by Jenny Pham Vo -

7 – INTENT VS REALITY

When we booted up the computer during class and opened up our first premiere project the first thing that popped up in my head was that our interview was wrong. Well, not like completely disgraceful, but definitely not right. When reviewed on a screen bigger than the X200’s monitor, the interview footage is all recorded in soft focus. In our rush to use as much of our time to record as much as possible, it seems we were also sloppy with our camera work and didn’t keep a good eye on our camera focus. We all regret this mistake, and have organized to do another interview session with Terri this Friday to rectify our mishap. I guess our eagerness and focus on getting her to feel comfortable left us misjudging our ability to remember everything we had to check before pressing that record button.

We’ve also noticed that since we were situated next to a window for some natural lighting, that as the interview progresses the exposure and lighting on Terri changes drastically from start to finish. It’s subtle when watching the shot unfold normally, but when we started cutting things up and rearranging it was a big red flag for us. Again it was another camera objective we overlooked and in hindsight should have been a priority for us. We couldn’t balance the the technical needs and personal needs quite well that day, and in the end our footage has suffered. This isn’t to say that all our footage was terrible, our b-roll and locked off shots all look amazing, and with a decent colour grade will make our documentary look bright and colourful like we intended, but our interview footage for now is not to the quality of the rest of our rushes, which is unfortunate but manageable.

Going forward we are definitely going to shoot more b-roll of Terri in her work environment to cover the interview footage and play more with those aspects of the documentary than the simple sit-down set-up we had with her in our soft looking shots. So wish us luck for the next few days as we try to fix our mistakes

Don’t worry, our footage wasn’t almost as terrible as this photo I took during our first editing session.

by Jenny Pham Vo -

6 – TO BE PLACED

I’ll be honest, our first shoot day felt rushed. I was confident going into the interview, and the following recording of b-roll was fine, but everytime we are there I feel the need to do everything as fast as possible and then get out of the way. It’s a hard feeling to shake for me, maybe because we have such a short time frame with the course to complete everything or it could be the constant interruptions by customer interaction, but we were in and out quite fast that Friday morning.

Everything went according to plan in the beginning , we met up with Terri as she opened the store when it wouldn’t be busy, but the time-frame we had with her interview wasn’t as long as we had hoped. We knew to expect maybe a half an hour opening, but the interview with Terri wasn’t as substantial as we had hoped, at least it wasn’t enough content to fill a 6-8 minute documentary surrounding solely her and her relationship with the store she worked at. We also couldn’t get her to answer in full sentences naturally, she seemed to find it hard to answer a question in that staged kind of manner. It was my first time meeting her and I realised soon that she was the type of person that replied very quickly and rapidly, never properly completing her sentences smoothly and cleanly, but at this point it is a part of her personality and to edit it out would be very difficult. At this stage I personally haven’t gone through our rushes, so all I can report from the location shoot is that we did what we had planned to do and asked all the planned questions to the best of our ability. Hopefully next week when I get to see the rushes with the whole gang we can make a more solid start to completing this film.

In the meantime enjoy this photo I took of us diligently recording our first wide shot of the day. I had a blast showing some of the best ways to set up a shot and teaching them a few tips on how to handle the equipment. We all had turns playing around with angles and placement of the camera, I personally love playing with focus pulls and smooth pans.

by Jenny Pham Vo -

5 – A SAFE & CREATIVE SPACE

We presented our Pitch & Proposals today in class for our PB3 and it was interesting to see how different all our ideas were. The many people that we have decided to focus on have been a vast cast of diverse and interesting areas to explore. For our group we have finally come with a working title “Confessions of a Confectioner” which focuses on the life of Terri and her work at Lolly Lovers Candy Shop. We want to highlight the joy and happiness she has in her life and that she spreads to others when they visit the store. Most importantly we want to just get to know her sweet soul and personality, and to spread positivity with our documentary.

Some of the main concerns we have going on is our limited time to interview her. At the moment we only have Friday’s to film her working at the store, and a half an hour window to interview her before she opens the store in the morning. So this means we have to streamline our interview session and hope that we get everything we need in the first sit-down session. To compensate for this I had an idea of doing some rolling interview with her mic’d up with a wireless lapel and us recording throughout her work day. At this stage it’s only a floating idea, but a back-up in case we need any more back-up footage.

Overall our pitch was a group success, and I am excited to see what we can create in the end. Next step actually filming the damn thing.

by Jenny Pham Vo -

4 – DIGITAL DISPLACEMENT

My group is a lively bunch of individuals that I am happy to share this semester with. After the usual introductions we attempted to add each other over Facebook and create the customary shared google drive folder that all RMIT group assignments require these days. This was normal for me, but upon learning that half of my group had only been at RMIT for a year or less time made me realise that I was officially a senior student in the course and this was not something that had crossed my mind at all. However here I am, 2017 is the year that I don the title of third year, and it was scary being placed in this category of human that I had looked up to during the previous semesters. I now have a responsibility to guide my peers because at this point in time I have more knowledge than most to some degree. This thought terrifies me but also encourages me to make the most of this semester with these lovely people.

Another group update is that the email that Ceyda had received from out subject was a dud and has led me into a spiral of ineffectiveness, because what can you do when the one form of communication you have with your protagonist turns out to be a dud. It’s fine for now because we plan to meet up with her at the store on Sunday and get more contact details that will be more reliable. But we got her email in the first place to present ourselves in a professional manner. This is just the first of the many bumps along the road to completing this short doco, and it is something that we will be able to recover from Sunday morning.

Here’s to me facing new territory and chasing down our new protagonist.

by Jenny Pham Vo -

3 – A PLACE WHERE DREAMS COME TRUE

I have done a terrible job of documenting this class for the past two weeks. I only have now just realised that I haven’t even explained what our outcome for the semester is. In groups we are to create a short documentary on a character based from the Queen Victoria Market. It could have been a regular customer, a roaming tourist, or one of the vendors. It could have been anyone that just frequented the space and that we were able to followup again and find them again. I had pitched the Pack Up Robots as my most interesting encounter at the Market. These were the men and sometimes women who would disassemble the multiple tents and stalls that take up in the open space market area in QVM. I would have created a piece that followed a few of these people, probably shooting a time lapse of their hard work at the market and interviewing them later on about what their day job was. I wanted to explore what else they were aside from these monotonous machines who would come in almost everyday to pack the market up.

I ended up joining a group that found a woman who works the at the Lolly Lovers’ Confectionery. She was simply pitched as a female Willy Wonka and I just loved the idea of having that magical aura and image explored. There’s another group focusing on the iconic Doughnut Truck that most people would recognise from a visit to QVM, and another working to film a flamenco performance duo that appear during the Summer Night Market. I never realised how diverse the Queen Vic Market could be in people and experiences, and how it is such a place of Melbourne culture. There are Asian green grocers, and hundreds of visitors, local and tourists, who come in and out throughout the entire day. Even when I visited the market during closing hours there were still people making an effort to make a final purchase on a good bargain. Queen Victoria Market just had a life to it that I am just genuinely excited to explore and is the place where I hope to uncover some amazing stories this summer.

by Jenny Pham Vo -

2 – THE MACHINES HAVE TAKEN OVER

I thought it would be good to share my first project brief here to help inspire me to write something for the class. Reading over it now I realise I dedicated a lot of time to the one man packing away the booths at the market. I can’t remember any specific details about clothing, or even what the stall even sold, but I just have this vivid memory of watching his hands and feet move in an almost dance. I think that’s why I was so absorbed in watching just him. Anyway, if anyone from class is reading this, than know that my idea for the packing robots has a few potential candidates, because if this one specific guy says no there are about 40 others who do the exact same thing.

Languages, keys, Vietnamese music reminding me of Footscray market, this is what greets me at 3:35PM on a Tuesday evening at Vic Markets. There’s just containers of things, people and vendors alike leaving to pack up, but there are others in no rush. 3 older white ladies are haggling on the price of socks in a European language I have no chance of understanding. They want specific sizes I think, and the vendor leaves to collect more from the boxes she’s packed away already. There are trucks coming in and out at a steady pace. One leaves as two more fight to take its place. Streets packed with white vans, clean, old, rusted; used. Everything is displayed in easy to pack away containers and these vendors all work methodically, robotically to pack them away.  A man selling sunglasses packs box after box away, looking out across the street, no longer needing to think about this task. A young couple walk along the edges of the market, tattoos covering their arms and sunglasses on top of heads. They watch and walk, slowly and calmly, no real interest in the organised mayhem that’s happening. It sounds like chaos in here, echoing over the steel rooftops and concrete floors, but as time continues on we lose the growing sounds and dying sights. From this loud chaos comes cleanliness, like the vacuum that sucks everything up. We hear the madness but see nothing but order. Neat Frames and boxes, Tetris’d into more neat frames and boxes.

The old ladies from before leave now, victoriously strolling along with their carry bags and trolleys. Their shopping for the day complete, and the vendor wanting to finally go home and reap the benefits of a long day of work. The final piece are being packed away. No people talking and young men working, taking apart everything until there is nothing left.

A young Asian man works hard taking down the frames that make up the market, the barriers are being pulled apart, no true care on his face for these boundaries he’s breaking. The only thing that distinguishes him from a robot is the bop of his head as he listens to music on his headphones. He wipes sweat from his brow and takes a moment to collect the right pieces that need to be put away. Another system in place above all the chaos. First the top pieces, then the smaller sides, the long walls and finally the bottom anchor piece that ties this marquee all together. He must know the order back to front and by now have done this over a thousand times. The ease and calculated comfort in which he takes everything down only lets me assume so. There’s a slow determination, like he knows exactly how long it takes for him to get everything done.

by Jenny Pham Vo -

1 – WELCOME HOME

Recording Place with Rohan Spong: A Summer School Adventure

So I like uni a lot. Not particularly the assignments and stress part, but the community and socialising part. I like learning things and I love being able to keep to a schedule. It gives me a purpose during these bleak holidays where I spend my days roaming around the suburbs and never achieving anything.

This year I chose again to do a summer semester, specifically a summer studio and boy was I in luck. It was being taught by the lovely Rohan Spong again, whom I had the previous summer semester for my music video studio. Last time was scary and stressful. It was the first studio I took seriously and made an effort in. I was finishing my first year of university and had out a lot of expectations and stress on my outcome for the summer semester, but with Rohan that class was enjoyable and a breeze. I loved it and I love it now. To this day that class was one of my university highlights. Being able to focus on only one class gave me clarity and an ability to just be a student immersed in one element.

This time around I am officially a third year student. I have a few subject to catch up on but in this class I realise that I am now one of the senior students. I know more than mojority of the students, whom mostly consist of first and second years. It has made me realise that over the course I have actually learnt and grown as a person, and in this studio I hope to use these advantages and make something I can be proud of at the end of semester.

So here’s to 2017 and the studio to come. This has mainly been a reflection of what I think so far of the studio, but I wanted to use this opportunity to process my thoughts about doing a second summer studio and if I had to sum it down I would describe it as a rewarding experience I would love to try again. Summer studio rocks, and I am genuinely excited to see the final documentary I create this month.