Dusty Johnston

TOPIC OF INQUIRY:
The exploration of unconventional coverage and representation of the movement of skateboarding in film

Over the past five weeks I explored my inquiry of ‘unconventional coverage and representation of the movement of skateboarding in film’ – this inquiry was altered slightly throughout the process as I was still trying to solidify my idea through progressive research and discovery. Originally, I set out to look at many wheeled objects, but several constraints led me to having to stick to just the skateboarding. I did trial some footage from the bus a few times, but I found that it seemed irrelevant to put in with my final work as I already had a lot of dynamic shots/angles to work with from the skating footage. I decided that the addition of this would muddy my project by giving me too many elements to cover when analysing this final piece.

Over the course of both assessment four and five, my work turned into something that has little to no storyline, it’s more a poetic representation of skateboard movement as I ended up collecting quite a random but dynamic bunch of skate clips from days spent filming. The final product is disjointed and awkward, the polar opposite to what skateboarding filmmakers strive to create. But, I’m happy with that, it’s not ordinary to your typical skating video – and that was my intention from the beginning (after presenting original idea and deliberating a little more). This final clip focuses heavily on an unconventional montage element within decoupage. In the editing process of the clips I used effects such as repetition, reversing and cutting of movements to draw a focus for the audience to the actual motion which is taking place in the shots. All of the clips are segmented, with fades to black and fades from black to separate them. The first shot and the final shot are really the only cohesive parts to the piece as a whole. They somewhat basket the other clips together. The beginning and end shots also seem to hold this fly-on-the-wall type feel which I really like, the subjects are not acting for the camera as they have their backs to it. It’s very natural. I particularly find the last shot captivating in this way as it captures (in an off-guard manner) the friendly nature of the boys and draws on the idea that skateboarding is a bonding hobby to be interested in – it’s not just about showing off, it’s about entertainment in companionship.

The clips give example of creative ways of representing skateboard movement. This final clip is dynamic in the way that it involves POV, low, high, tracking, following, handheld and steady shots. I would call this project a starting point. A journey of experiment and discovery which figures out ways to create something of purpose for a skating scene in a film.

As the clip does not use a musical track and keeps almost all of its original sound (except for a few alterations where some speaking was replaced by the constant sound of a travelling board in the ‘reverse manual’ section) it does not adhere to your classic skate video, the repetitive noises of the boards are usually muffled by a song. In all of my clips I showed for assessment three, where we were presenting our ideas, each selected video had accompanying music – my piece steers away from this nature.

Last minute I decided not to use the soundscape I’d created as I just didn’t end up liking it at all, and it wasn’t really powerful enough in the right moments – I attempted to cut and rearrange in Premiere Pro, but I couldn’t seem to get it right. I got quite frustrated with creating the soundscape and figured it wasn’t worth using if I wasn’t happy with the end product. My soundscape definitely could have been worked on more, had I figured out more interesting effects on GarageBand – I guess, at least I had the best intentions to create a soundscape which aided to the unusualness of the piece/s. It just didn’t go exactly as I had imagined, but that’s what the process of creation is all about – trial and error. Definitely feel like the soundscape had very powerful sound in some parts, but lacked in others – only really realised this after exporting it. I feel as though the original sounds of the skateboards (although not of very good quality due to the recording being directly from the cameras) were appropriate in reinforcing the power of the movements which the boards encompassed. However, the original sounds do not create as much of a disjointed feeling – the editing of the clips (changing speed/duration and using repetition/reversal) had been the main factor in toying with the flow of the work.

I’m really glad to have worked with friends who were cooperative and interested in what I was doing, that was definitely a positive element I encountered. I’m pleased that the footage came out as interesting and multi faceted, I loved having the ability to manipulate the footage in the editing process to further express the beauty of movement in an environment less typical to skate films. Even though my piece doesn’t have a particular storyline, I was compelled to focus more closely on the unusual, experimental and poetic representation of skateboarding once I had completed the filming. I found it to be more interesting and strayed away from your everyday representation.

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