Many have chosen to continue with their methodology of working and/or weekly epiphanies

Write about what you set out to investigate, prove, wonder about
Reflect on the making and what you discovered from your investigation/experiment
Reflect upon the relationship between theory and practice – pulling into focus what worked and what didn’t.

I had a discussion with a classmate, Simone Lau, over the weekend about the act of filming. It was a brief and precise discussion of our views but it opened doors rather than answers our initial questions and made us talk beyond film so we had to stop the audio recording.

She had told me some of her experiments with the camera, and life experiences that she too would like to visualise with the camera. With her background in Fine Arts, its no surprise that she is way deeper in this topic of documentation through a camera than I am.

As Simone ventures deeper into documentary making, I have looked elsewhere and into memory and various “point of view” style of coverage. But our topics are cousins to say the least. She has done many experiments before this point and she has brought many concepts to my attention. None that I can list, but things to consider before holding the camera.

I consider the camera to be mankind’s tool, to steal moments in time to be digitally kept in a memory storage device. The lenses are eyes that are ‘untamed’ by man-made rules and convention, objective and boundless. The only language it speaks that we can understand is through vision. It shows us of a moment, but it doesn’t tell us of it. Around the time the French new wave came about, where jean Luc Godard was in the forefront of the movement. He questioned the morality of filming. One of his comments was that “the tracking shot is a question of morality”. Upon more reading I found that he brought up that comment because there was a film representing the holocaust and whether the tragic event was made in an ethical way. Close ups of death and gruesome acts make wonderful cinema and storytelling but is it right for the masses to see? To be documented as a film but known and referred to as a truthful representation?

Battleship Potemkin did the same, when the sailors were about to cook, they check on the meat. They all complain and say it’s rotten. These claims being denied by the commander and the doctor onboard, Next shot is of the meat and its infested with maggots. This was used to represent an overall meaning that what we are given is not good and we need to fight the leaders to earn what we deserve. This movie influenced many to be communists and is known to be one of the most powerful propaganda films of its time.

That proves the power of close up shots. And knowing the potential only helps me use it to my advantage.

Audio recording With Simone and I.

“The Act of Filming”

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B0jzFg3iHC3ZekxRSm5JSjd4d2c&authuser=0