Week 4:

 

Week four was a week that we looked at editing and we had the opportunity to experiment with footage and practise different skills. Editing is something that was not my strong suit, in part because it was always very time consuming and having to troubleshoot technical issues was definitely something that I have improved at during my degree.

 

When finding stock footage of Melbourne during the 1920’s (the decade that the Capitol opened) it is clear that they didn’t need any particular editing in terms of colour grading and adjustments in brightness. I really liked the look of the black and white grainy qualities that video of that time had due to a lower quality equipment. Some might say that it wasn’t great back then compared to now and that is a little bit true but you also get a great understanding of history and how much everything has developed over the decades: fashion, film, architecture, technology and many more to count.

 

Looking over at some images and piece of footage I had, I learned in this week that I needed to focus on the pace in which I was editing things together. When I have watched history documentaries which would show photographs, they were part of the strengths of the piece and so to have them be on screen for too short a time was something I would always notice and wanted to always be mindful of for the future assignments. Another aspect that I felt distinguished video in terms of if they felt professional were fonts used. Although this is something that isn’t of the highest priority, the more and more I tried to look at each element of a documentary video, the more patterns I noticed with editing techniques and what high quality videos had that lower quality/ student ones didn’t.

 

Week 5:

 

This week we had to pleasure of going to the design building in RMIT to speak with the interior design students and some Master of media students who were also working on the projects based on the Capitol. We started off class with a little history lesson and a discussion on what everyone was working on or planning for.

 

We then moved onto looking at the current floor plans for each level of the Capitol Theatre and learned that the screening situation of the Capitol in terms of our projects hadn’t been decided yet. This prompted us to brainstorm about how we could think about the space and how our projects could be incorporated into it. This was a very beneficial exercise for me as I had assumed that there would be a main screen for every person’s video work to be shown onto and a working sound system, along with the assumption that those who would attend the opening would all be silent to watch what we had made and listen to the sound of the video as well.

 

However being told that its most likely the invited guests will be wondering around the Capitol at their own leisure was something that made us rethink what we would be doing. A lot of people, myself included had kind of assumed that we would be able to have sound included into our projects and because we had learned so much about Oral History which revolves around a person speaking about the past in some way, but because sound wasn’t guaranteed, we had to find a way to adjust. Even talking about how there might be computers or projectors in certain rooms that will show our projects brought out ideas like creating media for a particular space like the projector room for example and how this could be a really strong concept especially for a short video. Overall it opened up my mind a bit more and lead me to think more outside of the box.

 

Week 6:

 

Week six was the week that I formed my group with Isobel and Ellie and we realised that speaking to the construction team was an idea that we found to be very strong and wished to use in either Assignment two or three.

 

It was in this week that I decided to go over to the State Library and ask a librarian about the resources they had in regards to the Capitol. Luckily for me the lady I spoke to was really helpful and showed me how I would be able to organise certain photographs/ manuscripts or newspaper articles for viewing if I was after them for a hardcopy. She also showed me that when looking on the online database for images or articles on the Capitol that there was a description below that would tell me whether or not the piece was out of copyright and hence could be used.

 

The other great resource that she showed me was a website called Trove. Trove is the National Library of Australia Database and it had online access to many newspapers and newspaper articles going back to the 1800’s. As the Capitol was opened in 1924 and proceeded to be at its best in the decades following, I was able to find many newspaper articles and pieces both on Walter Burley Griffin, the architecture and how the Capitol fit into the lives of Melbournians over the past ninety plus years. The helpful part about Trove which the librarian mentioned was that due to the copyright laws coming into place in the 1950’s, everything (be it written newspaper articles or images) was not considered under those laws and is “out of copyright”. In layman’s terms, it could be used for out projects.

 

Looking through the state library database and Trove, they couldn’t have been more perfect for the research we were doing as a group. There were articles from the Amusements Section in Melbourne Newspapers informing readers on what was being shown at the Capitol Theatre, there was news reporting on Griffin, the American Architect and his journey from winning a competition to design in Canberra to working on other projects, then eventually finding his way into designing the Capitol Theatre in Swanston Street.

 

Having these articles were excellent because we were able to find early versions of what is essentially a written oral history to guide us for assignment two and three. It was a productive week 🙂

 

Week 7:

 

I am technically writing for Week seven and the easter break for this blog post because my group and I felt that we needed to meet up together to discuss a plan, so on the Wednesday during the week off we came into Uni and had a really good brainstorm. Basically we started off thinking that we could do a video that was interviewing someone from the construction team about their experiences restoring the capitol, any history they had whilst also exploring a timeline of the Capitol in its significant events and also some little details on the Architects Walter Burley Griffin and Marion Mahony Griffin.

 

However we soon realised that this would be too much for one video and essentially you would be able to make several videos of at least five minutes on all the topics. Because of the how long the Capitol Theatre has been built for, the history and evolution of it would allow this. We then decided that we really liked the idea of interviewing someone from the construction team as they would be able to hopefully reflect on the past and present elements on the Capitol and so there would be an Oral history there. Because looking at the amount of time we would have from now until Assignment two’s due date, it would not be enough time to find a suitable day for us to interview someone from the Capitol build (ensuring they respond in time and say yes), edit it together and organise ourselves.

 

Rather we decided that we would try out a more simplified video history project for Assignment two and plan the interview for Assignment three. Assignment two would be a montage of images and possibly old video if we would be able to find it of the Capitol throughout the decades. To accompany this, we would include some text describing the time in history that the image/ video represented and also some interesting facts about that time, relating back to the Capitol.  

 

 

Link to video: