These following ideas were born during a class exercise a few weeks earlier. The impetus for the brainstorm was to think about an idea/concept that could be explored as a documentary without interview providing the structure and essence of the piece. In any case, hat was my understanding at the time at and how I remember it now as I write.

With the parameters set up for the exercise I immediately began to sort through a number of ideas that were visually engaging particularly thinking of the visceral. My reasoning behind this was I believe to look at visuals that could then have story or at least some structure added to them. Alternatively story or structure could be born within the act of capturing these visuals or the visuals themselves.

ABATTOIR:
Whether this idea would be most powerful explored in the confines of a butcher or abattoir the idea of preparing meat for consumption is one I believe would be visually powerful. In terms of visual impact I feel that an abattoir would bear more weight but also serve as a challenge to film and then to edit. However, situating the documentary in a butcher would prove to be more intimate and potential serve to highly the human aspect of the profession. Here I am more interested in the process and the various stages that take a living animal to the table. Whether this become more of instructional documentary or poetic would be dictated by the images of the process.

The visuals would purely document the process that is taken to slaughter an animal and then to wash, butcher and package its meat for sale. I find the idea of the having a butcher or abattoir worker narrator the process emotionlessly would serve to show this is necessary profession. Conversely the process could be taken out of context and juxtaposed alongside the cheery tones of a television chef who outlines the butchering process in a clear positive tone. This would not serve as a critic of the current foodie trend but rather to reveal that the process of slaughter and butchering is essential to any recipe and the act of cooking (non-vegetarian) food.

Alienation should be evoked in the audience providing them with the impetus to re-evaluate their stance in regards to eating meat. Not serving to promote a vegetarian or alternative lifestyle but to reassess how they see meat.

KINESIOLOGY
Kinesiology is a health practise I known very little about but I’m intrigued by some of its principals and the various treatments offer. I know a few people who see/have seen Kinesiologists and what they have experience has been incredible varied and in all honest I’m just intrigued and want to learn more.

Using the audio of session with a kinesiology as blueprint I would gather various different footage to create a poetic film. In some ways I would want to attempt to replicate and maybe heighten the experience of someone seeing a kinesiologist in a film.

Voice over of a session with kinesiologist and then utilising images, titles and a variety of archival footage to help to illustrate the patient’s experience. Instead of an interview we listen as the kinesiologist describes their process to the patient. This I believe would promote a greater understanding of the profession, as the audience are able to imagine themselves experiencing a similar session. Here the visuals may not necessary be connected in any way to kinesiology or the patient but will provide a point to explore the process in a poetic or symbolic fashion.

Mini Clapper Man would follow the story of George Twombly who has worked in Hollywood for the a number of years as a clapper loader. He became well known for his signature miniature clapperboard, which was the result of a number of clerical errors (potentially an error in imperial to metric conversion). Having grown up in Melbourne George is finally returning to crew on his first Australian short film. The mockumentary will explore the legend status attached to George whose only reason for his reputation is his clapperboard, which actually turns out to be a serious inconvenience. Throughout the film we watch as the film crew’s patience unravel as struggle to work with Twombly who is unbeknownst to the trouble he is causing them on their first short film set. The excitement they initially had to work with Twombly slowly dissipates.

In terms further my abilities I hope that this idea would allow to spend more time in composing and capturing interviews. However, interviews will be secondary to the production process and the hassles that Twombly causes the young filmmakers. Being in the mockumentary style I’ll hopefully have more control in setting up the interviews. During the interviews themselves I’ll have more freedom to cut off subjects, reshoot particular aspects and spend more time focusing on technical issues, due to the script nature of the interviews. When I say scripted I’m not yet certain if this script will be rigid but more of a framework for actors to then improvise around. All of the characters within the mockumentary would be film crew and actors of the fictional film they were shooting. Due to this the necessity to find semi-professional actors is minimised somewhat. On the other hand this would result in quite a complex shoot with a lot of the gear.

I’m hopefully that the mockumentary form isn’t too much of a cop out in terms of the complexity of the ideas we’re exploring in film III. I hope that it will provide me the closer exploration of documentary production with the script of a fiction film. Whilst also allow me to create a fictional film with documentary aesthetics and production choices.

Over the weekend I attempted the task of moving the gear as a single person. This included the audio mixer, tripod and EX-3. I discovered it can be done on peak hour public transport. Not comfortably but it was ultimately manageable. In terms of what I ended up shooting, I should probably feel a little guilty. I had the full intentions of either coming up with a extra short film I could shoot with my brother and a couple of friends or a documentary that would (unfortunately) be centered around an interview. As the mid-semester break disappeared I found I didn’t have the idea for a short film or an interesting subject to interview. So in the end I managed to get a couple hours of camera experience, interviewing both my dad and brother. The footage is incredibly disinteresting and mundane but I feel that even in the couple of hours I was able to familiarise myself with the EX-3 a little better. Due to the fact I was on my own I had to set up both the mixer and camera. This was valuable because it showed me what it would be like to shoot a documentary on my own. It was good in the sense that I had complete control but also challenging in the sense I had no one to help with any issues or to closely monitor sound as I manned the camera. As it was just a stationary interview I was able to position the microphone close to the subject and just keep an eye on the audio levels. If I was shooting anything that involved moving actors I would have to resort to either on board microphones or to enlist someone to keep track of audio.

Over the next couple of weeks I’m eager to borrow the EX-3 and shoot a short drama piece. I seemed to have focused fairly heavily upon documentary so far in semester. Focusing on drama I’ll be able to see if I have the ability to envision, write and then shoot a short film. What I hope to set out and complete is a fairly rudimentary short film, the process of its creation being more important than the final film.

The framing of the Giselle and Tony is almost there but didn’t quite work. I think that our intentions were good and that we set out to frame something that would have been aesthetically pleasing but what we have finished with isn’t all that polished. We wanted to have the camera position behind Tony so that Giselle would be framed from his perspective. The result though was too low and Tony’s head took up too much of the frame, Giselle being too far away to see her expressions clearly. This I believe was partly to blame on the room and its fixed furniture. The tables were too far away from door and this part of the reason we went with a wider framing. For further exercises and the final project it will serve us well to stay aware from these classrooms and explore a new space (with moveable furniture). I think that a similar framing would have been more successful if we had the camera higher and the framing tighter on the Giselle so we could see her facial expressions.

When watching the original, it was interesting to see that the boss was moving around which provided the scene with some movement. In our own sequence our framing of Tony’s head blocked the movement. When Giselle does move and create some interest she moves behind Tony’s head. When we started shooting we wanted the scene to feel somewhat awkward. We achieved the awkward feel we were attempting but I think we ended up over doing it somewhat with our unconventional framing.

From this scene it also appears that I haven’t learnt my lesson with mic placement. I placed the mic above Tony for the shoot but realistically I should have explored placing the mic far closer to the character of Giselle. I think my decision was dictated by the fact that I though she would be closer to Tony and that the dialogue would be more evenly spread between the two. If our initial choice of framing and setting had been different so would have my choice of mic placement, potentially providing a better audio track. The positive to be taken from this was that the mic placement was perfect for Tony’s dialogue. In future I’ll need to think more carefully about a scene and pay more attention to the blocking of actors, their movements and how they are going to be treating the script.

 I don’t know where to begin with the second scene. I think from the outset our approach was probably wrong and we fell into the trap of having very rigid camera movements. In our haste we didn’t block out the script and find a way for the actors to move in the space. Watching the original I was impressed by the ingenuity of the framing and once again it highlighted the fact that often film’s most powerful aspects are nowhere to be found on the script. Maybe this might be something worthwhile to reshoot again and see how influence the original will have on my own choices.