It’s All About the Editing

Tags

continuity, dedication, editing, image and sound, Pacing, professionalism, Rhythm, shot order, shot relationship, timing, transitional, transparent, Visual Storytelling

Editing

In Ronald Osgood and M. Joseph Hinshaw’s Visual Storytelling, Chapter 8 talks a lot about the aesthetics of editing within different projects / video makings / etc. One of the first things to catch my eye was a quote by Walter Murch stating, “Editing is now something almost anyone can do at a simple level and enjoy it, but to take it to a higher level requires the same dedication and persistence that any art form does.” I really like this quote because I feel as though it really speaks to the minds of editing. This process is one that can most definitely not be taken lightly. Once the picture and/or film is edited, it can add a bit more of s significant reference to the product as a whole.

Getting into the Mind of the Viewer

The authors of this book really stress throughout this chapter that it is important for the editor to get in the minds of the viewers of whatever the final product may be. There needs to be a purpose for every edit made, while keeping in mind that it needs to be transparent to the viewer. With this being said, there are some important factors to think about when beginning to edit a certain take or shot of a film.

1. Image and Sound

2. Shot Order

3. Time

4. Rhythm and Pacing

Image and sound correlate with one another because it is much more effective when an image has sound enhancing it’s meaning. It is important to make sure the sound matches the image, or the viewer might have a hard time understand what is going on. When editing different shots together to form a smooth transitional film, it is important to make sure these shots aren’t too jumpy and that they tell a story. This relates to shot relationship where the editor needs to make sure the shots all form a nice relationship with one another or the viewer will not have an enjoyable experience. Timing, rhythm, pacing all play a huge role when it comes to editing. Time relates to how long something may be, where rhythm and pacing refers more to each individual shot within the film itself.

Understanding of these Factors

It is very important to all viewers, that ad editors, we understand the notion behind these types of edits. Once our understanding has come full circle, we are able to use our skill and put forth a terrific product. It’s all about the continuity of the film itself. But without understanding these concepts, editors may have a hard time putting together a continual piece of work. Transitions are needing to be smooth and transparent, where no jump cuts happen. It’s all about the professionalism. The video below is a short clip that has been put together without much of a transparent feel.

Your Thoughts

What do you think an editor should know coming from a viewers perspective? Can you tell when an editing process has gone wrong?

It’s a Two Dimensional Field

Tags

asymmetry, directional forces, magnetism of the frame, motion pictures film, psychological closure, two-demensional field, vectors within the frame, Zettl

Making Connections

As I read the chapter, “The Two-Demensional Field: Forces Within the Screen” by Herbert Zettl, I began to think back to my Broadcast Communications class when we would go out in the field and produce news stories. This thought came up because throughout the class, we had to read many chapters in Zettl’s “Video Basics 7“.

Take Away

What I was able to remember from “Video Basics 7” and take away from this reading is that there are key factors one must take into consideration when filming and putting together all the pieces of his or her film. One must fully understand the six major types of field forces within a frame of picture area. These include:

1. Main direction

2. Magnetism of the frame and attraction of mass

3. Asymmetry of the frame

4. Figure and ground

5. Psychological closure

6. Vectors within the frame

Descriptions

When one is thinking about the main direction of the frame, there are two ways to do so: horizontally or vertically. When determining which way is best fitting for your frame and with what you want to portray, this will factor in with the rest of the key aspects. The magnetism of the frame and attraction of the mass refers to the borders of the frame being a pull attraction to the picture itself. It is important the picture is placed with rhyme and reason within the frame so that there is significance to the direction in which the picture flows.

Asymmetry of the frame is another important aspect when dealing with motion picture because different formats of the page could come off with different meanings. The way a certain picture tilts or lies within the frame can intensify the meaning. One must always be able to distinguish the figure from its foreground. The most important thing when relating the two, is to make sure that there is a specific relationship shown within the frame. This helps the viewer to understand the significance within the picture.

Vectors are one of the most important aspects because I feel as though they relate back to the five other characteristics in which should be understood during this process. These are also known as the directional forces within a motion picture. This is what leads your eyes from one point to another. Not to make matters more complicated, but there are many different types of vectors that one will find within the frame of a picture. Whether it’s the way the picture is laid out or which way the people of looking, our eyes are always drawn to a certain area for a certain reason (this is all due to the specific vector within). In the picture above, our eyes are drawn from left to write seeing that the car is facing a certain way.

Your Thoughts

What is one of the main aspects that sticks out to you when viewing a frame/ motion pictures film? Can you think of a movie that has a particular scene highlighting one of these aspects talked about?

Admission’s Inside Look Podcast

Tags

Admission, personal connection, podcast

Take a look at this podcast I’ve put together. It includes pictures from my previous slideshow with a voice over explanation of what it is like to work within Furman’s Admission Office. I’m sure many universities can agree with me when I talk about the personal connection we want to gain with the students throughout their application process. Hope you enjoy and let me know what you think! Thanks.

Rhetorical Convergence

Tags

contextualizing, dynamism, examining, multimodel polyphony, pointing, revealing, rhetorical convergence, still-motion film

Converging Different Mediums

Last night’s reading was on a chapter called “Multimodal Polyphony,” by Anders Fagerjord. Throughout the chapter, the author speaks a lot about combining different forms of media to enhance one’s understanding of what is being shown. This can be known as “rhetorical convergence”. When we combine different forms of media, we are able to experience three main differences from just a viewing of a picture or listening to a piece of audio:

1. We can look and listen at the same time

2. There is a form of dynamism so timing and rhythm come into play

3. With the movement we encounter, there are new rhetorical possibilities that arise

The Picture Itself

There are four main terms that Fagerjord expresses throughout the chapter in which he says help the understanding of viewing the picture within a documentary (this information is relevant to any form of presentation using pictures):

1. Examining: This is when the frame moves slowly over the image being shown to show detail

2. Revealing: This term is secondary with examining. It is when (through examining) something is shown that was at first hidden at first.

3. Pointing: When the image is zoomed in upon to show the viewer specific details

4. Contextualizing: This is the opposite of pointing. This term is when the camera zooms out so that the viewer can observe the scene as a whole.

Putting the Terms to Actuality

Fagerjord goes into talking about their “The Wild West” production movie as an example of a still-motion film. The three main differences found within rhetorical convergence and the four aspects mentioned above are used throughout this production to enhance its meaning.

The web today has a lot to do with writing, language, and reading. In present time, the generation is changing to a more multimedia world where in the end, having rhetorical convergence will soon be the best of entertainment. When converging voice overs on top of video and pictures, one must take into consideration time and value of what is being said over the picture. This becomes one of the most important roles in still-motion film because without relevance to the picture being shown, what good will this provide the viewer?

Your Thoughts

To what significance do you think rhetorical convergence has? Is it safe to say that audio enhances the viewers’ understanding of any type of project being shown?

Listen with Your Heart

Tags

enhance, hearing, imagination, listening, Pandora, Spotify

I read the chapter “The Zen of Listening,” in the book Listening In last night. This chapter talked a lot about the value of listening to audio. The most interesting part that stood out to me included when the author was talking about hearing vs. the actual listening. I never thought of how our generation is all about multi-tasking. Whether it’s having music or the television in the background or even studying in a populated area, college students are used to having different types of noise in the background. I even have many friends who prefer having some type of background noise to keep them on task when studying or working on an assignment. In this chapter the author says, “Radio stimulates the imagination” (p. 25).

As I was reading through the chapter, I could only help but think about the different types of radio one can use to satisfy his or needs of providing background music. Now-a-days there are stations online such as Pandora or Spotify, where one can type in a type of song, artist, or even genre they would like to listen to and similar songs will play continuously. I personally enjoy having a soothing type of music in the background to mellow out my mood when studying for a big exam.

The chapter then goes into talking about how one’s musical taste is usually formed during the time of growing up, and people listen to music for different reasons, especially relating to enhancing a mood. One of the most interesting things about music is the ability it has to either enhance or alter a specific mood one may be in. I think it is crazy how different songs have such power.

Your Thoughts

What type of learner are you–do you prefer having the musical background enhancing your ability to learn? Is there a particular type of music you like to listen to in times of need?

Life of a Student Worker within the Admission Office

Tags

Admission, brightness, color contrast, student worker, value

For our first project, we were to take our topic for the semester (mine being within the Admission Office) and put together a slideshow of meaningful pictures to tell a unique story.

One of the requirements was to make sure five of the pictures were edited to enhance to meaning and value of the story as a whole. Here are my five that I chose (before, after):

     

I chose to brighten the color and sharpen this image as a whole. With this, it is a much clearer photograph that has a wonderful and crisp color contrast to it as well.

     

This image also needed the added feel of a better brightness aspect. Also I decided to blur out the background a little to have more of the focus on the bottom left moving in a backwards motion.

     

I felt as though this image needed a bit more contrast and pop to express the importance of travel for the counselors. I sharpened the image and soften the shadows all together.

     

Just like many of the other images I edited, this one needed the sharpness feel to it. I also blurred the background a little and brighten up the contrast to give the concierge and her work more of a pop!

     

This is probably one of my most favorite images within my slideshow. I really enjoy the feel it brings, and I also feel as there is a lot to be said about this picture. Again, I decided to blur the background (more than the others) to really bring forward the sunglasses, business cards, and keys. I decided to put more of a contrast to the colors as well since the purple is such a vibrant color!

Your Thoughts

Finally here is my full “A Day in the Life of an Admission’s Student Worker” story, ready to be viewed! I hope you all enjoy watching as much as I enjoyed working on it and putting it together! Please let me know your thoughts as well.

Reading what’s within the Layout

Tags

ideal vs. real, placement, subtexts, value of centre and margin

Have you ever looked at a computer screen or media setting and wondered why things are placed where they are? Well in our reading last night I learned a lot about where things should go on a screen and what it might mean if they are placed in a certain area.

There are three main points when thinking about where elements are placed and what they mean, but I feel as though it is most important to stress the Information Value point in regards to the layout of the media screen.
There is the idea of:

1. The Given vs. The New
2. The Ideal vs. The Real
3. The Value of Centre and Margin

Elaborating within the Points

Information value is one of the most important aspects when it comes to the layout of the media screen. It is referring to the placement of the image (left, right, up, or down). This chapter stresses the difference between the “given” (left side) and the “new” (right side). The given is presented as something that the that the viewer already knows, where the new is something that the viewer does not know about yet. By having the given and the new, there is much correlation between the two and the layout of the page. Take a look at the advertisement below:

There is also a difference between the top and bottom locations on the media screen. Kress and van Leeuwen talk about the differences between ideal and real. Ideal refers to the more generalized aspect of information drawing a more emotional appeal, and the real is when there is more specific information presented coming up with actual statements regarding the information.

The last point within the information value of a media screen deals with the centre aspect. When something is presented in the centre, this is referred to as the most important information with its subtexts around the margins. As a whole we can see the centre as the mediator between when might be on the left or right side of the screen.

All in all this was a wonderful chapter to read regarding our projects coming up in the future. It gives a bunch of valuable information when thinking of different ways to attract viewers and so forth. It’s all about how one can catch the eye.

Your Thoughts

What are some of the things that you pick out of a media screen when looking at images and/or text? Do you agree with the idea of the way something may or may not be laid out on the screen?

All About the Viewer

Tags

aesthetics, decoding, encoding, individual aspect, intended meaning, Viewers Make Meaning

What Do You See?

In last night’s reading, Viewers Make Meaning, written by Sturken and Cartwright, there were a few main points about the viewer of a particular image, work of art, media text, etc. that stood out to me. As you read my post keep in mind the aspect of the viewer and your thoughts on how much of a role you may have when making meaning to different images, artwork, etc.

To kick off the reading, one can’t get past the title without thinking something about what the authors may have meant when coming up with a title for this chapter. According to the authors of this chapter, the way the viewers perceives a picture or piece of work no matter where they might find it, is all up to the viewer himself. The viewer focuses on the individual aspect of the image whereas an audience of a certain object is considered as the consumer of that object as a whole.

I like to use a comparison with binoculars. It’s as if a viewer puts on binoculars and only sees what he is wanting to see and come up with a meaning regarding his view.

Words that Stood Out to Me Throughout the Chapter:

1. Producer’s intended meaning: This is described within the chapter as to a producer of the certain image or text almost always prefer a certain meaning to their images, but it can known that not all viewers think alike; therefore, there can be many thoughts to specific thing seen.
2. Aesthetics: This is really important in all aspects of digital media as a whole. I thought the description of the clutter within Times Square was interesting in regards to how a viewer might interpret the image with the way it is placed next to another image. Images / texts must be pleasing to the eye for a viewer to believe in good / bad taste.

1. Encoding and Decoding: Images are always encoded in a certain manner and then decoded by the viewers. Viewers have the power to view the certain piece of image, text, or whatever it may be because they are the ones who (in the end) perceive the object the way they want.

Main Idea

When trying to pull together all my thoughts from this lengthy chapter, I like what the authors have to say on page 51. Sturken and Cartwright speak about how it is the image, text, object in which needs to reach out and connect with the viewer himself. I am going to challenge myself through my picture and video project by making sure that I am reaching out to my viewers on a personal level while trying to connect everyone as a whole.

Your Thoughts

Going back to the beginning of my post, think about the way you view certain images and media text. What do you think about the way that these authors have gone about discussing the viewer vs. an audience? Should individuals connect elements throughout the media texts as a whole?

A Photograph Can Say it All

Tags

cultural context, fascination, forms of ideology, material world, realism, representation, Saussure's theory of language

Meaning of a Photograph

Once reading through last night’s reading called, “Images, Power, and Politics”, I came to understand how different photos mean a bunch of different ideas and things to many different people. A group of people could be looking at one photograph of a certain war scene and all perceive it in a different way. Images are said to bring certain aspects to the table when thinking about what an image might portray:

1. Positive Fascination
2. Negative Fascination
3. Representation
4. Realism
5. Different forms of ideology

These five different aspects in which an image might portray all come from the way that the viewer is viewing the image. Let’s take a look at a certain photograph:

This picture’s title is called “Big Brother”. Different viewers are going to take this photo of a solider in Afghanistan and look at it with our different perspectives. We can all have a theory behind this picture. Whether it is right or not, it doesn’t particularly matter because this photo represents something unique to each and every one of us. In the article it states that, “we make meaning of the material world through understanding objects and entities in their specific cultural context” (p. 12). That is what is happening through pictures just like this one.

The different pictures that we amuse ourselves with bring many emotional and expressional aspects to our thinking as a whole (both positively and negatively). Through ideology, we are able to believe what we want to believe whether we want to or not. This statement is referred to realism as a whole.

As Viewers

But before coming up with our assumptions and thoughts on certain pictures, the article talks about how it is most important that we take time in observing different photographs. To understand the value of the picture, we must come to know and be acquainted with their “codes”. Saussure’s theory of language speaks on the understanding of its “conventions” and “codes” for it’s meaning. This includes images too. These “conventions” and “codes” are signs for us to interrupt what we must about one specific photograph.

Your Thoughts

As a viewer how do you think a photograph should be viewed? What are your thoughts on the relations between images and ideology as a whole?

Sports through Still Photography

Tags

aesthetic appeal, human body, ideological, photographic eye, pornography, underrepresented

Aesthetic and Ideological

Last week in class, we talked about ideology in the sense that it is the body of doctrine, myth, belief, etc. that guides an individual, social, movement, institution, class or large group. Last night’s reading called “Framed and Mounted: Sport Through the Photographic Eye“, by David Rowe, consisted of seeing sports through still photography. One of the author’s main points was that, “sports photographs work through a particular ordering of signs and codes that are part aesthetic, part ideological” (p. 142).

I can understand this theory because for a picture to be highly praised or remembered, it most likely has an aesthetic appeal to it as well. What is very interesting, but I can see the author’s reasoning behind it, is that David Rowe decided to use the idea of still sports photography and compare it with the notion and aestheticism of pornography. Some might ask, since when do we as the public incorporate the two together?

We can see through this picture that both of these basketball players have defining muscles. Both the idea of sports photography and pornography have the same notions of having that sexual appeal as a whole. Who wouldn’t want to see that in a basketball game or through different pictures online? I agree with Rowe when he talks about the idea of how the most important object within the sports photography is the human body. One can say the same thing regarding the pornography side of this context as well.

One idea that Rowe brought up that seemed to have shocked me a bit more than learning about sports photography and pornography was when he mentioned how there were different studies done on the gender aspect of sports photography. The outcome of these studies were that women are underrepresented when it comes to sports still photography.

Above is a picture of Serena Williams, going against Rowe’s theory of men vs women. It shocks me to an extent to learn that women are not as well known through pictures and the media. Rowe talks about how men are more active where women are passive. How fair do you think this is? We can even take a look into Sport’s Illustrated and see the differences between the photographs of men and women (or the lack of pictures all together). It’s shocking.

Your Thoughts

Why do we not see as many women pictures out in the online world as we do regarding men? How can we as outsiders change this notion of men vs. women in the sports photography world?