Month: February 2017

I have sacrificed a lot to partake in Recording Place, RMIT summer studio. I work full-time, I have 2-3 other film projects I am in pre-production for and I have a casual job on top of that. For the past 6 weeks I have been either at work, in meetings or at uni every day, all day. I can wholeheartedly say that it has been worth it. It has been my favourite class to date at RMIT. I have learnt invaluable lessons about documentary filmmaking and I feel empowered by that knowledge. For this I will be eternally grateful to our tutor, Rohan Spong and to RMIT.

Rohan himself serves as an inspiration to all media students. He made a whole documentary film by himself. He shot and directed his own documentary set in New York! Hence he flew back and forth from home in Australia to complete the project. This is a huge feat and it is immensely inspirational. He encourages us to go forth into the world and work alone if we need to. This is important to me because I have always felt let down from collaborators and to be encouraged to work alone and to now have a personal example of someone having done that and succeed is enough to inspire me to do the same.

More importantly, Rohan broke down the process for us in a way that was easy to understand and practical. This is something I feel I have missed in other classes throughout my degree at RMIT. We have focused a lot on media and film theory and too little on how to apply that knowledge practically within the industry.

The structure that Rohan taught which I will take with me onto my next documentary project is:

• Choose an interesting setting and observe characters–allow stories to come to you.
• Once a person, place or event is decided upon, create a logline, synopsis and treatment. (This stage helps define the purpose of the film and the direction of the interview questions)
• Write no more than 10 questions with a “destination” in mind.
• Shoot an interview with your subject in flattering lighting and compose a strong image/background to frame your subject.
• Edit the interview a few times until you have the final rushes, then add appropriate visual details to compliment what is being said.
• Use images that compliment what is being said.
• Cull and refine ruthlessly.

Working with Haylee McCormick throughout the studio has been an absolute pleasure. Her and I worked seamlessly together and had fun through the whole process. At this point I had almost forgotten that my original desired subject had declined and Haylee and I had searched desperately for a new subject, because everything since has moved so quickly and has felt quite easy.

Once we locked Ariel in (as hesitant and somewhat hostile as he was at first) we knew we had a promising story to tell. It was certainly going to be a challenge for us. We both felt the story itself was shallow — just a celebration of sweaters — but with Rohan’s guidance we found an angle that was sweet and we enjoyed allowing ourselves and our documentary to be playful (not something either of us is used to — we both normally side with the dark side). We decided comfortably to divide cinematography and sound roles, but worked collectively on the rest.

We had a major mishap on the way (we somehow deleted our original footage), but we proved our problem solving skills a plenty when we re-shot most of it within moments of everything being deleted.

The most important tips and skills I have taken away with me from the course is to always categorize, label and back-up everything! Haylee and I learned this the hard way. Another is to think carefully about composing an image based on the Rule of Thirds — even the interview should be shot with symmetry and visual appeal in mind. Lastly, to write the idea and treatment before you jump into production — no more ‘winging it’!

Truthfully, these are only a few main examples of the points I have taken away from this studio. Really, I feel as though I have been given the combination to documentary filmmaking. I am very excited to make my own documentary with Rohan’s advice in mind.

 

Word count: 731

Rohan asked us to revisit and make any necessary adjustments to our Logline and Synopsis before we re-submit them with our completed documentary. Ours remained much the same with very slight changes:

Original Logline: A celebration of Ariel Gabizon’s 30 year long career as the ‘Coogi Man’ and his longstanding devotion to style and colour.

Updated Longline: A celebration of Ariel Gabizon’s 30 year long career as the ‘Coogi Man’ and his longstanding devotion to bringing colour to Melbourne.

Original Synopsis: The Queen Victoria Markets has seen many changes in recent decades, but for the last 30 years Ariel Gabizon has continued to sell vibrant Coogi sweaters within the bustling marketplace, spreading colour throughout customers lives. Over the years he has sold colourful garments to every type of person imaginable, asserting the inclusive belief that colour is for everyone. Life in Colour will explore Ariel’s long history with the market, the iconic Coogi sweater and the people who enjoy them.

Updated Synopsis: The Queen Victoria Markets has seen many changes in recent decades, but for the last 30 years Ariel Gabizon has continued spread colour throughout Melbourne selling vibrant Coogi sweaters within the bustling marketplace. Over the years he has sold colourful garments to every type of person imaginable, believing everyone can do with a little more colour. Coogi Man will explore Ariel’s history with the market, the iconic Coogi sweater and what the future holds.

This week the focus is on refinement and colour grading. I am quite novice when it comes to grading and Haylee feels the same so we worked together in adjusting the colour of particular shots to meet others. I don’t feel that our original (first shoot) footage needs adjusting, aside from a contrast or brightness tweak here and there. We certainly need to match the duller, flatter images we captured of Ariel standing in the market stall–they do not match our richer images at all. In order to achieve better continuity we adjusted the saturation and the contrast until we felt it matched the other shots.

I also worked out a way to make the colour saturation change gradually in a particular shot which we applied to the first close up of Ariel to reiterate our central theme of the Coogi Man bringing colour to Melbourne (suggested by Rohan).

We decided to leave the final edit and upload for Monday, the day before the due date. This way we can approach the final adjustments with a fresh perspective.

This week Haylee and I concentrated solely on fine tuning the edit.

We were fortunate enough to receive great feedback on our rough draft from Cindy, an industry-grade editor.

Cindy’s main feedback was:

• When Ariel introduces himself see him say his name then cut to the wider shot of him so he isn’t looking offscreen so much
• Drop two of the shots of his money belt and holding the mobile phone
• Weave the music in and out a little more so there is less of it
• Replace some of the cutaways at the end to more relevant images (perhaps architecture or nature around Melbourne that are similar to the designs of the jumpers)

We spent the morning focusing on these points and found a huge improvement. Though we improved the edit tenfold when Rohan came in and watched the edit again and told us to be ruthless and cut out a bunch of sections in between Ariel talking we thought we needed but realised after cutting them out they were unnecessarily. Trimming the fat on edits is such a valuable step in refining a video/film. We are lucky to have Rohan around to encourage us to do so. And it’s a reminded of how important it is to allow other parties to suggest edits to a project you are too close to to recognise.

Culling phrases that diluted the meaning of what Ariel was saying and adding extra joining words to complete Ariel’s sentences made the edit more cohesive and logical. By the end of the day we were quite satisfied with our draft, though we will continue to fine tune it in Thursday’s class.

 

This week I ventured down to the Markets on my own to capture more establishing shots to use in our edit. I knew we needed a variety of shots to complete the edit so I spent time capturing Wides and CUs of Market details from the outside, and then walking through the market stalls to capture finer details and to capture rushes of people through the market. Unfortunately I didn’t have a tripod with me, which proved very challenging. I really wish I had one. I managed to get some nice shots without it but it was difficult for me and my wrist was aching by the end of the hour — the Canon 5d is heavy!!

Whilst I was at the market Haylee was working on the interview. She added a few words to Ariel’s sentences to complete them and it’s made a world of difference!

Again, I am thankful to be working with Haylee, this process has been a breeze. I feel it has been equal, too, which is rare for a university project. I hope she feels the same.