Reflecting on our project work, I feel that we have been mostly successful in responding to the prompt of “How can I notice the relationships people have with their natural and manmade surroundings?” Our intent was to create a project which invites the viewer into our moments of noticing the surroundings around us, using lingering and observing as tools for noticing. I feel that we achieved this, as actively noticing and recording our surroundings allowed us to create a media artefact that performs the complexity of the changing world around us.

Thinking back on ideas from week 10, we wanted to portray the world as something indeterminate, unpredictable and always evolving. Additionally, we wanted to draw attention to both its human and non-human entanglements. Our Instagram feed allows the viewer to actively participate in noticing the relationships humans have with their surroundings by clicking on individual posts to reveal a facet of an environment. The mobile platform Instagram also allowed us to experiment with creative possibilities of making media outside of traditional linear production methods. The swipe function within a media set in particular helped us to achieve this; making graphic associations between natural and manmade surroundings prompts the viewer to think introspectively about this relationship.

In terms of production, I am satisfied with the way that framing our shots allowed the videos to fit into each overall composition on the page. The use of equipment such as the DSLR camera and microphone helped us to capture our surroundings with the best possible quality for a more authentic manner of noticing. The locations themselves were a good fit for our prompt; the park setting of Alexandra Gardens allowed us to observe subtle occurrences in nature, whereas Melbourne’s CBD allowed us to highlight the growing nature of manmade environments. In both, we were able to capture human life and the way that humans interact with their environments.

The use of static shots in our work also allowed the viewer to notice more movement within the frame especially that of people walking through these spaces. Planning our shots beforehand was something that especially helped us during production,  as we were able to determine what footage was needed. An example of this was our intention to have people walking through the frame in the bottom videos of each composition.  Something I think could have been improved upon is the unsteadiness of some of the videos where the tripod was not used, which was corrected in post-production.

In terms of editing and audio, I think that our use of diegetic sound was effective in establishing realism in our work as a piece of non-fiction media. Implementing sound transitions was an effective way of creating flow throughout the piece, and having gradient dividers worked to create a consistent overall aesthetic. A change I would make during post-production would be some of the colour grading in our work, as some of the footage is a bit on the pinker side. I feel that this takes away from some of the realism of the work where a more subtle shift in the colour would have been suitable.

Through this assignment, I have built on my knowledge of nonfiction and noticing, especially in terms of using noticing as an experimental approach to making nonfiction. By noticing changes in the movement, weather and composition of natural and manmade spaces, it allows us to create a non-fiction artefact of media that acts as a ‘changescape’ and continues to notice. Additionally, the non-linear structure of our project work allows the viewer to interact with it in a unique manner, applying their experiences of these spaces to the work. I feel that Anna Tsing’s principle of noticing is especially relevant here, as reorienting our attention “to look around rather than ahead” (pg. 22) has helped me to refine my noticing so as to pay attention to discrete details in my surroundings. As I continue from here I would like to apply these principles of media-making to my future practice and continue to think about the affordances of experimental forms of non-fiction. One question I would like to wonder about for the future is: How can I use tools for noticing in unconventional ways in the work I produce?

After completing our final edit, we are focusing on preparing for the exhibition to be held in Week 13. This involves planning what will be required to set up, run and pack down the exhibition and visiting the physical exhibition space. Before the exhibition we will also need to prepare our poster, which will include a still from the project as well as the log-line guiding our assignment. The log-line we chose to reflect our assignment is:

A tool for noticing the relationships people have with their natural and manmade surroundings is lingering and observing different environments.

We have also decided on a final name for our assignment: build | grow. I feel that this best reflects our concept as it describes the interconnected nature of the natural and manmade in our world. While the words ‘build’ and ‘grow’ reflect the building of the industrial world and growing of the natural world, it also gives an insight into the establishment of human relationships and our impulse to build and grow ourselves. This was also inspired by the ideas explored in Screening Nature: Cinema beyond the Human by Pick and Narraway, as they argue that “treating non-human environments as mere backdrops or mise en scene […] divides up the frame between the human and non-human in ways that overlook their essential interdependence and reinforces the culture/nature dualism” (2013, pg. 7). We would like to highlight through this project that while humans tend to be focused on our progression as a society, we should also stop to think about the environments around us and the impact that we are having on natural spaces.

This week we are also thinking back on ideas from Treske’s Video Theory: Online Video Aesthetics or the Afterlife of Video. In it Treske discusses online video as an “essential element of expression” (p. 18, 2015) and that we are “constantly creating, modifying and tinkering with new atmospheres of being and togetherness” (p. 19, 2015). This idea is especially relevant to our assignment as by presenting our work on this platform, we intend to create an atmospheric experience which invites the viewer into our moments of noticing in these spaces.

As we are coming to edit our footage, I am keeping in mind the feedback we received in class about how we should edit so as to best respond to our prompt. It was suggested that we should go ahead with do the second collage/composition of posts, as this would further illustrate our use of lingering and observation in natural and manmade spaces. While editing we are also considering several factors such as colour grading, visual and aural transitions, and elements such as dividers to break up the content on the page. Using Premiere Pro software we have been experimenting with several colour schemes. The scheme we are currently implementing is a ‘faded film’ effect throughout the work, which gives the footage a film-like quality. I think that this complements our footage as it creates a consistent aesthetic and enhances the natural colours found in our environment.

To edit sound we will be using audio transitions to fade in and fade out the audio of the videos in each post. Due to the nature of Instagram loops, this aims to create a sense of flow and seamlessness throughout the project. One aspect we have to take into conderation is that each part of the composition lines up perfectly in the Instagram feed to achieve the ‘puzzle’ effect. To do this, we are using the software Griddy which allows us to precisely plan out where each piece of the image starts and ends.  In addition, there is a need to crop some parts of the video out to fit into Instagram’s square post format. Therefore, we must carefully consider what the most interesting aspects of each shot are before cropping the footage. As we want to present the work in a seamless manner we have decided to insert dividers before and after the collages. Having experimented with white and coloured block dividers, we have eventually decided on using colour gradients; this is an effective way of blending the images with the white of the app background, while reinforcing the interconnected nature of both spaces.