My NCT blog.

The question I chose to answer was #3 – Digital media put the tools of production into the hands of the everyday computer user making it incredibly easy to produce content. These creative skills used to be something that people worked to develop. Now it appears that amateurs can produce content of a fair standard within a relatively short period of time. Where does this leave ‘professionals’ and highly-skilled artists? Choose one area of creativity and discuss some of the challenges facing practitioners vs amateurs in producing digital content.

The Essay!

Introduction

The term ‘digital media’ has come to include a large variety of things. Over time, picture art, music, games and video content have come to form the most easily recognisable and abundant examples of digital media. They are also the basis of much legal contention. For amateur artists and producers, the advent of digital media has produced an environment in which content production is simple and inexpensive. For professionals however, the effects of digital media are far less simple. In this essay I will focus on the challenges that professional moviemakers face when producing digital content.

Amateurs and Professionals

In the modern day, it seems that the concepts of ‘amateurs’ and ‘professionals’ has veered sharply away from their true definitions. It is now increasingly common for people to be classified an amateur or a professional based on the quality of their work. While amateur content is often of lower standards due to a lack of funds and the tools used, a great deal of amateur content has production values approaching commercial standards. The true difference between amateurs and professionals is simple – professionals earn a living from producing content and have had special training whereas amateurs do not and have not.

Digital media has both advantages and disadvantages for professional moviemakers. Often these are the same advantages and disadvantages as those experienced by amateurs but they are used and avoided in different ways. For example, digital video cameras have put affordable high-definition recording technology into the hands of amateurs everywhere. For the amateurs, these means better quality content for relatively little money. For the professionals, this same technology has made equipment more portable, editing incredibly easy and efficient and decreased costs. This is just one example and the impact of digital media manifests itself in many different ways.

Status Quo

Digital media makes its presence felt in one place more than any other – the internet. Digital media’s dependence on the internet also means that the intricate and far reaching nature of its key host imparts its inherent benefits and challenges. Therefore, it is important to establish the nature of the current relationship between digital media, moviemakers and the internet.

As it stands, movie information and indeed movies themselves are now both found in increasingly centralized locations. The prime example of this is YouTube. When most individuals are asked where the centre of international moviemaking is, they will say, “Hollywood.” (Ohanion & Phillips 2000, pp.20) It can be argued that YouTube is simply changing the centre. With a new centre being formed, acceptance of new movies and short films is also changing. Before digital media, the format in which you made your movie would determine whether it would be considered for distribution or ignored (Gaspard & Newton 2001, pp. 104). Digital media has removed many of the formatting issues and stigma as there are many internationally recognised digital video formats. Movie promotion has also evolved as a result of digital media. Previously, promotional material was restricted to newspapers, magazines, radio and pre-screening trailers at the cinemas. Now, as well as all of these, websites such as Comingsoon.net provide a place for interviews, important dates and trailers.

When moviemakers eventually do release their content they can quickly and easily get valuable critique from viewers through comments and messages. Deviantart utilizes a brilliant critique system which allows the content creator to request critique.

Looking at the state of things, one might deduce that digital media is full of advantages for both amateur and professional moviemakers. While this is true, the disadvantages of digital media very quickly pile up against the professional moviemaker.

Professional Disadvantages

The same things that have made digital media such an intrinsic part of moviemaking are also the chief reason for many of the disadvantages. The online accessibility and inexpensive or free video editing tools that make the amateur’s work easier also make the two biggest problems for professional moviemakers in the modern day – protection of intellectual property (IP) and piracy.

The role of the viewer in modern cinema has evolved sufficiently that the viewer no longer feels content to simply watch a film. Simple things such as viewer reviews allow the viewer to impose themself on the film (Ware 2009, pp.141). This, however, is not enough. Fan edits, such as those found on Fanfilms.net, are the next step. Tailoring the film to their own ends and tastes the viewer, now editor, uses the IP of the professional moviemaker, sans permission. For many professional moviemakers, this is at odds with their vision and their hard work but it is ultimately unavoidable. Nevertheless, this problem pales in comparison to the main disadvantage of digital media – piracy.

A truly global phenomenon, driven in part by the high profile legal proceedings and day to day publicity surrounding sites such as The Pirate Bay piracy as a whole permeates everything digital. Software release, music and games are all available for free download and use through peer-to-peer networks and it is no different for movies. Some are direct rips from DVD’s, released earlier in some regions rather than others. In a strange parallel, online users now seem to need more and more pirated films, in much the same way that the multiplex theatres demanded more prints in the 1980’s (Enticknap 2005, pp.154-155). Piracy is arguably the biggest impact digital media has on professional moviemakers. For amateurs it is less of a problem as it is the popular films, made by professionals for large studios, which are the target of piracy.

Conclusion

For amateur moviemakers, digital media is a blessing. Recording, editing and hosting of films can all be free and with the anonymity of the internet, the moviemakers experience, amateur status and age are met with no bias (Willett 2008, pp,49). Professional moviemakers also experience advantages as a result of digital media. They can create movies more efficiently, promote them to a far larger potential audience, and receive direct feedback from viewers. Sadly, the professionals also have to deal with seemingly unstoppable piracy and IP disputes. It seems that for now, digital media has given graciously to amateur moviemakers, while professional moviemakers suffer at the hands of their viewers turned pirates.

References

Ohanian, Thomas A. & Phillips, Michael E. 2000, Digital Filmmaking: The Changing Art and Craft of Making Motion Pictures, Boston: Focal Press.

Willet, Rebekah 2008, Consumer Citizens Online: Structure, Agency and Gender in Online Participation, in ed.David Buckingham 2008, Youth, Identity, and Digital Media, Massachusetts: The MIT Press.

Newton, Dale & Gaspard, John 2001, Digital Filmmaking 101: An Essential Guide to Producing Low Budget Movies, California: Michael Wiese Productions.

Ware, Chris 2009, Viewer Participation, in ed.Nicholas Rhombes 2009, Cinema in the Digital Age, London: Wallflower Press.

Enticknap, Leo 2005, Moving Image Technology: from zoetrope to digital, London: Wallflower Press.

After enjoying the fruits of the flu for what feels like forever, I have discovered some interesting things about technology.

Firstly, it makes us appreciate designers. If the designer is good, logging into something, finding something on a website or downloading a file is quick, easy and the user is well informed about what is happening. If the designer isn’t good, logging on is a hassle, finding what you want takes time and executing other actions is not at all streamlined.

Secondly, technology pampers us. I personally have a TV in my room, with an Xbox 360 hooked up to that and a big stereo above both. During my flu infested weeks, I have been able to stay in bed and have access to normal TV programming, all my games (and any new ones I care to try), DVD’s and music via our home network. I have my laptop under my bed, so I have also had access to the internet through that, also from my bed. What this means is that we can be endlessly entertained without moving.

Thirdly, I can use our portable home phones as an intercom system – I just think that’s pretty goddamn awesome. I ordered a cup of tea last week, and had it delivered.

Those video’s are on their way dear readers, all 3 of you. Just have to find a camera…

PS. Go to hell, flu, I don’t much like you.

Following on from last night’s post about web 2.0, I’ve realised this morning that it really has come to form an essential part of life. For me, I wake up, shower and hit the net. Using Hot Coffee (an add in for Firefox) I hit one button and all the sites I check daily pop up. I get my 5 different web comics, Digg, facebook and others, and if I don’t check them, I’ll check them later in the day.

Sometimes, I’ll hope onto a tech website, like Atomic, and see what headlines they have there. Or perhaps I’ll open up failblog, just for a good start to my morning.

In the end, I love my interwebz, and I don’t know what I’d do with them :).

I used to have a friend who was a casual Habbo user. Normal enough dude, but put him on Habbo and he became a manipulative creep – really.

Herein lies the key difference between your standard IM clients, such as MSN, and those like Habbo and IMVU. Whereas MSN is for communication, typically between one person at a time (group convos have become distinctly passe), Habbo returns to that distinctly 90’s chatroom. Chatrooms have always had the same problems. One, anonymity – you can never be sure of who you’re talking to, or who’s reading what you say. Two, the people – the ‘conversation’ will always result in an almighty shit fight. Three, human nature – alot of chatrooms, particularly Habbo, are full of young and not so young adults who feel the need to bring everything back to sex.

You end up with alot of people finding somewhere they can say the things they can’t say in real life – a release, or escape, if you will. For the uneducated, it’s just damn scary.

In direct response to the second part of the tutorial question, no, the 3-D aspect makes no difference, It’s just slightly better to look at than ‘XXXX is writing a message…’

Till next tiiiime!

I gotta say, I totally loved this week’s lecture and I think it’s mostly because Adam’s funnier than Stephen haha. But it’s also because of the content.

I’ll say it right now – I am a HUGE computer nerd. I read the magazines, I keep up to date with the news, I’m slowly assembling parts for my new desktop. Hell, I did a year of IT last year until I realised studying it was killing my passion for it. So it’s safe to say social media, Web 2.0 and *shudder* Habbo are not alien to me. Thankfully, I like talking crap about anything technologically related, so let’s go on a tour of this weeks lecture.

Web 2.0 basically refers to the new trends of internet use and the tech that makes this possible. It is Facebook, Myspace, , MSN, Twitter (hate it, sorry) and Digg. It is the switch from the interwebz being something the average user reads, to something they write. It is The Pirate Bay, which returned within hours when shut down. Google it – the RIAA messed with something way bigger than them. It’s called millions and millions of torrent users.

We’re at the stage now where we’re on the web and so are all the people we know. Finding out what someone is doing is not a search anymore, more a case of quickly finding who you want and quickly blocking those you don’t give a toss about. Blogs too are now jostling for our attention and quite often will break news waaaaay before the big news outlets.

Overall, Web 2.0 can be described as being friendly – open-source software, free and instant communication, a massive audience for anyone with access to the internet, content sharing.

Web 2.0 is now, and I couldn’t live without it.

So I’ve developed this really bad habit of typing up drafts and not publishing them, so I shall be tidying up the ones I’ve neglected and putting them up tonight. Naughty of me, I know.

A few weeks back in our lecture we had the gold coast conveynor chat about the language of cinema. As someone who’s done Intro to Screen Analysis, is currently doing Screen History and will major in Film and Screen it’s safe to say I was interested to see where he’d go.

He essentially talked about how the different shots convey different information to the viewer. The closer shots tell us ‘who’, a medium-shot will generally tell us ‘what’ by showing a character doing something and a long-shot would typically explain where the character and their story take place. The ‘why’ and ‘how’ can both be conveyed by a combination of close, mid and long-shots.

The lecture then moved on to headroom, talking room and the rule of thirds, all of which come under framing. The ‘180-degree rule’ followed, which basically, if followed, means that when you switch between over the shoulder and straight on shots of two characters conversing, they won’t switch sides (continuity).

The last few slides don’t really need covering – cutaways and inserts for extra info, and don’t put in scenes that are pointless.

And so ended that lecture!

I dislike putting this stuff in numbered lists of responses, so…

Search engines do not rank stuff on the internet based on how good it actually is. They base it on how popular particular sites are. This is why NineMSN is right up there on Google, even though it is an absolute piece of crap. I did not understand the second question, so, moving right along. My favourite search engine is Google. It’s my homepage, lives cosily in the top right corner of Firefox (next to AdBlocker hehe). Yahoo and the rest are just useless. Google is uncluttered and familiar, and I don’t see any use in changing. 🙂

That is all!

1. A shabby sports jacket.
2. The date on which two computers first communicated was October 29, 1969. One computer was at UCLA (in Westwood, Los Angeles, CA) and the other was at SRI (in Menlo Park, CA).
3. Bill Gates was born October 28, 1955. He sold his first software when he was 17.
4. Invented in USA, by DARPA.
5. Well, the power of this computer is almost completely incomparable to that of a computer from 1979. The sheer numbers we deal with (gigabytes terabytes) were impossible.
6.The largest parsnip ever grown was 8 pounds, 6 ounces.
7. Queensland became a state on June 6, 1859. The Tweed River is in NSW because it forms part of the state line.
8. 17 November, 1954 – tropical cyclooooone in SEQ.
9. Uhh, because of the internet?
10. Black Assassins! woo!

Arrrrgh, that was fun…

My response(s) for week 3’s questions…

Most people are now in the position where they use some form of communication technology in their day to day life. The most prominent examples are mobile phones, e-mail and social networking sites such as Facebook. There are now people who’ve never known an existence without a computer or a mobile phone.

For me personally, such things are vital. I’m always available on my mobile phone, and am easily logged into Facebook and MSN for 7+ hours a day. It seems e-mail is becoming less popular for personal communication, particularly with the younger generations, as it is not as instant and usable as an IM client. I certainly don’t use it anymore.

I, unlike those who are younger, did not always have a computer and a mobile phone. I distinctly remember our first computer arrived when I was all of 7 years old. We had dial-up internet, and no clue about anything. We’d turn the computer on and off to hear the start-up and shutdown sounds – yes really. MSN wouldn’t arrive till 1999 and at that stage, I had no interest in computers – it was my sister who’d hog the rapidly aging desktop for hours of blissful MSN chattery. She was, however, my key influence for adopting MSN/Live Messenger as such a large part of my present day communication. Facebook I only came to use because so many people are contactable through it – it is sadly unavoidable.

Mobile phones on the other hand only came into my hands in 2002 and have been an in-disposable item ever since.

Privacy is simply not an issue for me. I block people who I don’t wish to have contact with, and I give the minimum of information, or often completely incorrect information when signing up for anything that could be considered non-secure. That said Facebook’s policy of giving all your details to the authorities (if requested) has not dissuaded me from giving them my full details, as if someone needs to find me, well, you understand.

I do have friends from the internet. Most of them live within about a 50km radius and I’ve met a handful. The best ones are the ones you wouldn’t expect to get along with. For instance, a girl I met online lives in Texas, yet despite the monumentally different lifestyles and locations we can relate very easily and get along well. It’s obviously different to maintaining a friendship with someone you’ve never met. Many people communicate very differently online, and can seem completely different to how they really are. Injecting personality into words on a screen is something you can either do or not do. This point is quickly becoming obsolete now with video and voice conversations so easily accessible.

Till next time,

Dylan

In this post I’m going to talk, hopefully, about the proposed internet filter that Communications Minister, Senator Conroy, is so attached to. I say hopefully because this is a topic I’m rather passionate about. I may have to cut myself off early, as there is simply so much to say about this topic. Thousands and thousands of words, easily.

So, why an internet filter? Excuse my tone here but, you see, there are big bad things out there on the internet. Illegal things. You may begin quaking in your boots.

I’ll be serious now.

It’s actually a fascinating idea. The decision to impose a North Korean-esque internet filter on the WHOLE of Australia is quite simply monumental. It’s downright tremendous. Think, for a moment, of the logistics of it’s introduction. It’s not a case of sticking a simple hardware firewall at the neck of some big wire. You need the co-operation of all the ISP’s in Australia, and for that you actually need to sell them on the concept.

They’ve been trialing it, okay, which is pretty interesting in itself. By they I mean a handful of ISP’s, one of whom stated they were only trialling it to prove that it is impossible. Not exactly resounding support then. But I’m not surprised the whole scheme has got funding and is moving because it’s long been the case that the Australian government is quite conservative.

For many gamers in Australia, the name Michael Atkinson is synonymous with the conservatism I mentioned above and a serve of ignorance. He is, at the present time, the most outspoken critic of an R18+ rating for games. As it stands, the highest rating is MA15+, and if a game does not fall below it’s maximum levels of squeamishness, it is banned and not offered for sale in Australia. Naturally, people turn to online game stores, such as Steam, where they buy the game and download it – simple.

So why the HELL did I just start off on a tangent about Atkinson and games when I was supposed to be talking about Conroy and the big bad filter? They’re linked, that’s why. The internet filter would ban illegal content such as child-pornography, and game refused classification. Enough said.

From a government standpoint, that is all completely logical, because they want to help us, to protect us, and freedom to access a game they didn’t like is simply stupid, right? This isn’t what gets me riled up most is this – blocking of euthanasia and pro-anorexia sites. Seriously, what on earth is going on here? They are not illegal, they’re contentious. This is suddenly not protection, this is just plain wrong. What if I want to write a piece on the structure and impact of the pro-anorexia sites and their users? Am I gonna e-mail my friends in America and ask them to copy past the entire goddamn website? And euthanasia is illegal, but websites on it are simply not.

Ladies and gentleman of the jury, if the government wanted to spend an extra $44.2 million catching those who produce, distribute or download child pornography, I would applaud them and shake their collective hand. But as it is, I’m insulted. I live in Australia, not Korea, or China. I live in a democratic nation, that prides itself on freedom.

It’s just that said nation’s communications minister can’t even google-up a definition for freedom, much less understand the moral ramifications of his proposed internet filter.