During our first lesson of Contextual Studies, we created an avatar by taking pictures of various body parts and placing them side by side.
Comparing Culture with a mundane object
While for some people cars may be just a means of transportation, for others, cars may be their passion and their culture. Every week, hundreds of car meets take place in car parks and Car owner spend thousands of dollars/euros on car parts to make their car faster or better looking.
Semiotics
The topic of semiotics was created by Ferdinand de Saussure and Charles Sanders Peirce, which are also known as the fathers of semiotics. They created the terms Signified and Signifier.
- Signified – actual object
- Signifier – signs, images, text
Denotation
vs Connotation
Denotation is the literal meaning while connotation is its secondary meaning.
These are some examples on this image:
| Denotation | Connotation |
| Red | Red |
| Heart | Valentines |
| Pump | Chocolates |
| Blood | Relationships |
| Organ | Heart Break |
| Body | Happiness |
| Muscle | Care |
As an exercise, the lecturer told us to describe our every-day routine with the use of emojis
Task 2
Neil deGrasse Tyson is an American astrophysicist. In 2008 he was interviewed by Time Magazine and he was asked a question which till this day, remains very popular. The question was ‘What is the most outstanding fact about the universe?’ Instead of giving a strait forward answer, deGrasse Tyson gave a 3 minute talk which leaves you speechless.
This is every thing he said:
The most astounding fact is the knowledge that the atoms that comprise life on Earth, the atoms that make up the human body, are traceable to the crucibles that cooked light elements into heavy elements in their core under extreme temperatures and pressures.
These stars, the high mass ones among them, went unstable in their later years. They collapsed and then exploded, scattering their enriched guts across the galaxy. Guts made of carbon, nitrogen, oxygen and all the fundamental ingredients of life itself.
These ingredients become part of gas clouds that condense, collapse, form the next generation of solar systems, stars with orbiting planets. And those planets now have the ingredients for life itself.
So that when I look up at the night sky and I know that yes, we are part of this universe, we are in this universe, but perhaps more important than both of those facts is that the universe is in us. When I reflect on that fact, I look up—many people feel small because they’re small and the universe is big—but I feel big, because my atoms came from those stars. There’s a level of connectivity.
That’s really what you want in life, you want to feel connected, you want to feel relevant, you want to feel like you’re a participant in the goings-on of activities and events around you. That’s precisely what we are, just by being alive.
Since it is very technical at times, let me simplify it a bit.
What Neil basically says is that we all came from the stars around us because they exploded, resulting in a lot of scattered guts across the galaxy.
My idea is to put matching visuals to his narration, with some inspiring music to make better understanding of the speech.
Mood Board:
Resources:
Task 4:
Most Astounding Fact About the Universe:
Link:
My self evaluation of the video.
The idea:
When Neil Degrasse Tyson was asked to explain the most astounding fact about the universe, he explained how us, humans originated from the stars that we see at night, a very long time ago.
Feedback:
Based on the general feedback I received during the pitch, I think that most of the students liked the editing and the drone shot the most. I was pleased that most of the students understood what my aim was and they liked the combination of the speech, music and visuals. Some were confused on what shots I took and what shots I got from the internet, so I will explain everything here.
Footage from the internet: Neil Degrasse Tyson talking, animation of the sun and all shots of the Universe and the Northern lights time-lapse.
Footage I took: Drone shot and the zoom out (with Google Maps), Timelapses and the zoom out to the eye.
Things I could have done better:
A lot of people suggested I should include more Maltese elements in the video to make it more ‘Local’. Some even suggested that I should have taken more drone shots. What I wish I could do was taking star trail time-lapse but there were a lot of weather restrictions.
Malcolm Camilleri 