Blog 2

So we kicked off week three with a two hour screening of Alphaville. The opening scene started and I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. Here I was in the year 2008, watching a black and white, 1960's film in some foreign language. Yes, we had to read captions the whole way through. I'm pretty sure the language was split between French and German? I found it hard to stay focused; occasionally I would find my self day dreaming about what to pack for my Easter trip to Sydney! Then I thought to my self, I better stay focused and try to figure out what this film has to do with New Communication Technologies? I honestly had no idea.

From what I could comprehend of the film, the main connection to our course was the idea and concept of new technologies. A major aspect of the film was revolutionary ideas of what technology will be like in the future. The 1964 film displayed ideas and concepts of what technology will be like in the future and what impact it could have on society. Could an innovative giant computer, known as Alpha 60 in the film control society in the future? Well today in 2008, computers do, to some extent control peoples lives. To the degree where people have stated “I could not live without my computer or mobile phone or the internet”.

In our week three tutorial we got together with other students and we discovered how to add ‘friends’ to our blogs. After some trial and error Courtney figured it out and showed me how to add friends to my blog. Now I have four friends – Courtney, Aleisha, Eve and Chantelle! I look forward to reading their blogs every week!

Our blogging task is to explain how we use new communication technologies to communicate with our friends and family. Well I guess it’s different for each person. My friends and I communicate a lot through myspace, facebook and text messaging. Whereas, for my family I mainly use text messaging, instant messenger and phone calls. Although it has changed over time, I used to use instant messenger for friends, but as technology changed and myspace became the 'in thing' I started using comments on myspace to connect with my friends. As for my family, mainly being my parents, I have only in the past year or so began to use instant messenger with them. The reason being is they are a bit behind with the times I guess. Who knows maybe in a few years my mum and dad will have myspace or facebook?

Now to summarise the reading for this week on French New Wave:
My understanding of French New Wave is the evolution of the French film industry, which peaked between 1958 and 1964. It was the development of new filiming techniques such as, jump cuts, shooting on location, natural lighting, improvised dialogue and plotting, direct sound recoring and long takes. Many of these techniques are still used today, but back in the late 1950's and early 1960's they were groundbreaking.

Have a nice Easter Break! See you all in week 4!

Alyce.