I have listed what I am most confused about and interest in the theme of “noticing” in the Task2：

Media producers can provide others with different feelings by randomly combining random videos through background music and some clip effects, but I wonder whether all random videos can be combined with each other and how you confirm that what you notice and shot can form a theme. Therefore, I respectively explore the answers to the two questions with videos in the first two experiments in Task 3.

There is no special difference on nature between Experimental 1 and Experimental 2. They explore the effects of the editing of random videos noticed in daily life. The video will not have specific structures and themes and only some rules are set in Experimental 1. For example, I shot what I notice along with a street and two parks, and the editing is based on the time sequence without background music. As the video is formed randomly, five audiences and I feel that not all irrelevant material can be combined to produce a relatively complete structure.

Because of that, I decide to shot more materials in the second experiment and then observe the videos carefully. I change the order of video clips and make some adjustments with edit software according to the feedback of five audiences in the first experiment. As I have some feedback on the theme, I have a general idea of the video. Therefore, I find that I will shot what is related to the former video and I will follow the idea of “the theme of the video should be living in Melbourne” in editing. So, I believe that if you want to know the whether the things you notice and shot can form a specific theme, you should have a specific idea in your mind.

Experimental 3 is different from the first two experiments. I have not shot new video clip and I just try to add background music for exploring whether it makes the theme clear or convey profound feelings to the audiences. Some people think that the video in the second experiment is better than the first one, however, they still feel that something is missing in the video, and it is still not very consistent. To fit the definition of the themes of the first two video of 5 audiences and me, I chose the cheerful background music at this time. They give the same feedback that the music better reflects the theme.

Therefore, I suddenly want to explore notice of people on the sounds of daily life in the last project. It refers to the noticing taking the sound as the theme. I do not make the random combination of video, but make a random combination of sounds. Listen to the sounds of commonplace objects or the nature that have not been noticed, including the sound of wind and water, the sound of wiping hand cream, the sound of the effervescent tablet in water, the sound of rubbing sponge and others. What new effects will they bring to us after the combination?

Recipe：

---

Question：

How to know what you noticed and shot could centre on one theme?

As to this question, I mentioned at the end of Task 2. What surprised me was the question was coming up with after the first experiment was completed.

In the first research, I had my own answer to the question “whether all irrelevant materials can be combined”: not all can be united perfectly. A theme is needed to combine all irrelevant materials to prevent it from being abrupt and chaotic. In the first experiment, I combined video clips according to the photography sequence, so it made others feel coherent and smooth. Therefore, I decided to shoot more clips and then carefully observed it. Based on feedback given by 5 persons in the first experiment, I changed the sequence of clips with the editing software and made necessary adjustments. Compared with the video in the first experiment, it was a little bit different.

Ingredients:

Simple Handycam

Premiere

Method：

Step 1: shot anything that I took notice of.

Step 2: combined the videos and other clips that I shot last time. Only background voice was used, without any background music.

Step 3: gave feedback of me and others on problems and the video after clipping.

https://vimeo.com/233694795

---

Reflection：

In the research process, I kept myself known of my answer to this question. It was found that when I came out to shoot, an idea occurred to me that what did I shoot, what’s the general environment, what’s the weather (it determined the light of shooting), and if I shot like this, how to combine it and previous clips. After fall all video clips were shot by me. When reviewing my clips, I had a basic idea in the mind. In other words, all clips that I shot shared similarities. I would take relevant views unconsciously. A basic shooting idea was developed in my mind due to feedback from others. Therefore, I would act as I thought in the editing process: the video should centre on the topic of daily life in Melbourne.

As for my current experiment, I believe: to know whether what I noticed and shot could centre on the one theme, I had to have a clear idea. This conclusion was reached through two experiments. So my shooting was completed in twice. Through the first time, I better-identified defects of my videos. There was a theory that I acquired on campus: having an area of the scene and things to be shot before shooting. It was justified in practice. I thought although not all video, most videos or movies should be conceived if it tried to present a theme. Without connotations that the video tries to convey to the audience, there would not be a good video. If we make it, we can become an excellent media editor: whether you are a director, play-writer, media creator or editor.

From this experiment, I wanted to explore another question: if a video is given background music, will the video theme be highlighted?

---

Class discussion：

1、Are you making patterns to notice new things or are there patterns out there in the world that you are trying to notice? ——  I thought it should be the second. When I decided to research “whether things shot randomly can be made into a video”, it meant I should attempt to re-notice and rei-identify things that have already existed in the real life, rather than create a mode of paying attention to them.

2、Are you glimpsing in or observing slowly? What are the differences?  —— For me, I glimpsed at these things and did not observe them carefully and slowly, because I decided to shoot randomly. Hence, the slow and careful observation was not consistent with this concept.

3、How is the medium (photography/ video/ sound) you’re using to notice shaping what is available to be noticed in the media? —— I chose photography as the way of noticing in Task 2. Thus, I found photography could not represent what should be highlighted or reminded of, such as dynamic scenes: human, flowing leaves, running transportation tools, etc. For this reason, I chose video as the “tool” of my third experiment.

4、How is the particular technology you’re using (iPhone, DSLR, Zoom recorder) shaping what is available to be noticed? ——  The shooting equipment I used was Handycam. Actually, there was no significant difference between Handycam and iPhone, expect higher pixels. According to my original idea, I just wanted to take dynamic video by using the equipment with the highest pixels. However, it was proven that I overestimated Handycam camera, which was not as clear as DSLR or as functional as DSLR. And it does not have the zooming function, which was the main reason for my dissatisfaction. But the concept of the dynamic video was expressed at lease. After all, video can embody more details and enable the audience to notice more.

5、Would you position what you are making as a documentary, nonfiction, experimental or somewhere in-between?  —— In my opinion, these three experiments are narrative and experimental. The first experiment is experimental and explorative. The second and third ones are narrative, without any narration or explanation. It is a video edited from several clips, which pushes the audience to understand its main idea.

 

 

Recipe:

The most confusing question and I are also very interested in Task 2 of “noticing” theme is: the media producer can make anything shot in random into something new after combining with background music, so is it possible to combine with anything that is shot in random? How to determine whether the thing you shoot can be made into a theme? So this time for the task 3, I want to find my answer for this question.

---

Question：

Can all non-relative material be combined into something?

To study this problem, I plan to spend one afternoon to shoot anything I see, no matter it is beautiful, funny, interesting thing or not. To avoid making the shooting more like a photo portfolio, I will try my best to make a short video clip.

Walking along the street and pass through two parks, I will shoot several videos.Then I will select some of them and edit them in the sequence of shooting time without much processing. I want to see the effect of the video with different background sounds.

Ingredients:

Simple Handycam

Premiere

Method：

Step1: shoot anything in random, such as the trolley bus, sky, park, flower, leaves and people passing by, with five to seven seconds for each shot (there is no theme for the shooting of noticing)

Step 2: edit all the selected videos, with only background sound and without any background music

Step 3: feedback for the video after completion

https://vimeo.com/232558854

---

I want others to comment on the video, whether it has a theme or something disorderly (Moreover, from one of the clips, conclude the theme)

The main comment from others:

don’t understand what it really wants to express, and the shooting quality is not good enough

Reflection:

Most of the people including me think the video is combined disorderly without a clean expression. So I give my conclusion: Not all of the material can be combined into a video. The video will have no meaning if it has no theme. In addition, I think it is also related to the construction mentioned in the first part of Panse. Each video has its own construction, which includes all kinds of elements in the scene. Combination of these elements will generate the new relation.
“But in Benning’s films, new relations can be thought in each shot.”, I think this relationship can generate a relative complete video construction. In the later second research, I will propose the second question Task2: how to confirm that the thing you shoot can constitute a theme. For me, the most important relationship for a single video clip is the theme. Durig the tutorial of five weeks, we have performed the following training: shoot a place without moving for ten minutes, and record the audio. Since this is a continuous video, it has a complete construction and theme. But what I have shot is not a continuous one, so this is a very important problem.