This week was a pivotal time for me to start the pre-production process of the final assignment – Assignment 3 Part II. I had the opportunity to scout my location and discuss with Robin what my initial and continuing plans were with this project. Robin had given me great advice in terms of what this video was going to be about and one of the main factors was the whole essence of this observation, translated into a video format. I wrote a few notes regarding the advice given to me, which were great ideas in making this video piece:

• The transition between what is busy and what is intimate – the potential purpose of this whole observation
• The exclusiveness of the space – how can I capture that? Will that be through sound and/or visuals?
• The idea would be to follow the talent, preferably from behind
• The film would be 60% outside, displaying the visual aspects and aesthetics of Degraves St and 40% of it would be inside the cafe. That way, it would make the cafe a little bit more special, conveying the exclusivity or its ‘secret’ to the general public

As for the location scouting, I made sure to do it right before Friday’s class, just in time to show Robin the progress I’ve made. The following are reference photos I’ve collected:

You can imagine how this video would already be like (or at least my vision for it) – scene moving images, with a lot of close-ups to extreme close-ups. I’d like to also implement the slow-motion effect if possible, particularly for detailed-oriented scenes (such as the close-up of coffee, the back of the talent’s head and the close-up of the menu book).

As of right now, I have a strong idea in terms of this video/observation’s meaning and now, it’s all just the matter of getting that message through the video. With that, comes the technicalities of it and making this video piece look as good as I had seen it in real life.

Week 9 was a very important week for various reasons: one, we learned the whole concept of staging and rehearsing, and how it was pivotal not only for the talent but also for the film crew to coordinate their roles in order for the whole film set to synergise. Two, it was a chance for us to collaborate with our peers and get to know what each and everyone’s motivation was for the final project.

In terms of the staging exercise, there were various factors that came into this – it was teamwork, learning the different types of roles in a film production and not overstepping your boundaries once you have established your film role. At first, I thought that this process was tremendously tedious and would take forever to film. It took a while for everyone to get comfortable in their roles but once we got the groove of the technicalities, everything started to flow faster. One of the few things that I learned from this exercise that not only are the actors and actresses are in the spotlight but so are film crew. For example, there are a lot of responsibilities that the Director’s Assistant would have to oversee, artistic choices that the director of photography would have to make and so on. I was privileged enough to have experienced some of the major roles and that is, to be a director, a focus puller and an actress. Experiencing the variety in these roles has enabled me to get a better idea of how I would run my own film production for one of my observations. Experiencing the role of a director was what appealed to me the most because I’d like to see one of my observations come to life, and potentially being the director for that would be a fulfilling experience.

As for the second part of this class, we had the opportunity to mingle and figure what it was we wanted to do for the final film project and essentially, find people who had the same idea as I did. For the past two assignments, I had chosen to work individually due to creative differences I have encountered whilst attempting to film my own observations but this time, I thought it would be a perfect learning experience to collaborate with people whilst learning and growing at the same time. Because this assignment gives you a chance to work on two videos, it was provided every avenue for us to work individually as well as collaboratively. Jack, Liv, Aria and myself decided to work with each other – even though we did not have any ideas at the time, we decided to work together anyway with consideration to our different skills and different ideas.

I can honestly say that I am looking forward to working with these talented individuals!

Simple Video Piece:

This will fairly be a straightforward reflection as it was simple to do this video piece. As previously discussed in the Part 1 reflection, I have constructed reasons as to why I chose these particular shots to be incorporated with the audio being listened to. Despite the lack of literal relevance in the original video (between the visuals and the audio), I still attempted to make a connection between the two as explained in my reflection.

Searching through my archive of observations, I managed to find one that one relevant to the visuals this time. I made ‘relevance’ an important point for this assignment as it was more digestible for the viewers and easier for me to make connections between the audio and the visuals. Therefore, I chose this observation (observation three) as I thought it was the most appropriate – for example, as I was surrounded people in the video whilst doing mundane tasks, the way it was filmed was as if it was through another perspective, other than my own. You can see how relevant it is to my observation, because I discuss how I see myself through videos, essentially seeing a new side to my appearance and how I carry myself.

The new audio inserted to the original video piece works hand in hand together as there is a strong connection between my observation and also my video piece.

Advanced Video Piece:

From my week seven reflection, I discussed my potential plans as to what I was going to be filming for the advanced video piece. The following will be numbered in regards to what I had in my mind for this advanced video piece:

1. Prior to filming, in order to translate this observation into something that was film-worthy, my action plan would be to write a script. This was both for myself and talent in order to imagine how this observation would transform into a medium of video.
2. My experience with blood was something I wanted to document but looking at it from a practical perspective, I thought it was the easiest to make a short film out of. The location was easy enough to scout (my friend’s room) and there would be minimum props needed in order to produce this mini-short-film. The props used were a lamp for the lighting, a sun reflector (used for cars to keep the heat out) as a second lighting device and red food dye for the blood. It was all fairly simple and straightforward because of how simple my chosen observation was.
3. As previously mentioned, I was also intending to collaborate with Khurram and that would be to have him as my cameraman/cinematographer. Unfortunately, this did not work out due to the lack of organisation and also the creative difference we had with my own observation. I thought it was best to work independently because I knew of my own personal experience and it would be more ideal to avoid a disagreement that would hinder both of us.
4. The camera used was Sony a6000, similar to my previous project. I thought it would be best to go with something familiar and easy to use. At the same time, I knew that it would produce the desired results. It was to use and of course, it was under the manual settings. Most of the time, my shots ranged from 1.4 – 5.8 in terms of the aperture. This is due to the set being in low light conditions and the Sony lens (1.8/35) that I’ve used does a good job shooting in low light.
5. Post-production: Once again, this was another smooth process due to the observation being straightforward. My editing was sequential because during production, I filmed everything in order according to my own observation. The only thing few things I made changes for was the order of the observation itself – as heard in the beginning of the video, “…bright, blood orange colour”, I went straight to second line of my observation because I thought it was the most appropriate in accordance to the visuals. That goes for the rest of the lines of my observations within my video.

To be completely honest, I wasn’t too sure what components this ‘advanced video’ piece should entail because we lacked brief for it. I initially thought that it was just going to be the simple video piece and that this advanced video piece would be for the next assignment. Despite this the little mishap and the time pressure, I still managed to produce this video that I am satisfied with. I know within myself that I can do a better next time with better preparation.

Otherwise, my original intention for this video is to stay true to my personal experience, reminding not only myself, but the audience of what it was like to bleed from your ears.

After our mid semester break, we got straight into the groove of the technical side of things and that was learning how to use the H4N Zoom Microphone. I have previously used this item so there was some familiar aspects of using this microphone but otherwise, it was like learning how to use it all over again.

The highlight of this lesson was the video exercise where we had to sync the audio and the video together, whilst filming the contents of your bag. I collaborated with fresh and familiar faces, operating the H4N Zoom. It was a new experience to see how the camera and the audio would have to work side by side in order to get the perfect timing. Of course, it helps that there is a clapper in order for it to be in sync but we only found out about that after we finished filming. Otherwise, here is the video for you to enjoy.

During Friday’s class, we reviewed the videos – the comments we received from this one shot video was the clarity of the audio (thanks to Khurram’s amazing lapel mic work) and how we managed to sync the video and audio together. This exercise was great in teaching us how to time the different aspects of cinema, because after all, film is not just a visual art but also an audiovisual medium.

Similar to Monday’s exercise, another collaboration occurred for Exercise #7. I would have to say that this was a more advanced piece of work, requiring more communication between our group and the different roles. The following roles were; Director, Assistant Director, Audio, Editor and of course the crucial role of the actor and actress (aka, myself!). I’d have to say that this exercise was a little bit stressful considering the little time frame we had: one hour. As much as we wanted to perfect the shot, we had to keep moving forward and cover all shots needed in order to complete the suspenseful story between Mayrum and Murphy. That is yet to be reviewed and edited once my group and I have sorted out who is supposed to be the editor in charge. This exercise has made me remember how difficult yet rewarding it is to work in a group. Despite the clash of ideas, us like-minded individuals produce content that we all have the skill and drive to do.