Making Own Scene:
Producing our own scene this week outside of class time was an exciting and meaningful challenge. On the one hand I was keen to test out an idea I had since last year. On the other, it was meant to be a much simpler task of coverage much like the previous exercises we had done in class. And this meant that finding the time and people to help put it together was a greater challenge, especially with such short notice. Never the less, it was a huge turning point for my research of methodology, from hypothetical questions and potential investigations to a solid practical experiment.
Reflecting on the outcome, it made me realise once again my technical weaknesses:
- exposure
- colour grading
- frame consistency in footage
- continuity
- and, I just realised how soft the sound is, the speakers in the editing suites are way too loud…
However, it also have set my investigation on an early start. I realised in the filming process, or during the process of ‘decoupage’, that I started to develop my own set of film language that is based on how I interpret my experience of reality through different representations. Having established these representations I then applied them to the different events or shots in the narrative depending on their nature, e.g. whether this is a personal observation of another individual or an act of being conscious of my own self. A simple task quickly become an exploration of ontology and a questioning of the nature or act of observing anything.
This led to an epiphany of how I can explore the questions raised in my research of methodology. I can set up a list of my own film language or a philosophical implication of each film language, and apply them to a scene in the final weeks. The language I develop over the next weeks will be some sort of code that will be embedded into the scene. This will be applied according to how the event or act in the story is and what it indicates. Before creating the final scene, I will first investigate and develop the set of ‘codes’ through observations and reflections on a series of filming exercises and how I seek to interpret the world as I create them. This list of ‘codes’ is not a canon to how to use or communicate with film language, and it may not be an absolute treatment of reality and neither are the more institutional and traditional ways of filmmaking. It is merely a personalised and individualised artistic expression that may potentially be a way of consistently expressing my own experience of reality.