Tagged: translating observation

semester reflection

The reason that I chose the ‘Translating Observation’ studio was the fact that Robin’s presentation didn’t seemed forced as the others were – he wasn’t trying to be funny or touching. He was just passionate about his topic and that itself was enough to convince me of signing up. Can I just add though that all of the studios were either concerned with documentary or comedy… not very appealing for people wanting to explore drama, such as myself.

I have thoroughly enjoyed the premise behind this studio: transforming what we notice in reality into stories for the screen. It has grown to become a habit of mine now whenever I am on the train or sitting at the State Library eating my lunch – I constantly muse at how certain people or scenarios can be evolved into film.

I’ve never been technically capable with cameras, having always allotted someone else with those certain tasks. I would say now that I have a slightly larger understanding of camera mechanics but I’ll always prefer writing and directing a project in comparison to actually making it happen. I also wish that the camera tutorial classes hadn’t taken up most of the semester because I would’ve much preferred to spend the time discussing films and creating our own.

Moreover, I’ve definitely been more engaged this semester than I was with the last and that is greatly due to actually enjoying the final semester project that I was involved in. If it hadn’t been for Alex’s enthusiasm with my observation, I wouldn’t have considered even making it and therefore, taken a back-seat in someone else’s concept. Making a film, however long or shot it may be, is such a team effort and it’s proved to be a lot of give-and-take. It hasn’t just been my film per se, but a collaborative effort in which everyone has had their specific input. I think we did the best that we could given the time frame we were allotted to making the film and given the hiccups we encountered along the way. If anything, I now know what to change next time.

Lastly, he will feel uncomfortable about me saying this, but Robin has been one of my favourite tutors at RMIT thus far. Through out the semester, I have written down some of his greatest one-liners, which I’m sure will be of need in the years to come:

  • “Don’t limit something to filmic merit, just see. Don’t go out looking.”
  • “No thing is too small to write about.”
  • “Don’t fall a victim to your camera, own it.” (In hindsight, this is the advice I should have listened to the most)
  • “You need to understand cinema to make a film.”
  • “This most perfect moment of innocence is actually a contrived thing.”

And, my personal favourite –

  • “You’re never not a filmmaker and if you name it, you can start to work with it somehow.”

film reflection

It is somewhat difficult for me to reflect upon what is now known as ‘Girl, Outside,’ since it all seems like a long, arduous blur. Needless to say, let us begin at the beginning…

Pre-Production

After deciding to create my observation, we (Isobel, Alex and Jamie) spent the two following weeks finalising the shots, actors, location etc. and soon enough, the film started to develop into something far from its conception. I intended for the piece to focus on a young girl’s actions – allowing the camera to follow her daily morning routine, which would hopefully result in an absorbing study of human gesture/behaviour. I wanted to re-create my initial observation and keep with the concept of voyeurism. As the film progressed however, the older male character transformed into a young boy and the story essentially became about him and not her. It slowly took a more innocent turn, whereupon a young boy would be shot playing outside as a girl – his supposed babysitter – sets up a banana lounge and relaxes. Here, he would come to realise how ‘cool’ grown-ups seem to be and how much he wishes to be a part of that world. I think this became the case because we needed to be realistic about the project within the short amount of time we had – how were we going to find an adult male for such a small role? What location was available for this story to take place?

The Shoot

The day of the shoot actually went quite smoothly in my eyes. We were only faced with a few minor difficulties – the wind (which at times was tremendously extreme) and some camera issues that Jamie hadn’t foreseen. The highlight of the day for me, as the director, quickly became working with Joshua, the nine-year old boy that we discovered on Star Now. I had previously had traumatic experiences working with children in past projects but Joshua completely salvaged my view on child actors. He was so mature and his improvisation abilities really helped us to further shape the film. This became apparent when he donned his baby-sitter’s glasses and sat on the banana lounge himself, flipping through the magazine props as though he actually was the girl he wished to emulate.

Towards the end of the shoot, the sun grew to be very harsh, making it difficult for Jamie to focus on the subjects outside and it became frustrating for all of us since we’d been outside all day and not handling the heat too well.

Post-Production

This is where all of our problems started to materialise. Upon returning the equipment (which was an ordeal in itself as we definitely over-booked) and reviewing it, I noticed that many shots were out of focus but not in the traditional sense. The pictures seemed to be covered in this strange haziness, which looked like the result of someone having not wiped the lens down after condensation had gotten to it. After Robin did some tests with the camera to ensure that it was mechanically functioning properly, it was decided that our cameraperson (or perhaps anyone for that matter) should have checked the diopter on the eye-piece, so as to be able to judge focus in the first place. The brightness was also too high in some takes and if we had bothered to check the peaking, we would have noticed this consequence.

Indeed, in Robin’s endless words of wisdom, “The best ideas turn to dust without technical proficiency.” Rightfully so. As editor, Isobel had to re-arrange the story that we had initially been trying to convey since we had to scrap a lot of integral shots. Now, the ‘baby-sitter’ figure had morphed somehow into the young boy’s dead sister, who he imagines to see lounging in their yard once again. The soundscape really helped in giving our piece depth despite not having some of the shots that we needed. The increasing wind throughout the film, which reaches its climax as the young boy flips through the magazines alone and without his sister, move to highlight the notion that she is a ghostly presence in his life. I also really like the heightened sense of sound that was utilised – the magazine flipping, the ice blocks clinking in a glass and the door of the fridge closing.

It’s a shame that we had to use VSCO filters from adobe Lightroom to shield the haziness of the clips. The overall effect is highly saturated but we hoped that it complimented the dream-like atmosphere that we intended to evoke.

This experience has however taught me that camera tests are crucial. If we had known that the Sony EX3 would cause us all of this trouble prior to filming, I much would have preferred to just use a  DSLR.

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reflection: girl, outside

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.

reflection: exercise 3 & 4

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.

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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.

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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.

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film pitch

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.

reflection

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.

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observation #8

“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. 


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.

reflection

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.

 

observation #7

‘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.

observation #6 cont.

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.


‘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. 

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