Between the weeks 6 to 7 was when I filmed my actual assignment 3 video. I recorded me baking a marble cake, using my recipe, in my Kitchen, using a Sony XD camera, a Tripod, a lighting device as well as a Tripod for the lighting device. Using the lighting equipment was something I do not regret, as it created enough light needed for the ingredients to be seen encountering each other through the extreme close up shots inside the cooking bowl. Therefore overall I was happy with the footage I took, yet I was not able to transfer the footage from the camera to my laptop easily, as the Premier Pro I originally had was not up to date enough. This made it difficult for Mondays class of week 7 as I had none of my footage on my laptop to be able to do the editing exercise. Yet in class I thought it would be a good chance for me to seriously think about how I will edit my footage, once the footage works for my laptop. I did really like the idea of using a graphic match style of editing, because I think it is a very creative way to edit that I do want to use one day, however I thought for my cooking video specifically, I need to think more about a rhythmic style of editing. To edit according to what is occurring inside the frame, as I do need to make every shot in the video try to last as long as it took for the ingredients to be encountered. However because the video can only go for 2-3 minutes, cutting the video down will be a challenge for me. I am looking forward to begin the editing process and to be able to see exactly what editing styles work with my video piece and what styles don’t.

Throughout the week 6 class on Monday both the brainstorm and activity were interesting for me to think further about my video for assignment 3, more specifically about the types of shots I should use and the duration of the shots also. Therefore in terms of the equipment, for the activity I did just use a Sony video camera to focus on creating and experimenting with close up shots using high angles. However I was not happy with the look of using a hand held camera as my footage in the activity was shaky and gave off an effect I was not going for. Therefore this activity really made me realise I do want and need a Tripod for my type of video as part of my equipment. For the activity, my shots went for roughly 10-15 seconds as planned, yet again this made me realise that for assignment 3 I will change this rule, as I thought filming the shots for as long as it takes for the ingredient to encounter for example, ‘the eggs to crack into the bowl’, would be more suited to my style of video. For the activity Jordan, Mia and I just filmed on location at RMIT therefore the location in the activity does not in anyway reflect the location for my actual video, yet I took the opportunity with this activity to focus on distinctly the close up and high angle shots of any location and again, to work with the idea of using hand held footage or using a Tripod.

The Scott Macdonald reading for week 6, ‘Eight Intersections’ was useful for me to read as it got me realising how past filmmakers, such as Rodakiewiez believe a movie or video camera shows so much more of our “daily surrounds than we normally allow ourselves to notice.” As this reading highlights how as humans we only notice the very obvious aspects of our everyday nonfiction in our everyday lives. And to challenge that thinking in assignment 3 in terms of encountering, intrigues me.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1i2WUitun30w16PmnKkaCQLBM9tI0V0sx/view

Above is the link for the activity we did in class for week 6.

Encountering from Maddie Hewson on Vimeo.

Lingering from Maddie Hewson on Vimeo.

The above videos are the encountering and lingering videos I completed in between weeks 5 and 6 that I showed to a small number of people in class.This activity did get me thinking about what I am trying to achieve in assignment 3 and what type of video I want to create. Therefore, for this activity I decided to use the idea of ingredients encountering each other whilst baking or cooking is occurring. This idea definitely did not easily come to mind, as initially when I thought of the word encountering, and what I did first brainstorm, was people meeting each other unexpectedly or on purpose, and that could be positive or negative scenario. Yet the main reason why I gravitated to the word ‘encounter’ was because of how broad the word is, and how it does not even have to be limited towards people necessarily. I thought of the idea of cooking when I was on Facebook and a Buzzfeed cooking video appeared on my Newsfeed, it was a short cooking video on how to make yummy desserts, and because I was already thinking about what to do for this exercise anyway, I noticed how interesting the idea is of the ingredients being encountered by other ingredients was. The types of angles and shots used also intrigued me and basically was my main inspiration for this exercise and assignment 3 overall.

To continue with the discussion Tiahne and I had about Benning’s work, we used the activity during Monday’s class to enhance the idea of letting the camera frame be still and having the noticing encounter the frame, not us trying to find things to notice. Therefore we used the idea of continuing to film people cross the road when the green man is present, until the red man is present, and people can no longer cross the road, right up until another person presses the traffic light button , wanting to cross the road again, waiting for the green man. This was an interesting activity, as we did not put any time limit on the filming, we were happy to continue filming for as long as it would take for a person to press the button. We repeated this video 5 times, the 4 out of 5 times we filmed this activity, the videos were all relatively the same length, as it took a similar amount of time for a person to press the traffic light button each video, except for the last video. We had to keep filming for around 4 more minutes, as it took longer for the button to be pressed. It was interesting to notice the reasoning behind this, as perhaps the button was pressed from the other side of the road, and an invisible pattern began to occur of people entering the frame continuing to not press the button as they relied on the person in front of them.

During Wednesday’s class we began to really think about the words that we are using for inspiration for assessment 3, such as encountering, wondering, tuning, priming, lingering etc.. I specifically chose to focus on the words encountering and lingering. For the word encountering I thought of people unexpectedly bumping into each others, or purposely seeing each other, a harmful conflict between people and places or things, or a peaceful interaction. For lingering I instantly thought of something lasting with a shot lasting a long duration.

Week 5 was an interesting way to begin discussing assignment 3 in regards to noticing. As the reading for week 5 which included the James Benning interview, gave a clear insight into how and what Benning notices while he creates his videos. A quote from James Benning that stuck out to me is when he can “see everything that moves because the camera doesn’t.” This explains a lot as the video that I really enjoyed watching of his, called ‘Small Roads’, consists of a still video camera, filming on a Tripod in the same location for 15 minutes each. Therefore Benning does not move the camera to try and find things to notice, things move in front of the still camera, then a viewer can notice, even the smallest of movement. Therefore I thought an idea for assessment 3 could be to film and let things enter the frame of the shot without trying to find things to enter the frame. Tiahne and I in Mondays class in week 5 discussed Benning’s films as like watching through a window, the camera is static and so still and would lose this effect if the camera was handheld, as a handheld camera brings the audience inside of the frame, yet using a Tripod is more observational.

Tiahne and I further discussed in class that in the same reading, Benning also makes reference to the fact that we as an audience need to always find narratives as our “minds always try to create narratives in anything.” This seems fairly accurate personally, as I do always try to look for meaning or a story behind something, yet I would like to challenge myself to film literally just to film, and to let whatever occurs inside the frame enter the frame, and be. Then re watch the footage, without having a pre planned narrative in my head and just notice the footage and what occurs. Tiahne and I agreed that Benning does not seem to create a narrative as he is filming, the viewers do afterwards, they use his footage as a catalyst for a narrative. As there is no pre planned narrative, perhaps viewers try to put meaning to footage after viewing it if there is no pre planned narrative from the beginning.

Some unnoticed qualities which emerged in Andy’s footage and audio of my familiar place being my route to work, was the amount of blue that I walk past. I had no idea there was so much blue on Elizabeth St, Andy really did a great job of trying to capture every piece of blue he saw, whether it was a sign, a door, a bank, clothing on a person and even blue tarp of construction works. I also noticed more atmosphere noise by watching Andy’s footage and audio, as when I am on my way to work I am always so focused on getting to work that I unintentionally seem to block out lots the atmosphere around me.

I believe our edit is successful in terms of the video showcasing our two different locations, and it represents how we did aim to stick to our recipe in terms of the way we filmed our locations. The video also does show how Andy and I noticed unique aspects to our footage and audio we did not notice while filming. What I learnt about noticing and nonfiction through doing this activity is that when I am in a location that I visit very regularly, I will only notice very minimal aspects to that place, for example one specific coffee shop, and not all the nonfiction in its entirety. I also learnt that when I visit a place I rarely go to, such as the South Melbourne Market, I am immediately more open to noticing more, as my attention is drawn to many aspects of that place. This is also evident when looking at Andy’s footage and audio, as he obviously noticed a lot of non fiction around him on my route to work, as his attention was drawn to many aspects of that place.

As perhaps when our minds are introduced to anything new, we are much more susceptible to noticing more, for example when listening to ‘Starry Night’ in class, listening to sounds of a place I have never been to, broadened my imagination, and my attention was drawn to as many sounds as possible. Two questions which have evolved for me about noticing and nonfiction through doing this work is, is it possible for one to suddenly notice and draw their attention to more surroundings in an area of nonfiction they are always accustomed to, just by witnessing that same space through the lens or eyes of someone else? And can ones depiction of nonfiction around them be broadened by only sound and or description? If one closes their eyes and just listens?

Throughout Wednesday of week 4, Andy and I began to edit our footage. The footage we had was relatively similar to the recipe in terms of the still and moving shots we wanted to get, as we followed people move and stayed still as people moved around us. What Andy and I did both notice was the movement of people in our different places, as in the city people are usually quick and ready to get somewhere fast, whereas in a market place, people usually have the time and leisure walk slow and browse. An aspect to the recipe was to capture anything each of us noticed, that stood out, and for both Andy and I after watching the footage back, I have realised that colours was something that both us of noticed. For me personally it was any bright colour, especially with food such as the oysters and the fruits and I noticed that for Andy, it was the colour Blue that captured his attention. I also noticed interesting wall art at the South Melbourne Market, and a young busker playing the piano.

On Wednesday, Andy and I played around with the idea of using the 4 second piano sound the busker made and using it with both my footage and his footage. I really liked the way the audio of the piano originally from the market was edited to be played over Andy’s footage of the CBD, as I realised audio can really combine two completely different places. Therefore during the editing we trialled what the piano sounds along with diegetic sound of the atmosphere from both locations would sound like in the video and I think it was successful. As our footage is similar in some ways, yet also relatively different, it is  important for our footage to be combined via audio in my opinion. I especially was drawn to editing with audio because of the idea of how audio can draw attention away from just what is being seen.

I unfortunately was not able to come to Mondays class, however the readings for week 4 gave me a solid insight as to what the focus of week 4 was, such as the idea of there being a blind spot in a photo or video, in which there is so much more to notice visually then what is seen straight away. The reading ‘ghostly forms and forest histories’ includes an extreme in depth description of the Author Andrew Matthews walking through a forest of trees with his botanist assistant, writing down and making note of every little detail that he notices, that not even a photo or video could give justice to. There is a photo attached to the book, of a tree stump, yet it is because of the description, the words, that coincide with the photo, that one can look outside of the blind spot, to notice so much more than whats seen in the photo.

The other reading for the week, ‘Blind Spot’ very much highlights the real science behind a humans blind spot in terms of perception, as it makes a point of asking the question, do we us as humans see the world directly, or a an “internally generated representation of the world.” For example in Wednesdays class, when we looked at Tian’s photo of a building in a city lane, along with listening to her description of what she saw, initially all I noticed was a building in a lane way. Yet when I began listening to her description of what she could notice, I noticed more in the photo, such as a red pole, black chairs and curved window frames.

During Wednesday’s class, we also were able to look at a project from a student from last year called ‘Mia’s The House’. This video had the exact same idea of including a visual of different rooms in her house, yet her own description of each room enabled me to notice more about the footage itself, as her words such as when she talks about her fridge taking up a lot space in the Kitchen, my attention did drift from just focusing on what was in the frame, to outside of the frame also. The idea of the ‘blind spot’ is very interesting and is something to think about for assessment 2, that audio has the ability to draw peoples attention away from solely what is being shown visually.

On wednesday’s class of week 3, Andy (my partner for assessment 2) and I began to discuss ideas for how we might go about filming the 2 minute video. This was after Andy and I had decided on our two separate locations, one being my route to work along Elizabeth St, and another being the South Melbourne Market, where Andy spends lots of his time. I was very intrigued about what types of footage each of us were going to capture, to see if I would notice aspects to my route to work I have never noticed before, through Andy’s eyes. We deliberated for quite sometime during that lesson to agree on a recipe for filming and recording what we will see in an interesting way. Therefore the recipe we did decide to stick to was this one;

Ingredients

• Audio recorder
• Video recorder
• Note of the things

Steps:

• 4x 5 second potrait video of you moving around the space
• 6x 5 second landsape videos of people moving around in the space
• 15 second audio recordings of people talking, shop venders, customers etc.
• 2 second recordings off the food that we are interested in
• videos of the food we eat
• 4 second videos fo interesting things we notice.
• 1x 2min  central audio recording of the area we decide in our respective places is the most central part of the place

We thought that this specific recipe would capture what we will see in a unique way visually, including a variety of portrait and landscape shots as well as using still footage and hand help walking shots. We are both interested in food, so to capture any food we come across was an idea that stood out to us. And recording one 2 minute sound clips each of atmosphere ambiance from each location is something that really sets the scene for our footage and also can allow viewers to notice more about a space that may not necessarily be in the footage. Therefore I am interested to see what footage and sound we will capture in each of our locations using this recipe, as well as seeing if our footage and sound are similar or very different.