editing second chapter particularly painful today. for those keeping score at home, chapter 2 is the only one i've written, and it's kinda multi-pupose, an introduction/demographics/methods/ethics chapter. it's probably 85% complete - fully written, but needing some sections expanded on.
decided to take a break from the editing struggle to crunch some statistical data that i'll need for one part of this chapter, where i basically describe what sort of vids are posted to the main community, what shows are being vidded, and what the community is talking about just to give an overview.
so for the past 6 months (feb-july) i've been writing down a basic summary of everything that's been posted in an excel spreadsheet. i figured it would be a bit tough to analyze later on, but at the time of recording i only wanted it to be easy to take down.
and now i'm kicking myself in the face for it.
i never studied statistics, or learned how to crunch quantitative data in my undergrad, or even in my postgrad. i'm sure it would have been excruciating to sit through such a class, but MAN do i wish i knew a better way to do this.
bumped into a colleague of mine on the way to the library, another arts postgrad, and i was telling her about this problem, and she turns to me and says...
"you know, they have computer programs that do all that for you now, right?"
duh.
Showing posts with label thesis. Show all posts
Showing posts with label thesis. Show all posts
Tuesday, September 15, 2009
Monday, January 26, 2009
still not dead
just got back to oz last week after a month back home in canada for xmas. desperately trying to get things back on track with this thesis, as i've ended up quite behind as of late due to a pile of interferences.
i'm currently in the pipeline to upgrade from an MA thesis to a PhD dissertation... i was offered a scholarship, but there seem to be some problems getting it approved so i'm currently in limbo because i can't afford to do a PhD without the free monies. argh. it's been 6 weeks or more now with this awful limbo... if i get the PhD it will drastically change how i proceed. i need to know one way or the other so i can get my act together and bash out some actual work!
still trying to transcribe all my notes from my time at VidUKon - how sad is that? like i said, i've gotta get on this...
(p.s. happy australia day!)
i'm currently in the pipeline to upgrade from an MA thesis to a PhD dissertation... i was offered a scholarship, but there seem to be some problems getting it approved so i'm currently in limbo because i can't afford to do a PhD without the free monies. argh. it's been 6 weeks or more now with this awful limbo... if i get the PhD it will drastically change how i proceed. i need to know one way or the other so i can get my act together and bash out some actual work!
still trying to transcribe all my notes from my time at VidUKon - how sad is that? like i said, i've gotta get on this...
(p.s. happy australia day!)
Friday, November 28, 2008
blind-sided
wow. strange day on monday for me. my advisor has, several times already, asked me if i'd like to consider upgrading my thesis from a MA to a PhD, and several times i've said no to him. of many, many factors, one of the biggest decisions in my choice to just finish my work on vidding at the MA level is the fact that i simply cannot afford to pay any more tuition.
okay. flash forward several months. meeting with advisor. he says, "if you agree to stay, i'll go to bat for you and get you a guaranteed scholarship for three years."
i freak out.
i agonize over it for many, many days.
i freak out some more.
i say yes.
i won't hear for a while if i will get the scholarship or not, and i cannot stay if i don't, but right now it looks like this could be a PhD on vidding, and another three years in oz for me. SCARY!
okay. flash forward several months. meeting with advisor. he says, "if you agree to stay, i'll go to bat for you and get you a guaranteed scholarship for three years."
i freak out.
i agonize over it for many, many days.
i freak out some more.
i say yes.
i won't hear for a while if i will get the scholarship or not, and i cannot stay if i don't, but right now it looks like this could be a PhD on vidding, and another three years in oz for me. SCARY!
Sunday, June 08, 2008
the joys of the lit review
okay, so i know it's been quite a while since i last posted and for that i apologize. i'm going to try and post once a week or similar from now on.
some updates on my progress:
i won't be attending vividcon in chicago in august, unfortunately. i'm rather upset i won't be able to go, but dems da breaks. so instead, i've registered to go to vidukon in england, coming up in october. i've never been to europe, so i'm really excited about it. the only fun part now is convincing my uni to give me some financial support.
my ethics application has been submitted, as well - it's been about three weeks now, but i don't think the committee have met since i gave it over... fingers crossed, everyone! many of the laws regarding media appropriation and the like are extremely strict here in oz, so i'm a bit worried about what the committee will think of my proposal. i'm using some pretty strict methods to keep the identity of my participants confidential, and i hope that will do the trick for them. but you know copyright law - it can be a sticky, scary mess sometimes.
i did a scary and massive review of feminist literature in regards to film over the past month, as well. it was all rather daunting, but i managed to slog through it and i think i've finally come up with something that's relatively cogent for the vidders. i couldn't find a single theorist or group of theorists which i found to apply to the vidding community and their practices, because let's face it - it is a hugely diverse group with a thousand different perspectives.
and then i realized - that's almost like the academics, isn't it? pick up a recent feminist media/film reader, and each chapter will have a completely different way of reading the same text. for example, sherrie inness's collection entitled "action chicks" offers interpretations ranging from Herbst's view that the lara croft is simply a spectacle created for male consumption, while Brown states that these types of heroines are transgressive as they embody both male and female attributes, and Tung argues that the powerful black female is not offered the same opportunity to be progressive as the powerful white female because it invokes an ideology of savagery instead...
and these different viewpoints reminded me of those of many of the vids i have watched over the past few months. consider luminosity & sisabet's women's work to absolute destiny's i enjoy being a girl to giandujakiss's origin stories to LC's jack.... all these vids are about people watching a show and having something to say about its portrayal of women (whether commending or condeming it). and i think it's really similar to what the academics are saying. it's a struggle over the meaning of the text.
i'm not going to get too far into this (unless anyone would like me to elaborate) because i don't want to bog this post down with theory or anything, so i'll leave that thought there for now.
i have also found some interesting work on film music theory that i am really excited to apply to vidding. if different people can watch the same show and get completely different meanings out it, then we get into a bit of a pickle regarding if a text has any inherent meaning at all, and that sort of postmodern debate. so this applies to the vids as well - if a television text doesn't have an inherent, intended, clearly understood meaning, how can a vid?
i did ponder this, and one answer i came up with was this:
a television show is made by a massive cast and crew, and even different episodes are written by different people. take a show like lost or heroes - could you sit one of the creators or writers down and ask them what their show "means"? it would be a tough question to answer, i think. and the other members of the crew could give really different answers.
a vid, on the other hand, is usually made by a single person (or small group of people). and if you want to know what a vidder had in mind when they were creating, just read their notes or commentary that accompany it. should give you a pretty clear idea, no? also, there is much more contact between the vidders and their audience than there is in terms of mainstream TV texts and their viewers. if i wanted to know what a vidder thought about their vid, i could just leave a comment on their LJ or email them. but i can't just call up eric kripke and ask what was up with season three of SPN (no matter how much i wish i could, lol).
but it turns out the answer to this question (the question of how to interpret meaning in a text) was staring me in the face the whole time.
it's the music! it's in the MUSIC!
duh.
how obvious, am i right? i realized with a massive slap to the face the other day that up to this point i had been ignoring the absolutely VITAL ingredient of the music.
lightbulbs went off. i grabbed some film music theory work... and there it is! suture theory. thank you, claudia gorbman & jostein gripsurd!
while a text may have a multitude of potential meanings floating around, the music in film acts as a suture, restricting the possible interpretations down to a more limited number. suturing the text to the emotional or psychological response intended by the creator.
BOOYAH.
i'm still in the beginning stages of developing this idea, of course, but i think it's a really positive step forward for me. a framework is beginning to appear, and that makes me really, really excited.
feel free to comment, debunk, admire, or laugh at me in the comments if you think i'm way off. at this point, i'm still trapped behind a pile of dry theorists in their ivory tower, and i have to wait until my ethics approval comes down from TPTB to actually test this with some vidders. but here's hoping!
some updates on my progress:
i won't be attending vividcon in chicago in august, unfortunately. i'm rather upset i won't be able to go, but dems da breaks. so instead, i've registered to go to vidukon in england, coming up in october. i've never been to europe, so i'm really excited about it. the only fun part now is convincing my uni to give me some financial support.
my ethics application has been submitted, as well - it's been about three weeks now, but i don't think the committee have met since i gave it over... fingers crossed, everyone! many of the laws regarding media appropriation and the like are extremely strict here in oz, so i'm a bit worried about what the committee will think of my proposal. i'm using some pretty strict methods to keep the identity of my participants confidential, and i hope that will do the trick for them. but you know copyright law - it can be a sticky, scary mess sometimes.
i did a scary and massive review of feminist literature in regards to film over the past month, as well. it was all rather daunting, but i managed to slog through it and i think i've finally come up with something that's relatively cogent for the vidders. i couldn't find a single theorist or group of theorists which i found to apply to the vidding community and their practices, because let's face it - it is a hugely diverse group with a thousand different perspectives.
and then i realized - that's almost like the academics, isn't it? pick up a recent feminist media/film reader, and each chapter will have a completely different way of reading the same text. for example, sherrie inness's collection entitled "action chicks" offers interpretations ranging from Herbst's view that the lara croft is simply a spectacle created for male consumption, while Brown states that these types of heroines are transgressive as they embody both male and female attributes, and Tung argues that the powerful black female is not offered the same opportunity to be progressive as the powerful white female because it invokes an ideology of savagery instead...
and these different viewpoints reminded me of those of many of the vids i have watched over the past few months. consider luminosity & sisabet's women's work to absolute destiny's i enjoy being a girl to giandujakiss's origin stories to LC's jack.... all these vids are about people watching a show and having something to say about its portrayal of women (whether commending or condeming it). and i think it's really similar to what the academics are saying. it's a struggle over the meaning of the text.
i'm not going to get too far into this (unless anyone would like me to elaborate) because i don't want to bog this post down with theory or anything, so i'll leave that thought there for now.
i have also found some interesting work on film music theory that i am really excited to apply to vidding. if different people can watch the same show and get completely different meanings out it, then we get into a bit of a pickle regarding if a text has any inherent meaning at all, and that sort of postmodern debate. so this applies to the vids as well - if a television text doesn't have an inherent, intended, clearly understood meaning, how can a vid?
i did ponder this, and one answer i came up with was this:
a television show is made by a massive cast and crew, and even different episodes are written by different people. take a show like lost or heroes - could you sit one of the creators or writers down and ask them what their show "means"? it would be a tough question to answer, i think. and the other members of the crew could give really different answers.
a vid, on the other hand, is usually made by a single person (or small group of people). and if you want to know what a vidder had in mind when they were creating, just read their notes or commentary that accompany it. should give you a pretty clear idea, no? also, there is much more contact between the vidders and their audience than there is in terms of mainstream TV texts and their viewers. if i wanted to know what a vidder thought about their vid, i could just leave a comment on their LJ or email them. but i can't just call up eric kripke and ask what was up with season three of SPN (no matter how much i wish i could, lol).
but it turns out the answer to this question (the question of how to interpret meaning in a text) was staring me in the face the whole time.
it's the music! it's in the MUSIC!
duh.
how obvious, am i right? i realized with a massive slap to the face the other day that up to this point i had been ignoring the absolutely VITAL ingredient of the music.
lightbulbs went off. i grabbed some film music theory work... and there it is! suture theory. thank you, claudia gorbman & jostein gripsurd!
while a text may have a multitude of potential meanings floating around, the music in film acts as a suture, restricting the possible interpretations down to a more limited number. suturing the text to the emotional or psychological response intended by the creator.
BOOYAH.
i'm still in the beginning stages of developing this idea, of course, but i think it's a really positive step forward for me. a framework is beginning to appear, and that makes me really, really excited.
feel free to comment, debunk, admire, or laugh at me in the comments if you think i'm way off. at this point, i'm still trapped behind a pile of dry theorists in their ivory tower, and i have to wait until my ethics approval comes down from TPTB to actually test this with some vidders. but here's hoping!
Friday, February 15, 2008
it's business time
well, now that i've actually pondered some of the things i'm going to actually cover for this thesis, i'm going to have to get down to business. i believe that it's important to connect with your potential research participants and subjects in more than just a superficial manner, and i've made some great friends out of my previous fieldwork endeavours. the only problem is, now i'm a) on the other side of the world, making old contacts a bit harder to reach, and b) doing the majority of my research online with people i'll never meet.
and so, i'm going to make this blog a place for us to connect, shoot the breeze, and to debate and/or make fun of my various insane ideas. i've revamped the sidebars and links sections and hope to have a new layout at some point as well, so here's to the future of this blog!
and here's hoping i make it out of this thesis (mostly) intact.
my next post will hopefully detail a few of the things i want to cover over the course of my writing. 'til then!
and so, i'm going to make this blog a place for us to connect, shoot the breeze, and to debate and/or make fun of my various insane ideas. i've revamped the sidebars and links sections and hope to have a new layout at some point as well, so here's to the future of this blog!
and here's hoping i make it out of this thesis (mostly) intact.
my next post will hopefully detail a few of the things i want to cover over the course of my writing. 'til then!
Monday, February 11, 2008
thesis topic FINALLY chosen
okay, so i finally had a proper meeting with two professors here at uni about my thesis topic, and it now seems that i will be (honestly and truly) writing my MA on fan music vids.
totally.
and the best part was the two profs seemed really interested/fascinated by the entire topic. i was surprised, let me tell you! there are a ton of aspects of this that could potentially be covered, and they both seemed worried that i would have too much to write about! (awesome.)
i'm super excited about this now, in case you couldn't tell.
a request - i would love to hear about your absolute fav vids (whether amv or vid proper) and why. also, what makes a good vid? what constitutes it? what components are essential for a good vid and why? any thoughts? no need to be too elaborate, but if you have time to share your thoughts, go for it. (links to vids always appreciated.)
some new vids i'm crushing on:
- Lost in an Anime Dream by Hana no JudgeHolden Productions for combining Read or Die with the Lost in Translation flick and footage from the original Madonna vid for the song, and making the city of Tokyo a character. i love how this one collapses boundaries between "real" footage and animation, between the song and the video... rockon. LINK!
- Ordained from Above, by Many Lemons Productions for making a amv about making amvs. i'm still in shock that this even exists, but i love it. it shows quite clearly the crazy dedication and mania that can go into creating a vid. LINK!
- Moons of Jupiter by Eunice (doctor who), because i was just so overjoyed to find a vid that highlighted the rather wonky happiness of who, and was not an angst-filled "ROSE/TEN 4-EVAR OTP!" type of vid. also, i love the licking / monster / running / hugging montages. love. this vid seems to me to be a ten/tardis 'ship vid. or maybe i'm drunk. one never knows. the point is, this vid captures the mad and quirky energy of who.
(also, i can't help but smiled back at scenes 1.44-1.50.) LINK!
- Rodeohead by Absolute Destiny. I've loved this guy's vidding since his early days in amvs. the song can be a little annoying, but if you can get over that then i think the vid grows on you.
- Jack, Or Adventures in Reading Against the Text, by LC, just for being so aware of what she is doing when she makes vids. (also, i like the song.)
- Vids=Joy! by CounterAgent, for having the hutzpah to make a vid about how much she loves vids, using clips from other people's vids that she loves - without actually making any cuts to them at all! craziness. it makes my heart happy. LINK!
- Filthy Mind, by SE. i love the stream-of-consciousness methodology behind this vid, crossing boundaries between shoes at will. i love love love worship the idea of sydney bristow, faith, the life on mars cops, captain jack, angel, and the lot all in the same club. brilliant. talk about collapsing boundaries between shows. LINK!
- Improper Dancing, by Mary Crawford. because it's lovely awesome fun. lovely awesome. the joy of seeing rarely-vidded older shoes, as well! and as she says in her commentary: "hiro wins at life." LINK!
- Walking, by Seah and Margie, for giving a great old mockery towards all who don't understand/know about vidding specifically, and that great series of tubes we call teh internets in general. don't worry, old peoples, it will all make sense one day. LINK!
and thus begins my proper foray into researchy-type stuff. hopefully i'll get this blog arollin' again to be used for actual communication with people in the internets.
so hello again, big world! bring it on
totally.
and the best part was the two profs seemed really interested/fascinated by the entire topic. i was surprised, let me tell you! there are a ton of aspects of this that could potentially be covered, and they both seemed worried that i would have too much to write about! (awesome.)
i'm super excited about this now, in case you couldn't tell.
a request - i would love to hear about your absolute fav vids (whether amv or vid proper) and why. also, what makes a good vid? what constitutes it? what components are essential for a good vid and why? any thoughts? no need to be too elaborate, but if you have time to share your thoughts, go for it. (links to vids always appreciated.)
some new vids i'm crushing on:
- Lost in an Anime Dream by Hana no JudgeHolden Productions for combining Read or Die with the Lost in Translation flick and footage from the original Madonna vid for the song, and making the city of Tokyo a character. i love how this one collapses boundaries between "real" footage and animation, between the song and the video... rockon. LINK!
- Ordained from Above, by Many Lemons Productions for making a amv about making amvs. i'm still in shock that this even exists, but i love it. it shows quite clearly the crazy dedication and mania that can go into creating a vid. LINK!
- Moons of Jupiter by Eunice (doctor who), because i was just so overjoyed to find a vid that highlighted the rather wonky happiness of who, and was not an angst-filled "ROSE/TEN 4-EVAR OTP!" type of vid. also, i love the licking / monster / running / hugging montages. love. this vid seems to me to be a ten/tardis 'ship vid. or maybe i'm drunk. one never knows. the point is, this vid captures the mad and quirky energy of who.
(also, i can't help but smiled back at scenes 1.44-1.50.) LINK!
- Rodeohead by Absolute Destiny. I've loved this guy's vidding since his early days in amvs. the song can be a little annoying, but if you can get over that then i think the vid grows on you.
- Jack, Or Adventures in Reading Against the Text, by LC, just for being so aware of what she is doing when she makes vids. (also, i like the song.)
- Vids=Joy! by CounterAgent, for having the hutzpah to make a vid about how much she loves vids, using clips from other people's vids that she loves - without actually making any cuts to them at all! craziness. it makes my heart happy. LINK!
- Filthy Mind, by SE. i love the stream-of-consciousness methodology behind this vid, crossing boundaries between shoes at will. i love love love worship the idea of sydney bristow, faith, the life on mars cops, captain jack, angel, and the lot all in the same club. brilliant. talk about collapsing boundaries between shows. LINK!
- Improper Dancing, by Mary Crawford. because it's lovely awesome fun. lovely awesome. the joy of seeing rarely-vidded older shoes, as well! and as she says in her commentary: "hiro wins at life." LINK!
- Walking, by Seah and Margie, for giving a great old mockery towards all who don't understand/know about vidding specifically, and that great series of tubes we call teh internets in general. don't worry, old peoples, it will all make sense one day. LINK!
and thus begins my proper foray into researchy-type stuff. hopefully i'll get this blog arollin' again to be used for actual communication with people in the internets.
so hello again, big world! bring it on
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