Well, here we are. The final week of the semester, at least for classes for me. I was sad to miss the last class for this studio, but overall, I have greatly enjoyed learning about and improving my skills in experimental film. Now that we are at the end of these twelve weeks, I looked back on the original pitch for this studio and at the original aims of the course.

To explore various ways language figures in the process and production of moving image works.
To work outside of dominant frameworks of writing for screen and making screen works from scripts.
To investigate the potential of cross-disciplinary collaborations.

Looking back, I think the course was overall a success. I discovered various ways of creating moving image works with multiple techniques and frameworks. I branched my skills out and developed new ones through practice and testing, and I worked alongside various people to broaden my collaboration skills in a group. I am a media student but my second preference was the creative writing bachelor’s degree, so it was fun to work with classmates from that specific learning stream and take on what they have been learning.

Admittedly I don’t think I used this blog to its full potential. I’m not the type of person to record down my thoughts anywhere unless they are story ideas (which frankly would go into my notes only as I wouldn’t feel comfortable publishing those ideas to a blog for people to see). I did strive to improve my severe lack of personal thoughts to the blog since I realised quickly I mostly posted my thoughts before and after the project briefs. But part of me felt that these smaller updates were more forced and didn’t feel natural to me. I will likely be using this blog again in future classes so who knows, perhaps one day I will grow more comfortable posting my thoughts down for people to read.

When I think back on the first collaboration I did for brief one, I enjoyed it. I’ve never been opposed to collaboration, I’ve just had my reserves about it since I know it can lead to disaster when people do not communicate or deviate tasks correctly. Fortunately, I think everyone felt the same about this, and with every group I had, people strived to give their all and divided work accordingly to our strengths and weaknesses. For the first Project Brief, (our film was ‘Sign Language’) Christie and I worked well together. Admittedly I did not share a lot of my filming techniques with Christie which I feel may have been the whole point of the collaboration between the creative writing students and the Media students. Often people stuck to their lanes in creating, which while I don’t think this was particularly bad, it meant not a lot of sharing of knowledge and skill could be done to the best of our degrees. But overall, we worked together well, and while I was nervous about presenting, everything went smoothly, and I’m happy with our work.

Brief 2 presented more challenges admittedly for my group. Logan, Qing and I originally had one idea about creating a concept of movement while remaining static, but there was no real theme to it, so we had to rework it to create our setup and film ‘Tension’. Similar to Brief 1, I did what I am fairly used to and focused a lot on filming and editing. I was frankly very proud of how I was able to use After Effects to create the hallway loop. It showed how much I had learnt from my previous classes and I felt proud of my contributions to the group.

Brief 3 tested a lot of what I was normally used to in truth. Filming with my group of Terrance and Chris for our video “Oh the places you’ll go” wasn’t hard, we were able to work together for part of it but overall had to divide in filming to create a proper film for the deadline. We trusted Terrance with editing it all together which was very strange and new to me. Up until that point, (not just in the semester but the entire year) I always had a degree of control over the editing of a film. I often took charge of that degree and would edit film for hours to make it to a standard I was proud of to send out. Relinquishing that control and trusting Terrance to create our brief video was strange. But in the end, Terrance did a great job, and we were all proud of how it came out.

By the time we had to do Brief 4, collaboration had simply become second nature to us; we were used to working with one another and knew we could all create high-quality experimental films and had the means to develop inspiring ideas about our themes. In truth, I felt more detached from this brief as while I worked hard with the filming, sound editing and artist statement parts I did do. I wasn’t able to attend the presentation, so I needed to put my trust in Terrace and Thai Anh to edit and present the project well while I wasn’t there. But in the end, after all, we have done through this course and all I have learnt, I do feel like I was able to trust them fully with that with little doubt they didn’t do their absolute best.

Overall I have enjoyed this course and have learnt a great deal about not only the experimental filming of the body to tell a narrative or convey a theme, but I feel I have learnt a great deal about myself and my skills as well. Material Choreographies has been a wonderful studio that I do not regret taking, and I highly recommend others to take it as well during their time in their course. Hopefully, the studio for the next year will be just as wonderful.
See you next year MediaFactory.

Admittedly, There’s not much I can say about this brief. Sadly on the day that we were presenting, I was away at a Fire Evacuation Training session for my job. I had given my work and all we needed planning wise from me to my group so I hope that our presentation went well.

I felt much more at ease trusting my group with so much to do this time. I no longer felt worried about it and knew I could trust them to give a great presentation.

This is the artist statement we included for the film.

For our brief, we decided to focus on the use of slow cinema to convey our meaning. We originally decided to use three different example of slow cinema from various locations to show the integration of the modern world without the environment. However, the forest depictions didn’t meld smoothly with the beach and city similarities. The movement between cars matches the movement of the waves. The graphics were very horizontal at the beach, contrasting the city with its vertical lines.

While this integration is obviously not perfect and a lot is still needed to be improved on, we decided to focus on the beauty this integration has caused, creating a balance with nature and the modern world.

Furthermore, we discussed that this was an assignment we could experiment with. So we tried to play with settings, different angles and settings. Although one of the shots, the beach shot, had to have the horizon line flat. That was because of Terance’s obsessive-compulsive disorder. Where if you can see a horizon line, it is to be nothing else but flat.

Having a large depth of field was very important, and our forest location didn’t quite encapsulate that. It felt like we were slapping together footage too much. So it was left on the cutting room floor, sorry trees, no one cares about you anymore. The beach sun has scorched your dreams.

The camera is locked off on a tripod because it resembles the slow cinema aesthetic. Other filmmakers who have created the slow cinema film have so in response to Hollywood making shorter cuts. We generally copy what Hollywood is doing, so it is interesting to complete something that rebels against what we normally do.

Having the transitions between the two clips, gave the impression that they are similar not in the sense of being identical, but in the way they are different. The lines and camera differences create a balance between the two which, they transition seamlessly between each screen and establish this connection between land (modernisation) and sea (nature).

Something interesting did occur for me during this brief. It went well and I’m happy with how it turned out albeit it was a little rushed. we had to split up to film our parts and then give them to Terrence to edit together. While this turned out fine, with a bit more time we could have refined in much better in my opinion.

However, it also taught me something interesting as well. In pretty much all of the collaborative film projects, I have been in throughout the year. the entire project itself is normally left on my laptop due to me having the right programming or storage etc. this has never been intentional but thinking back on it, this has always been the case. So when I gave all the footage to Terrance to edit, I gave up a large bit of editing control I usually had in projects like this. which felt strange and almost uncomfortable. I fully trusted in Terrance’s abilities to deliver the video, which he did. but giving up that control and putting that trust in someone else was admittedly very new to me. I guess it shows I need to relinquish that control more often since it’s not always necessary.

Here is a link to our Project Brief 3

Rationale
Dr Seuss, “Oh, The Places You Go!”. We decided to focus in on the main theme we felt throughout the entire poem, perseverance. By selecting the main theme we enabled ourselves to move away from the actual stanzas and opened ourselves up to a more broad spectrum to work in. We wanted to divulge from the literal meaning of the poem and escape into the wider world the poem affects. We each found something in our lives that we have seen people struggle at and persevere through to achieve something greater to include in the piece. By doing this we allowed ourselves a greater chance of reaching all audiences in an attempt to relate it to anyone and everyone.
We narrowed down the tone of the poem as jolly and tongue in cheek in an attempt to carry it over into the cinematic piece. We wanted to do this by ensuring that the piece wasn’t taken too seriously.

Another main idea that the poem explores is that when your young you can do whatever you want, however, that doesn’t mean you won’t have any obstacles. So in response, we thought to create some really serious issues of people struggling to complete assignments, to be an artist or be a gymnast, to do a chin up. We all have struggles and every person has to persevere.

The theme of failing was a large part of the poem, so incorporating that in many ways as possible is crucial, for example, the chin up subject fell on the ground before he succeeded. As well as the gymnast falling before he could succeed. Our character needs to achieve a goal but whether or not the person succeeds is a different question. We did this, as the poem is fairly certain you’ll succeed, but how long it will take is what is ambivalent. So leaving some people’s story as still in their struggles represents this.

When concerning the world of art, we wanted to capture the feeling people within the creative field can understand. A sense of continually pushing yourself to make every piece made something to be proud of as the poem suggests a desire to persevere and succeed in what you do at times can often be difficult to achieve, especially during the creative process. To help with this idea, we used a VCE Studio Art Folio to reflect this as these require constant working and reworking of an idea and documenting the successes and failures of the process. The idea of constantly having to work and rework an idea to create your vision can be challenging and is something all artists can be familiar with. An artist is always working and revising their concept, going through inspiration and creative slumps where they struggle to create after so many trials and errors. But when an artist perseveres through this and continues to produce results, they can go on to create incredibly in-depth works of art reflecting all the time and effort they have put within it.

I’m not sure how this brief will go since we have such a short deadline. I know we don’t have to show a video but it doesn’t feel right not to show one. We had an idea of making the theme around travel, however we soon decided instead to make the idea around perseverance and continueing to work hard in the face of difficulty.

In the end, my group is going to do the poem ‘Oh the Places You’ll Go’ by Dr Seuss.

Congratulations!
Today is your day.
You’re off to Great Places!
You’re off and away!

You have brains in your head.
You have feet in your shoes.
You can steer yourself
any direction you choose.
You’re on your own. And you know what you know.
And YOU are the guy who’ll decide where to go.

You’ll look up and down streets. Look ’em over with care.
About some you will say, “I don’t choose to go there.”
With your head full of brains and your shoes full of feet,
you’re too smart to go down any not-so-good street.

And you may not find any
you’ll want to go down.
In that case, of course,
you’ll head straight out of town.

It’s opener there
in the wide open air.

Out there things can happen
and frequently do
to people as brainy
and footsy as you.

And then things start to happen,
don’t worry. Don’t stew.
Just go right along.
You’ll start happening too.

OH!
THE PLACES YOU’LL GO!

You’ll be on your way up!
You’ll be seeing great sights!
You’ll join the high fliers
who soar to high heights.

You won’t lag behind, because you’ll have the speed.
You’ll pass the whole gang and you’ll soon take the lead.
Wherever you fly, you’ll be best of the best.
Wherever you go, you will top all the rest.

Except when you don’t.
Because, sometimes, you won’t.

I’m sorry to say so
but, sadly, it’s true
that Bang-ups
and Hang-ups
can happen to you.

You can get all hung up
in a prickle-ly perch.
And your gang will fly on.
You’ll be left in a Lurch.

You’ll come down from the Lurch
with an unpleasant bump.
And the chances are, then,
that you’ll be in a Slump.

And when you’re in a Slump,
you’re not in for much fun.
Un-slumping yourself
is not easily done.

You will come to a place where the streets are not marked.
Some windows are lighted. But mostly they’re darked.
A place you could sprain both your elbow and chin!
Do you dare to stay out? Do you dare to go in?
How much can you lose? How much can you win?

And IF you go in, should you turn left or right…
or right-and-three-quarters? Or, maybe, not quite?
Or go around back and sneak in from behind?
Simple it’s not, I’m afraid you will find,
for a mind-maker-upper to make up his mind.

You can get so confused
that you’ll start in to race
down long wiggled roads at a break-necking pace
and grind on for miles cross weirdish wild space,
headed, I fear, toward a most useless place.
The Waiting Place…

…for people just waiting.
Waiting for a train to go
or a bus to come, or a plane to go
or the mail to come, or the rain to go
or the phone to ring, or the snow to snow
or the waiting around for a Yes or No
or waiting for their hair to grow.
Everyone is just waiting.

Waiting for the fish to bite
or waiting for the wind to fly a kite
or waiting around for Friday night
or waiting, perhaps, for their Uncle Jake
or a pot to boil, or a Better Break
or a string of pearls, or a pair of pants
or a wig with curls, or Another Chance.
Everyone is just waiting.

NO!
That’s not for you!

Somehow you’ll escape
all that waiting and staying
You’ll find the bright places
where Boom Bands are playing.

With banner flip-flapping,
once more you’ll ride high!
Ready for anything under the sky.
Ready because you’re that kind of a guy!

Oh, the places you’ll go! There is fun to be done!
There are points to be scored. There are games to be won.
And the magical things you can do with that ball
will make you the winning-est winner of all.
Fame! You’ll be as famous as famous can be,
with the whole wide world watching you win on TV.

Except when they don’t
Because, sometimes they won’t.

I’m afraid that sometimes
you’ll play lonely games too.
Games you can’t win
’cause you’ll play against you.

All Alone!
Whether you like it or not,
Alone will be something
you’ll be quite a lot.

And when you’re alone, there’s a very good chance
you’ll meet things that scare you right out of your pants.
There are some, down the road between hither and yon,
that can scare you so much you won’t want to go on.

But on you will go
though the weather be foul.
On you will go
though your enemies prowl.
On you will go
though the Hakken-Kraks howl.
Onward up many
a frightening creek,
though your arms may get sore
and your sneakers may leak.

On and on you will hike,
And I know you’ll hike far
and face up to your problems
whatever they are.

You’ll get mixed up, of course,
as you already know.
You’ll get mixed up
with many strange birds as you go.
So be sure when you step.
Step with care and great tact
and remember that Life’s
a Great Balancing Act.
Just never forget to be dexterous and deft.
And never mix up your right foot with your left.

And will you succeed?
Yes! You will, indeed!
(98 and 3/4 percent guaranteed.)

KID, YOU’LL MOVE MOUNTAINS!

So…
be your name Buxbaum or Bixby or Bray
or Mordecai Ali Van Allen O’Shea,
You’re off the Great Places!
Today is your day!
Your mountain is waiting.
So…get on your way!

Here are the two poems I found inspiration for Project Brief 3.

1. 1969
BY ALEX DIMITROV
The summer everyone left for the moon
even those yet to be born. And the dead
who can’t vacation here but met us all there
by the veil between worlds. The number one song
in America was “In the Year 2525”
because who has ever lived in the present
when there’s so much of the future
to continue without us.
How the best lover won’t need to forgive you
and surely take everything off your hands
without having to ask, without knowing
your name, no matter the number of times
you married or didn’t, your favourite midnight movie,
the cigarettes you couldn’t give up,
wanting to kiss other people you shouldn’t
and now to forever be kissed by the Earth.
In the Earth. With the Earth.
When we all briefly left it
to look back on each other from above,
shocked by how bright even our pain is
running wildly beside us like an underground river.
And whatever language is good for,
a sign, a message left up there that reads:
here men from the planet earth
first set foot upon the moon
july 1969, a.d.
we came in peace for all mankind.
Then returned to continue the war.

2. Dear —
BY DONIKA KELLY
I am not land or timber
nor are you
ocean or celestial body,

but rather we are
the small animals
we have always been.

The land and the sea
know each other
at the threshold

where they meet,
as we know something
of one another,

having shown,
at different times,
some bit of flesh,

some feeling.

We call the showing
knowing instead of practice.
We seem to say,

at different times,
A feeling comes.

What is the metaphor
for two animals
sharing the same space?

Marriage?

We share a practice,
you and I,
a series of postures.

Here is how I
become a tree
[ ]

and you
[ ]
a body in space.

Admittedly I haven’t used this blog as much as I want to. I just mostly get distracted and forget about the blog as I’m not one to record down my thoughts and then post here. Hopefully, I can fix this and add to it more frequently before the end of the semester.

Admittedly I have always had trouble writing essays well, so I have had my hesitations and my fair share of confusion over this assignment. Picking just one topic I can focus on in just 1000 words can be tricky for me as I often tend to veer off topic in my essays and talk about something that only vaguely connects to my topic, which can be a problem.
Right now I think I will be focusing about site specificity in regards to film and its’ effect on movement and meaning within it as it has always been something of interest to me.
Hopefully, this will go well.

I enjoyed how project brief 2 turned out in the end. It gave me practice to work with After Effects to turn the hallway film into an endless loop with the use of masks. It helps me to build my confidence in my editing skills.
My group worked together well to split up work evenly so allow us to convey what we wanted through our combined knowledge of the work, filming skills and writing skills.