theMazed

Throughout the 70s and 80s, successful typical Australian films were principally set in the Australian bush landscape. ‘Crocodile Dundee’, ‘Mad Max cycle’, ‘Gallipoli’ is some significant examples. Again Australian Cinema is also well known for its larger than life characters found in the productions of such films as ‘Crocodile Dundee’. But Australian cinema has struggled to find an answer of a question and the question is ‘what does it mean to be Australian?’ Australian society and culture provides a broad introduction to the political discourse surrounding Australian identity. The key themes that works here is identity theory, political circumstances, gender and sexuality, immigration and national identity, citizenship and Aboriginality, literature and finally film.

‘Floating Life’ is movie that is all about Australian identity. It tells a story, which shows us the process of ‘othering’. National identity and self-identity is not the same and national identity relates to the process of ‘othering’ through discourse. Australia is a multi ethnic country. Immigrants from different countries migrated to Australia many years ago and then Australia questioned its national identity. Questions such as where am I? Who am I? Or who are they? ‘Floating Life’ shows us how the immigrants from different cultures are supposed to be in Australia, what might be their identity and how they should act. Through the globalization process national identity has become hybrid identity. Like in the movie, in Germany, Yen (Annette Shun Wah) finds her lost identity and cries before sleeping at night. She finds her root and her relation with her parents and her homeland Hong Kong. On that image we get a clear view of how every different migrant is continuously thinking about their identity but at the same time they are following other cultural identities by speaking German, living in Germany and so on though they do not belong in it.

In the movie, Pa (Edwin Pang) tells Ma (Cecilia) about an offence that had been done by a 12 years-old boy in America and just after that Bing (Annie Yip) gives her younger brother Chau (Toby Chan) a hard time about his clothing and says to Ma about her concerns. This concern actually indicates Western and Australian culture which is symbol of hybrid culture. Bing who moved to Australia after her high school and lead a tough life alone in a remote suburb watched how Western and Australian culture mixed up together which does not match with her culture. But she still becomes a tough girl, rough-and-ready because of leading her life in Australian way. It shows how Australian people getting tough day-by-day which is a part of their national identity. And again in the movie, white masculine landscape acts as a symbol for cultural identity. It reminds us about bush legends, mate ships that are some Australian national identities and in the same way when we see the kangaroo in the movie it reminds us that we are in Australia.

‘The Adventures of Barry McKenzie’ tell us what does it mean by Australian. It is more about showing rather then telling. Australian male is portrayed as being emotionally removed, uncommunicative, tough and withdrawn in typical Australian cinema. As Stephen Crofts says that, following the many anti establishment rumblings of the 1960s, and challenging the decent image of the bushy myth, there emerged the characterology of the ocker: urban and contemporary, insisting on the Australian vernacular, asserting working class masculinity values, committed to beer and sex, anti intellectual, philistine, and sometimes militantly anti-British. Though now Australia’s British identity is now only a nostalgic memory of the past. Barry McKenzie who with his double-breasted suit, airways bag which even then was a sign of mental retardation of an outdated Australian masculinity. Australians are famous for drinking beer especially the working class people. In the film Barry McKenzie drinks lots of Foster’s beer with his mates. Stephen Crofts again says that this beer a surrogate milk from the Australian side of the world. This sucking and biting Fosters’ beer remind us about Australian drinking culture, which has a significant value. Simultaneously the language accent that Barry McKenzie uses when he is in Britain in the film was quite Australian trademark accent that means though Australian was a child colony of Britain but still Australia has been ‘Other’. Australia belongs something that does not come from Britain of any other country of the world.

These classes were a blessing for us. We wanted to learn something and our teachers were aware of that. The most effective thing that I found in this course, was the different lectures from people in the industry. I confess that I could not join all of those classes because of my hardship in life, but still those classes I attended were full of knowledge and information. In the 1st class of Adobe After-Effects, I learned some key points of using the program. Probably I would say that I learnt why to use after effects as well as how to use it. In the class we all equally contributed to make something in after effects. I was thinking in the class how we could do things to give audiences a real experience of a situation through a movie. From my childhood I believed film and only film could generate a revolution for mankind but when I learnt that TV is the strongest medium, I was a bit confused and it was hard for me to accept. I do now understand why TV is powerful, but I still believe that film and only film is the strongest medium and has the most potential to create excitement for our audiences/people.

Camera module was a big discovery for me. I found that the session was really helpful for me. Honestly I had not touched any expensive cameras like those were shown in the class. Beside the PD170 we also looked at and used DVC Pro and DV Cam professional. Those are huge cameras with sensitive lenses. We learned not to judge any camera by their brand name and that was some of the most remarkable information that we found in the class. To prove the theory we tested Sony (DV cam) and Panasonic (DVC Pro) simultaneously. The Sony camera that we choose was brand new, but the Panasonic was a couple of years old. We connected the both cameras with TV for better view. Then we tested those cameras on TV. Surprisingly DVC Pro was giving us much better quality then DV cam. We tested different shots from different angel and the depth of image from DVC Pro was superb. So from now on I will definitely test the camera first, rather then go for any brand choice.

Music and sound are probably the most engaging parts of media. I believe that even if the camera work is not proper, a good piece of music can make it engaging and worth watching. I had not used a boom mic before I started this course. It seemed very big in the cover, but it is really only a small instrument. In the class I got some useful information about how to record a good sound against wind with boom mic and also how to use the mic at different angles from the subject. I did listen about the sound mixer but I never saw it because I did not have time. I left home after my high school. I did see and use the sound-mixing booth in radio studio room at Vic University, however. I saw the whole process in the class about how to use a sound mixer and I was very interested. AA batteries might be standard issue for the boom mic and mixer but we all should check these things before we go shooting. Besides the classes, I also learnt many things from tech office staff. They are really very helpful to ask about any issue regarding camera and mic.

I am doing my work experience in a production company called Archangel Productions as a part of my individual project. The people I am working under are the best and kindest people I have ever met. They helped me in each and every matter that I asked for during the whole semester. I work weekly 20 hrs in that company but sometimes I could not meet the requirements, and they were very flexible about that. I do not know why they are so good to me but I always will be very grateful to them and to the company. I have learnt many things working with them especially in pre production stage. Each and every step they took was planned before and also accomplished successfully. I think this is the first thing that every student should learn before they get themselves into media industry. As experience talks, I would say everyone should do work experience before they do any professional work.

Archangel Productions is only a very new business, and this production was the first project. While everyone on board is still learning, a few creative ideas have had good outcomes. Shooting was very interesting. We used Sony PD170p and DV cam to capture the action, and sometimes used blue and green screen composition.
Occasionally colored gels were used on studio lighting to give an effect.
My favorite scene was when we were shooting a car accident, with a bike. We chose to get certain shots, at different speeds and angles to give the impression of a hard impact. The actor who gets hit never actually feels an impact. In post-production, good editing creates the illusion.

Post-production was a surprise. Steven and Michael have good knowledge of after-effects and other post-production software. They showed me how they also use Lightwave 3d to enhance the production, and how all of these programs can work together. Sound editing was another job. Some sound effects had to be made from a sound library, and then editing into the video. Voiceovers were recorded in a sound studio and edited into the final work. We applied some effects to the voiceover to remove any breathing noises and hissing. Good music for the production was very hard to find, and music making software sometimes did not sound very professional. Steven and Michael decided to purchase a good music selection from the Internet, which was copyright-free. I learnt that sometimes it is cheaper and easier to not do everything yourself.

We started our collaborative meeting at the beginning of the 2nd semester of the MMP course. I was sick in the first two weeks, so that is why there was no meeting and we needed some time to get organize as well. After two weeks we met for our meeting in our famous kitchen based area at building 24. As we were late for the meeting we decided to go for shooting as early as we could. We really had a productive meeting and we divided the tasks equally for next couple of weeks. As usual, I was always ready to be a technical crew for the team. We decided to have similar meetings each and every week for the better outcome of our project.

After having a couple of good meetings in several weeks, something quite strange happened at one of them. Suddenly one of our team members were quite upset about structure of the script, because it mixed famous and student artist (young artists) together without any clear distinction. I am not sure, but it seemed to me that the team member was quite serious about that. Probably it was too late by now to make any changes on the script, and also it was really very hard to find any more professional artists in Melbourne. We discussed the issue thoroughly and finally we decided not to change the script. Regardless, the main scriptwriter was a bit upset about the comment of mixing artists. Then another new issue came up in the meeting about our budget. One of our crew proposed to acquire some money from those artists who we were supposed to interview. It seemed a bit weird to me and we collectively refused to do that. It did not seem at all reasonable to me. In that meeting, so many things happened and I thought that one main reason for misunderstanding was the different cultural background of the crew.

Our first shoot for this season! I was a excited because I had never used a PD170 with a boom mic before. While driving I was thinking of technical problems that could arise on the set. I was confident however no one can ever wholly depend on technology, because it is so unpredictable. As we were driving, we lost our way and I thought we would be late, but fortunately we arrived there before the due time. I did not take the time earlier for setup of the boom mic, and it turned out that the sound was not working properly. I discussed with the tech office about using the technical issues with the camera. Luckily, I only wasted 15 minute before the issue was fixed and we were finally ready to shoot. Sony PD cameras are great to use, but I found them a bit annoying because it is really uncomfortable to hold the camera without a tripod for long. The Canon XL2 is a type of camera that you can place on your shoulder and it is easy to shoot without a tripod. It helps to keep the camera shakes at a minimum. I really wish I had a Canon XL2. Anyway, the rest of the shooting was quite all right and we did end up with a 40-minute shoot of an artist. I will write to thank all of the team members, who were all very helpful. I thank them also for their positive feedback.