Week 5- Response to Lecture

In last weeks lecture, we spoke about the consumption of film and television, and the significant dates in history that changed the industry. This week's lecture picked up where we left off, introducing the other side of film and television; production. With such amazing technical devices being made nowadays, such as high quality digital cameras, laptops and mobile phones with cameras/video cameras, any regular person is able to produce their own film in the palm of their hands.

These inventions give everyday people the opportunity to show their creativity, and with online video streaming websites such as youtube, they are able to showcase their works on the internet to the entire world, hoping that one day someone will see it and believe they have talent. The convergence between consumption and production is made possible through modern devices, making film production simple, affordable, accessible and easy to do.

In the lecture, Jules explained to us that the first footage of the Tsunami was released via a mobile phone. Due to the severity of the waves, the media were unable to get in there to document the horrific natural disaster. Without mobile phones, the world would have never been able to experience this tragedy.

Here is an example of a simple short film called "Midnight Paranoia", filmed and edited on a Nokia 6220:

We also briefly spoke about Culture Jamming which is defined as a method of modifying mass media to convey a "message" whether it's political, social or some other form of activism. Although I had never heard of this term before, I had heard of stories which have portrayed culture jamming. I believe the approach of culture jamming has positives and negatives; the false stories created have a message which may or may not effect people around the world, however, these false stories created can hurt people as they are led to believe false information.