With an increasing acceptance of vertical screen orientation seen with the ubiquitous use of smartphone video capture, for week 1, we thought we’d celebrate its use to ring in the new semester!

Our video, Media 4 Week 1 Vox Pops, is the first submission of a studio chronicle which will be followed by new submissions week by week. We went against against most filmic rules and conventions by capturing the footage on our smartphones. Regardless, we felt it nicely honoured the catalyst for vertical cinema’s revival and user generated content which was touched on in this week’s reading Documentary as an Open Space (Helen de Michiel and Patricia R. Zimmerman).

With typical week 1 uncertainly, we were quick to grant participants total autonomy to conduct an interview to camera (smartphone) with the only directions being written on an A3 sheet of paper gaffer taped to the whiteboard. It read, “Hello! I’m an iPhone, and I’m recording you! Would you like to tell me one exception you have for this studio and one thing that was a revelation from today?”

Placed directly below this sign was the iPhone… also gaffer taped to the whiteboard. It had been left running throughout our tutorial, peering out with CCTV voyeurism. The camera/phone was setup in the hope that people would reveal their brief personal thoughts… which many did! Though, interestingly but not surprisingly, those who partook in the interviews had few ‘revelations’ to add about the course. In retrospect, it may have proved better to centre our questions around ‘expectations’.

One thing learned from this process, and the vox pop practice that we underwent toward the  end of the class, was that participants seemed to respond better to a producer physically pointing a recording device at them, rather than than being granting autonomy to record their own interview.

But as a novelty item, these auto-participatory models can work quite well, like for example, Robin Fox’s Giant Theremin currently located and operating at Fed Square. This sonic sculpture works where sound is produced by the detected movement of passersby, but unlike this work, our submission intended to be more emotionally engaging than just an observational titbit.

In all, this exercise has been an important reminder that participants are less likely to naturally find the frame without the producer’s intervention and in addition to this, the vertical frame can be achieved technically…  but whether it will be accepted in popular steams remains to be seen.

Thank you to all the contributors, we hope you enjoy our Week 1 vertical cinema experience!