“I am thinking about how screen stories are crafted, and wondering…”
For me so far, what has got me “wondering” about “screen stories” is the sheer depth in which one can delve into these worlds. While contrasting my own work’s development, with the writing prompts (about what we hate/like) we were given and the process of answering the prompt, I found it very powerful to see how much depth these characters and worlds had. In contrast with a lot of my work, which seemed to only really have superficial, face value development. The characters were underdeveloped and the overarching themes took control. This meant that my work seemed to only think of and exist in the short form world, because the world seemed impossible to expand. However, now I can see the limitless possibilities worlds have.
The other exercise was also intriguing, as we had to take an already established world and develop it further. The collaborative nature of this exercise was very unique to the art of story telling and world building. Everyone was throwing out ideas, what ifs, trying to link concepts, genres and character attributes into a unique whole. As soon as we knew we were going against the believability of the original world, we would backtrack or start anew. We, like every other group it seems, started out with a revenge tale. We also contemplated developing the story and the world from the man’s perspective. All of these concepts led to something entirely different, and possibly too dramatic for the class, a borderline agoraphobe (believes she is steadily becoming afraid of the outside world), who works as a phone sex worker (acting like someone new and entirely different in the process), and continuously day dreams about what her life would be like if she did have social contact.
Even though to me this seemed like a great fit for a very meek and shy character, I found, once I had explained the idea out loud to the class, it wasn’t as true to the original character as I had once thought. This new version was far more frustrated, numb and hollow. She was a shadow of herself, which in context of the day dreaming could make sense, but I still believe was too much of a negative jump. Possibly adjusting her character to someone who is sick and tired of seclusion, and decides to re-explore the world, gradually building herself up both mentally and physically, for the task at hand, would suit this world better?
Scriptwriting. A necessity of sorts in this industry. But it’s more than that. Not only is it a dream for many, but you could consider it the art of translating dreams. Translating our perspective, how and what we observe into a format, a bare bones structure, that is born specifically of the mind. It is not a visual sensation we absorb and disseminate. The visual translation is someone else’s job, the job of the director, cinematographer, set designer… It’s your job to build the WORLD in which they work. The WORLD they must translate into a visual context and reality. And this is where my final studio comes into the picture.
Another World is a studio based on creating scripts and observing screenworks from the perspective of the worlds they create.
We kicked things off with probably one of my favourite writing prompts:
Write something you like. Then something you hate. Add five reasons why you like what you like and why you hate what you hate. Write five reasons why someone might like what you hate, and five reasons why someone might hate what you like. Who would these people be? What stories could they tell?
This exercise was the first time I had every really thought in depth about characters, and with each point of the exercise, I could feel these unique characters forming and coming to life. Worlds developed around them the further into their reality I went. Previously I created characters based on myself or on tropes. They were never really multi-dimensional. This exercise really drove me to develop characters far beyond that point, on the verge of uniqueness.
Exercises like this make you think outiside the box and realise just how large that space is. How much can truly occur outside the box, as opposed to skirting the boundaries of the box. Go out into the wild, green yonder. I dare you, and I bet it’ll be worth your while.
The design of this studio may seem strange, but I found it to be a highly rewarding and insightful experience. While we were only required to do two observations a week I chose to write as many as I could. This led to a very fruitful reflection process within my own observations, as I found the more observations I wrote the more I actively observed what occurred around me and noticed the details in what was occurring. I also found it progressively easier to engage on a higher level with these observations, thinking philosophically about what was occurring, until I reached the point of writing entirely meditative observations, which were the basis of my film pitch and my final film.
For me the act of observation itself has provided unique insights into the subtleties of body language and gesture, the act of observing everyday normality and reality allowing us all to uncover hidden truths and character in our world. It has allowed us to decipher a uniquely visual language, the language of film. For me this realisation was pivotal in how I chose to create my film. I wanted to portray reality in its most realistic and simple form in order to subtly convey my argument. This meant grounding my characters and direction in actuality. I told my actors to act as though they were in a situation they had most likely been in at one point in their lives. I told them the specific beats I wanted to occur and then I let ‘reality’ unfold. This then created a strange mix of actuality and fiction, having no real place in either realm.
Our film, the Other is a very rare project. It is a film one can only really ever create when in university, as it is ultimately for ourselves and no one else. I wanted to make this film for my own philosophical and ideological purposes, to explore for myself an idea that intrigues me, and hopefully encourages others to contemplate and explore themselves. I made this film as an exploration of the human condition through our own individual lenses, as well as my own. I wanted to to try to understand and criticise human behaviour and interaction with the world, while also trying to interpret and express my own views, using film to decipher, unpick and create previously unseen connections between highly abstract and philosophical ideas. In a way this is my mind map of how humanity treats, is shaped by and understands what we have come to see as The Other through our very insular, isolated and individual lenses.
Making something that is ultimately for yourself, that you came up with and wrote, can definitely attract different kinds of people to the project; those who are also attracted to the idea and want to collaborate with you, and those who think the idea is easy to make and will get them an easy mark. I was lucky enough to get two people out of three who wanted to work and collaborate with me on the project. Ryan proved to be an indispensable partner who without I would have no music and no fourth moment to complete the project. Chynnae, although shy to begin with, proved herself more than once, and helped by not only acting but also writing the Facebook post. Both Chynnae and Ryan constantly contributed to intellectual discussions about the direction of the project. Sam however was frequently absent and left editing sessions early. I will admit that this could be due to the philosophical nature of the project and my inability to communicate the complex ideas to those working with me. For most of the project, until at least half way, I felt as though we weren’t all on the same page. It could also be due to the constantly shifting nature of the piece and the ideas constructing the bones of the piece, as my own attitudes shifted.
As the piece was experimental and required observational research as opposed to a script, the basis for the film was constantly shifting, creating a strange, unconventional environment that none of us were really prepared for, at least in a group work sense. I will admit that due to its philosophical nature, I did become very insular in my thinking around the ideas.I tried to bounce ideas off of my group members, but I could see they were struggling with it just as much a I was, so I wound up taking charge. I feel as though my own confusion around the ideas may have also caused greater confusion amongst the group, which led me to take further charge of the project as we were unable to communicate effectively about the topic to begin with. Towards the end of the project though, I feel as though we found ourselves on the same page and so were able to communicate much more effectively, as the ideas had become solid for myself and therefore the group. The ideas felt tangible. I feel as though this issue could have been solved if we had’ve had more open discussions around the subject matter, seeing that as an integral element, rather than trying too hard to be like a ‘regular’ short film production where every role, and the boundaries of these roles, is clearly defined. Nothing should have been compartmentalised, everything should have been disussed philosophically, allowing us as a team to fully understand the concepts we were working with.
I think that this film had another issue right from the beginning. There were too many cooks in the kitchen with nothing to do. The project could have, and should have been completed by three people with clearly defined roles who knew how to execute those roles in the context of the piece. With so many people we often had to sacrifice a great deal of time to discussing scheduling, as well as sacrificing the number of people we could have on set so we didn’t fall behind. Due to the nature of the project, filming section by section and building it up like that, hoping that as we go each piece will fit in with the other, we didn’t really get into much detail about the aesthetics of the production, or other possible areas of development, so it became, in the end, more of a three person project, leaving one person with nothing to do or two people sharing the load of one person at any given time.
Despite this, the project was on track for success, at least in the eyes of the production group, from the beginning. This was mainly due to the unconventional way in which we filmed the project. One bit here, another bit there; by spreading the load out over the course of the five weeks, we were able to not only complete the project faster and more effectively, but we could also experiment more with what we had filmed, seeing how it fit into the puzzle and then, designing and writing the other pieces to fit with that piece. It also gave us time to think of what the next move would be and to constantly assess what was needed, to look at the pieces of the puzzle and see where everything might fit, even as my own ideas shifted and adapted with the film.
In the end did my experimental film satisfy its goal of constructing a fluid argument around this thesis statement?
The below thesis statement was used throughout the process to develop and understand the concepts we were working with in the film. While I did write a second thesis statement at one point, I believe that this thesis statement captures the essence of the question we, or at least I, was curious about exploring and interpreting:
Through romanticism, personification occurs. Realising something is better in turn triggers humanity to want that something to be like itself. Romanticism ultimately occurs through observation of the Other. The Other “is dissimilar to and the opposite of the Self, of Us, and yet of the Same” (wikipedia), that is to say that although the Other is not us, it gives the self meaning and reality, while ultimately being perceived through the lens of the self. The Other is only perceived through the lens of the self therefore it can only ever be a version of the self.
So, was I successful, as the writer, director and editor of the project in exploring and conveying what I wanted to through the film? I believe that I was. What is present in the film may not actively be a representation of the above thesis statement, but it is definitely an exploration of it. As I was explaining the meaning of my film to my parents after they had watched it for the first time, I found myself using a very simple idea to explain it; each scene is a different way, a different observation/critique about observing and perceiving the Other, progressing to the audience ultimately becoming the Other. I just hope that the emotional context and the title of the piece at least make the audience contemplate and want to explore and question their own perceptions.
This week we learnt about formal and informal interviews. We also learnt about light temperatures and white balance and making lighting choices in line with the more formal set up of the formal interview, as well as the informal set up of the informal interview.
All cameras have two presets for white balance. White balance has to do with the light temperature. Outdoors averages to 5200 kelvin, whereas indoors averages to 3200 kelvin. The Sony EX3 has two presets, one for each, as well as a manual white balance. It is usually set to 3200 kelvin automatically as the standard setting. This is where the manual white balance comes in handy, because it always ensures that the camera’s settings are set to the proper light temperature for the environment.
Knowing about colour temperatures and correctly white balancing makes lighting choices much easier. This is where the interviews come in. Interviews are all about the correct lighting of a subject. This means ensuring that the most exposed areas of a person’s face are only exposed 70% (this person being on the paler end of the skin colour spectrum). Formal interviews control every element in the frame, including lighting, set design/dressing, and framing. Even an informal interview will still control some of these aspects to a degree, less through redesigning the situation and more through observing and crafting the situation to their creative advantage, taking the time to find the right angles to observe from, creating a greater and more personal context in the moment.
Interviews themselves are very interesting as, depending on the way they are set up they can provide even more context and information about the individual, not only the environment in which you choose to film, but the way you choose to film; the lighting, composition, set design/dressing; it all says something, no matter how subtle, about your subject.
I declare that in submitting all work for this assessment I have read, understood and agree to the content and expectations of theassessment declaration.
This semester has been an amazing experience. So here are the light-bulb moments:
1. My first project: “Self Portrait: Naive and I know it.” For me, each piece of this assignment was a piece of myself that had just been building up, waiting to burst forth onto some kind of medium, and I finally had that opportunity, so I wasn’t going to waste it by doing something that wasn’t worthwhile or meaningful to myself.
2. “John Cage: The Art of Noticing.” Looking at John Cage’s work in class and then later at home, I felt inspired to try and experiment not just with content but the way in which I present my content, that is the very essence of the medium itself, as each story has and needs a different aura and therefore aesthetic feel to it, and therefore should be presented in a different way (kind of like a Wes Anderson movie).
3. “Integrating Theory and Practice: Editing.” I’ve always been incredibly intrigued by the practice of editing and yet at the same time stifled by the theory and ideas behind it as well. For me, listening to Liam Ward’s guest lecture and then going and exploring the idea’s of editing really helped, and inspired me with tying the concepts and practical nature of editing together.
4. “Zoom H2N Sound Recorder Practice.” This semester (especially the first and second projects) have for some reason fostered a fascination within me surrounding sound and the creation of deep and complex, layered soundscapes. This workshop activity really showed me the versatility of sound recording and the use of sound as a creative outlet.
5. “The Remix and the Glitch: Breaking Things Since 1930(ish).” This lectorial was especially intriguing for me. I found the readings incredibly provocative and interesting to read, and I wrote a lot about it in my blog post for the week. It was very interesting hearing about the new wave of art coming from computers and the internet, and it inspired me.
This semester has been an experience of constant growth, as with each class, reading and task I feel as though not just my skills are evolving, but my way of thinking about and approaching certain issues, as well as my knowledge base, have all developed. I feel that I’ve learned a lot more about media in a very broad sense, through many practitioners and an exploration of the self to allow me to explore and develop my own understanding of what creativity and film-making is, especially in terms of my own creative process. I have learnt a great deal about the basics of high quality video production and sound production, as well as the importance of sound and editing to create meaning. I have also learnt a great deal about editing video and audio both literally and laterally, as editing is vital in the creation of meaning.
Throughout this semester and the many various tasks, readings and lectures we’ve had I’ve found that the best way I learn is through just simply doing, that is participating, doing things I normally wouldn’t and noticing things around me that pertain to my practice/interests as a media practitioner. I also find that I learn well from looking at other people’s work and analysing what makes it click, and what makes it fit into that certain category/genre, so I can set myself a sort of list of conventions to possibly include in my work.
Even though I knew my way around an editing program pretty well from year 12, I still found that I couldn’t quite create the meaning I wanted through editing. I found it difficult to create these mental links in my storytelling, even if I was only creating an experimental piece expressing an emotion. I feel as though through each of the works I have created this semester I have grown better at this though, and with the help of Robbie and my fellow workshop members, I was able to straighten out my thoughts and create some great pieces that I am proud of. I also feel like one of the most challenging parts of this course for me has been keeping up to date with the readings and the blog posts throughout the semester due to my medical condition, but I found that towards the end of the semester I was able to keep up with the workload and take more on as I began to adapt to university life and leave the old habits and ways of thinking from high school behind me.
Through the production of many different kinds of products in many different kinds of forms; progressing from the self portrait with separate mediums, to the self portrait with combined mediums (as a video), to the portrait of another person with found footage, to a multimedia website utilising as many forms as possible to explore and convey one single idea; through this logical progression throughout the semester I feel I have been able to develop and explore my own creative process, learning about my own creative style as well as learning about how best to express and create through a visual medium, as well as many other kinds of mediums, as I have mainly written previously.
Here is a learning graph I made to represent how much I feel I’ve learnt, not just from the course itself, but from the findings ideas within the course have led me to, as well as the philosophical ponderings upon such ideas:
Today Dan Binns talked to us about media materialism and the anthropocene.
Media materialism is a way of looking at and grounding our understanding of media technology (Binns, 2015). It forces us to look back at media technologies and realises that even though technology may seem brilliant and futuristic, it is only an enabler for what we are physically able to do, that is the’cloud’ isn’t really a cloud, it is created physically and grounded somewhere, just as the internet and YouTube aren’t all floating in hyperspace, but really have an actual physical location. Media materialism seeks to show that technologies have a realistic foundation.
There are two distinct schools of thought within media materialism: technological determinism and social constructivism. Technological determinism relies upon the ideas that technology has a preconceived course, a logical progression, that technology advances automatically and that technology effects our way of interacting with the world, even to the extent of being a natural extension of our bodies (Binns, 2015). Dziga Vertov took this concept one step further and created films around the concept that the camera was his eye and body, such as “The Man with a Movie Camera” (Vertov, 1929):
Social constructivism on the other hand believes that since humanity created technology we have the ability to control how its used and regulated, that no matter how radical the technology becomes we’ll still have the ability to control it (Binns, 2015). Social constructivism however presents many other ideas, such as the issue of ethics in the creation of technology and the idea that the production of technology is not a straight line, but rather a rocky, murky, unpredictable one, which many see as a hindrance to the progress of such technologies (Binns, 2015).
It is also accused of producing a rather romanticised version of the world, as many texts demonstrate a clear criticism of our creation of such advanced technologies that, even though we created them, have clearly grown out of our grasp, such as “I, Robot” (Proyas, 2004), and even as far back as “Metropolis” (Lang, 1927), both of which depict an A.I. entity created by humankind, that soon spirals out of control to endanger humanity. All of this occurring in the 197 years since Frankenstein was first published (Binns, 2015). Since then the lines between man and machine are constantly becoming more and more blurred as science fiction explores the very real possibility of humanity getting ‘too big for their breeches’.
One particular text which Dan showed us and I found very interesting was a short film created by Quantic Dream called “Kara”, what was originally supposed to be a beta for a game turned into a 7 minute short film about the concept and reality of constructing A.I robots in the visage and mind of humans:
This then brought up the holocene, the age in which we are now, characterised by the heating of the planet, the rise of human supremacy, the dis-allowance of a natural reset (the ice age had a natural reset) due to technology programming itself into the natural chemistry of the planet (Binns, 2015). However, McKenzie Wark believes that we have now entered a new age – the anthropocene, the age of the human. Wark also believes that in this new age since we’re “going to hell in a hand-basket”, it should force new ways of looking at the world, creating new non-hypocritical theories and ways of sorting through problems (Binns, 2015). Hopefully, this new age of the anthropocene will bring about a new way of looking at media mateialism and technology itself that will help steer humanity towards a much brighter future.
– Binns, Daniel. Week 12 Lectorial. May 26th 2015.
Today we worked on our project some more. In our group we worked together to go through all the work we’ve accomplished so far and collate it onto our site. It’s coming together rather nicely so far, all of the images and text are up but the videos of the interview, Rupert Murdoch, and my video essay are still to be completed and will be posted later in the week.
The site is really coming together, and even though when we first set out we imagined creating a clear platform dividing both traditional and new media in two, it seems as we progress through our tasks and we develop our ideas more, through this website based collaboration, that the two forms are blurring into one, as traditional media institutions aim to produce more viral and entertaining content and modern media institutions aim to produce more factual and credible content, effectively evening each other out and reaching an equilibrium.
We also created ‘learning graphs’, graphs which objectively assess how much we think we’ve progressed in our first semester. Basically, I just drew a bunch of squiggly lines heading up, because this whole semester has just been a crazily amazing learning curve, and I’ve loved every second of absorbing it all.
On Monday we got together during our regular class time (since Robbie wasn’t there) and worked together to create a video filtering a speech presented by Rupert Murdoch. Jess transcribed the speech so that we could work together to pick apart what he said and twist it into unique and hilarious sentences that all somehow worked to create a love letter from Murdoch to his institutions. Although we found it progressively difficult at times to edit the audio, it is always interesting to find ways in which to overcome such obstacles.
I also worked more on the biographies which will focus on seven institutions spanning both traditional mediums, such as print and television news media, and blogging/social media. These institutions which I am focusing on and which have a great deal of influence within Australia are: The Age, Herald Sun, Channel ten, SBS, BuzzFeed, Humans of New York and the YouTube channel; the VlogBrothers. These biographies will feature on our multi-media platform and will act as a way of showing our visitors the ways in which such institutions can influence the way in which we access information.
We also interviewed Philip Dearman, asking him a range of questions:
What do you think is the biggest difference between traditional and new media?
How do you think the evolution of new media has affected traditional media e.g. journalism?
How do you think journalism has evolved in recent times?
What kind of effect do you think media ownership has on the material produced in journalism?
What do you think is the role of politics in sources? For example, newspapers and other traditional media using only government officials as sources.
Could you talk about the (potential) difference in ethics between traditional and modern media institutions? e.g. traditional media institutions are run for profit, whereas some modern media institutions are not.
It was very interesting hearing from the head of journalism at RMIT and seeing what his perspective on the issues we presented were.
I hope to find information on the comparison of different ways in which news is presented on TV, such as discussion based, like Q and A and the Project, Current Affairs, such as A Current Affair and Today Tonight, and Regular Nightly News, such as SBS World News and Channel 9 news.
I also hope to find another journalist to interview, and hopefully gain another person’s interesting perspective on such interesting issues.
