What do you understand this studio to be about? What do you hope to get from it? What skills, perspective and/or understandings would you like to have developed by the end of this semester?
It’s the end of second week and I’m beginning to get a clearer picture of what the Translating Observation studio is about.
Reflecting on my study so far, a lot of my creative practice around documentary filmmaking has required nose to the ground, ear to the wall seeking out of stories. Every moment has been viewed as a potential shot, with aesthetics considered and potential for narrative noted.
From what we’ve discussed so far, I think that this studio will teach me a more simplified approach to taking in the every day. Beginning with observational writing has been tricky for me, removing the narrative and emotion or opinion from recording has been difficult to unlearn. In my writing, I find myself falling back to descriptions of feeling, or tying the record up to a neat ending that is unnecessary when simply observing an event. The benefit of writing as a medium is that it’s so easy to pick where the observing trailed off to something else. Moreover, observing forces it’s practitioners to be present in a moment to take in what is happening, a state I am not always able to remain in without getting lost in thought, but one that I enjoy when I am there nonetheless.
I am noticing after only this short time, I am taking in and remembering things I would not have usually.
I believe that this perspective of approaching remarkable moments of the everyday in an observational way can only make me a more realistic documentary filmmaker. I believe the documentary filmmaker is best when they are impartial and assert as little influence of the action taking place as possible. Learning to be an observer of the life around me, a role that requires impartiality and simply letting the action take place, can only assist in growing this practice.
I look forward to documenting the growth in this perspective over the semester and compare my final outcome, whatever it may be, to the outcomes of semesters past to view in a tangible way the impact this new approach has had.
