Ella's Media Blog

The first work I would like to discuss from the People + Places class is Anika’s work “Old Souls”. One of the key ideas from the studio in her work were Nichols’ modes of documentary, and more specifically, observational documentary. She achieved this through some of her static shots watching the cars, and people fixing the cars. The camera wasn’t made to feel intrusive as the people in the documentary weren’t weirdly looking at the lens, and they just continued on with what they were doing. Even the interview set up of Pat, is framed to look like a more relaxed conversation between friends instead of a really formal interview. The shots filmed in the car, filming another car also really added to the observational feel as the camera was naturally following around the subject doing what they do. Overall, I think Anika’s work was a beautiful observational snapshot of someone who loves cars, and the outcome appears to be very natural and realistic, as something more heavily stylised wouldn’t carry the same genuine tone that Pat and the film both have.

The second work from the studio that I would like to discuss is Ruby’s work “Visibly Queer”. Ruby took a very different approach to everyone else’s documentary works as she choose to have multiple voices with no interview footage. This work embodied another one of Nichols’ models of documentary in the form of poetic documentary. The film follows a beautiful symbolic transition through the use of colour grading and other visual effects. To demonstrate the restrictiveness of identity expression in small country towns, the colour grading of the b-roll is mostly black and white, with one chosen colour in each clip brought back in to offer contrast. This meant that when her interviewees started talking about the differences between the country and Melbourne City, the enhancement of colour matched the excitedness and newness they spoke of. The other wonderful transition was from day to night, with the vibrancy of the lights and colours symbolising the acceptance and happiness the interviewees felt when they found their place to comfortably exist and express themselves. The layering of multiple clips was a really nice aesthetic choice, as it made all three parts of the narrative feel very distinct from each other, as well as acting as building blocks to reach the final part. Ruby did a really wonderful job of uniting the voices and experiences of multiple people into a poetic and collective work that both simultaneously represents individuality and togetherness.

The other studio I was able to watch the showcase of in the theatre was The Power of the Cut. The concept of the studio was to create a showreel demonstrating the different editing styles of narrative, commercial and documentary. I really liked Jade Liddy’s interpretation of the narrative style by doing it in the style of a music video. She altered the editing to go from more crisp clips to a blurring effect to match the girl in the video slowly become intoxicated. It had a really nice flow and captured the feeling of being calm and tipsy at the same time. The commercial edit for headphones had a more fast paced and stylistic editing choice to have quicker cuts and the altering of speed and direction of characters. The final documentary edit played into the drama of the story and turned into more of a mockumentary style due to humour and sarcasm interjected. The story was well timed and though it was short, it followed a satisfying story arc.

The other other show-reel I really liked was Emily Cox’s. The first clip in her edit series was beautifully shot and editing in a very compelling style. It narrates a young woman going through a psychological journey, demonstrated through harsh cuts between monochromatic red or blue shots, with dreamy and slow outdoor shots. The documentary edit followed a girl’s experience with calisthenics using a combination of interview and observational footage. The final commercial edit was an advertisement for an upcoming calisthenics showcase. There was a clear differentiation between the documentary and commercial edit, with the clips used in the commercial being more professionally and evenly shot, while the documentary edit was a lot more casual and random in the style of clips.

Overall, the show-reels demonstrated a clear skill set and differentiation between different editing styles, and I really liked how they can be showcased so easily for future employers.

A4: Final Artefact

A4: Documentary Ethics

A4: Working Solo

A4: Representing the real world

A4: Future potential

If I was to keep working on this media piece (which I most likely will do), I would love to turn it into a longer documentary at about 20-30 minutes, so it could be screened at short-film film festivals. The main thing I would want to extend is the duration that Jonny is on screen or talking, as in the 6-minute limit I was given, there was not enough time to equally balance his and Anna’s screen time. With the longer time limit, I would also be able to leave in more moments of contemplation that reveal the thoughtfulness and intention that Jonny has when he speaks, as in a short documentary, those moments of pause slow down the film and take up too much time. I would also love the opportunity to include moments of filming and observing them in the everyday lives so it feels a bit more natural and real. I was able to shoot a really lovely scene of Jonny gardening based on Anna saying that she ‘loves when he does the gardening because I hate it’, that I wasn’t able to include in the final product. Though the moment was set up for the camera, it still reflected very real parts of their lives and relationship. I believe a longer documentary would be able to touch more on the present day, than just the past, and foster a greater closeness with the audience as they get to see in ‘real time’ what their relationship is like.

I was very inspired by Molly Dineen’s work and how her documentaries develop and are filmed over months and years, fostering a beautiful trust between her and her subject. I definitely think that there could be potential for this to happen with this work if it was continued.

To go in an opposite direction, I would love to cut Anna and Jonny’s interview footage with other couple’s interviews on how they met, creating a Cut of You Can’t Ask That vibe, with a more collative approach to story telling. This would be effective in getting to tell multiple stories, with the amount of love and coincidental similarities that would arise when rewatching in post-production being the factors that move and connect the audience. It would focus more on the amount of love of many, instead of the depth of love for one. I also think this would be a great test in building trust and relationships with multiple couples, but also pointing out that everyone and every experience is different, and you can’t simply bring your expectations from a previous interview and expect the next one to pan out the exact same. I think it would also be beneficial to have clear off camera recordings of the questions being asked to offer more editing potential and allow for the Cut style. Ultimately a work is never fully done, and every extension creates a new work. Whatever the final work, my only goal is that it moves and connects people.

I think for this particular documentary, the idea of what is ‘real’ really stuck with me, especially through the editing process. In an attempt to keep it ‘real’, I left in too many pauses and empty space for such a short film, as I felt that the delivery of the story was important to keep the same as it represents who the participants are. However, I now think it is possible to keep a ‘real’ version of the story present while still making small edits. These small edits were often covered by b-roll intentionally, and while that can be helpful in fitting in more story that could then make it all more true due to a broader picture of everything, it does feel slightly like a deliberate covering up of the ‘truth’. A lot of the documentary editing process revolves around discretely covering up your cuts so that the audio sounds like one fluid piece, but on the other hand, the organisation of the flow when done right, highlights the story in the best and most effective way possible.

One scene in my film doesn’t have any cuts within it. In Anna’s interview there is part where she is talking about the night before her wedding and being away from Jonny. It is about half way through the interview and without me fully realising it, she was really starting to warm up and let herself be more vulnerable. The scene shows her quite happy at the beginning, and while happy at the end too, her eyes had misted over and she is getting teary. For me, the decision on how to handle this scene was mainly straightforward, however there was a bit of conflict over the duration of the shot. If it was any other piece of interview footage, the duration of Anna’s face being on screen in the same position would be too long, and it would be cut up with some b-roll or images. For this part of the story, the audience needs to go on the emotional journey with her, and to see where it both begins and ends. For me, it didn’t make sense or seem truthful to only keep the interview section of her crying, as you’d miss the subtle turning point where she lets everyone in to see just how deeply she is in love with Jonny.

In slight contradiction to this, some b-roll shots needed to be deliberately set up to be filmed like them reading the newspaper or sitting outside with their coffee. However any action I did film of them, I made sure that it was something they would authentically do, so it didn’t feel like they were acting like they do the certain activity all the time. This meant that I asked them where they would drink their coffee, how would they go on a walk with each other and how they say certain things to each other so that they were able to offer an accurate and truthful voice to the elements I was curating.

For Jeg Elsker Dig Anch’io Ti Amo, I decided to work individually to create it. While I see value in group projects and group works, I decided that to get the best outcome for me, it was essential to work by myself. I would say it is a strength of mine to be so involved and in love with a project that only I can be the one to make the decisions about what happens to the final product. To be a good solo media practitioner, there are many qualities you need to have.

1. You need to be organised. When it comes to filming days and keeping in contact with your participant, you have to be in charge of everything. If anything isn’t sorted like the right dates or getting the equipment, the only person that has that responsibility at the end of the day is you, so be organised.
2. You need to be outgoing. When there is only you filming and organising the participant, it’s up to you to be in a good and chatty mood to make the comfortable to get the best out of them, even if you don’t feel like it. It’s important to set yourself up to be your best too, by the night before getting enough sleep, making a list so you don’t forget anything and being on time. Pretty much doing all the little things that will help reduce your stress on the day, allowing for you to make that small talk while you set things up.
3. You need to be responsible. Similarly to being organised, being responsible is taking charge of your project and doing the best by everyone. It is messaging your participant the times of the interview and any material you expect on the day. It is outlining clear expectations of the shots you need so your participant knows what to expect. It is prioritising the project so that you can give your all to a story you thought was worth telling that someone was willing to share with you.

With these points in mind, I was definitely a good solo media practitioner. While there was a couple of hiccups with weather, covid scares and equipment borrowing, it was up to me to continually keep in contact with my participant as they were needed for multiple shoot days. Sometimes time management and remembering things can be harder for me, so I made sure to make lots of lists about things I wanted to do, and used reminders on my phone for camera borrowing and shoot days, with both of these things being very crucial in the success of my film. I thought I did a good job outlining my expectations of my participants and the overall film, and I found that this lead to smoother film making in terms of time and clarity. For a future production, I would continually incorporate all of the things I have listed above, but I would include a more planned out timeline for production and post-production, so that I still have something to do or a guideline for it, in case issues pop up like they did for this project. This would ensure that I could still use my time productively, even if I was behind in some senses.

It was really interesting having such an emphasis on ethics in this documentary making process, as while I have always tried to be an ethical filmmaker, whatever that may be, I have never until this opportunity considered ethics every step of the way. The first 3 points of my ethics charter, cited from Rachel Boyton, are the points that I am going to emphasise and explain today.

1.Turn the camera off at the request of the participant (Rachel Boynton, DOC NYC, 2016).

For me, the issue of turning the camera on and off was not approached by my participant but by myself. While it was wonderful to capture such raw emotion of Anna crying when talking about being apart from Jonny, it got to a point where I realised she might need a breather and asked if she would like to turn the camera off and we can have a break, to which she replied with a yes. While I was obviously eager to have such a emotional moment captured, it didn’t sit right with me to continue to film her crying/tearing up when I wasn’t offering any verbal comfort. Since this, I have realised that this point will always belong in my ethics charter as it allowed me to experience humanity instead of being exploitative.

2. Show the participant the finished film before the public (Rachel Boynton, DOC NYC, 2016).

Point 2, while important, does not 100% work in this context. I value the opinion and approval of my interviewees but as there it to be a public screening which they are invited to, I would rather keep the final copy secret until they get to see it on the big screen first. Part of what helped me create the connection I did with them, involved highlighting that this documentary is for them and their family to keep as a memory of their story. I was very clear from the start that they would receive a copy of the final documentary I’ve made for this class, as well as a longer version a bit later in the future. I did recognise the nerves that came with being filmed so intimately, and for the both of them it was the first timed they’d been filmed and interviewed, so I offered them some reassurance with screenshots of their interview footage, as well as a photo of the camera screen when setting up so they had the opportunity to fix anything before recording. For myself and my filmmaking, I can’t imagine there will ever be a time where the participant would not get a copy of the final film, as I am creating for myself but also them at the same time.

3. Love the people that you film. (Rachel Boynton, DOC NYC, 2016).

This point unintentionally influenced a lot of my filmmaking, as when I was behind the camera, I was trying to step into the other person’s shoes and romanticise the gaze of the camera they are being looked at through. I did love the people I filmed, but I think it could be possible to still love the work and experience without loving the participant, however it definitely insured that I was doing my best for them the entire time.

 

Reference:

DOC NYC PRO: Casting Case Studies 2016, streaming video, DOC NYC, New York, viewed 10 August 2022, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bndwq27kkjc>.

 

• shoot more b-roll of Anna and Jonny together
• add an extra hook in the beginning
• add more b-roll into the timeline
• colour grading
• fix lighting
• add film effect
• stabilise some shots
• find songs/sound
• sound mix

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1sq7TxBU8-G1mSdhUzDgQp6Xgf6LNXdus/view?usp=sharing

 

The studio that was selected for me to reflect on was Eco Video, run by Hannah Brasier. One thing I would like to note – as my last studio was with Hannah for Infinite Lists, it was nostalgic to see how her ideas and teachings from that studio, were brought and freshly interpreted for Eco Video. The words “crafting ecological intimacy” used to describe the studio on the website has been a theme very much followed in the works, with a sense of closeness created to very expansive places and ideas.The first work that stood out to me was Between Worlds by Jess and Olivia. The fragmentation and reflection about the ocean was really lovely. It seems clear that the studio’s focus was expanding on an element of the environment that resonated with the creator. I loved the layout of the videos, as well as the varying videos, with some playing the same clip in 3 different windows, while others were all different before converging again. The voiceover helped give the videos meaning and story, that was very peaceful and relaxing to listen to. The second work that I looked at was Damages in Urbanisation, by whom I cannot find out on the website. I really liked how they used Korsakow to embody a sense of seeking for the cause of the destruction and damages of nature. It was a bit of shame that there was no link to the actual Korsakow project, as the interactive element would have been really engaging to go through individually as a viewer. Overall, both projects took interesting and different approaches to the theme that helped the viewer become closer to nature.