Algae on the Alley

So here it is! The beginning of my new project…

Meet Duncan. A dedicated bluesman living on the streets of Melbourne. He busks for money but also relies on the generosity of passersby.

He teaches guitar… on the street, in the open amid the flood of Chapel St revellers.

I caught up with him yesterday while he was giving a lesson to a newcomer, he claimed that, if a person can learn in front of strangers, they are capable of pretty much anything!

The linked song Algae, is something that I wrote in 2001! It’s about how we have derived from very little yet we’re capably of so much… good and alas bad.

It was such a spinout to hear this song played with such skill and maturity.

Post disenchantment

I’m running with my new/previous idea. I’ll be off tonight to mingle with the likes of Dave, who entertains the Chapel Street revellers with his insightful yet crude serenade.

Standby… who knows what will come out of this!

 

Dave

Wait Until Tomorrow

After such disenchantment on account of the PB2 presentation process, my idea has taken yet another turn, or, a reversion to be more accurate.

I was under no illusion that my PB2 project wasn’t up to scratch, technically and conceptually, but I guess what stood out for me most was the lack of inspiration. Watching my piece back on the big screen, I kept thinking to my self, what’s the premise, who’ll be involved and who the hell cares?

And therefore, I’ve return to thinking about the blues man living it rough on the streets of Melbourne.

After class today, I stormed down to Windsor Station to where he busks but alas, the cafe premises, where he frequents, has seemingly closed!

I couldn’t help but wonder, if the proprietors had closed their doors was on account of the motley crew that he attracted, or if something dreadful had happened and perhaps I’d need to break the news to his daughter, or… maybe they’ve all packed up and left town. But Occam’s razor would tell me that I’m playing out the archetypal worried parent (that I have become!) and I should calm my cotton socks and “wait until tomorrow”.

They’ll be back.

Chapel St Windsor

 

THIS WILL BE A GOOD PLACE… Annotated Bibliography & Combined Reflection

Essay Film – Annotated Bibliography

Title: This Will be a Good Place…

Duration: 02:43

Synopsis: The Yarra River is an important geographical and social feature of Melbourne. This film explores the river’s history, the people who spend their days by the banks and the need to maintain its ecological balance.

1) Arthur, P 2003, Essay Questions, Film Comment, vol. 39, no. 1, pp. 58-63.

This article has enriched my understanding of the essay film. It speaks of contemporary contributors to the essay film form, such as Agnés Varda, Werner Herzog, Michael Moore and the likes. But it also looks at early essay films by the likes of Jean Rouch, Alain Resnais and Chris Marker. The latter on this list have inspired filmmakers such as Orson Welles, Jean-Luc Godard, Raúl Ruiz. On reading about these filmmakers, I’m not only given new ideas to explore in my own filmmaking but I can tack certain style tropes to my understanding of essay film’s esoteric and genre-resistance definition.

I could argue that Arthur’s statement, about nonfiction filmmaker’s reticence to posit personal opinion is fallacious and somewhat misleading for the reader. In my opinion, most nonfiction films are born from personal agendas. Even if they explicitly aim to present unhindered ‘fact’, for example in D. A. Pennebakbr’s observational film Don’t Look Back (1967), filmmakers are perpetually and craftily shaping our opinions.

2) Blight 1996, film, BBC, UK, Directed by John Smith.  

This short film rhythmically samples audio interviews of a neighbourhood affected by ruthless gentrification in the UK. It is an audio, visual and textual feast laden with symbolism, euphemism and intertextual references that invoke further questioning into the hegemonic control of the lower class.

As well as expositing similar themes to those that I intend to apply to my work (social appropriation and industrial affliction), Blight’s stillness, minimalism and powerful thought provoking text has offered potential ideas for future projects.

3) Galt, R & Schoonover, K (eds) 2010, Global Art Cinema, New theories and histories, Oxford University Press, pp. 143 – 163.

Objects and signs make up the language of cinematic communication. In this chapter, ‘Pasolini’s Exquisite Flowers: The caiman of poetry as a theory of art cinema’, John David Rhodes explores the language of art films as defined by Pier Paolo Pasolini who deems day-to-day images as “im-segni” and understands them to be temporal, objectively concrete and non-abstract. Pasolini’s, almost Cartesian whittling down of basic semiotic understanding has helped me look closer at the images I included in my work, their importance to the participants and their relevance to my narrative.

4) Kent, J 2005 , “I Walk the Line.” Film Comment, vol. 41:1, January-February

Kent reminds us of how the lines between fiction and nonfiction documentary are ostensibly blurred. 

In relation to Abu-Assad’s film Ford Transit (2002) he calls into question what has been staged and what is reality. Kent puts this and other films into a hybrid category where the filmmaker is overt about combining the two, heightening the ‘truthfulness’ of their text.

I particularly liked the tongue in cheek quip that Jones made with reference to the dramatic hours of O.J. Simpson’s police pursuit telecast, exclaiming that “All that was lacking was a theme song” emphasising the likeness to fiction. Similarly, commercial documentaries supposed ‘reality’ is extended through editing choices, backdrop, affectations and the likes. Some films aim to objectify and subvert these displays through humour and satire, putting them in the spotlight and inviting the audience to look below the surface.  

5) Man With a Movie Camera 1929, VUFKU, Kiev, directed by Dziga Vertov.

Using rhythmic editing and counterpoint image sequences, I find this film artful and fascinating, not least because of its eastern European backdrop, but also because of the political climate circa 1930. In my essay film, I have applied this rhythmic editing as a homage to the early avant-garde filmmakers.

6) Nichols, B 1991 Documentary Modes of Representation, Representing Reality: Issues and Concepts in Documentary, Bloomington & Indianapolis, Indiana University Press, USA.

This reading is a part of Bill Nichols’ seminal treatise which aims to codify documentary’s engagement with viewers and participants, Nichols identifies 6 key modes of participation. With regard to my essay film, Nichols would say that I’ve incorporated the participatory and poetic modes however, such black and white definitions invoke sedition as some styles are difficult to define yet still aspire to be included into the broader documentary genre. In addition, I find it utterly megalomaniacal to even think about categorising my own work in such a way, I perhaps should let someone else be the judge.

7) Night Mail 1936, film, GPO (General Post Office) Film Unit, UK, Directed by Harry Watt & Basil Wright.

This film is not participatory but more expository despite its strange and unexpected rhyme that plays like an infomercial jingle. But this does not, for me, fall into the poetic mode as its exposition dominates. Night Mail uses reenacted scenes, complete with poor performances. It is an exemplar of early ‘faction’ (a portmanteau of ‘fiction’ and ‘fact’) documentaries as seen in Nanook of the North (1922). It is difficult to discern whether the prose read by the narrator is a tongue-in-cheek  wink at the people who work for the railroads, or an early, albeit fallacious,  prediction of how future documentaries would be accepted. This film enriched my historical understanding of documentary.

8) Rascaroli, L 2008, The Essay Film: Problems, Definitions, Textual Commitments. Framework: The Journal of Cinema and Media, 49(2), 24-47. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org.ezproxy.lib.rmit.edu.au/stable/41552525

As the class seemed vague about what was expected of an essay film, this reading was welcome insight. An interesting thing that I took home from Rascaroli’s reading was her curated definitions of ‘essay’ and in turn, ‘essay film’.

The reading offers some succinct examples from Adorno, Lukács, Jean Starobinski, Aldous Huxley, Snyder, Renov, José Moure and more (pp. 25-26). It was interesting to learn that heresy is one of the “key markers” of essay films according to Rascaroli (p.39), this I can truly relate to especially with my PB2 project. However, I’m of the belief that ALL documentary films blur the lines between fiction and nonfiction, Rascaroli seems to frame essay film as being exclusive to this conflict.

9) Sherman’s March 1985, film,

Ross McElwee’s documentary feigns as a personal travel memoir documenting his pilgrimage as he follows the path of an American historical figure. It is later revealed that he is actually on a quest for love.

His methods have been heavily criticised for being too self-reflexive to the point of solipsism, however, it is this self reflection that I’m most interested in for my own work. I believe, that as we are endowed with such a volume of knowledge through technology, we seem to have adversely focussed more on ourselves rather than the human race. 

In week 1, we aimed to explore such paradoxical notions for the student chronicles in an investigation of DIY user-generated and self-reflective forms that are ubiquitous today.

Sherman’s March points the camera back on ourselves and it could be said that McElwee’s work was prophetic in that it bears semblance to an elaborate ‘selfie’.

10) Vlada, P 1974, “Dziga Vertov as Theorist.” Cinema Journal 18:1 Fall 1978, pp29-44.

In this paper, Petric outlines Vertov’s methods, one that resonated for me was  “Film Eye” which is described as the documentation of ‘life as it is’. Any theatrics or affectations in film are considered outside of his definition. However, within this ‘organisation of reality’, he insists that the ‘method’ maintain a communistic sensibility. For me, Man With a Movie Camera (1929) was a classic propaganda film where I was left with the sense that Vertov’s societal focus centred on happiness, the encouragement of hard-work, strength and functionality. As aesthetic as his productions were, I cannot help but see the textual and filmic agendas within.

Through investigating documentary classics, the current political situation becomes bathed in a new light. 

 

That Cliché: Chasing a Dream No Matter What

Project Brief 1 

In this brief, we’ve been asked to identify 3 groups of people to potentially base our documentary around. After surfing a stream of consciousness, this is what I came up with…

1) Emerging conceptual artists   

Conceptual artists must always push the boundaries of social, political and internal conventions to help make sense of the world. With the exponential growth of the digital universe comes an increasing challenge to decipher abstract concepts that flow through our day to day lives. It is for this reason that, as humans, we must be ready and willing to embrace ‘the abstract’. By extension, the tumultuous  political  climate seen throughout most of the world, requires new modes of thinking as we become more fearful and dismayed with the world. It is an artist’s freedom of expression that will get us through (McLuhan).

It is my hope that any emerging artists involved in a documentary project, such as what our class is proposing, will gain further exposure to their work and may enlighten non-artists to see the world in new and unique ways.

They may or may not want to participate but if they do, I’ll make sure that I’ll do my utmost to engage but not interfere with their process.

2) Free surfers  

I am a surfer and I am drawn to waves with a particular erotic magnetism that only a surfer could relate to. Aside from the fitness and the thrill of ‘the ride’, there is something more about surfing that has people worldwide clambering to the shores like hungry zombies looking for flesh! When a person meets another person, one might ask the other, “how was your day?” or, “how about this rain?”, but when a surfer meets another surfer, it’s always the same… “Get any waves?”

It would be interesting to explore how people feel about their wave addiction, where it comes from and why it sustains when that thrill in so many other sports, like snowboarding for example, can seem finite.

Two perks a surfer gains from participating in this production; is, again, exposure to a wider community (should they want to move into professional surfing arena), and a ‘third umpire’ like second opinion of their skills.

3) Actors 

They reside at a junction between megalomaniacal fulfilment and utter self-loathing and contempt. These two mental states inevitably spill into the other creating, either; a beautiful choreographed representations of reality or, tragic soups of tangential inner diatribe.

I recently ran into an old friend on his way home. He looked sharp and confident, unlike anyone onboard that evening commute, he was calm, cool and could inadvertently take down a low flying aircraft with his good looks and charm that, no doubt, contributed to him taking best actor at the Logies some years before. When I ask him where home was nowadays, he replied, “In my office, I’m homeless. I shower at the public Baths”… all without batting an eyelid!

Did he consider his life’s trajectory as a shameful fall-from-grace, or new living arrangements — new beginnings? I don’t know, but it certainly said a lot about that cliche of chasing a dream no matter what.

George A. Romero

Dawn of the Dead (1978) – George A. Romero

How to Approach a Documentary Production

For my documentary source, I will ruminate on ideas like investigating artworks by the incarcerated, though it seems that this topic has been thoroughly covered by the ABC and SBS of late, plus, I may have expended my last social privilege to call on a key scholarly contact of a community based organisation that specialises in seminal programs like this one.

So, maybe not.

In a moment of indecision, insecurity and mild intoxication, I will look away from this idea and turn my gaze toward the patio where chirping flying rats mill around in their scheming feathered pooping coterie and then I will wonder… I will wonder if I could produce a documentary centred around these nano-transients.

It could work.

I’ll quickly realise that this idea sucks and that maybe I would be better off upping the ante to investigate the great shearwater birds of Phillip Island and see if they have an axe to grind, or a sad story about human pollution… a plight to reveal of sorts. My Dad will exclaim down the phone that “they DO have a plight!” He’ll continue, “You could produce an engaging documentary about these majestic birds… they have a plight, and it is that they have to fly several thousand kilometres each year to migrate” he’d say. To this I will reminded my father that that’s not a plight as such, it’s just what they do. I will also remind him that some Facebook comments are better off confined to Messenger than to the timeline feed but I digress.

These ideas will come as fast as they will go due to blowouts not dissimilar to the latter… they will resemble a Formula One pitstop… Pitstop? PITSTOP?! BINGO!!! Phillip Island has one of those things, a bogan’s merry-go-round… or a race track for petrol driven tin boxes steered by tin men with tin heads.

I will then remember the birds, then I will begin to imagine the 2 forces coming together in one huge mismatched bio-mechanical contest of the fittest and the fastest… like the turtle and the hare, ‘cept… the turtle has a McLaren 10 cylinder engine under its shell?

No, too difficult to report on let alone orchestrate.

I will finally conclude this seemingly discursive tangential rant with more questions than I could answer in one blog… who to interview? how to approach a documentary production? Can I give in to a  topic’s shifting unpredictable tectonic transience?

We’ll see. Bring on the 3rd semester!

Great shearwater

Great shearwater – Photograph by Patrick Coin 2007