I wasn’t really considering the possibility of creating my film concept and so when Alex approached me, excited about my pitch, I was taken aback. Could my film – a girl, outside, eating breakfast, really become something enticing? Alex and I share a lot of the same filmic interests and we have a similar aesthetic appeal. We spent the class mostly discussing Lolita dir. Stanley Kubrick (1962) and although my piece isn’t intended to explore such nymphet desire, it is visually solid research material.

Upon leaving class, I thought long and hard about the relationship between the girl featured in my piece and her neighbour – How old are they? What are their interests? What is their relationship? etc. In order to develop the scene, I came up the idea that her admirer not be someone her age or older, but a young boy of 8-10 years old. It is around this age that one remembers their first crush, or at least, the age that I remember mine. I want the boy to be playing with a ball whilst watching the girl meticulously set up her banana chair and whatnot. There is no sound save for atmos and whatever sound there will be, I will add in post-production. For example; the sound of the ball, the scraping of the banana chair on the concrete, the slurping of a drink… This is so as I believe that when one recalls on a certain memory from their childhood, certain stimuli is more heightened than others and that is what my piece is – an episodic memory from the past, perhaps narrated by an older man’s voice.

I’ve been scouring airbnb for a very specific outdoor area that I can book for the shoot but unfortunately, everything suitable is taken or the owners do not allow filming on the premises. To remedy this, I thought of using my grandmother’s backyard, which is the setting where I wrote the initial observation. It has a very 1970’s, European-Australian  feel, which suits my project since Alex and I discussed the film in relation to vintage photo shoots that we’re inspired by. It is also extremely convenient to use a space where the owner allows you to do as you wish, signifying that we could run a few test shoots before the day of production.

Having not attended the class where the clips for Exercise 3 were shot, I felt a little strange about using the other’s snippets to put my piece together. I hate city landscapes and so it was pleasant to see that some groups had opted to film close-ups of nature and rather abstract compositions.

To mesh my piece together, I chose to feature the theme song from Peter Weir’s Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975) since I thought it would be an ironic juxtaposition – In Weir’s film, the girls are trespassing upon a rock, whereas in mine, the rock has been replaced with modern-day structures… But why stop at sound? Each of the 6 clips are prologued by a famous quote from Joan Lindsay’s novel that provide a context for the image that follows.

When I made the first cut for this piece, each clip went for 30 seconds as was required but they dragged on too much and a tedious rhythm began to form. To remedy this, each clip was purposefully fixed to varying lengths so that audience attention wouldn’t wander. I have also implemented the use of a Sony VSCO ‘Polaroid warm +++’ filter to induce a sense of dreaminess and ensure that the raw and clinical feel from the original footage was gone.

Whilst I don’t particularly like what I’ve created, this exercise has reiterated how important visual selection is, signifying that there is weight in a specific order of clips.

The second exercise was a re-staging of Eric Rohmer’s Love in the Afternoon (1972) and Woody Allen’s Vicky Christina Barcelona (2008).

I particularly love the single-shot used in the French copy, as it screams volumes about the pair’s relationship. What catches the eye is the way that the female protagonist is always towards the centre, making her a focal point for the audience. In comparison, her male counterpart is either heard from off-screen or peeking out from the edges of the frame, which is a quaint way of fuelling  a dull scene with artistic power.

I tried to mimic the actions of the red-sweater girl (Irene Skobline?) as best I could and I believe that Tim and I achieved the awkwardness of the pair… a fact which is mostly due to trying to remember the lines.

Our group obviously wasn’t too phased with the idea of ‘head-space’ since the top of my forehead is nearly out of frame, which is a factor that we need to be wary of in the future.

The re-staging of Vicky Christina Barcelona wasn’t executed as smoothly as the first scene but the general idea is there. It was difficult to control the lighting in the space since we began filming at about 2 and the shoot went until 4, meaning that the sun was either too harsh or too bare. This is observable with the shadows that are cast on Lydia’s face, obscuring her cheeks with black. As with the first scene, I have edited the images with a blue-based filter in order to make them appear more cinematic. In retrospect, I should have used a warmer tone so that they follow the impressions of the original films but I like the pop of red that a cooler hue has provided.

Moreover, the camera movement in this scene worked quite nicely but the sound is shocking. The atmos is definitely too audible in a few of the clips and then absent in others, ruining the flow. I have to pay close attention to this detail in my semester final because admittedly, I don’t worry about sound as much as I should.

My pitch was based on ‘Observation #8’ –

I’m particularly interested in the mechanics of human gesture and routine and uncovering why it’s so enthralling and sort of forbidden for us to watch other people in not just intimate tasks but daily tasks.

My aim for approaching this piece is to re-stage the observation and possibly make it the first in a short series of suburban voyeuristic clips;

• A woman hanging her laundry
• Two children eating ice cream outside their house

My intention for these clips, or just for the first re-staging is to create an absorbing study of details and habits, whereupon the audience questions their guilt and begins to feel uncomfortable about what they’re witnessing even though it’s innocent.

I was also considering the Girl in the first piece to gesture towards her admirer at the end in some form as a way to contextualise the story and the interrelationship between each of the pair’s personal spaces.

With regards to filming, I’ve considered the possibility of excluding sound altogether so that audience attention is directly placed on the subject’s actions but I’m also hesitant because I don’t want the images to appear uninspired and lacking on screen.

At my consultation, Robin suggested that I pursue ‘Observation #7’ for my final piece. I must admit that I didn’t think too much of that writing, but I can see now that it hosts some potential. Indeed, the romanticisation of youth is something that is always prevalent in my work, which is really a product of having watched too many Sofia/Gia Coppola films – relishing in their pastel aesthetics, dreamy soundtracks and airy content.

If I were to create a film based on that observation, it would be a visual piece that exposes the despair/beauty of youths after a night out. Of course, there would be a certain degree of difficulty in documenting the public in this way –

• How do I get my footage without being obvious or do I want to be obvious?
• What would my soundscape entail?
• Do I film my own, directed, dramatic footage and then compile it with the ‘actual’ scenes from the city’s streets?

The most valuable information that I took away from this meeting was the fact that now is the time to document youth – while I’m still in my youth. Afterwards, it just becomes too forced.

“To Die By Your Side is Such a Heavenly Way to Die”

She walks out onto the patio everyday at around 9:30am when everyone’s left for work. She makes three trips outside –

1. She places her laptop on the outdoor table and goes back inside to collect
2. A plate of eggs that she’s just cooked and then
3. A mug of coffee with a packet of cigarettes and a lighter.

She’s always wearing pyjama shorts and rests her pasty legs on a chair as though trying to tan them despite it still being winter. The sun is out actually. Maybe she will begin the small stirrings of brown, baked, skin, like the girls that she sees in the magazines.

She eats her eggs whilst typing on her laptop and playing the song that she always plays during this morning meal – ‘There is a Light That Never Goes Out’ by The Smiths. She likes how Morrissey’s voice makes her feel like she may be in a television show and that this scene might just be a scene to establish her character. She finishes her eggs and lights a cigarette. She notices that the next door neighbour is standing in his second-story window, watching. He always watches. In fact, he sets his alarm at 8:45am everyday so that he doesn’t miss her daily routine. She sees him watching too, she always does. Today however, she gets up on the patio table and begins to dance for him, When the song is over, she flips him the bird and smiles, making three trips back inside with all of her things. He closes the blinds after a few minutes, sweating, exhausted.

He hears the doorbell. 

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This observation is about me. I partake in this same routine every day except for Saturday through to Monday and every time, I always wonder if the next door neighbour notices me. The part written in bold font is a way that I would extend the scene.

I haven’t been able to forget The Madison scene from Godard’s Bande a Part (1964) all day. I watched it after class was over, I watched it whilst I ate my lunch, I showed my boyfriend, my best friend and now I feel the need to post about it before I watch it yet again and revisit the clip in my sleep.

What mesmerises me about it is the way that Godard’s naturalistic framework divulges so much about character. Beginning with the director’s ironic voiceover – “Now’s the time to describe their feelings.” – we as the audience learn about the protagonist’s emotions: Arthur who pines for Odile, Odile who wonders if her breasts are noticeable and Franz who is having an existential crisis. The dialogue itself is beautiful, which is a classic product of new wave French cinema.

To compliment this narration is of course the dance steps themselves, which speak volumes about who the three youths are. Ana Karina who is rigid and sophisticated yet dressed like a thirteen-year old shy schoolgirl, Sami Frey who glides and clicks with the confidence of a womaniser and lastly Claud Brasseur who is really just trying his best (but he gets the girl so I guess it’s okay?)

Any who, the iconic scene exudes an aura of effortlessness and it would be interesting to try and imitate a one-take sequence in my own final project.

 

‘Blue Monday’ was playing and it was like 1988 even though I was just an egg then. The neon lights were casting strange shadows on exposed skin and a boy near the bar was selling limited happiness for a 20. I looked at all these people around me – really looked – and for a bunch of kids who exclaimed to be anything but “normie,” they were coming off ridiculously so. The same carbon copies of Saturday night boredom and dream chasing. The same strategically ripped, baggy, jeans. The same golden chains. The same faces.

Cut to Sunday morning.

If you ever want to see beauty in motion, it’s 6am on a Sunday morning – prowling the streets of the city’s concrete. Sprawling onto the sidewalks in a messy daze of youthful exuberance. Groups of kids, bleary eyed, holding hands and fighting the cold. I was now in the backseat of a car, half-asleep and watching Harmony Korine’s vision unfold. Two kids, sitting on a metal bench, eating each other’s faces off for breakfast.

I was in my evening painting class and for this particular session, we were told to bring in an object to draw and then refine into an artwork . I chose one of my many Virgin Mary statues since I’ve recently harboured a serious obsession with religious memorabilia. I’m not too sure why I find Mary so captivating – I’m not even Catholic – but I completely adore her.

The class was silent save for the rustling of materials and the sound of the fluorescent lights humming. Sketch after sketch, Mary’s face kept staring back at me – much like the missing girl did in the previous observation. It was in this moment that I thought to expand my film idea into a quirky, Lynch-esque piece.

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‘HAIL, MARY’

The film would open to an empty rural road where a young girl, dressed as the Virgin Mary, is trying to hitch a ride. She has signs of contemporary styling in her costume – a pair of beat up sneakers and pink stockings to cast a contrast against the purity of the long white dress and blue veil. 

A young boy, Jay, pulls up next to her and offers her a ride. Over the course of the night, they form a strange friendship whereupon they learn about each other’s lives – How Jay wants to go to Vegas and how ‘Mary’ (she insists it’s her real name) has never eaten pizza or watched TV or listened to a CD. Jay gives her some baggy boyish clothes to change into and plays her a song, to which he watches her sway to the beat.

Afterwards, she starts playing with an 8-Ball that she finds and Jay tells her to ask it a question. She doesn’t tell him what she asked but merely discloses that the answer popped up as “Yes, Definitely.” 

Jay wakes up in the morning to find Mary gone, having left her dress folded on a chair with a note… Somehow, Jay has had an immaculate conception. 

Girl Missing

There were signs posted up all over the park of the girl, missing. On the side of the slide, the lamp post, the rubbish bin… The girl’s face smiled back. I didn’t catch her name or any of the details on the poster, just her face – pale with black hair pulled into braids – and the thick red lettering of MISSING. M-I-S-S-I-N-G. How strange that a sign so upsetting could be pasted against the backdrop of a green suburban dream.

She could have been my sister or my friend but as it were, I had never seen her in my life.

Signs like this always scare me and force my senses to go on full alert. Is that a shadow of a man watching me over in that blue Honda? What are the group of boys over there doing? I fear abduction more than I fear anything else in the world. The notion that one minute I could be here and the next, gone. Missing.

Alien abduction. Is that real too?

‘Picnic at Hanging Rock’… How does one explain that incident?

Children were laughing in the distance.

My friend would be here soon to meet me but this girl on the poster would stay put until the rain washed her away or someone took the signs down.

FILM IDEA –

The film would begin on an empty rural road where a girl is trying to hitch a ride. A young boy offers her a lift and over the span of a night, they become close friends. He awakes in the morning to a letter from the girl explaining that she had to leave.

Prior to filming my piece, I was under the assumption that interviews had to be held with a person of some extraordinary standing. Thank goodness I was corrected and made to realise that an informal interview could see the subject being anyone, so long as it broke the boundaries of the ’60 Minutes’ style. With this in mind, I chose to film my boyfriend, Drilon.

I didn’t inform him well on what I’d be doing, merely telling him where he should be and at what time. I had no concrete questions planned and the aim was really to just have a chat. He was a little shy at first, but once I made him focus on me instead of the camera, the conversation got rolling. I ended up with seven minutes of footage regarding his explanation of a high concept film that he wants to produce someday, which I cut down to a small snippet at the beginning. The remainder of the footage is some small talk that we engage in. I chose to splice these two types of footage together because in the first, I feel as though he is acting animatedly, aware of the camera’s presence and of the fact that he wants to appear ‘interesting.’ The second group of clips is a contrast to that – he’s smoking and just doing whatever he pleases. The audience can also hear my voice, which I chose to include since my relationship with the subject is an important aspect.

The decision to also film outside helped the informality since we had a lot of distractions that a controlled environment wouldn’t. Apart from the sound of the heavy machinery, pedestrians kept walking past that would steal our attention.

I’m not at all happy with the way that the footage turned out colour wise and Drlion isn’t in focus – horror of horrors (Despite it looking great in the monitor…. Rooky mistake.) The picture quality looks hazy and as though I’ve added a glow effect in post, which is most likely a repercussion of the lack of focus. The change of brightness between the footage is also due to a van blocking the sun during the end of shooting, which I should’ve been conscious of but only realised later. The composition is quite solid, though I would have liked to have my feet poking into the frame, which I didn’t do only because it obscured Drilon’s face and made for a rubbish shot.

We used the lapel mic and the boom for filming, though I’m pretty sure I only used the boom in post. Either way, Drilon’s voice can be heard clearly but also mine, which comes from off-screen.

All in all, my approach to this interview was effective but the actual execution needs a lot of work.