The whole process was pleasant and efficient. Although Liam pointed out a lot of problems in the first skit that Kyle filmed, he made timely corrections and finally Liam was very satisfied. At the end, the video processing and editing work was also completed. I mainly added some detailed sound effects, background music and some subtitles, the addition of transitions, and the color toning of the video. I do think the subtitle of our video us necessary, cause there are all new words for people to learn as a explaining video, the subtitle would help people a lot. After communicating with each other, I also tried several editing sessions, everyone is satisfied with the final results. I think the video of our group is quite successful. In this process, I also enjoy working with them. Everyone is happy to communicate. This is a very meaningful assignment. Although we made a video explaining something that I didn’t understand at all, I also achieved my goal and learned a lot in the process. I also hope that this video can help people like me who dare not try stocks.

Video Link:

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1tZsBpYV9XndcdmhHTgs_4gb1bWIlDYwX

Reflection Essay

Our group has chosen Melbourne’s Living Museum of the West to investigate the culture of West Melbourne and the history of the museum. In fact, this is the first Australia ecomuseum, located in the west part of Melbourne. Founded in 1984, Living Museum of the West has a profound history and vividly records the development and the life of the communities in the western part of Melbourne (Healy, 1991). Due to the fact that western Melbourne is where most migrants live with 500 thousand people from about 70 other countries, Living Museum of the West preserves the cultural dynamic through the close involvement of local residents. Living Museum of the West is a top choice for many researchers to explore the culture and history of western Melbourne and they left their research data and information in the Resource Centre. According to the introduction from the official website of Living Museum of the West, there are substantial historic maps preserved in it, sufficient photographic archives including one thousand historical images and fifty thousand contemporary images related to the local culture, oral histories containing 400 recorded interviews about the migrant culture and renowned industry and the like. Hence, as an ecomuseum (Melbournes Living Museum of the West, 2019), Living Museum of the West is able to display visual clues about the migrant culture of West Melbourne and considering its long history and ample archives about its history this museum is undoubtedly a best site to explore the history West Melbourne.

However, the purpose of the documentary is not only to show some parts of the history of West Melbourne but more importantly to arouse people’s interest in investing or making a contribution to the development and maintenance of Living Museum of the West. The main audiences include two types. One type of audiences are residents in West Melbourne and residents living nearby who are expected to be more actively involved in the volunteering work in the construction of the museum; the other type of audiences are young generations whose age is between 20 and 30 and businessmen who can fully tap the potential of Living Museum of the West and make profits. As has been analyzed in the situation of Living Museum of the West, this museum witnesses the history of west Melbourne and is an authentic presentation of the culture with plenty first-hand materials to dig into local history. Therefore, filming the history of the museum is able to awaken the memories of local people and make them realize what a crucial role Living Museum of the West plays in inheriting the tradition and passing down the culture. In this way, not only does the documentary become the precious memoir of local people but also it will attract the attention of other local residents to devote themselves to the long-term development of Living Museum of the West. Besides, in this document the brief introduction of the museum is displayed and it shows that how significant it is to preserve the museum and make it known to more people so that people can learn from it. Therefore, this document may attract some academic groups to have long-term co-operations with the museum so that the museum can be well-known and be profitable to boost the local economy. In conclusion, this document aims to enhance the development of Living Museum of the West through intriguing both local and other regional young generations to engage and recruiting potential corporations with companies or academic groups to improve the museum. Such type of document is influential for the Australian society. For one thing, as the introduction of Living Museum of the West, the documentary provides the account of the culture of Melbourne and will work as the supporting evidence of the Melbourne’s culture in the west. For another, filming the beauty of such museum will raise people’s awareness of learning through the historical site and advocate the mental life of people.

The main tools for filming the documentary is the Sony 70 camera and wireless lapel microphone. The camera finishes filming and the microphone is used to amplify the voice. The main filming processes can be divided into two parts. In the first part, we focus on filming the sites and archives in Living Museum of the West while in the second part we interview the workers in the museum, inviting them to share their feelings about working in the museum, how they think of their job as well as their expectation on the future of the museum. With the static scenery and the dynamic interview interwoven in the film, our document is colorful, which is not only the display of the beauty of the museum but also the mirror of the humanistic culture. Besides, the documentary begins with an exposition with the voice telling the story. The exposition is the mixture of different beautiful pieces of the museum and historical archives, exhibiting the scenic attraction and culture through editing different episodes about the museum. As the research suggests, most documentaries will have expositions of the themes in the beginning or at the end, which will leave a deep impression on viewers (Ahmed, 2010). Hence, in the beginning, with the presentation of the natural beauty and the humanistic attraction of the museum, viewers will be drawn to the documentary and look forward to the following parts. In order to further touch the viewers, we select appropriate music to highlight the content and create the atmosphere of the museum. For an excellent documentary, the proper music can push the development of the plots and echo the emotion of viewers (Corner, 2002). It is hoped that the soft music can calm down the views to appreciate the connotation of this historical site.

As for interviews, we mainly adopt medium shot to film. The medium shot not only includes the persons who are involved in the interviews but also contains the background of the people interviewed (The Ultimate Guide to Medium Shots, 2019). Now that the workers in the museum are going to share their ideas about the museum and the self-revelation of their feelings, including their working environment can further elucidate their nature of working here and will not make viewers feel bored if only focusing on the faces of the interviewees. In addition, we also use the microphones to make sure what the speaker said is clear enough, despite the fact that the first interview encounters some technical problems for lack of experience.

Apart from the exposition and medium shots, we also extract archival footage into the document. Now that Living Museum of the West accommodates substantial archives about west Melbourne, extracting a short clip from the archival footage will directly present how the museum records the history of the local community. The vivid content of the archive will surely attract more visitors for the museum when the viewers are intrigued in it. As the most historical documentaries do, archival footage will increase the credibility of the content and as another form of sources of the theme it increases the diversity of the sources of evidence (Swender, 2009). Now that the purpose of the museum is to make its culture and history seen by more people, presenting its archives will directly show how attractive and interesting the museum is and give inspirations for the businessmen in front of the documentary. Generally, the style of our document is serious and lively, with the realistic recording of what the museum is like and how it comes into being and the voices from the local workers.

As to the use of archives in the museum, we mainly film them in the documentary and edit some content of it into the documentary. In the beginning, we selected the archives we needed to use and asked the staff whether we could record the old pictures and the old tapes into our documentary. After getting the consent from the staff, we made the videos about these archives. In addition, we accidentally knew that someone had interviewed the staff before and the videos were left. In order to enrich the content of our document and show that this museum is very popular, we asked if we could get the videos and use some in our documentary. Once the staff agreed we used the footage. Our proper method for having access to archives shows our respect for the sources in the museum. Containing what the archives in the museum are like is the vivid description of the culture and history of the museum, which is very important. Adding some footage of archives enriches the content and the form of the documentary.

In fact, the whole filming process went smoothly. We made the plan in advance and none of our requests were refused by the staff. On the contrary, the staff in the museum were very passionate about aiding our documentary, claiming that this would be of great help to gain a good reputation for the museum, which delighted us greatly. Hence, we filmed different parts of the museum with different work of division as it was scheduled. However, we made some technical mistakes. This was our first time that we had attempted to add interviews into the film. Although we had known that we should use the microphone to make sure the sound of the speakers can be clearly heard in the movie, we still failed to succeed recording it due to the fact that we forgot to switch on the microphone. As a result, what the speaker said had to be first transcribed by us and then we had to have one of our group members to read the transcript, which will decrease the authenticity of the documentary now that it was obvious that these words were not said directly by the speaker. Another problem we encountered is the use of tripod. Tripods are a useful instrument to have stable filming but this makes the filming process static and dull. Hence, we abandoned the tripods and filmed through putting the camera on the shoulder. Due to the lack of sufficient experience, when it came to the switch of the spots or the moving spots of the museum, the footage was a little shaky because we failed to control the speed at a proper level. This can influence the artistic style of our documentary because the shaky shots may leave a bad impression on viewers and this also causes confusion for viewers. Nevertheless, despite the failures and mistakes, our documentary contains various kinds of archives and first-hand footage of what the Living Museum of the West is like and how it was established and developed. With the mixture of different footage on physical appearance of the museum, substantial sources in the museum and true accounts from the people working here, our documentary is still attractive enough and includes the account of the narration of the history of the museum with wonderful melodies.

References

Ahmed, J.U 2010. Documentary research method: New dimensions. Industrial Journal of Management & Social Sciences, vol.4, no.1, pp.1-14.

Corner, J 2002. Sounds real: Music and documentary. Popular Music, vol.21, no.3, pp.357-366.

Healy, C 1991. Working for the Living Museum of the West. Australian Historical Studies, vol.24, no.96, pp.153-167.

Swender, R 2009. Claiming the found: Archive footage and documentary practice. The Velvet Light Trap, vol. 64, no.2, pp.3-10.

The Ultimate Guide to Medium Shots 2019, August 26. StudioBinder. Retrieved October 11, 2019, from https://www.studiobinder.com/blog/medium-shot-examples/#What-is-a-medium-shot?

Melbournes Living Museum of the West. Retrieved October 11, 2019, from https://www.livingmuseum.org.au/

PROPOSAL for Living Museum of the West Project

 Sizzle Reel: Cel https://drive.google.com/open?id=1zWDGHYjm1_0U7V4ZJFx3B_Q4BW_8ho31

All the footage used in the sizzle reel was shot at the Living Museum. For the purposes of this assignment we have used filler music which will be replaced with a soundscape for our final submission. We have also used working opening and closing titles, again these will be updated for our final submission. 

The overall purpose and vision behind the reel is to create intrigue about a place that knows so much about its community, yet its community knows nothing about this place. Our aim is to emphasise how important the Museum is, it’s benefits and purpose and encourage a new and fresh group of faces to invest in it. 

1.	·       Names of Group Members Cel, Jess, Sarah & Leah
2.	·       Title of the Project Australia’s First Ecomuseum The Living Museum A Museum for the West All members worked on
3.	·       Tagline   Your History Mate The Life of the Living Museum of the West The heart of culture in the West since 1984 The museum in the West The museum you should know about All members worked on
4.	·       Synopsis  Buried behind the trees lining the Maribyrnong river, The Living Museum of the West thrives. This quaint community hub plays host to the history and untold stories of Melbourne’s western suburbs. Every nook and cranny of the museum is filled with images and artifacts from the area. Yet, the majority of the community is oblivious to its existence. This piece explores how this place and it’s dedicated volunteers have evolved along with the community. Cel
5.	·     Rationale: Our reasons for making this film are influenced by how much potential we believe the museum has to offer – by communicating its cultural importance and telling the museum’s story we hope to attract newcomers and visitors who can sustain the life of the Living Museum. We want this project to encourage conversation and interest around the Museum and further, the West’s rich and extensive history and how it’s all documented in Melbourne’s backyard.  We are further influenced by the team who run the museum – their passion and efforts to awaken a sense of community and sustain a culturally significant space are reflective of the Museum’s importance and room for change and growth within its impact. We aim to present these important people to the public and add a personal connection to what we make – moving away from corporate publicity videos – we want people to watch the video and come to the Museum for the resources it provides through its archive as well as through the members who have so much knowledge to share. In our own way its a form of giving back to the museum team who have done so much for our group but broader than that, have done such important and vital work within their community that seems to largely go unnoticed.  Leah
6.	·       Target Audience  We want to target people who live in the west or potential local sponsors and encourage them to visit and invest in the museum. We’ll be showing how the Living Museum works and what it does for the community members. Older residents who have a vested interest in the areas history or those who want to learn about their heritage would find this documentary pleasing.  There is another audience we want to target a niche audience member may be a younger generation of males and females aged 20-30 who are beginning to populate the area due to the building development. They may have a vested interest in learning about the Museum or contributing materials about things that are happening now.  Cel
7.	·       Background research about the subject matter. Australia’s first ecomuseum Community museum, operating in the western region of Melbourne in the state of Victoria, Australia Ecomuseum: focused on the identity of a place, largely centred on participation and the extended development of the community. There are currently about 300 operating ecomuseums in the world.  Set up in 1984 to address what was seen then as a disadvantaged region due to its terrain and industrialisation Has explored oral history, women’s contribution to region history & Aboriginal Heritage Peter Haffenden: born in Footscray, once worked at the Angliss meat works, drove taxis, graduated in economics at the University of Melbourne and worked for the Age and the ABC as a journalist. Been with the Living Museum since 1984.  Kerrie has a background in art. She was a graduate trainee through a scheme organised by “life be in it” for unemployed people with tertiary qualifications.  The Park’s location is of especial significance sitting on the banks of the Maribyrnong River – a point of early European occupation  Largest and earliest meat canneries were based nearby Bluestone buildings – physical, historical and visual context Initial idea came from several directions and evolved from the political and economic context of the early 1980s Locals: interested in creating a museum about the Maribyrnong River Valley, including industrial sites and their significance, as well as valley’s portrayal of the different stages of Aboriginal and European occupation The ecomuseum is simply where a slice of the real world becomes a ‘museum’. An existing industrial community, for example, that is interpreted in a museum context.  “From the political side came concern for raising what was perceived as a negative profile for Melbourne’s western suburbs which had been dubbed ‘the deprived west’ in the early seventies.” “People are the grist of this Museum. It is about people in Melbourne’s Western Region. Who they are, what they are part of, what they have contributed and what they can contribute. It is a community museum that meets the community on as many levels as possible and is defined very much by the people in the community and how they use the museum.” “Much of the multi-cultural richness and the richness of industrial working people’s culture was in a sense invisible, undocumented and undervalued. There was a need for documentation and presentation of people’s stories before it was too late.” Emphasis on oral history and visual emphasis (thus the tape recordings) Areas seen as under-represented and under-valued were investigated pointedly  “As much as we needed the money to keep the Museum going, would consultancy work deflect us from our aims and objectives as a museum? If you can earn money when does the earning of money interfere with what you are there to do. This can also be true of pursuing grant money of course.” Open space working desks encourages open dialogue between staff “To try and put it simply the models that were available carried the underlying assumption of a profit motive as a driving force and purpose of business. The focus of non profit organisations is to use money to fund programs. The classic focus of business is to use programs to produce money. This simple difference changed the whole approach to a business plan.” “In many ways the Museum of today is dramatically different to the Museum which stumbled naively into the western suburbs with tape recorders in hand ten years earlier. Yet it has held steadily to its first aims and objectives, maintaining links with the community, always involving the people of the region in interpreting their own heritage, constantly keeping alive the guiding principle that it’s your history mate.” Leah
8.	·       Description of your project  Our project is a documentary film exploring the history of the museum as well as exploring the personality and heart behind the museum. It will include interviews with staff members, visiting their work spaces and exploring their day to day activities,  as well as archival material and footage sourced from inside the museum. It would be around 8-10 mins, as we want to be extensive with the Museum History yet condense it simultaneously to be more digestible. We took it as a formal introduction film of the Museum so it may be lengthy. As for our interview, we will interview about how the museum was built, what it was built for and what it can do, and what impact it has on the outside world. Many of our interviews with museum staff are about why they come to work in this museum, what their daily work is like, and how they’ve gained experience from this museum. There would be 3 or 4 interviews in our film that about we interviewing the staff at Museum. At week 5 we had already interviewed one staff member and from this had an idea of the lighting and colour of our project and how we wanted to structure, style and express our project – since Peter is a veteran of the Museum we had a better idea of the personality and throughout the process picked up on points we wanted to emphasise and explore. In terms of sound design and ambience we are looking for quite a naturalistic and minimal soundscape – using the sounds of the West and the sounds of the Museum together as our soundtrack. We may also explore overlapping different staff members’ VOX pops as our introductory sound. While we will be filming the Museum space and staff we will also be filming the surrounding environment – the gardens, the bluestone building next door, and the landscapes around the river that are understood as part of the museum.  Jess, Leah + Sarah
9.	Elements used from the museum and elements creates yourself Elements used from the museum will include archival material, most notably the ‘Your History Mate’ book for research and reference (which can also prompt interview questions), and photos in the museum’s collection that document and follow its journey from the conception of Australia’s first ecomuseum up until recent times. We will record interviews and b-roll around the museum ourselves and it will be focussed on three to four staff members as they go about their day at the museum as well as answer some thought provoking questions about their experiences and why this space is so important to them. The elements used from the museum will be interwoven in the interview, for example we may show staff members some older photographs of the museum and ask them if any of the photos prompt significant or meaningful memories. We will take the audience around the Museum and find out what has changed during the years after it has been built, including footage which will be compared with the older archives.  Jess
10.	·       Plan for exhibition installation  Projector (sourced by Leah) inside an enclosed dark space with seating, so that it is more of an immersive experience- need to consult with staff for location that would be suitable. Projector will need to be plugged in to a power source and have a flat wall to project the image onto. Will source dark curtains (from an op-shop most likely) to hang up to create an enclosed space and will use the red couch and pillows to put inside for seating.  Jess
11.	·       Research of other projects as inspiration  Never Ending Man 2016, streaming video, GKIDS Films, Japan, viewed 15 August 2019, <https://www.docplay.com/shows/never-ending-man-hayao-miyazaki>. Never Ending Man 2016, streaming video, GKIDS Films, Japan, viewed 15 August 2019, <https://www.docplay.com/shows/never-ending-man-hayao-miyazaki>. The Kingdom of Dreams and Madness 2013, streaming video, GKIDS Films, Japan, viewed 15 August 2019, <https://www.docplay.com/shows/studio-ghibli—the-kingdom-of-dreams-and-madness>. BOOKSTORES: How to Read More Books in the Golden Age of Content, Youtube, 24 April, Max Joseph, viewed 15 August 2019, <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lIW5jBrrsS0>. BOOKSTORES: How to Read More Books in the Golden Age of Content, Youtube, 24 April, Max Joseph, viewed 15 August 2019, <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lIW5jBrrsS0>. Behind the scenes in the Museum’s archive | Curator’s Corner Season 3 Episode 2, Youtube, 4 February, The British Museum, London,  viewed 15 August 2019, <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IHptcFmn6bg>. Behind the scenes in the Museum’s archive | Curator’s Corner Season 3 Episode 2, Youtube, 4 February, The British Museum, London,  viewed 15 August 2019, <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IHptcFmn6bg>. Behind the scenes in the Museum’s archive | Curator’s Corner Season 3 Episode 2, Youtube, 4 February, The British Museum, London,  viewed 15 August 2019, <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IHptcFmn6bg>. Archiving in a born digital era (Short Documentary), Youtube, 20 October, Josh Sierra, Cardiff, viewed 15 August 2019, <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=thpW-95m10w>. Archiving in a born digital era (Short Documentary), Youtube, 20 October, Josh Sierra, Cardiff, viewed 15 August 2019, <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=thpW-95m10w>. All members contributed  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IHptcFmn6bg  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=thpW-95m10w  History Mate Book https://www.livingmuseum.org.au/publications/ecomuseum_studies.html
12.	·      A script for each component (using the template provided) We anticipate the documentary will have a running time of eight to ten minutes. For the purposes of this proposal we have developed a one minute script which fits in with the overall style and concept of the piece.  Cel + Jess
13.	·       Project timeline: from week 5 – week 13  Week 5: Tuesday: Start interviewing and talking with staff about ideas and discussing amongst ourselves what the plan is for the future of the project. Week 5: Thursday: Finalise Assignment  Week 6: Tuesday: Begin planning for next part of assignment Week 6: Thursday: Assignment ready for submission; Group meeting to plan and develop aims, read through ‘Your History Mate’ Week 7: Bring camera to museum and start interviews plus b-roll Week 7: Plan for next week (reserve camera) Week 8: Continue Interviews and b-roll Week 8: Finalise assignment 3 Week 9: Assignment #3 due + visit to the museum Week 9: Have a look at all the videos we have and organise in order Week 10: Editing videos together Week 10: Searching for Bgm for the film, continue editing Week 11: Organizing photos or images we have, continue editing  Week 11: Rendering the video and exporting it  Week 12: Finalise assignment 4 Week 12: Submit Assignment #4 Week 13: Have a conversation about what we’ve made and what we achieved from this Film making progress- further planning for the exhibition. Week 13: Exhibition  Jess + Sarah

http://livingmuseum.org.au/staff/index.html

Week 1 1.0

http://www.mediafactory.org.au/shaer-liu/2019/08/09/2019-semester-2-week-1/

1.1

http://www.mediafactory.org.au/shaer-liu/2019/08/09/week1-1-1/

Week 2 2.0

http://www.mediafactory.org.au/shaer-liu/2019/08/09/week-2-2-0/

2.1

http://www.mediafactory.org.au/shaer-liu/2019/08/09/week-2-2-1/

Week 3 

http://www.mediafactory.org.au/shaer-liu/2019/08/11/week-3/

Videos — Google drive

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1zcgu-qmCTiOhpCxjNvC6gRBPf-xhIsew

Through the shooting of this video, I found out that women’s work and social status have improved. Also, I know more about West Melbourne women’s movement and history. And learn how to organize the data and summarize the information and then give feedback. In the course of this assignment, I thought it was better to communicate with the team members. Since I was sick and went to a lesson, I didn’t go to the museum. The team member Jenna helped me find some information and provided me with Very good material, I am very grateful to her. In the beginning, I wanted to study the emergence and influence of women’s sports, but unfortunately, I did not find a lot of information for analysis and review, so I can only modify my theme at the end. I hope that I will be more keen on the subject of my next assignment and work harder to review the material to improve my video. And this time my video production was not detailed enough to meet my expectations. The connection and shooting of the video did not reach a standard level. I am still disappointed with this video. Because in the beginning, I was very untargeted in the selection of the subject matter. I was confused and didn’t know where to start. There is no way to collect the data, and I hope that I can improve in the next exercise and homework for this. The first job was not done very well. The choice of subject matter and his own analysis are not comprehensive enough. I hope to do better next time.

Link of Interview

Google drive Interview editing

In this interview video, my task is to shoot. Throughout the process, I think that most of my shots are done well, the lens is stable and the light is sufficient. However, during the shooting, I also photographed that some of the shots did not have enough light, which caused the interviewee’s face to be not sufficiently clear and the interviewee’s face was not focused by the camera. The whole interview process was relatively smooth, people were more helpful and happy to tell their thoughts and opinions in front of the camera. The topic of our group selection is: Are you happy? My team members also mentioned in the interview that you will feel unhappy? I think this topic is also very desirable. But I didn’t edit it in the post-editing process, because I prefer to edit the video of the topic that the teacher confesses. However, after I saw the video of my team member Jenna, she putts ed both issues into a video and I think it is also very good. I think my editing has a good rhythm and the connection between each video are very well. The reading talks about how poetics brings to interviews and movies. This method interacts between sound and image and enriches the viewer’s understanding of the screen documentary. The poetics of the interview will make the filmmakers sensitive to the influence of their form and the audience realizes how the design of the interview shapes their reaction.

I was shocked when I first entered the museum because it was very different from other museums. Most museums are exquisitely decorated and tidy, but the museum looks more like a studio or a tourist introduction center. There are a lot of weeds around the museum, and the exterior decoration is not so gorgeous. After entering, many objects and tables and chairs look very old. But to my surprise, one thing that distinguishes this museum from other museums is that it is full of books, photos, videos and videos that record previous events. The museum is more like a data collection room, which contains documents for recording historical events. This is the most important and biggest difference between it and other museums. We can read books directly from this museum, flip through photos, and view video recordings. This is a very important part of our documentary work. Because we need a factual basis to show like everyone. Our group selected the topic of women’s sports. Because we saw the lipsticks that were produced in this local factory in the display cabinet, we looked at some books and materials about these lipsticks and found that they have some relationship with the women’s movement and also with the Second World War. The end of the relationship. Because after the Second World War, many women chose to work in the factory, which reflected the life and working conditions of the social women at that time. My team members and I were interested in this topic, so we chose this topic for research and analysis.

Cause I didn’t come to the first class of this studio because I came back to Melbourne a little bit late, so I got no group members and videos to do. From reading, I have realized that each documentary must have eight mainstream models – reflexive, poetic, explanatory, observation, participation, performance and autobiography, prose. As we will see, each model has its own practical and ideological methods to represent reality, its specific historical context of creation and the unique power dynamics between documentary practitioners, themes and audiences. For example, Eisenstein took three pictures of the stone lion and use the three pictures to reflective the importance of the populist uprising and the maritime rebellion against the tsarist control. He used another way to show people and audience what he wanted to say and in some way give people a metaphor which is a great way to show me the beauty and the effect of the documentary. Furthermore, from this reading, I had deeper thinking about what is the truth. During the processing of the documentary, as long as the camera is aimed at the subject, the subject changes his behavior because of your observations. Simply put, you think you are recording reality, but, when you lift the camera, you are already intervening in reality. In many documentaries, the subject is not facing a camera on a mobile phone. It is a film crew, up and down a dozen people. People act in front of the camera to reshow the history or their life like the documentary Nanook. Who can ensure that he is showing his true self in front of the camera? So, the truth of the documentary is an interesting thing to think about.

I choose this studio because I was late for course selecting and this is one of the last two studios I can choose. But the most important thing for me is I pretty like watching documentaries. The documentary is like an instruction book for me. It helps me get to know something further and deeper such as when I am watching a documentary that talks about how elephants’ living life looks like and how they produce the next generation. I can get to know how the female elephant gives birth to a new life and what they eat for living except for bananas which I used to think elephants only eat bananas for living, as well as how they avoid being hunted by people or their natural enemies. That’s the main reason why that I would like to choose this studio, I’m interested in documentary and I’m looking forward to learning how documentaries are produced. As a group member, I think I can do shooting and communications to help my group members. Because I have learned some skills about how to use the camera, setting up the tripod and use the recorder properly from my last studio. Secondly, I considered myself is good at communicating with people which I think in a documentary interview people is very necessary and be a good communicator could help a lot with the documentary producing. For this semester, this is the third studio for me, I have worked with people to produce a video for three semesters and I think I was doing good with talking and team-working. This is the semester, I’m looking forward to developing more camera filming skills, storytelling skills, and team working skills.

This semester I chose The Small Things Studio as my third semester. During this semester, I learned a lot of very useful and professional knowledge, such as how to set up a camera tripod, how to reset the camera’s exposure, white balance and how to choose the shooting angle and record video and audio. These studies have made me more aware of how behind-the-scenes shooting, editing and how the overall program should work. Let me have a deeper understanding and understanding of professional equipment and software. Teamwork is also a very important part of it. This semester I also learned how to express my ideas and purpose in a more professional language and way. Storyboards, audio recordings, shooting angles, and lighting positions are all necessary. I have learned more deeply in the study of this semester. In the editorial section, I am also more familiar with and proficient with the Adobe Premiere software. Through color grading, video editing and audio, background music exercises. I am more proficient and profound about Adobe Premiere.

After the whole study this semester, I learned a lot about how to be a professional editor. While in the first two weeks, we learned some basic things about the equipment such as how to set up the tripod, formate the camera and how to pack up the cable of the equipment. Those are all great practice before we start shooting. Even though they look really simple and boring, it not just what it looks like. These things are also needed to spend time on and practice. Meanwhile, I learned how to use the recorder to record audio. That makes me feel how important the sound trucks in the movie, as well as I found the interesting side of sound. This semester in RMIT is my first time to actually had a chance to write the script and think about a story to shoot and edit. I was really excited about this at the beginning. However, to make a video is much harder than I thought. Although it was not that easy to make it, I still very proud of my team. We were having fun with this work which I also very appreciate that I got this chance to practice my film making skills and team working ability.

First of all, we need to write down the storyboard about what we are going to shoot. Actually, we came up with a lot of idea at first but the inspiration of each of uses chosen movies. But while the ideas keep coming up, we need to decide which one we will choose, so it is a little bit hard to decide. After that, Christian was mainly worked in casting and find the location which is his house. We’ve got two characters, one is Christian’s friend and another one is going through the casting. Christian and I mainly focused on shooting. At first, we were preparing to shoot at day time. But, we were having trouble with the exposure of the light, we adjusted several times but out is still doesn’t work. While we were trying to deal with the exposure, it was getting darker of the day, so that we decided to change the happening time tonight instead. This was the first time I directly take control of the camera, I was very worried about my shooting. How to find a better angle to shoot the scene. Personally, I mainly used Mid shoot to show the conversation between two characters or the action. I found it was better to show how the story goes on. Meanwhile, I also found it is great to use a low angle to show the character is frightened and helpless, cause our film is talking about a horror story which is revolved around a red bag. But I’m not only shooting but sometimes I also take a little bit control of the lighting. When we were shooting the scene of Sonya sleeping at the bed and heard the ring bell. I was standing back of her to light up her face. We took around over 10 times to shoot that scene until we found out that the tripod of my lights appears at every scene. That very bad mistake that we made during our shooting, as well as remind me next time need to have more conversation with my group members. The biggest problem, while we were shooting, was the overexposure of the background. We were trying to adjust the lighting lower, but everything couldn’t bee is seen after that. So this was very distressing for us. But we still need that scene so we have had to make it darker or delete it when we were editing our cuts.

Collaboration

Looking through the whole semester, I realized the corporation of a team is very important, and I’ve learned many skills from class. As a team, I think we need to talk with each other more for further work. From the class, I deeply learned more about Adobe premiere and get to use it better and practiced. Every week, Paul gives us homework to practice what we learned every week so that we can have a review of the whole week instead of forgetting it. Which helped me study better. Compare with the studio of last semester, this semester I practiced more and got more chance to open mind and creative things that I like. I’m very thankful for everything I’ve learned and Paul of course.