hands up those who have seen Guy Ritchie’s latest, ‘Rocknrolla’? i have seen it twice, both times in cinemas, but both times were different. the first time i saw the film was at The Ritz, on ‘tight-arse Tuesday’ of course, and i was absolutely blown away! the scripting and the dialogue that Ritchie delivers is genius, a great balance between action and humour; the casting is spot on with Toby Kebbel stealing the show in the final scenes playing crack-head rock ‘n’ roller Johnny Quid. but the part what blew me away was the sound. the sound was huge heightening the suspense and drama and underpinning the comedic element of the film, whilst the accompanying soundtrack could not have been more on the money. the film surpassed my expectations of Ritchie, going further than both his classic London gangster films, ‘Lock Stock’ and ‘Snatch’.

However, and here is the point i wish to make the second viewing left me bitterly disappointed.

Let me set the scene for you: it was a quiet friday night, and as one does on a friday night, i was looking for some entertainment. a small gang of my buddies and i decided a night off the booze would be good for a change and so settled on the idea of heading to Govindas, a hare krishna joint on Darlinghurst Road that offers up a delicious deal of all-you-can-eat vegetarian wonders and a movie in a small and intimate cinema for only 25 bucks! so off to Govindas where we literally ate all we could, and headed up stairs to the cinema where, other than the usual arrangement of cramped cinema chairs, you are greeted with an assortment of bedding, couches and beanbags with which to make your viewing pleasure all that more, um, pleasurable. it is truly a fantastic set up, i was so comfortable i even whipped my shirt off.

but from the opening credits i realised something was wrong. the sound setup in the cinema was absolutely terrible! there was only a small pair of stereo speakers situated up the front next to the screen, and being in the backrow, we could barely make out the sound. the stereo system had zero dynamic range and seemingly were without any bass capabilities. it was like watching a bootleg copy of the film that had been caught on a mini-dv camera by some shaky-handed, bald, sweating Thai delinquent that had somehow been passed off as a genuine copy to the kind folk at Govindas. i couldn’t believe it! the sound was just awful and the full effects of the film were just not there. the sound was flat and the action seemed stale. the dialogue didn’t feel right as the intonation and inflection of the characters voices was missing, and as you can imagine the delivery of speech felt dead. the film as a whole suffered. it just was not the same, not even close to being the same experience as the first time i saw the film.it almost felt like a b-grade movie which it certainly ain’t.

after talking up the film as the best piece of cinematic entertainment i had witnessed in a long time, i was left red-faced as the full of effects of the film could not be impacted upon my peers. the poor sound let the film down massively! words do not begin to explain this, but what it made me realise is that any production is only as good as its poorest aspect, and the sound let the film down, making the whole thing seem utterly sub-standard.

so i guess where i’m going with this is that as media producers who are all multi-talented and with the abilities to work with an array of media platforms, we should be striving for excellence with everything we do. for if if we build super websites, beautifully constructed with interesting design contents, but settle for crappy content, or produce an awesome video but don’t think about the sound and use some contrite garage band loop, then we let the whole production down. for it is the productions where every aspect is tops that we sit back and say, that was awesome! if you think about how we view media we do often take productions to pieces, analysing each aspect and saying, well that part was good, but i didn’t like this; or that was good, but was let down by this, etc. but it is the productions where every facet works together to construct a perfect whole that are the ones we remember.

so let’s not become complacent, and strive for excellence in every aspect of our work! happy producing.

Wednesday night is reading night: gleaning interesting info from the (seemingly thousands) of pages that Andrew has set for this weeks readings in preparation for tute time. However, tonight the ABC had other ideas. I am not a huge TV fan, to be honest, there is nothing that really excites me on toob. I have tired of American accents flooding our airwaves. Seriously! I rate American television as annoying as getting out of the shower only to discover that you have no towel. But tonight, tonight was something special. Tonight I witnessed televisual-box magic! Tonight made me realise that us Aussies make damn good TV and I had all my faith confirmed by Lawrence Leung’s new delight, ‘Choose Your Own Adventure’.

But first, the journey began with ye olde faithful, that ever-entertaining, but unfairly brief half hour morsel that is ‘Spicks and Specks’. With Adam Hills and co. offering up a half-hour of musical-based quizzical madness, and with two of our top comedians in Tim Minchin and Dave Hughes on board, this was the best episode I have watched yet.

This was then followed by Will Anderson in his new role as the host of ‘The Gruen Transfer’. Whilst this does produce tearful nostalgia and fits of rage over the canning of ‘The Glasshouse’, Anderson’s former tv baby, Anderson is sublime in his ability to take an amiably-gilded sword to the advertising industry, dicing and slicing some of their biggest campaigns to expose the meaning of the messages they send. ‘Gruen’ is more fun than a throwing a cat in a washing machine, and Anderson proves that the best way illustrate a point is with a fist full of satire.

But then, that’s when the magic happened. Step up Lawrence Leung! The man is a full-blown comic genius! Lawrence Leung’s new show, ‘Choose Your Own Adventure’, is sooooooo much fun! Wait. Seven O’s is not enough. SOOOOOOOOO much fun! There, nine to be sure, much happier with that, we can move on. Leung offers up a slab of self-reflexive and introspective humour that has been missing since ‘Summer Heights High’ left our screens and I think Leung will fill the big shoes that have (for now) been left by Chris Lillee. The show is just soo much fun, I cannot think of any other adjectives to describe it. Wait…one second. Off to google to find some….the show is a riotous romp, a boisterous escapade, a convivial quest through Leung’s failed childhood and is his attempt to relive and re-do his shortcomings as a youngster. Seriously great stuff and I don’t think I have ever been so involved with a TV show as I have with ‘Choose Your Own Adventure’. My hat is raised to you sir Leung!

But I guess the most that I took away from the show was that Leung was able to showcase the potential for a mutli-faceted media approach to a simple medium. Leung’s use of animation, and I’m not quite sure what it is called, so I will describe it thusly: through drawing cutesy pictures over the top of the video, and using stop-motion animation of playschool-esque characters and scenes to illustrate a point and provide super-entertaining visuals. This was really exciting to see for a new media producer as, although not entirely new, it shows how effective multi-media can be and the depth that it adds to a production.

I had my beliefs in our ability to produce great entertainment confirmed by the ABC tonight. With former glories, the affore mentioned ‘Glasshouse’ and ‘Summer Heights High’, and let’s not forget ‘The Chaser’, we are truly capable of producing some of the best stuff on the box. Hell, i’ll even admit to liking Seven’s ‘Packed to the Rafters’. And who could forget the first series of ‘Underbelly’? I don’t see why the Australian media producers don’t get behind Aussie productions? If it’s a money issue, canning ‘Neighbours’ and ‘Home and Away’ should free up some desperately needed funds. Now that i’ve solved that problem, we still have the problem of Matthew Newton still getting gigs on TV….

i am thinking also that what could potentially make this more interesting is to have the recorded confessions re-recorded by children so that what is revealed as adult thought is spoken through the voice of the innocent. i think this could potentially be more emotionally engaging, as universal human truths are revealed by children. you know how in hollywood films or on television it is often the children who are able to enunciate a solution to a problem more ably than an adult and it is often the children that are able to teach the adult something by offering a uniquely fresh perspective? this is what i hope to achieve if i follow this path. however, this idea needs teasing out.

i want to do this in the hope that the recorded confessions will reveal or hold some universal truths and experiences, and will hold common themes for all who engage with the space. i am hoping that those that engage with the space will see that we all have unspoken words and thoughts and hopefully this will empower an audience to act on these, perhaps by discussing what they have always wanted to but have never been able to. a bit wanky maybe? i’m not sure, but that’s my motivation: to illicit some kind of emotional response, no matter how big or small.

my first idea was ‘live lounge’. the ‘live lounge’ can be a literal place or space where audio producers are invited to come and share their work, experiences and ideas with working with audio. the space will be videod and the video will be fed into the ‘live lounge’ website where it can be viewed in realtime or videos can be stored for later. The audience will be ‘linked’ to the ‘live lounge’ in realtime through a twitter feed that the artists who are being previewed in the lounge can access, so a potential audience can communicate directly with the artists, asking questions, offereing feedback and directly engaging with what is happening in the ‘lounge’. I am thinking that this website can be used as both an educational tool, for audio peoples to come and share their knowledge with an audience of amatuer audio producers, as well as a potential place for collaboration, but perhaps most importantly, as a potential place for entertainment, with live dj sets on a friday and saturday night for example, and interviews with audio artists.

My second idea for the ‘live lounge’ was to have an interactive website with a myriad of pre-recorded audio loops and sounds that can be mixed by users on the fly, producing a totally interactive radio program where users from all around the world can mix the soundtrack at any time. This mix will be broadcast live and mixed as it happens in realtime. however, i am unsure if this is even possible, so it needs further development.

So, these are my initial ideas, and as you can see there is great potential for collaboration with web, video, and other audio students, and after having great experiences working with you guys last year i am really keen for further collaboration this year, so if you like my ideas, or think they can be improved or would like to work with me, please let me know as i am keen for any feedback! thanks

beginning where all good stories do, that is at the beginning, i will tell you a little about myself. my name is joel, i am a third year media student, and i grew up on the mid north coast of forster. i moved to sydney six years ago, into the big brother-esque world of phillip baxter college. i began what was to become a very long stint at university in the coma-inducing lecture halls of the engineering faculty, and after almost two years of non-attendance in compulsory classes, developing a healthy drinking habit and having digested enough episodes of family guy to cause some form of cartoon-constipation, i realised i was wasting my time. this was not where i wanted to be. in 2004 i became the publications director of baxter in my second year, and the experience of publishing the college magazines and yearbook helped me to realise my future was in producing media. and since then i haven’t looked back!

i am a media addict and i love thinking and writing about media and media technologies and i love producing media. i have come to find that i video and sound could be my thing and i am excited by the creative freedom we have been given to explore our ownselves and how we can use media technologies to express ourselves. i am looking forward to an exciting and productive year, so let’s get into it!

see you out there on the interwebs.