has finally dawned on me how the social media works on the internet. How people are draw to their interests, but from that they click on hyperlinks and end up going to all sorts of different sites, just from a single click. A user can guide their way around the internet by using search engines, but then when reading blogs, most users if they enjoy blogs from a certain person will use a rss feed to keep up to date which helps the blogger to get more popularity. And once this happens, more and more people will be directed towards the site, through different hyperlinks and other people’s blogs who respect what this blogger has to say.
My blog is set up very simply, to try and attract a larger audience, by not making users feel bombarded with information, colourful images and music and moving words, rather I wanted something straight forward that could be easily be used by all sorts of people. I created it so that there is a clear line between each blog entry and I just use a simple approach. I have hyper linked words I did not know or understood previously to the lecture or tutorial or words I believe people would prefer to have a definition for or learn more about. By doing this I have network my site to other sites, so that users can successfully navigate my site to another site and from there to more sites. I feel like my blogging site, even though it does not have a lot of traffic it still helps people navigate around the internet learning more about it as they go. It is hyperlinked to a lot of sites throughout the internet and I think by making many hyper links around the internet gives my site more validity and encourages people to read what I write and then go from my site to another one, still looking at the same concepts.
The three post I have decided to nominate are “API and Mashup” “Web 2.0” and “Multiplicity.” I feel all these blogs fit the criteria as well as having substance and hyper-linking throughout. They were lectures throughout the semester and I think this gives a broader range of what was covered in the course. They look at what I thought, and what was learnt that week and I think these two components are very important when dealing with a blog. I enjoyed learning about these three blogs throughout the semester as before network media I had never heard of quite a number of things that were mentioned. It was really satisfying learning more about the internet, and being able to use the internet outside of class and think about what it is actually made up of. The sites we were shown especially in API and Mashup were really fun and interesting as they used more than one site combined to create an extraordinary site full of fun and information. Previously to this course I had never worked out how it worked and I never thought people would be allowed to use other sites for their own purposes but it makes a lot of sense to be able to do that. Web 2.0 I had only ever heard of in myspace and it was confusing at first to work it but then when it was explained during the lecture and then the tutorial I began to grasp the idea that Web 2.0 was just the next expansion of Web 1.0 just like all other programs when they are made better by their creators. Multiplicity for me as well was a lecture and tutorial week I really enjoyed. It was great to work out how these complicated sites worked.
Throughout the semester I have tried very hard to get better at reflecting and making a difference to my blog. I tried to network whatever I thought was appropriate. I have really enjoyed keeping a blog and with the knowledge I have know I should be able to make myself a more popular blogger =) I feel that my blog shows my aptitude to learning and really helps not only myself but others who are thinking the same questions as me. I am going to continue to keep a blog and hopefully one day I will be one of those really respected bloggers and people will take what I have to say honestly. Before this course I did not know all the interesting aspects of the internet and it has really opened my eyes on how it works and what is expected of the users and the creators of sites and programs that millions of people use every day.
This week i focused on making my video better and better. I have got all my footage and added it all together. Today I got even further, I went for a drive and found a vacant road and petrol station, do you know how hard it is to find a petrol station in Canberra that has NO CARS at it??!! Very hard indeed, spent a lot of time driving. Though it was all worthwhile in the end when I finally found one! I have asked my brother and mum to compose a piece of music for me so that I dont have to worry about copyright issues and licenses, something I am not very confident about. Especially I would hate myself if I did it wrong and it implemented on my marks because I did not have the correct referencing. Now that I have finished my short film on youtube, I am trying think of tagging ideas so that it will maximize viewing and understanding of the short film. I am trying to think of common words people will type into youtube but also words that with distinguish it apart from videos and make it stand out. Not quite sure what to do.
I have been cutting and pasting a lot of different clips together to try and make the film look a big messy, a metaphor for how I see the way youtube is constructed. The only way to find things are through tagging, and I wanted to show that you find a lot of clips of just people in their own homes dancing in front of a camera trying to do something outrageous so that they will get the most views and people will watch and tell more then it soon becomes that people quote the short film.
I feel that the film has the main concept I want to convey, but showing that youtube has a lot of random and silly material that is watched by thousands of people. As well as the idea that people would now prefer to watch youtube, what they want, when they want just by typing in a word into the search engine. Of course something will come up, as there is so much on the site.
Well this week I have been busy thinking and planning my production B assignment. I am going to do the YouTube video and my main theme is going to be about the idea that people would prefer to be on the internet than watching the television, at the park or even out shopping. My clip shows groups of people enjoying YouTube while other public places are silent because everyone is home watching something on the internet. I then decided to delve deeper into the idea that YouTube is so full of different clips that it doesn’t matter what you type in something will always come up, no matter what your interests may be. By continuing this thought I got my friend to type in 10 randomised words and see what came up while I filmed her. As the clip progresses we then see people outside trying to make their own clip to upload, so they too can get as many views and comments and become “YouTube famous.”
Though at the moment I have absolutely no idea how to finish the clip, I have a temporary start but my ending needs work. So far I am up to the vacant shopping centre but nothing to tie the whole thing together. I have asked around but hopefully my personal viewing of YouTube can give me some ideas on how to manipulate and bring all my ideas together so the audience will understand and appreciate my work. I have also been looking at delicious, seeing if there have been any blogs posted about YouTube or anything that can help me with my clip. I feel my clip does analyse YouTube by showing how much effort we put into this ‘virtual’ television station. Where people would prefer to sit on YouTube and watch clips other people have uploaded rather than television shows. It is the easy way to watch what you want when you want. This week I am going to continue researching and hopefully very shortly I will have an ending which satisfies my thoughts and creates a suitable sum up of the clip for my audience.
Data, data. data surrounds us! This week was all about data. We looked at data visulisations and they truly amazed me. Just the way all the data is processed and configured to make it interesting yet informative to the audience - it is the representation of abstract non-physical information (verses the depiction of physical artifacts).
We spoke about how certain images and sounds encourage humans to look and become interested. Primary looking for humans involves, scale, colour, shape, position and movement are the key things to add into a visualtisation to keep people interested and entertained. One website that I found which really has me captivated is, We feel fine by Jonathan Harris. It captivates the audience to click on the dots and learn more about the people who are placing these thoughts onto the internet, by gender, age, location, whether each segment is done by using colour, movement and shape mainly though there is scale and position as well. I found this site a very interesting and fun one to explore during free time. It is the idea of passive observation, people living as normal rather than being interviewed.
We looked at the delicious site on data and that was quite interesting, one site that really did catch my attention was data visulisation and infographics. It was a very informative blog which I enjoyed reading - you should take a look.
I have been thinking more about production B - and I have had a thought about what I could do. I was thinking about the video one and getting my room mates to show how much you tube has taken up our lives. Especially showing that some well known one can be made into t-shirts. How everyone takes quotes from all the clips and uses them in everyday life. Also that people are uploading what ever they feel like and if it embarrasses them, than that is even better because it will mean you get more ‘views.’ I am going to try and pose this idea in my movie. Hopefully I can talk to my tutor about this before I continue with to make sure I am on the right track.
