"Ours is a brand-new world of allatonceness. 'Time' has ceased, 'space' has vanished. We now live in global village ... a simultaneous happening. We have begun again to structure the primordial feeling, the tribal emotions from which a few centuries of literacy divorced us."~Marshall McLuhan, The Medium is the Massage
The title of this film, "The Medium," is both a reference to Mcluhan's classic, as well as a fitting name to the nature of the subject matter; the means in which we communicate. In this video, I sought to exploit today's rapid-fire digital communication, as a response to the specific McLuhan quote, "At the high speeds of electric communication, purely visual means of apprehending the world are no longer possible; they are just too slow to be relevant or effective."
I created to soundtrack in Garageband, using a mixture of natural and synthetic sounds and loops. The final shot of this film focuses on a quote that is printed on the back of Massage, book, which reads, "all media works us over completely." McLuhan's computer-aged philosophy, conveyed through ever-changing media, poses an opportunity for us to understand where we came from, and where we are heading.
This is an incredibly, well-thought-out short film. You use powerful images that capture your message in a entertaining and unsettling manner. The music is an important element in every film, and you created a piece that helped to evoke different emotions throughout the seconds of the video. It definitely speeds up the pace of the visual elements and the heart beats of the viewers.
ReplyDeleteI only have a question though, what is your take on this "ceasing" of time and "vanishing" of space that McLuhan talks about? From your film (assuming that we agree with McLuhan), I felt as if for you this rapid change is affecting our society, specially in the interactions between people. Would you say that you were aiming for that? or am I completely wrong?
Great job, and hope to hear from you.
I think this is fantastic! I absolutely love that you made your own soundtrack on Garageband. I also like that you used a shot of a quote from Massage.
ReplyDeleteThis is just awesome!!! I like the soundtrack, and just the quality of the film looks pretty professional. We should work on film together in the future. :)
ReplyDeleteI love the "rapid fire" idea and the bits on Omegle. Oh man, I feel like you just captured all the simultaneous emptiness and fullness of the internet in one short film.
ReplyDeleteI loved this idea! The video looks amazing and really got your point across. I love that constant question 'are you there?' especially because it really gets across the idea that the internet isn't really present - how do you know when you're talking to someone, or even if you're talking to someone, over something like Omegle? It's a very intriguing thought.
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