I know the meaning of life. It doesn’t help me a bit
Last Saturday we travelled down to Manchester to see Magazine playing at the Academy.
Magazine, one of the best bands of the post-punk era reunited for five dates in London, Manchester & Glasgow (plus a warm-up show in Oxford).
Howard Devoto and original members Barry Adamson, Dave Formula and John Doyle were joined by Noko on guitar, filling in for John McGeoch, who died in 2004.
An amazing gig, which sounded timeless. I recorded a few tracks on my flip mino camera…not the best of quality, but better than nothing.
The sound is particularly distorted on some of the recordings, but that’s what happens when you stand in front of Barry Adamson’s bass amp.
As it was St. Valentine’s Day, I love you, you big dummy was fitting.
Plus some great merch- designed by Malcolm Garrett- Magazine mug anyone?
Reflection
So, I’ve handed in Unit 1 on my MA and will be getting the results back next week. The 2nd unit (Professional development) has started and we’ve begun by looking at self-reflection and commenting on the forum. Before I enter a post on this, I’ve decided first of all to reflect on what I’ve learned from doing Unit 1.
Firstly: it nearly killed me! I’m not used to this, and getting back into academia and producing assignments was a shock to the system! World of pain!
I left things to the last minute and although I worked incredibly hard, putting it together; it would have benefitted me finished sooner and reflecting before it was handed in, as well as after. This would have prevented me from trying to upload a video file that was too big at 3.19am in the morning on the day it was due in at 12.00 noon.
Not wishing to make excuses (but I will at least attempt to justify some of the reasons), I had put in to go to a fractional post at work, so I would have one day off a week to work on my MA. This request was declined by the Director of School at the Performance Academy just before Xmas (because I’m good at my job, apparently!). My colleague was also absent from work leading up to my deadline and I ended up having to cover for him too, as well as doing my own work!
Anyway, for Unit 1, I decided that because my discipline is moving image and because the subject was moving image, that instead of producing a paper, I would instead submit a 30 minute video. I interviewed 4 media professionals from from across the discipline, then logged and edited the video. The video was structured into different sections, such as at past practice, change, key moments and the future etc.
After the panic of sumitting my assignment and not being able to upload it to the site (I eventually had to post it by registered mail -the old-fashioned way!), I re-read the criteria and started worrying that I’d mis-interpreted the assessment criteria and had got it all wrong- still could be the case!
So, what have I learned?
Not to leave things till the last minute.
iPhone test
I’m on the M1 travelling back up North. Just thought I’d try a test post from my iPhone. Got a lot of work to do over the next 2 weeks as the first assignment for my MA is due in on 12th Jan!
change is the only constant
The first assignment on the MA in Creative Media Practice is about change in your own discipline/industry and critical incidents that defined them.
I’ve been thinking about this for a while, and thinking….and thinking….and researching….and thinking, and procrastinating, and suddenly I’m miles behind and the first draft is due in soon. Full-on madness at work hasn’t helped, so I’m going to have to cut my hours after Xmas, in order to be able to give this course more attention.
Firstly, it’s hard to define exactly what my industry is. At the moment, I’m teaching TV & Film production full-time, but teaching is not my industry. My discipline is moving image production, or film production, or video production, or whatever you want to call it. Factual stuff mainly, so I guess documentary, but also some music stuff.
I’ve got loads of ideas, but that’s the problem; I need a specific issue/theme/burning question to follow up and research, not vague notions/areas.
Potential areas in no particular order are: Independent film/video, amateurism, super 8, Convergence, User Generated Content, film/video for the web, low-fi, low budget, new ways of viewing/screening/exhibiting etc., flip cameras etc. etc.
I’m speaking to my tutor tomorrow, so hopefully he can give me some guidance and focus!
bullshit detector: truth & knowledge
The first couple of weeks of the MA were spent pondering truth and knowledge in our particular areas of the media.
First up, we looked at the concepts of ontology (the study of the nature of ‘being’, or ‘reality’) and epistemology (the theory of knowledge), and were encouraged to question what we thought of as truth, and how we know what we know.
Keeping it Real
What is truth can be perceived differently by different people, and can often be opinion, rather than truth. My own truths tend to be based on a gut reaction, and in my creative work I often go on ‘feel’, but these are not very tangible concepts, and I may have to find more definitive answers!
We also looked at ethics, which is an issue close to my heart; I try to live in an ethical way and therefore produce work in an ethical way. When working independently, this is often easy to achieve, but for some of the others on the course, who work in advertising and design, this might not always be the case.
A Little Knowledge is a Dangerous Thing
One of the issues that was raised was how reliable sources of knowledge are. Is a teacher an expert? If it’s in a book, then is it right? And the most contentious issue: how trustworthy is information on the internet? I used the example of a noted Media Reader’s wikipedia page being doctored by some (my?) students to re-invent him as a ‘dogging’ expert and practitioner!
Obviously, I haven’t reached any concrete conclusions on truth and knowledge yet (after all, people have been debating some of these issues for centuries!), but it’s given us plenty of food for thought in the exploration of our own practices.
no rights given or implied
This week I had a one of my videos disabled on youtube due to copyright. The video was produced by myself and was recorded as part of the G Word graffiti exhibition at Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art in Newcastle. However the music that I used was by the Godfather of Soul, Mr. James Brown: Get Up, Get Into It, Get Involved.
The email from youtube stated:
The copyright owner has claimed it owns some or all of the audio content in your video
I was mighty impressed that Mr. Brown had contacted me from beyond the grave.
This van to the left was painted at that very exhibition as a tribute to him shortly after his death.
Just to clarify – yes I do know that it is very naughty to use copyrighted music , and the actual footage used for the exhibition was cleared. This was just a little extra video I’d put together just for youtube and I promise not to do it again. Now I have the choice of uploading the video again and loosing all comments and ratings, or swapping the audio with some of youtube’s library music……
jack of all trades…master of……?
As my first ‘proper’ post, I’ve been asked to say what I want to be a master of by doing this course.
I guess I decided to do this course to give me focus and to find out what direction to go in. At the moment, I am teaching tv and video production, which has become all-consuming. Consequently, my own practice has suffered and my freelance work is almost non-existent. I was attracted to the ‘creative’ element in the title of the course Creative Media Practice and the practice bit too. I hope to build up a portfolio and set myself goals by completing some products.
My area of practice is filmmaking….or videomaking as the medium usually dictates. I usually work in an independent capacity and am involved in most areas myself, such as planning, directing, filming and editing. Obviously, I hope to improve in all of these areas.
By following this Masters path, I also hope to learn something new, at a higher level….new ways of thinking…etc….and to remain authentic in the process…!
practice makes perfect
I’ve been asked to keep a blog as part of my MA in Creative Media practice, so here goes…..
