That’s a Wrap!

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Well, at the time of writing, not yet, but the title will mean something soon I’d say!

Admittedly, I took my time to embrace this studio truly, but once I did I found it so profound to have grouped the extent of what we’ve been learning to this one final project.

First and foremost, I believe strongly that this studio has improved my overall ability to be a media practitioner, or at least my propensity to become one in future. I’m quite sad that after this I only have one final studio with which I have the capacity to employ in my degree the practical things that I have learnt in this studio. Paul has been great at really pushing the Small Things agenda forward, in the extent to which we learnt about lighting, sound on top of the camera work. At some points I don’t think I really knew what was going on though, I’m not sure if that is something that is on me, or whether this was how it was.

It was interesting, when this final part of the studio began to take place my other group members and I quickly, somehow dropped quite a distance behind our peers in terms of preparation which meant that as a group, we had to really step up and get prepared. I tried to get a part of a script concept sorted, which become a part of the script that we used, and it drives a decent amount of the films angst. Further we ended up filming at Darebin Parklands’ a filming location I was excited we were able to film at, though I was hoping we would roam the around the gardens more when it came to the shoot but it didn’t occur.

A few hiccups occurred during our shoot, and perhaps the most major one with the largest lesson to be ascertained was the fact that after all that time, when we shot on day 1 with the school camera, we didn’t actually film with the right sound. This meant that the exercise where we synced sound was completely moot, but I improvised okay, by just being patient with the slates and the clicks in the sound. More or less though it was quite alright, and I think I was pretty pleased.

The first cut

At some stage I got quite excited to start doing my first cut, and I tried to keep faithful, initially to the script that we had, as it stood, initially. But it felt a little bit stunted, a criticism I thought existed when it was first written because I wasn’t convinced it was something that was actually abstract but rather something that abstraction was attempted to be supplanted onto, that I cut two scenes that were originally in the script. I feel this was a good choice stylistically, though it was a shame to remove the work that I had done in the other scenes in the cut so far, but I guess it is beneficial to have made the decision, seen it, felt it right, than to hold onto scenes and footage that needed to be cut.

The smoking scene—

I ended up directing large portions of the night car scene, in which Julian was to be smoking, trying to make it an organic use of smoking in a car, to create tension and distance. Something that I think was benefited from being able to direct without the need of finding sound, though I think in the end, I struggled to find the time to generate the wild sounds I needed to have the sound of Julian smoking, and that is a regret of mine but I don’t think it is extremely detrimental as a whole. But yes, it was nice to be able to instruct Julian to do the things in the shot I felt he needed to do to create the scene that we wanted to in the script.

In terms of the sound mix and colour grade, I had quite a bit of a noodle around in general. With the sound, even the cornerstone track, of a song by the band Good Morning, I juggled around with my initial suggestion, give me something to do, then moved to Cab Deg, then Cosmic Sass as it was instrumental. I liked the facet of having a song play in the background during the talking scene so I made it an instrumental good morning song, cutting out when Julian says “we have to go back”… however when Paul shot this down I reverted back to my initial song choice of Cab Deg, which I felt worked pretty well. I tried really hard to level out the sound of the talking voices, which is something I think I might’ve been best equipped to do having spent all the time recording Gloria and Julian’s voices and knowing and which points Gloria was talking too low for instance, and I am pretty happy with the sound mix in this respect as I think it is pretty levelled out, though perhaps maybe on the day it is too loud in the cinema comparatively? I hope not.

The colour grade was applied onto the day scene to accomodate to all the shots and all the lighting differences that they had throughout the day shoot. I think that what resulted it is pretty good, a calm colour grade aimed at just highlighting the green of the green a bit more, a mood shift to tie in with the situation. I think all in all, the studio really clicked for me in the end, such that I felt like I knew what I had to do when it came to it, as opposed to other circumstances in other studios where I really felt like way more of a passenger. Here, I felt like I’d taken off the training wheels and could ride moderately well.

I think the collaborative aspect of the final project, as a whole, went down pretty well. However, I did have some thoughts about some parts, the first being that the facet (that Paul had raised) about having two co-directors being something that could not be issue-free. I think I had thought it was interesting that this had eventuated initially, and didn’t necessarily have too, but boiled down to circumstance, though when I did start to notice it being a thing, it wasn’t too alarming. The issue was present insofar as simply that we didn’t need two people to make a decision that one person could be decisive about… this led to a shoot that was much longer than I think it needed to be. Not that I’m in the clear here, as I tried, at times to make an input that I probably shouldn’t have been making as someone that wasn’t either of these co-directors, however I may put that onto mild frustrations I had felt at the time. However other than that, I felt the direction was pretty great. The most confusing part lay in trying to deal with the weather conditions, meaning that there was a circumstance of an attempted cheating the screen that was a little confusing, having the talent move around in respect to where we needed the sun to be, and to look.

 

 

 

colour grading attempt

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Colour grading is really something I always hear about and it’s something I really need to get a handle of, but I enjoyed this exercise and trying to understand more how to do it, but what I’ve started on so far is trying to work on this shot, and play with the shadows and highlights to instigate the brightness in a manner that is suitable.

 

I worked with the saturation here, ended up creating something that is more or less quite greyscale

 

The Pursuit of Happyness – Scene Deconstruction

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I haven’t watched this film since it first came out, but I remember being firm of the belief that Will Smith deserved the Oscar, well and truly for this role. He’s just bought his son a basketball with a little money he has, and the shot construction is very vast. The first thing I can really see is the flags you can see, to accompany this scene in which Will Smith sets out to inspire his son and encourage him to reach for his dreams.

There’s plenty of shots in this scene, of both Jaden, Will, and as it is a scene where they are engaging in a sports activity of sorts, it is understandable that the shots would need to be quite consistently panning in the close up shots.

The aspect of the sound of being 100% diegetic for the entirety of the time they are playing basketball, pushes its organic nature and really encourages you to embrace what the moment is. The mise-en-scene in the long shot of the performance featuring an American flag is pretty pivotal here, because it is a scene about, dreams, and the American dream.

So I guess further, it’s interesting here how this movie communicates the message of the American dream; and it is owed in large part due to both actor’s performances. There is an uplifting cinematic score to complement Will’s monologue, telling his son to shoot for his dreams, with a slow zoom-in from a medium shot, to really encourage one to shoot for the stars.

I think this is quite a simple scene, I was hoping to thoroughly breakdown as I thought it would be good to deconstruction a scene I was more or less fairly neutral about with a film I had in my youth enjoyed. The panning and framing throughout keep Jaden and Will at an imaginary eye level at points, which I guess when you think about it is something, regardless of height is usually instigated as it wouldn’t be fluid for it to not be that case.

Then the eyelevel shots are replaced by the inspirational style of Will looking down on Jaden with the slow zoom in’s, which maybe elicits the strength of the moment? Perhaps..

 

working on it

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For this week’s videos, we were invited to look into a few ideas when it came to shots – to consider that a few shots could exist within one shot, and I think I spent the time we had trying to work out how to conceptualise this thought more or less, and in turn was pushing improvisation a little more.

What came out are two long shot scenes that cut back and forth and end up trying to capture a few shots as people interract with the frame.

 

Upon reflection, I would say that what I’ve learnt in these little thought provoking exercise for my creative process was quite worthwhile. There is always so much to be learnt in general but I think that what I got from these videos, combined with Paul’s suggestion to consider that short clip with multiple shots in one shot.

I had this idea of the two people walking to one area panning, which is a shot I think works, but perhaps needs to be redone with a speedier pan to be completely effective, but at this stage I think that it is a nice idea to consider. Further, I toyed with the long shot we shot of a phantom car, and found it interesting to consider the two manners in which it could exist, cut mid way and into the long shot. With that I started to think about Victoria, the film that was all shot in one take, and how it functioned more effectively as a film that was in one take even though there was a cut version, I’d say here, it isn’t as necessary clearly, but it is interesting that an affect in that respect can occur.

Syncing Sound

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I was in a major rush when I came to trying to complete an edit of the two-line script and also syncing sound, and as such, my initial offering was a very poor attempt but also seeking out to try see how the scene looked; a quick cut with a backing track, to kind of improvise and try to see how the music sounds on the video footage that I have offered. I think what I’ve attained from this is that it can look… alright, if you give yourself little time.

As such I thought I’d try to sync sound instead using the footage of another group. There is something truly so lazy about not sparing the time to learn how to sync sound, which says something about.. me I guess.

It was perhaps embarrassingly simple to realise how to sync sound. It was especially eye opening to realise what mark it was for, and what Paul meant by, say mark it so you can see it, literally enabling you to see it later, something cool to have finally had a lightbulb moment about. I made a quicker cut version of this initial Lenny video, as the thing I was happy about was the improvised used of the shoes as blood, it really appealed to me. I think in the final weeks of this semester I would love to make a hail mary attempt to really consolidate my editing skills and make sure I’m reasonably up to scratch with all of the NOTAPOWFENGERE.

The only unfortunate thing about the first shot is I don’t think it leads to a very fluid cut into the bloody feet/shoes

 

 

Idea Development Part 2

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I think back now to a karaoke video that I edited after starting off my year ending up at a lake in the Gunma/Saitama prefecture, filming ducks and swans and feeling that the ambiance of the shots was in line with a “karaoke video” so I made one using the footage. But this is an idea that maybe had more than zero thought, with more than zero preplanning or consideration really.

But also I started thinking about Andrew Thomas Huang’s work, beginning from this FKA Twigs video that just got released called Cellophane, which seems like  afairly big budget extravagant execution of a idea that maybe has a foundational grounding on something that is relatively simple. FKA Twigs engages in a poledancing routine as the lyricism and overall feeling of the choreography concerns perhaps a failed relationship, then in the video, FKA Twigs is just perpetually falling. I started trying to look into Andrew Thomas Huangs other work and came across some ridiculous stuff

This film that is soon to come out and his other work seems to highlight such bright colours with, like darkness and it highlights it so much more? As a group we’re going to try to build on scenes that are of a particular style too. They are of a “hip hop’ style, but the structure of the idea involves a car scene, and a flash back desire. In my head I picture this as something that is inherently existential… I wonder what the others think

Idea Development Part 1

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I keep on gathering ideas and thoughts of what I like to see when I’m watching a film or a piece of media I guess, but I’ve been thinking the most lately about marvels in music video, whether it be homage, or just absolutely spectacular…

Some work I think I’ve really enjoyed is my friend Eva Lazzaro’s recent video work (I feature once), but it is by-and-large a fine tuned effective application of a simple idea. These small simple ideas I feel hold all the gold at the end of the rainbow. In this Skydeck video it is quite silly but the lyrics we were instructed to read were just the incorrect ones, meaning that everyone is just a little bit off, then we have a Good Morning video that is just an homage to the Arctic Monkeys Cornerstone video

I think that basically something I’d like to be thinking about more is how I like to drench myself in simple ideas, these are both videos that involve not getting bogged down in the thick of it all – though I guess the boundary that lies here is difficult as the small things stuff is confined in a bigger context of film, and not shorter sequences? That said I’m still trying to make it a bit more simple though.

i’m tired, what do i do

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Being tasked to write a blogpost for a scene concept admittedly has at this point in time left me a little lost. I should have considered it earlier but I was on radio last night from 2am to 6am and am now making a concerted attempted to meet this deadline although I am at work with quite little energy in the tank.

As I’m writing this though, I’ve started to think about a scene concept that confronts or concerns the state of mind that I’m in. The other day I watched this film called High Life with rRobert Pattinson and in the opening scene RP is comforting a baby, and the sound design really communicates like a reaction similar to an ASMR reaction, and other things to note aboout this film is that the entire set design is a full scale version of “cheating it” in the way we do in this studio, as the setting of the film is a spaceship, and of course Claire Denis didn’t have one, but rather created a spaceship through different filming locations

That latter point was mostly an aside though, the former point in regards to the use of relaxing ASMR in sound design to further communicate scenes that induce or facilitate tiredness is something I have been thinking about now. That is, shots or scenes that facilitate tiredness, trying to work out what can cause this and what facets are worth considering to facilitate this. Instantly I can think of a few points

  • slow temporality
  • ambient/amsr sound design
  • the tone of voice of actors, very considered, calm, collected
  • colour grading, maybe more dimly lit?

Another show that really does induce a similar situation is the Netflix television show Samurai Gourmet, as it very much induces or breeds into ones tiredness.
When I think about what it is about these shows that is causing this I think there is sound that is extremely ambient, and in Samurai Gourmet there is a distinctly relaxing tone of voice that is so soothing, and in High Life and Samurai Gourmet the shots are very static and seamless and relaxing

What I think when I mean a scene design that is very cnducive to a tired mood, and in order for this to be the case pretty much everything has to be relaxed a bit more. Action films are not what i’m thinking about; obviously.

My initiative this time

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A rather uncreative title for this blog post aside, I’ve had a few moments of reflection in the past few weeks when it comes to filming and this course and all of that. Firstly, I think I’d like to discuss accidents and like accidents in filming or like, unintended moments in filming. Last night, I went to the Ocean Party show at Howler, a band that have a very special place in my heart and following the passing of a dear friend of mine who was in the band, they are doing a final series of farewell shows as they move on from the band into other ventures, so as to respect Zac’s legacy

And some moments happened during the show which I felt obliged to film, which are featured in this embedded instagram post, the second one, of my friend Stef glimmering in this neon yellow light that is just so wonderful, singing along to a song, and it looks great merely because she’s standing in the right place at the right time and I’m standing in the right place at the right time to be filming it. I guess this isn’t as unintended insofar as it is a happenstance coincidence, but it was a nice moment to capture. But then when the Ocean Party started playing, their song Head Down has a very wonderful saxophone outro and I knew I had to film Liam as he started to play it, but then my iPhone Camera completely, unintentionally and through no fault of my own decided to get out of focus completely as he begins to start playing the sax, and it looks quite good. I feel like unintended moments like these really suit what Small Things can lead towards, in that we all could start to, as we capture more footage and begin to shoot these mini-projects laden with constraints, more unintended moments could pop up, and I reckon they’re nice ways to shoot beyond this static, optimal resolution optimal quality, static content that is starting to pop up more and more.

It might be something I try to explore as well when I go to more of these shows next weekend, as each show I’ve been to has been equal parts beautiful, sad, enjoyable, a wholly emotional experience.

Secondly, I’ve been thinking about Christian Marclay’s The Clock and something my friend mentioned the other day as the perfect embodiments of the application of constraints in film. My friend mentioned that they’d be compiling a list of movies that they’d watched that featured scenes of people brushing their teeth as these films were intimate in their nature as you only brush your teeth in front of people you loved, and I think both of these filmic constraints, at least in the edit suites are really interesting premises to consider. It is truly unbelievable and imcomprehensible that someone was about to create a 24hr film that is a watch, using shots/scenes from movies in the past and I think there really is a place for these filmic constraints to be explored. I think for me, if it was to try to scour films for something I might bring myself back to my commerce degree roots in the marketing sector and I would want to find all the Coca Cola featuring scenes in films. Might take me the rest of my life though, but it’s about the taste.