Chiaroscuro

Wednesday’s presentations were all very interesting. While we presented three at a time and somehow managed to finish in time, the feedback the panel gave us was very helpful and gave all of our projects, whether all of us decide to move forward with them or work together in groups, each project now seems to have solid foundations to move forward from.

Some very valuable feedback I got for my project was less about the content and narrative (especially since my film concept is very experimental and non-conventional), and more about how to possibly connect and link the very different concepts and ideas. The possibility of using an actual phone to film was brought up as a convention to possibly bring all of the concepts together in a neat little package. this idea really appealled to me. Whether I only use a phone, or use a mixture of phone and DSLR camera to film, it will not only create a motif and aesthetic link between the vignettes/moments, but it will comment further on the key concept of the film, how we treat and anthropomorphise objects, animals and places in order to feel more secure within our own reality, but this treatment id not necessarily fair to the object, animal or place (it only benefits us).

For our week 7 crit panel, we had to present our film ideas that we’ll be working on for the next 6 weeks. Here is the transcript of my presentation:

Main observation: 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.

CONCEPT

• Exploring the way we interact with the world around us
• The delusions we create in order to feel secure and survive in our own versions of reality. How we understand our world

FORM

• The film will be around 5-6 minutes containing around 5 moments or vignettes and will follow the style of Jane Campion’s Passionless Moments, a film showing the strange, eclectic moments of suburban life, with third person voice over.
• The film should follow a more coherent and connected narrative than passionless moments, rather than just being connected by place.

• Examples of moments that could be in the film include watching birds fly in the sky and imagining what dance they must be performing; How we treat our phones; The evolution of phones to become more human (e.g. Siri), and yet the loss of the human element, as they are made solely as a tool and for our own gratifying purpose; How we treat animals; How we treat other objects and situations (the idea of order being better than chaos)

Poetic voice over will explain and satirise the moments. It will also aid in creating coherency between moments
The development process of the film will be a combination of scripting and continued observation.

The Monster

The cat shrieks back, it’s fur raised and fangs snarling fiercely. The duck flaps its wings and cranes itself above the bird, so high it becomes a monstrous image. The cat zig-zags around the duck in an effort to get away from it, but cannot get past the flapping, quacking monstrosity before it. The cat feels cornered. It keeps hissing and shrieking at the duck, but it won’t relent. So the cat does instead. It scurries away, scaling a fence one thought too high for a cat to mount. And the duck flaps, victoriously quacking into the air.

THE FILM

About the dynamic between two people, two rivals about to clash. One is your typical bulky, jock type who is starting this fight in order to defend his honour. The other is your typical skinny geek. Everyone would automatically assume that the jock would win. But the geek is surprisingly vicious, and more than holds his own. Will he grant the jock mercy? About averting current perceptions and archetypal stereotypes.

For individual exercise #3, we had to use footage we had filmed along with footage from other groups in the class to create some kind of coherent, visual, experimental observation. For my piece, unfortunately all of my groups footage had been lost, so I decided to use every other groups footage. In a way this was a far more therapeutic and rewarding process, utilising footage from other peoples’ perspectives, that I had never seen before, it allowed me to draw conclusions and links between footage I don’t believe would have been possible had I used footage I had shot myself, and therefore had previous knowledge of. Through this process I drew links between seemingly discordant footage and represented a picture that to me, showed the slow encroachment of humanity upon nature within such places as the city, through imagery of plants combining with urban sprawl and the constant auditory motif of the crossing signal. The images of humanity seen only through shadows created a sinister presence which was fully revealed in the final shot of the fork lift, a very impacting, loud and visceral shot, with a juxtaposing beep of its own.

I chose not to shoot further footage as I felt the point I was trying to get across was expressed completely through the footage I already had available to me. I also believe that making a concious decision as to what would need to be added visually, would take away from the links and connections I had created in the editing process. Through removing myself from the filming process and being solely involved in the editing process, I was able to connect with the visual aesthetics of the footage to a greater degree and find emotional links and connections that otherwise wouldn’t have been found, having a preconceived notion of the footage’s meaning and various qualities.

The Leech

And it gets to the point when you know you’re a leech. When you know that your ears aren’t your ears anymore, that they were bought by your aunt several birthdays ago. That these legs aren’t your legs since they payed for all those wasted years of basketball. So wasted that you packed those trophies far away in a box. You won’t even touch the ball anymore it sends shivers down your spine and deep into their pockets.

As I look down at the sushi my mother has bought me for lunch, I think of my dependence on her. On how, still now at 20, I rely on her for sustenance and survival. I cannot be whole without her. I cannot survive without her. At least that is what everything in life so far has told me. Every time I call their name or ask for something I feel as though I am a child again having yet another hissy fit, begging mummy and daddy to make it stop and just give me what I want, what I need. I feel as though my dependence is consuming my parents whole.

I am divided between my dependent and independent lives. One cannot survive without the other, and yet, I wish I could simply muster the strength to squish that leech beneath my feet as I walk away from it.

THE FILM

The duplicity of a young person and their internal struggle for self-sufficiency and survival. Show moments of facade and internal struggle as well as realisation that societal pressures and expectations are not more important than your own health, wellbeing and survival.

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.