#networkedculture

[christianjanev-blog]

The Internet may not be so great.

When did the Internet begin? How does it work? How did it get this big? These are obvious questions to possibly the greatest phenomenon to shape the history of Earth that nobody ever asked. To be frankly honest, nobody cares how the Internet works or even when it was invented, because it has slowly and effectively entered our lives and we as humans, unknowingly have become reliant on the internet as part of our everyday lives.

  Much like eating and sleeping is necessary for our survival, the Internet has entered that agenda as also being essential for our living. Nowhere in the Western world can you go today and somebody will not be on the Internet, whether it be on the phone or computer. The Internet surrounds us in such an ubiquitous way that it is scary.

  To think that not even ten years ago, social networking was merely starting out, and many of the communication that was ever done via the Internet was through email. Today, the Internet is much more practical for a variety of different things.

  Amongst a more developed social networking platform of media, the Internet allows people to go shopping from home, go to school from home, find love from the safety of their own house, do the banking, and even order food. It’s safe to say that the Internet has made it unnecessary for us to even leave the household cause we don’t really need to.

  But nonetheless, it is quite interesting to note that this may not be a good thing. Because, what will happen to the jobs people want to get to earn money. Will they need human laboring if the Internet is available? And what about social networking, will we backtrack in evolution and just be afraid of everyone we see or meet because of the lack of human interaction we will face. Forever being introverted and afraid to communicate with our fellow neighbor. And what about the health status of the world. Obesity should surely sore high, due to the number of people, being sedentary on their desks and not moving around.

  To think this idea of the Internet was created as a method for military communication and is now who we are as a human race is simply astounding. 

[christianjanev-blog]

Networked Storytelling

The idea for our video was to portray a horror parody genre of film in which the linking videos showed the killing off of each character and essentially reveal the actual killer of the film by the end of it. The basic plot was rather cliché for a horror parody.

  It was a long task to film something that would amass to a total duration of five minutes with filming taking place over 4 hours in a day. The reason for this would be due to various issues involving with acting, and the various different takes of the film, as well as experimentation with various different shots with the cinematography. Nevertheless, the shots that came out in the end were satisfactory and created a very well edited film.

  The use of annotations to adjoin the plot of the film reflects the way our social media, and new age media utilizes film in order to make the user, or the audience a contributive aspect of whatever production, or product are presented to them. Various films, television shows and products make use of this in order to give power to the audience, and show them that it is the audience are at the helm of deciding the direction of a product.

  It is interesting to note that with the development of the Internet. Sites such as YouTube, Facebook, and twitter have opened a public forum where people have the ability to voice their own opinion on any issue they are interested in. Therefore, large institutions, companies and conglomerates have to cater to the changing ways of the Internet, or suffer being dropped out and left behind while the rest advance into an ever-changing social spectrum.

  Although our video wasn’t primarily used to sell a product, we could clearly understand how once it was edited, and annotated. The direction the story would take was completely out of our control and into the audience’s disposal to either click one option, the other option, or close the tab.

[christianjanev-blog]

SOUND ENVIRONMENT

The sound setting that we attempted to establish was that of an industrial factory work setting. We were able to record a majority of the setting by going around the La trobe campus and recording various sounds that sounded like a factory setting. For example, the sound of a truck motor running, the tapping of sticks on a metal gutter, as well as the sound of a microwave oven running.

  What was interesting about this activity was that a lot of the sounds that were recorded did not have to have to come from the primary environment we were attempting to mimic. Rather, it just had to be recorded then altered during the editing process.

  When the sound was put together, the sound sequence seemed to sound like a factory setting, which was acknowledged by the class for the most part. However, there was some difficulty in recognizing the lunch break whistle of which we utilized by blowing a train whistle.

  Therefore, it was discovered that although this sound would be conventional in a classical factory setting, it would not be noticeable to all audiences, which brings light to the idea of entertainment media sound not being truthful but is simply accepted by audiences over repetition and the similar sounds being utilized over many showings of film and television. For example, the sound of a punch in film is highly unrealistic to the sound of a punch in real life. Nonetheless, the use of this sound effect is more identifiable with audiences to that of the realistic sounds.

  This activity, was extremely fun to complete, as well as a great learning experience for media and sound.