Category Archives: Projects

PROJECT BRIEF 3 – SEDGWICK

I felt a lot more comfortable with Project Brief 3 compared with PB2. I’m going to put this down to the fact that PB3 allowed me to depict someone else’s character. Instead of me being judged, my friend Sam will be judged, right? Or was this task just setting us up to be more critical of other people’s filmmaking ability? Either way, the shifting of focus allowed me to create something that I liked, rather than something others were supposed to.

I’m happy with the found footage I used within the short. The retro vinyl advertisement slides in nicely with what I have filmed. It not only relates to the sound from the short, the colours make it visually pleasing. And because almost all of the found footage comes from the one source, there isn’t a huge variety of picture quality. I think if there were more than a few sources of footage, it would lose the sense of rhythm and flow I believe it has.

I’m not so happy with some of the sound in the interview; I had to do a lot of cutting with audio files and fades in and out to make it sound decent. As it was filmed on my balcony with a variety of mics, unwanted sounds such as traffic were picked up. When the sound matched the footage of Sam on the balcony it was good, but it was when the audio was placed over the top of other visuals that it sounded out of place.

In terms of producing portraits, I think a key discovery would be that b-roll footage is always good to have. There are a lot of places you can just slip in a bit of footage to show characteristics rather than tell them. Although not all of mine was used in this project, it’s handy to know for next time.

As a media practitioner I found using public access footage to be really useful and is something I want to explore further. There are heaps of cool and weird bits out there that will certainly serve a purpose in my media making over time. I suppose more generally, using Adobe Premiere Pro has got me thinking more about pre production and the actual filming side of filmmaking. i.e what I need to film to ensure it looks alright during editing.

Sam’s music can be found on his soundcloud:

– Gabriel

PROJECT BRIEF 2: MISCOMMUNICATION

Source

The footage included in my self-portrait was shot in Ballarat, my hometown, and Melbourne (I still spend some time in Ballarat). When it came to capturing the footage, I had pre-meditated shots in mind, but it wasn’t until I started editing that I began to focus on themes. I have broken it up into two parts. The first half focuses on influence, education and growing up in Ballarat, and the second half focuses on confusion, creation, and reflection in Melbourne.

The first sequence of my father singing, hanging towels, and the photograph of 2 generations of brothers, symbolises his influence growing up, by spending time with family. The red, white and blue towels are a subtle hint at my being a Western Bulldogs supporter. Terrible decision… Dad always played music, which developed into a passion of mine, which becomes obvious in the second part (my music being the background track).

Flicking through school photos of myself is an explicit depiction of growing up, education and moving on to a life of independence. Dissolving into an unsolved Rubik’s Cube signifies how scrambled I felt after school. I then felt settled going to university completing a degree in Music Industry, hence the solved Cube followed by a piano being played. It wasn’t until after this course that I felt like Music was more of a hobby than a profession. The photograph of my computer with ableton loaded on the screen, and my RMIT certificate in the background represents this.

The lyrical content of my dad’s song playing in the background: “Don’t change me, I can’t be changing, chasing other people’s ways”, is about focusing on achieving what you want to do. The audio at the start links with the audio of the closing shot where I am listing my likes and aspirations as a 4 year old. Reflecting on this, travelling to outer space is a metaphor for dreaming big, and that is something I am happy to do.

‘Miscommunication’ is the name of the song in the background of the second half of the clip. I feel that it goes well with the footage because without this explanation, everyone would have a different interpretation.

– Gabriel

PROJECT BRIEF 1 – LO-FI SELF PORTRAIT

“A noise annoys an oyster, but a noisy oyster annoys an oyster more”

This is a tongue twister that my dad’s mate Tony taught me when our families went to Wilson’s Promontory all those years back. Thinking of it now takes me straight back to memorable Summers.

This sound clip is of the daily routine of buying groceries to get by day to day.

The second sound recording is of myself playing piano and singing some lyrics I was messing around with at the time. I will never give up playing music.

This photo summarises my opinion of how restricted the Australian Music Industry is. With such a small population and large land mass, It’s hard to establish yourself as a professional musician – almost a sacred profession…

Which has led me to consuming music at parties. This photo is more though about the emptiness that I have felt recently since my housemate moved back to Singapore. This was his last gig. From now, his music will continue to play, but he will not be present.