During Mondays class of week 9, I wrote down a rough plan and vision for how I want the process of making my video to be, in terms writing down the biggest idea, big and smallest ideas for my video. In the biggest section I wrote that what I want to achieve for assignment 4 is, to enable my audience to notice their surroundings within nonfiction that includes encounters which involve elements of nature, non-human being organisms such as bugs, and the weather such as wind and rain. I want to do this through filming these encounters between nature using extreme close up shots via an iphone, as an iphone will allow me to get as close as I need to the nature. Therefore the overall biggest thing I want to film and achieve in one sentence, is I want my audience to be exposed to different types of encounters within nature  that usually goes unnoticed.

The ‘big’ steps I wrote down that are involved in achieving ‘the biggest thing’ were to explore outside and open my eyes to see the types of encounters that involve nature. To film up to between 20 seconds to 1 minute of each type of encountering moment I notice and if the sound in the footage is very prominent, I will re record just the sound of the encountering to maybe overlay in the editing if it works. However the first big step before the filming begins is doing research on the idea of encountering between organisms and not humans. So far between weeks 9 and 10 I have come across two readings, Screening Nature: Cinema beyond the Human by A. Pick and G. Narraway and Encountering the World: Toward an Ecological Psychology by E. Reed, which I go into further detail in my Research Blog Posts. This academic research has enabled me to think further about non human contact or impact when it comes to encountering within nature, and what sorts of encounters naturally happen all the time without human interaction or interference.

Therefore, after I did my research, I understood a unique way to film was to focus on filming extreme close up shots of encountering occurring within nature. To try to achieve this, I decided to literally go for a walk along the river near my house. During my first walk I did try to focus on small encounters particularly between bugs. For example I filmed close up shots of ants encountering leaves or trees, or bees encountering flowers. I focused mainly on filming close up shots of bugs, live organisms that encounter nature, moments of nonfiction that humans do not tend to notice.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8v0_LIzbxgE

This particular video is a type of creative source I am very inspired by as it depicts exactly how I want my close up shots to look, and not only the close up shots but the subject in the video as well. Although the time lapse in this video works effectively, for my video, I will not be able to achieve a time lapse such as this. Yet I can definitely capture close up movement shots of dirt, by filming bugs encountering the dirt.

This source relates to noticing as the extreme close up shots capture the seed encountering the earth as it grows through the earth, which allows viewers to notice what other encounters happen in the everyday nonfiction world that are usually unseen. I am inspired by this video to use again, the close up shots used, to really emphasise the encountering within the frame. In this video, the use of still frame is really effective, yet it does not give this video a personal effect, and lets the audience observe from afar what is occurring in the frame. However for my video, I intend on not having a still frame, so the viewers are really drawn into the encountering, and just observing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cno6SSpkBV0

This source is about how the close up footage can clearly capture an ant encountering plants. This relates to noticing nonfiction in media practice as the close up shots enable the viewers of this media to witness the ant encountering nature, as usually humans do not or are not able to witness such types of nonfiction in their everyday life. I might use the idea of filming something similar, such as small bugs encountering their natural habitat. This particular creative source  I found on You Tube from the Channel Explore&Capture Moments. What drew me to being intrigued by this video is how encountering can include so many aspects of nature and life. I did relate to this video straight away, as just like this video, I too intend on filming with my iphone. To be able to capture, through close-up or extreme close-up shots, the earth being encountered by weather such as wind or rain. Yet also how live organisms such as bugs can encounter the earth, and what kinds of effects that may have. Therefore I Intend to film and use close up shots of bugs such as ants, similar to what is shown in this video.

This reading is about how people may notice encounters ecologically. As in the book, ‘Encountering the world: Toward an Ecological Psychology’, it makes reference to what J.J Gibson used to say about encountering, that “specific to the organism in its environment, information enables me to encounter my surroundings, to regulate my encounters and to be aware of my activities in the living world.”(Pg 7). This source does relate to noticing nonfiction through media as it refers to the different ways in which encountering can happen, which allows me to want to film those encounters to have my audience notice more about encountering throughout nonfiction. I would like to use this quote to influence the types of encounters I will film.

This reading helps me to try to think outside of the box when I think about what encounters I could potentially notice and film. Also the idea of regulating my encounters is interesting as perhaps keeping track of the encounters I notice will be helpful as I go about filming. As whilst I regulate and keep note of the encounters I notice, I could perhaps place the encounters into categories, depending on the types of encounters within nature I come across. This reading has enabled me to realise there are no boundaries when it comes to nature, and this does seem overwhelming. However I could tune in on specific forms of nature. Like the reading suggests, to be specific to the organism in its environment, is to focus on literally, specific organisms in an environment as well as in a figurative sense, be specific about what I notice.

https://books.google.com.au/books?hl=en&lr=&id=E1LZ5Uac-QsC&oi=fnd&pg=PA3&dq=organisms+encountering&ots=ubHaWUK5UQ&sig=waD_ZosLFpwYgrmzNtlEw4y44dU#v=onepage&q=organisms%20encountering&f=false

For assignment 4, I would like to continue building on the idea of encountering, yet not with people. I have become intrigued with the idea of organisms, any form of life encountering, types of encountering that humans have become accustomed to not notice. Perhaps because we now live in such a built up  industrial and technological world, we only notice encountering if it involves us or other humans. Especially the encountering of cars when they have an accident, or the encountering of a human encountering car, or when humans encounter other humans. However what I have come to realise is encountering is always happening in this world that we are not aware of, or subconsciously choose not to pay attention to.

In the book Screening Nature, by A. Pick and G. Narraway, I was inspired by the approach the book takes to the importance of nature within film, to pay “attention to the interdependence of the natural world and humans within it”(Pg. 5), and how different discourses come to “bear on cinema’s relation to nonhuman and nonhuman beings”.(Pg 5)

In my film for assignment 4, I want to emphasise nature eg, non human beings and live organisms encountering the natural world, in a way humans do not usually notice. This reading, Screening Nature, reiterates my stance on the importance of nature in film, and to highlight nature in films in a way that is not usually done, as usually it is humans who are constantly the forefront in films. As the reading make it clear that “it is not simply a matter of claiming that nature is central to a film but showing how film and nature commingle in culturally situated and context-specific ways.” (Pg 6).

This academic reading does relate to noticing nonfiction through media as it discusses the idea of cinema and film in general, focusing more on non human beings rather than human beings. Therefore a human audience can notice more about their nonfiction through watching nonhuman beings on film, hence for my video I would like to use the idea from the reading, which is filming non human beings in my video.

https://books.google.com.au/books?hl=en&lr=&id=qPUcAgAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PP3&dq=james+benning+film&ots=sxGe1-7fAP&sig=TN30YT36HVjRDLuN2dlcA4vSXBo#v=onepage&q=james%20benning%20film&f=false

Personally, I believe my noticing experiment responded to my prompt word encountering quite successfully. However for my specific type of video I need to think about the audience response to the video, I was not the one in the video that encountered something. Therefore from an audience perspective, I believe the audience could successfully comprehend what was occurring in the video, and through thinking in another type of way or by looking through a unique lens, it can become clear that the video is all about the encountering of ingredients. I believe that the shots themselves demonstrate the encountering of ingredients, and that it does come across in a clear manner to the audience. However due to individual audience opinions, perhaps my video may not come across as encountering as there are no people in my video and perhaps some simply may not see what occurs in my video as encountering. Yet I do think I do a good job of making it clear to the audience what my opinion of encountering is, and what thoughts I am trying to create.

Through making this project I have learnt that noticing nonfiction, especially nonfiction one would perhaps usually not notice, can more likely occur through a still frame shot. For example the noticing/encountering occurring within a still frame comes across extremely obvious which is what I want, because the frame itself is so still that anything that moves, even in a subtle way, is obvious movement. I came to learn this through practice, yet also by watching James Benning’s videos such as ‘Small Roads’ which enabled me to see clear evidence as to how still frames, be wide shot or close up, can open a viewers eyes to noticing any details of nonfiction. The quote from the James Benning reading “we see everything that moves because the camera doesn’t”, expresses exactly how I feel towards still shots with noticing in nonfiction. The word encountering itself is a very broad word that I have learnt has unlimited definitions. As my initial brainstorm for that word was very literal and included people bumping into each other unexpectedly etc. Yet the more I thought outside the box and let the inspiration come to me, I realised to film and notice encountering from a unique and close up way and to not include people would be quite challenging, yet interesting. As the overall purpose behind my video was to allow the audience to shift their perspective on what encountering means to them, and get the audience to see encountering can occur with literally any aspect of nonfiction, and most likely nonfiction us humans don’t usually notice or think about.

For assignment 4, I will continue to work further on the idea of close up or extreme close up shots of encountering occurring through nonfiction, such as nature or weather as I think they are both fascinating aspects of nonfiction that humans can definitely not notice in this materialised, industrial world. I think what I can refine for assignment 4, and what was an issue in assignment 3, is to have my shots focus just on the encountering in the frame, as I will try to make sure my hand or shadow is not in any part of the frame, as that can be a bad distraction.

In between the days Monday to Wednesday of week 8, I took on board all of the positive and constructive feedback from Hannah, Kim and Sophie from Mondays presentation and continued to further edit my piece. First of all I cut my overall video down from 4.45 seconds to about 3.30 seconds, which was a big achievement for me. I was able to do this by keeping to the ratio of the duration of the shots for example having the mixing shots last longer than the shot of an egg cracking into a bowl. Yet I cut almost all of the unnecessary footage of where there is no encountering occurring and cut and compressed the lengthy mixing shots to create one shorter montage in the piece to save time. During Wednesdays class of week 8 I got some final yet crucial feedback in that I should colour correct my video. As the shades of white throughout the video were off balance, yet I had not noticed the white balance prior to Wednesdays class.

The idea of me recording a voiceover for the piece was an idea I did like, yet I was still not sure of how effective it would be. Therefore in Wednesdays class I wanted to discuss further about what specifically would be appropriate for me to say over the top of my piece. Due to the class feedback and feedback from Hannah, after the class on Wednesday I recorded me simply saying recipe words such as “pour, mix, bake, beat…” with saying the numbers 1-7 before each word, just like a method of a cooking recipe. Although this is not what I originally anticipated on doing initially in my piece, when looking and hearing the final edit, I think it adds more structure to the piece, whilst allowing the audience to notice the encountering more as they hear the different types of ways the ingredients are encountered in the video.

The video/pitch presentations during Mondays class was extremely helpful and was a real insight into seeing how far other students in my class have come since the beginning of the semester. I thought it was a clever idea to have three different tutors at RMIT who teach in this field of media to express their individual perspectives on everyones videos. In terms of my video and presentation specifically, I thought the feedback I received was all valid and helped me see new sides to my piece I hadn’t noticed before. Hannah gave great advice on how to effectively cut my video down to reach the required duration of 2-3 minutes, by sticking to the correct ratio of how long each shot should be, whilst still cutting each shot down. Hannah also thought it would be a good idea for me to continue filming and working on this idea of encountering with close up or extreme close up shots of different subjects other than cooking, such as weather or nature for assignment 4.

Sophie, the other tutor suggested I could perhaps use voiceovers over the shots of the encountering occurring, to describe the smallest of encounters between certain ingredients that are not so obvious. However it was Kim who did not take to my video piece so well, as she found it hard to comprehend how extreme close up shots of ingredients being mixed together is encountering. As Kim takes the view that encountering can only happen between people and places, yet what I have learnt over the course of this semester is that people can notice with literally any kind of nonfiction. Encountering is a type of noticing that can occur within all realms of non fiction, not just the obvious kind. Therefore I will have to respect yet disagree with Kim’s opinion on my piece as I do believe my piece does portray encountering occurring with ingredients, and not with humans, because encountering does not have to occur with humans.

Throughout week 7 so far, I have continued to have technical difficulties as although I managed to update my laptop and Premier Pro cc, I realised that the initial footage I shot on the video camera was in 4K. Therefore the footage was too higher quality for me to properly edit due to the fact the footage would constantly lag. However because the computers in building 9 use a more recent software, I was able to begin properly editing on the computers in the building 9 edit suites. It automatically felt natural to edit according to the order the cake was made, therefore the order of the of the piece wasn’t a tough decision to make, however trialling what the duration of each of the shots should be was something I had to really think about. In class on Wednesday of week 7 I showed to the class 1 minutes worth of edited footage and the feedback I got was very helpful. As in my first edit it was evident that it was me doing the baking, as in some shots my hands were visible and it took the attention less of the actual ingredients encountering, and more on me simply just baking a cake, and the purpose behind the piece itself was lost.

The film we watched on Mondays class of week 7 called Filter Beds by Guy Sherwin, enabled me to think further about the effect close up and extreme close up shots can give to a piece, as Sherwin’s shots were so focused on specific elements of whatever was in his shots such as power lines, planes or tree branches. This video as well as the feedback from Wednesdays class allowed me to edit my shots, focusing solely on the close ups of just the ingredients encountering, as that is the overall point of the piece.