Week 9: Media Arts Workshop

 

 

Rules of third - Elements of Media Arts

A continuation from the lecture was the Media Arts workshop led by Miranda Jefferson. We began the workshop with a very engaging, group game called “Wink Assassin” which led us to think about eye focus, direction, space, control of body and eye, movement that all relate to the process and conception of film making. We revisited the elements of media arts, which were composition, time, space, sound, movement, and lighting. So in this workshop, we looked at new information like the three rules that are considered to be important when composing a film. These are the rule of thirds, movement, and perspective.

At first before entering the room I thought Media Arts might be challenging and difficult for teachers to incorporate and for students to understand, but from this workshop and up until when my future teaching commences. I learnt that the more and more students are exposed to media at an early age, through the internet, television and computer games, it is becoming more and more vital to develop students ability to critically analyse the media and us it effectively (Gibson & Ewing, 2011).

From this workshop and implications for my future teaching, I take aboard the importance of introducing the concepts to the students at the beginning of the lesson; this could be done by incorporating a game to effectively engage students. By allowing students to think/pair/share through looking at a range of images and how they have been set and captured,  can lead to the features of film making, where students share their ideas with their partner. Finally they then share  their insight to the classroom which can enrich students to develop imaginative skills as well as it allow them to view other peers perspective taking into account the various examples demonstrated. "In the development of film narrative, an intimate understanding of the processes involved provides the best preparation for an understanding of how narrative makes the journey from the imagination to the screen." (Anderson & Jefferson, 2009, p. 15).

The Rule of thirds (as above) refers to how the objects in the image have been positioned in terms of controlling the direction of the eye and when it is being viewed.  The four points where the lines overlap demonstrate the strongest focus of the images to the audience. 

  Reference:

Anderson, M., & Jefferson, M. (2009). Teaching the screen: Film education for generation next. Sydney: NSW:  Allen & Unwin.

Gibson, R. & Ewing, R. (2011). Transforming the curriculum through the Arts. NSW, Australia: Palgrave Macmillan.