Audio Work

Experimental audio. My experimental audio work idea is based around the idea of the revolution of technology. The one area that i base my audio around is the idea of how ringtones have changed, from being the generic polyphonic nokia 3210 ringtones right through to current phones where you can practically have anything you want as your ringtone, even creating your own ringtone. I want my work to make people think about how technology has changed, and how big of an impact it has had in their life, not only through ringtones but how amazing technology actually is, with the change in tones and also the fact that once upon a time a mobile phone was like the size of brick with an antenna sticking ontop of it, limited to only being able to do the basic things (ring people) then along came texting. How they have progressed in software on the phone, having a camera that you could attatch to the phone then being built in, being able to play games on the phones, to the size of the phones. Now they can fit in the palm of your own hand and can potentially act like a PC.
My audio will basically be a montage of a selection of ringtones that I have selected from youtube. I basically want to put all the ringtones into a sequence from old to know. Showing the change in technology is obviously clear to hear as people will know what is old and what is new. On the other hand I want to be able to make the audio from the older polyphonic ringtones of a poorer quality, so when listening to this, this sounds alot older. This also showing the change in sound technology from decade to decade, the older the ringtone,the more poor quality it will be, visa versa for newer ringtones.

Progress of experimental video.

I've never really thought about my experimental video piece as i've been getting sidetracked with many ideas for my experimental audio. It wasn't until last thursday (17th november) that I had a chat with John. We just started of with a fluent conversation about what John loves best, his playstation three. We started talking about the new Call of duty game, what the story is about etc etc. We then just started talking about the world war and conspiracies behind the attacks on september 11th 2001 and where we were when we heard about it, also we talked about the July 7th bombings in the capital (London.) We both had a chat of how we heard about the news, I was told by my gran when I was coming out of school and John had just arrived at a Holiday destination and was told by his rep. For some reason this just gave me some sort of inclin as to what I could possibly do with my experimental video. I thought about researching some of the major events that have happened in mine + parents lives up to present, say from 1960 onwards. From the assassination of JFK, the ever so famous speech by Martin Luther King right through to the recent 2011 Royal Wedding. With this in mind I thought why not do a 3 minute video that would consist of me picking between 6-12 major events that have occured in the past 50 years. I don't know why I chose the past 50 years it just seemed a good idea due to me having a bit of knowledge of major events from the past 50 years.
Now visually I had a brief idea on what to do. After picking the historic events I would research some more about them and then try to find some video footage of the event, usually this would be available on youtube or some type of DVD from the libary. The only think I had'nt planned ahead for was to see how I could develop on how to stitch the video together. Me and John had a discussion and I came up with an idea but with Johns help he made it alot simpler. I had in mind that I could find a wall clock that had the Date&Time aswell as the year present. By doing this I would be able to put together my research with the date and year that the event actually happened. John put another way of doing this across and to be honest it seemed the much easier and feesable option. If i were to draw a clock on a big piece of card then get a split pin that will go through the centre i could attatch dials to use to signify the specific time. Also a the year at the top. Visually i would'nt state what event that I am playing is. This will play as part of a guessing game.
I've created the clock formats for the actuall layout, I plan to place it on a white background and through the camera hopefully just be able to get the frame of the creation in picture.
Today I took one bigger step to completing the video as I have now downloaded all the archive footage of all the events, from actuall footage of the event to how they were first broadcast on news television and even the middle of an american football game in 1980's. I have trimmed all the footage down of the archive, alltogether I have around 11 events. I need to now film all the footage of the clock changing from year to year and time to time to signify the change in time. I am currently still in working progress.

North Sea Radio Orchestra

North Sea Radio Orchestra from Media Centre on Vimeo.

North Sea Radio Orchesta performing live at Blackburn College.

Maya Deren - Mediation On Violence.

I didn't know what to make of this video at first. I saw it to just be some crazy martial artist meditating in the form of martial arts. It came across as a very bland piece of work by Maya Deren but in actually fact when you break it down into individual segments in terms of appearance & sound it's something different. When you think about what you can hear and see more logically it starts to make sense, you're knowledge and appreciation of the video starts to rise incredibly. Especially when you take into fact of the era it was made (Late 1940's). The first ideological sign you start to pick up on is the pace or how the character moves. He starts of doing manoeuvres that play with the flutes smooth feel, swaying from side to side, upwards and downwards, forming many shadows that portray of him. The idea of this video was to create a meaning and show the difference between violence and beauty according to Maya. Around the 4 and a half minute mark of the video you start to hear this drum beat being introduced into the video. The drum beat is more of a faster pace in comparison to how the flute is slow and smooth. The characters actions start to gain bait more spend and momentum, thus creating a more intense feeling that grips you into the video more as to see if anything happens. Of course the martial artists pace increases releasing this fast flowing rhythm of moves. Around about the 6 minute and 45 second mark you loose all sense of the flute as it dies out and is now 100% drum beat, this also creating a different atmosphere as to what you can also see. The martial artists jumps to our right (his left) and has a different change in clothing appearence! He is now dressed in some mortal combat clothing with a bandana and sword. He starts performing combat moves with the sword shown at a fast pace, (drum beat 100%). This scene is what I would class as the violence half of the video, stating the obvious with the matter that he has a SWORD in his hands, but also at the pace he is moving and the flair that is on show. He moves at such pace to potentially battle of his opponents. Saying this without the drum beat I would personally think that the scenes would not have half the impact as intended. The beat makes the whole concept more intense but you could relate the point of meaning that when you drum beat is going the character is going to be moving at a higher tempo and rhythm than compared to the flute. For example in a battlefield scenario you are moving fast when in combat, the character is in combat therefore must be moving fast which links together with the drum beat.
The flute is then introduced back into the video which then he starts to slow down and jumps back into the original space to where he does his slow meditation. HE returns back to his normal original state as to where he slowly does his meditation at a slow pace. This relating back to the beauty that Maya Deren intended to show. The shadows are casted on the white backboard in the studio of the shots. The shadows in my eyes are like the sheep and the shadow kick boxer is the shepherd. Almost like he is doing a class, as the shadows are the less dominant figure in the picture like you would see at a class, the instructor knowing all the moves and the learners following. The shadows are the less dominant and the human the dominant.

Well err, this is awkward. Recently decided to err create a blogger account. No doubt it's going to benefit me in the long run. So bait about myself. My name is Ellis, 18, studying FAD Media at Blackburn College.

Going to upload whatever I produce, research, random but useful stuff on here!