Month: August 2016

The Eb and Flow of the Anthropomorphised Object

It’s kind of sad that our phones are in a perpetual state of dying. That we are in dire need of them that much, as soon as they are about to leave this world in the most serene way, we tear them back into reality for our own selfish gain. We anthropomorphise them, we act as though they are our friends, we call them names, shame them, even hit them when they do us wrong somehow. And yet they are not ultimately human, as we wish they were. They are there to serve a purpose, there as our tools, with a battery life we choose to either prolong or allow to eb into darkness as we no longer have a use for that phone anymore. No, we have a shiny, new phone. A new phone that is yet to know what it is like to be our electronic slave.

THE FILM

A poetic look into the way we anthropomorphise our devices, tools and technology, and the way we treat these objects. If these objects were actually humans, would we really treat them that way? And how would we feel for treating them like that?

This week in our Wednesday class we were given time to complete our fourth filming exercise. we were working in a group of 8, I was working with Alexander, Alexandra, Hannah, Chynnae, Jenny, Dylan and Liam and we were given two scenes: a complex, highly covered scene from Mad Men, involving multiple set ups. And a scene from Ma Vie Sexuelle, unfolding entirely in one shot.

I was first A.D on the Mad Men shoot. Hannah was Don, Dylan was Sterling and Liam was Pete, Alexandra was the director, Alexander was the camera operator, Chynnae was the boom swinger and Jenny was the audio operator. We went into the exercise very organised, with a highly detailed script, story boards and shot list break down. I even broke down the shot list further into the time required for each set up and shoot. We however wasted half an hour looking for the right location, until we finally settled on our first choice, and then spent a further 30 minutes during the shoot waiting for noises to stop and people to finish walking through the shot. This made the shoot take an hour longer than it should have. While I tried to hurry the shoot up, it was the most complex scene we had to shoot and took the entire hour. We also shot the scene line by line, effectively as though each take was an edit in itself, which created a very strange, ‘non-flow’ throughout the scene during editing. While I tried to get the group to shoot the scene the whole way through set up by set up to avoid this, our actors had not learnt their lines (which there were a lot of), so this wouldn’t have been very plausible. So, we instead chose to shoot it set up by set up and line by line.

As we went very far overtime, we did not have the chance to film our second scene on Wednesday. This meant that we had to come in on Monday, during the semester break. We found ourselves down two people. Chynnae was unable to make it to the shoot and Dylan fell ill. We managed to make do though and decided to switch all the roles around so that everyone would get a chance to do something they hadn’t already. I was already down to act in the male role, so Liam decided to be the camera operator, Hannah the audio operator, Alexandra the female role, Jenny first A.D and Alexander the director. While there was some difficulty with the line delivery and the variation in audio levels, there were very few issues during the shoot. There were a few takes where the exposure had suddenly changed in between takes and were unusable due to the detail loss, but we immediately corrected this in the next take.

Tracks

The tracks curve into one and to nowhere. Poles shoot out of the ground creating what could be a path, but from this angle looks to be a grave yard, the poles jutting out of the desolate ground for what seemingly no reason. The train carriages swerve, moving in and out of sync with each other, their motion delayed by mere moments and mimicked exactly moments later. Coughs and sneezes echo through the train yet as sunlight shines through the windows, revealing the dust particles floating in the air so few notice and yet so many are allergic to. The train moves, our environment changes around us, and yet we do not move. We stand still, so still even it’s as though in these non moments between a and b, we do not exist as ourselves. We just bide our time in the space between until we get there. But what about the time and the space between?

THE FILM

1. About the isolation and human behaviour/interactions that takes place in ‘non-places’, places we use to get from point a to point b. Focus on different people with different characteristics and reactions to their environment/situation. Maybe something happens on the train that normally, in any other situation, they would react and do something in order to counter-act the situation, but due to the isolationist nature of the train, no one does anything. I can envision people just wanting to get home, to get out of their work clothes and into something more comfortable, as though in between skins. And then reality suddenly comes crashing in through the train doors, and they don’t do anything. They just want to get home, and this isn’t it.
2. A poetic exploration of human isolation on public transport and other non-places, such as cars. Exploring the way these places do not exist to us, that they only exist in the in-between from point a to point b. Rhythmic narration creating poetic beats that construct and emphasise the hollow, isolating experience, drawing connections between the isolation presented on screen and the isolation felt by the audience in their own journeys will be throughout the piece.

A Pack of Pigeons

A flock of pigeons huddles together in their superfluous idea of security,the sheer number in their pack seeming to domesticate them. Each step I take gets me closer and closer, and still they do not budge. I am a metre away from the outskirts of their circle, and still they do not budge. I flinch in their direction as one of the birds in the inner circle notices me, and suddenly the whole flock is aloft. It’s as though they were a great amorphous blob made up of tinier, little blobs. Each little blob doesn’t know exactly what to do by itself. But, allow it another blob and suddenly it feels safer in its own nature. It gains the strength to flap its wings and strut about, as though it now has the security of being truly alone in the world, because it has another blob.

THE FILM

A young boy is obsessed with chasing pigeons. Until the day when he almost runs onto an injured pigeon. He cares for the pigeon until it’s well enough to be set free, back into the flock. One of the pigeons looks at him a little too long, which he takes immediately as a thank you.

This week we learnt about coverage, as well as the roles used in traditional cinematic film-making.

Coverage is the way you choose to shoot a scene, the camera angles, types of shots, and information you choose to include in the frame at any one time. We dissected a scene from American beauty  and looked at how they chose to cover a scene involving a family dinner. We drew a floor plan explaining this:

As you can see there are a total of 5 set ups. We went through and prioritised the set ups based on what we thought would be most needed for the edit/film in case on the day it would be too difficult to fit in. We chose the wide shot first, as this is the most important shot, not only to set the scene and establish the environment (much easier to give context for a cut to close-up), but also as a safety, to ensure the entire scene is captured in case all the other shots cannot be captured. The next set up is the shot of the daughter, as her reactions are integral to the scene. After that it is an equal toss up between Benning and Spacey as their character’s reactions give the same weight to the scene. therefore the order would be up to the director’s creative choice or the first A.D’s efficiency choice (one character may have more lines than the other).

After that breakdown we proceeded with our own filming of a scene. Each class member had their own role. We had two actors, a boom swinger, an audio recordist, a cinematographer, camera assistant, director, second assistant camera and the first A.D. I was the first A.D, which was the most fun I have honestly ever had on a set. It wasn’t really telling people what to do that was fun (although I’ll admit that was a perk), it was more the liaising between departments and ensuring that each department had what it needed, that was what intrigued me. It was also the constant organisation, constantly having to be aware of the time needed for the scene as well as the total time allowed for the shoot and whether or not it would be achievable, that was probably the best part of the job.

The Future, Next to the Freeway

Next to a freeway entrance in the middle of suburbia there is a rainbow wall. The light shines through the metal, coloured in gradations of every colour. Behind and beneath the glimmering wall lies a futuristic development – a train station. Made entirely out of concrete, smooth, monolithic and minimalist, the station towers in all its glory below street level as though it were something out of the 1927 film, metropolis.

And yet, even closer to the shimmering wall is a strange man. A man with an elongated neck and a goofy smile, a smile that never seems to waver, a smile seemingly generated by the levers attached to his metallic base. His eyes glisten in their fiber glass blue, and his copper elements glint in the sun. Children play on his smooth, serpentine body and move his levers as though he too would move. But he instead stays, a construction just like the station, and the glimmering wall. He is an installation. Planted there in his grotesque happiness as though to scare the crows away and somehow implant his cheeriness into the drooping mouths of the weary travellers passing through. But, no matter how strange and obscene, he cannot move. He can only stand in petrified happiness as everyone else returns from the work day as drained metallic robots.

THE FILM

A satire of society and the current shape of the world through a vague homage of metropolis

The Scarf

Looped around the handle of the metallic rubbish bin casing, and directly next to the yellow and orange painted ‘safety zone’, is a beautiful scarf. A scarf made of what any passerby would assume to be the finest pink, fuchsia , brown and goldish yellow, I guess you could say mustard, silk. Together the colours combine into a glorious, royal arrangement. Curls and floral designs fill the panel, mimicking something you would imagine could ordane the edges of a very posh house. If this is indeed a fine silk scarf, then one could only imagine the stereotype it could belong to.

Right now, in fact, I am imagining an elderly debutante, her skin a canvas of seemingly very little, but the few lines that are present tell many tales of laughter, anguish, and everything in between. One would suspect that these lines would not exist for much longer. As for the scarf, it plays a magnificent role in her illusion, covering up her now loose and folding skin, that is until she fixes that, then she’ll have no need for the scarf, and it will wind up where it is now, dangling from the handle of a rubbish bin case, waiting for the next person to pick it up.

However, there is always the alternative. That this is in-fact not genuine silk, that it is some nylon amateur masquerading and pretending to be silk, adopting the beautiful, classical design in order to feel like the silk, like it belongs on the top shelf with the silk, and not attached to a rubbish bin, dancing in the wind as though longing for its purpose.

THE FILM

A young girl of 12 with flamboyant style, finds a scarf and falls in love with it. She decides that she’s going to become a runway model, with this scarf, she could do anything. But society’s ideals have very different ideas than she does, and her enthusiasm and passion are continuously blocked by increasingly arbitrary walls.

This week I completed my individual interview task. I chose to interview my mother because of the very different way she completed her education – through night school while also working full time at the department of social security. Not only did I feel this would be an interesting subject to compare with my own studies, but I also wanted to know more about what the experience itself was like for her as well.

The password is Hello!459

While I was really pleased with the overall look of the shot, the framing, lighting and compositional choices I made, I also did this at a compromise. I was adamant at doing this interview task outdoors, so this created a great strain on my audio. Not only was there echoing construction noise, but tour groups came into the area consistently, as well as low wind noise occasionally. I do not usually sacrifice audio for the sake of a shot, but I did for this exercise, especially since there were limited options that were aesthetically pleasing to me on location on the day, and there were time constraints, as my mum had to leave soon. On top of this, however, due to my under the weather state, I did not take the time to check most of the details that I should have. I will admit that I did not check the gain, and worst of all, I did not check the focus.

While I could sit here all night explaining how that major mis-step occurred, I could also talk about why I think it happened and yet again, why it won’t happen next time I shoot. When I looked in the lense in my sleep-deprived state, it seemed to be in focus, or at least, good enough. But, when I zoomed in later on and when I looked at the image in post production, I noticed that my mother was slightly fuzzy and the plane of focus was actually on the wall just behind her, making her look as though she were a movie star from the golden age of cinema. While this shot is still useable as you can still see the detail on her face, the sharpness isn’t there and that just would have made the shot much easier to read and, well, focus on.

After seeing the over exposed areas in my last camera practice I learnt to always go under half a stop if you are unsure if it is exposed correctly. After this exercise I have learnt to always check the focus and to not play so fast and loose with such important settings.

I declare that in submitting all work for this assessment I have read, understood and agree to the content and expectations of the assessment declaration.

You’re Wasting my Tax $

Three homeless men are huddled against the wall of one of the busiest street corners in Melbourne’s CBD: The corner of Melbourne Central, the State Library and RMIT. They’re coated in blankets and huddled around each other on their make shift furniture talking uncomfortably. Crowds mill past them like squads of robotic bees, heading from one pretty flower to the next, not seeing anything in between. You can tell that these people know these men are there, huddled below them, and yet they never even glance at them, nor do they think of what their actions do to these men. That is, until one man decides to take it upon himself to right this wrong.

A single man walks up to the three homeless men and begins to shout loudly at them, as though in protest to their request for his spare change. He is yelling about how they are “wasting my tax dollars!”. Two worlds are colliding, one that believes the other to be useless, and the other that simply just wants to exist and fights to every single day. One is ultimately trapped within his own delusions of ultimate superiority, whereas it is just superiority of circumstance. Whereas the other is living in a primal world, pre-society, where survival is all that mattered. And society has lost its instincts, its primal drive, so does not understand their situation, instead feels the urge to look down on their seemingly primitive difference, whereas they are just more human.

Rain

Tiny drops of water turn quickly from droplets to pellets as tens of people rush out of the train on their way home from work and their daily commute. Everyone rushes to grab their umbrellas, coats and bags to shield themselves from the sheets of rain, rain so thick you can see barely see through its whiteness as it slides and jumps off of the pavement. And I, in the middle of all this, my hood of my rain coat on, not doing as much as I wish it would, my jeans getting soaked through instantly, suspiciously only on the right side, and the biggest smile on my face the entire time.

This whole scene is utter chaos. In seconds the sky just decided to open itself up. And I, as well as many unhappy people, were stuck in the middle of it all, no protection or shelter, just us and the storm. And I couldn’t help but smile and laugh at it all. It was amazing! It was spectacular! And to all the people swearing behind me, it was a nuisance, an inconvenience. Where I saw hundreds of little fish dancing off the pavement and flying into the air, they saw water droplets out to get their feeble clothing and destroy their stable plans and realities with the dreaded ‘cold’. To me it was a beautiful rhythmic dance on a minuscule level, something to revel in, absorb every minute of because it wouldn’t last. But they couldn’t wait to escape the instant it started. I bet they’ve never really seen the rain.