Reflection on Networked Media Production + 3 nominated blogs

So the semester of networked media production has come to a close, and i must admit it has been a really interesting and enjoyable one. The lectures offered an interesting insight into communication and information web that is the internet and I have learnt a great deal about some of the vast uses of the net.

Blogging for me was a new experience and to be honest i found it hard to consistently write anything of quality from week to week. At first i think i began with some stupid youtube video called japanese binocular soccer and then tried to mix my love of sport with the subject with a tour de france and la vuelta review, but they were rather shallow in quality as well and really not very interesting. There were some muck around posts as well, but i think as the semester wore on i found this blog a very useful tool in keeping all my work organised.

I ended up setting up my blog as my home page, and added links to my most frequently visited sites, which happened to include my course homepages for uni. It was reassuring to be able to have my work organised on one page without having to sift through notebooks, especially in particularly busy periods.

In future i can definitely see myself using my blog as a way of organising my work for uni, I have enjoyed the course and would like to thank the tutors, nathan and michael for introducing us to some pretty cool and useful stuff, cheers fellas!

Seb

Instead of writing three brand new, very impressively lecture note regurgitated blogs, i thought i would just be honest with myself and throw in the three blogs that sort of might resemble something relevant to our studies through the semester:

1. Review of an inclass exercise
2. Why choose blogger.com
3. A somewhat ridiculous commentary on the American electoral campaign

Assignment B: Tour Diary- ACT High Performance Academy Pre Season Trip to Caloundra 2008

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Originally for this assignment I had wanted to create a fictional narrative around Canberra, but felt that this would be something that a lot of students doing this assignment would do. I then considered the idea of creating a historical timeline of the history of Canberra, but felt that this was not as interesting as i first thought and also didn't have the strength of narrative i wanted. I then stumbled across a few books at home, and being a mad cricket fan, they were in fact a series of tour diaries that Australian Captain Steve Waugh had written tour's to England, South Africa and the Sub Continent. The diaries offered an interesting insight into the lives of professional sportsman away on tours. It looked delved behind the scenes of the meticulous planning and preparation involved as well as the enormous amounts of travel.

Having recently been fortunate enough to take part in a ACT cricket Academy pre-season tour to Caloundra, and also having taken a few photos of the trip, i decided to give the tour diary idea a go. Geo-tagging the flickr images with google maps ads a different perspective to how the week long tour unfolded. It gives a good visual account of the distance as well as the surroundings of the ground and hotel. It is an interesting way to present the trip, which follows the tour from my point of view as well showing match results, hopefully adding more depth to how the tournament unfolded than could be presented with photos or scorecards alone. It also gives a good insight as to what happens off the field in the life of a sportsman participating in competition off the field, delving into preparation and recovery.

I enjoyed putting this project together and hopefully it gives the viewer a new and interesting perspective to a cricket tour.

By Seb Blaszczyk

Assessment Item 2: Short Animation

What we want you to do (the brief):
The final assessment item will be done in groups of two (the groups will be
randomly selected by your tutor). In this assessment item we want you to
make a short 30 second animation of a very simple narrative. In this story a
ball rolls down a hill, then launches off a ramp and finally lands in a cup. The
catch is that you need to do this in no less than 8 unique shots (although you
can use more if you wish). The final animation should be submitted as a Flash
.swf at 720 by 576 pixels.

Why we want you to do it:
The point of this assignment is to get you to depict a very simple narrative that,
at its most basic, does not require highly complex use of the software. By
using a minimum of 8 shots you have to think carefully about what shots you’ll
choose. With so many shots in only 30 seconds, the challenge will be to
maintain a sense of motion and progression.

How we are going to assess you (assessment criteria):
• How well you followed the brief (GA: Professionalism)
• How well the narrative is depicted - can the viewer follow what’s
happening without having it explained to him or her? (GA: Cultural
literacy, Communication)
• Your application of basic animation techniques – eg: stretch and squash
(GA: Cultural literacy)
• The creativity of your approach - there are many ways to interpret the
narrative described above (GA: Creativity)
• The visual quality of the piece - colour, form, composition of shots
(GA: Communication, Cultural literacy)
• The technical difficulty of completing the piece (GA: Technical
literacy)
• How well your group functioned (GA: Professionalism, Adaptability,
Communication)