Month: March 2016

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The whole is greater than the sum of its parts. – Aristotle

Here are some of those parts.

If I hadn’t been able to do film at university, I would be studying fashion. Represented in this wasteland of dismembered mannequins is one of the world’s most creative and exciting industries. The presence of such a mannequin graveyard situated in this graffitied alleyway of dumpsters could almost constitute an installation in itself.

The image below was taken at a rally held in Melbourne’s CBD just a few days ago. It was incredible to witness so many people coming together so passionately to advocate feminism, LGBTQ+ rights, environmental action, racial equality, and rights to education and health. Social activism is deeply important to me; being an ally to those who need it, and an active contributor where possible. This picture shows the aftermath of the rally, wherein the messages remain, present and pressing.

 

There is an almost complete absence of wildlife in the city; something that is quite disconcerting to me. There is however, a constant barrage of traffic. The above audio clip was filmed in the city centre, and illustrates the general rumble that emanates from the city. I currently live facing a main road so this brilliant cacophony is incessant and inescapable.

A big believer that you are, at least in part, a product of where you reside, below I’ve included a picture of where I currently live; it’s an incredibly old building with high ceilings and windows that rattle like nothing else. I reside on the third floor, which, as illustrated by the photo, provides a fantastic view of the sky.

 

For my text, I chose to handwrite the beginnings to some of my favourite pieces of poetry. The decision to write these lines out by hand was deliberate, for you can often find someone’s complete personality wrapped up in their handwriting. Beyond the actual content of the text (which merely tells you what kind of material I enjoy reading), you can infer a lot about me simply by the way in which my pen falls.

This clip is simply going through the motions of making tea. As this is something I do multiple times a day, each an every day, I thought it would be interesting, in true Marina Abramovic fashion, to record just the audio of the practice, and listen back to distinguish each of the individual sounds that are created by this process.

 

I have great admiration for and interest in 1970’s punk culture, fashion and it’s importance as a socially defining period in history. Tartan was used as a focal item in some of pioneering punk designer Vivienne Westwood’s earliest creations, which are now characteristic of the time. This material will forever be linked to the 1970s as an artefact of punk history.

 

The above audio recording stands in sharp polarity with the previous cityscape clip. This was recorded in the heart of the Royal Botanical Gardens; one of the only places in Melbourne where traffic noise is not the dominant sound. Here it is the breeze and the leaves, the birds and the water. While the sounds of the city are at times entirely overwhelming to me, this soundscape is far closer to that which I am familiar.

Growing up in a small town surrounded by bushland and desert, nature was always present; kangaroos would lay about in your backyard, black-tailed goannas would live in your roof, and most nights you could hear the dingoes howling at sunset. Through its ubiquity, the natural environment grows to become a part of you in a place like that.

The city however, is a beautiful concrete wasteland; there is barely any wildlife (save for the people), and nothing but the most manicured greenery.

The image below was also taken from within the Royal Botanical Gardens, looking back towards the city. The green expanse is set in stark contrast with the packed high rises in the city, while the empty seats serve to reinforce this contrast. The photograph reflects the necessity to escape the greyness of the city for something that resembles the nature that pervades everything back home.

Communicating with people and sharing in their stories is one of the greatest privileges, and is a joy that I wish to pursue as a career. In the almost three weeks that I have been in Melbourne, I have met and interacted with so many intensely interesting people; from impassioned theatre interns, to fiercely independent eighty-year-old asian women, to famous production designers, to homeless men. Many of these interactions have occurred on trams. I shot these empty seats to show the incredible opportunities and promise that they hold, in discovering and understanding the people who may choose to sit there.

 

I have an enduring love for film in all its forms. It has become a defining part of who I am and the work I wish to pursue. Due to this, and in congruence with the short nature of the clips we were required to produce for this project, I saw it fitting to pay homage to the very first filmmakers, whose works were confined to just fifty seconds in length. This train clip is a modern mirror of the Lumière Brothers’ 1895 film Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat.

I hope to become a documentary filmmaker. Every day on my way to and from school, I pass this same group of skaters, who serve as a daily reminder of two films which have influenced me to an incredible extent; Larry Clark’s Kids (1995), and Gregg Araki’s Totally Fucked Up (1993). The films feature gritty depictions of teenage life; the latter featuring skating, and the former very much inspired and shaped by it. With uncompromising representations of issues such as sex, sexuality, HIV and AIDS, both Kids and Totally Fucked Up give cinematic nods to documentary storytelling. Despite being fictional, these films showed me a new way to approach documentary film in way that is both highly cinematic and brutally honest.

I shot this footage to seem incidental, reflecting the way I see the skaters each day, whilst also being reminiscent of documentary film style.

 

Moving to the city from Alice Springs has reshaped my world, giving me an entirely new, foreign terrain to explore.

The decision to shoot this footage upside down reflects this.

♢

This week’s lecture was about editing.

Jeremy Bowtell, the guest lecturer, used Scorsese’s 1995 film Casino as an example of the power of editing as it demonstrates the way in which editing alone may be used to tell a narrative.

I decided to showcase films which I believe have exemplary editing. Notably, the majority of those I came up with follow Edward Dmytryk’s advice to always ‘cut long rather than short,’ as many of these films are so impactful precisely because of their long shots and lack of cuts. Filming in this way often aids in building suspense and commanding audience attention, breaking with conventional filmic technique, as over the years films have evolved to include less and less time between shots.

1. The Tribe (2014)

   Due to the near silent nature of this film (with neither speech nor music), the Tribe is a clear example of the way in which editing is used to enhance a film’s story, and engage and influence the viewer. In silent films, editing becomes a crucial feature in narrative storytelling and ensuring that emotional connections are created between the film and it’s audience.

2. Birdman (2014)

   This film was shot in long continuous sequences, reflecting that of theatre scenes. The result is an atmosphere of suspense, leaving the viewer constantly on edge. A great example of the emotive value of editing.

3.  Oldboy (2003)
   
   This film, is a particularly good example of rhythm within film, created through editing. In the sample below, the scene begins and ends with more frequent close-ups and cuts between characters, however, breaking with conventional fight scenes, has one continuous shot throughout the entirety of altercation. Clearly demonstrated towards the end of the scene, the shots linger just long enough to make a lasting impression on the audience.

 

 

 

To distill the editing advice given:

Jeremy Bowtell (guest lecturer)

• shoot well. Do not rely on post-production.
• editing is juxtaposition: combining parts to create new meaning.
• in essence, film must be ‘tendentious selection and juxtaposition’ – Eisenstein (father of montage)
• editing is used to subtly steer the audience in a particular direction, whilst still allowing them to form their own arguments.

Edward Dmytryk (film noir director – Crossfire)

• never make a cut without a positive reason
• cut long rather than short – motivated rather than jarring
• keep content fresh, make it original
• substance 1st, form 2nd

Walter Murch (film editor & sound designer – Apocalypse Now)

• emotion: cut give audience correct emotive connection
• story: cut must advance and advantage the story
• rhythm: cut makes film rhythmically interesting
• spacial diegesis: encompassing eye-trance, 2-dimensional place and 3-dimensional space

❀

A little post on the ubiquity of media in all its forms.

The things that come to mind when we hear the word ‘media’:

Last class was all about reshaping the way we view media. To see it not as a ‘thing,’ but rather a ‘place’ that we inhabit, as media surround us, shaping our identities and our environment.

Media texts exist as sites where meaning is generated through the manipulation of materials and codes (semiotics). In our media saturated world, media texts exist as part of the reality they represent; they do not simply reflect the world, but play an active role in shaping it. Interaction with media and it’s artefacts is constant in the modern day, with the process of ‘inscription’- leaving written, or otherwise, traces of ourselves – being nearly inescapable. 

Media has become, in large part, about the representation of personal identity, whether that be representing yourself through images online, or on a broader scale, the collective cultural phenomenon that occurs when a national identity is created from these individual acts of self-expression.

The existence of an unremitting stream of media brings up an array of questions: is interacting with the world through media texts a valid way of experiencing it, or is direct contact a better way of communication? Is an authentic representation of the self created in mediated experiences? Is this even possible? Why is representing only certain parts of ones self online regarded as inauthentic? Who owns the majority of media? How can you retain ownership of something online? 

At the end of this week’s lecture, we were given a task to observe the many different forms that media can take within specific social spaces. Our group was sent out to document the Emporium shopping centre. Here, it became apparent just how much media is about communicating representation. Whether this takes the form of self expression via mobile phones, laptops, tablets, or the representation of brand values through advertising, or even the depiction of exits through neon lights. Media is first and foremost a method of communication. It is a tool used to spread messages, to connect. And it is everywhere.

Moreover, mediated communication is evolving constantly. Originating in the form of letters and posters, then moving to phones, radio, film and television, and now to the post-broadcast era of online social networks, websites and interactive digital media, the evolving nature of media is what makes it such an exciting field to be in, as new ways of artistic expression, communication, self representation and advertising are constantly being created. 

Below are just a few examples of the mediated communication we observed in the Emporium.

All the shops had their own music playing, but one song stood out…

♛

Last night I attended a talk from Deborah Riley, production designer on Game of Thrones. Hosted by the Academy of Information Technology, in collaboration with the Australian Production Design Guild, the talk went in depth about the production process; from scouting locations, travelling on 65 different flights between said locations, liaising with producers, set research, visual effects and budgeting. 

One of the largest takeaways from the night was the realisation that good production design is very much contingent upon problem solving and collaboration. Riley spoke a lot about having to work to create quite elaborate sets within relatively small budgets, as she says in the first recorded clip, a lot of the production’s budget goes towards post production (namely dragons), and despite an increase in the time (and therefore money) required for post-production as the series progresses, the show has the same budget for each season. Therefore, creative problem solving is an incredibly valuable skill, as it is the task of the production design team to make each set as realistic and detailed as possible, so that the special/visual effects and post production needed to complete a scene are minimal. This is an incredible feat. The images below depict an example of a set in which such creativity was necessary. Instead of creating a set from scratch, using moulds and heavy plaster, the design team gathered hundreds of real branches together, sanded them down, painted them, and hung them from the studio ceiling in order to create the chamber of the Three Eyed Raven. Through the addition of lighting, costume and set dressing, the featured scene ended up being incredibly dynamic, without the need for any special effects.

The collaboration necessary to engineer and create such elaborate and intricate sets is immense. Not only is it important to have a functioning group dynamic within your specific department, but it’s also vital to have built good rapport between departments; with the builders, directors, producers, editors and all other people working on the film, as it is through this that cohesive productions are created. This cohesiveness is a large aspect of what Riley sees as imperative to success within the film industry, as heard in the second clip I recorded below.

 

Following the talk, we went for drinks and pizza with others who were a part of the event, attendees, industry professionals and Riley herself. Here, I met Robert Perkins, who is the production designer on Miss Fisher’s Mysteries. I got talking with Rob, who told me all about how he came into the industry, and whereas Riley entered the industry in a very formal fashion, establishing a grounding in architecture, then moving to degree in stage design at NIDA, Perkins began his career in the media industry at an incredibly young age, working as a newspaper artist. Drawing inspiration from his father, a highly talented artist who was unable to fully pursue his talent, Perkins took every opportunity he could get to forge his way in the arts. While working as a newspaper artist, a position opened at the ABC, creating graphics for television. Perkins was the first to put up his hand, and after securing this position, went on to become Art Director all before the age of 21. He has since established a longstanding career within the film and art industries respectively.

Another insight I gained from speaking with Rob, was that the film industry is far more interconnected than I’d ever thought. He spoke of the way in which production designers will often call upon one another to make use of sets created for other productions, or to aid in location scouting.

When locations are unreasonable, unavailable or fictitious, visual effects are often brought in to fill in the gaps. When asked about the impact the advent and progression of visual effects and post production as a field has had on his role as production designer, Perkins said that while people often expect it to limit his role, in actuality, it makes his job ‘expansive.’ An example of this can be seen when shooting in historical locations that aren’t able to be altered, or, in the case of Miss Fisher’s Mysteries, which is set in the 1920s, when post production enables things such as modern power fixtures to be removed, without the need for structural changes from the production team. Perkins said that tasks like this make up a large part of the post-production team’s job; however, they are also incredibly valuable when sets need to be entirely fabricated. An example of this can be seen in the Turkish Bath Palace from Season 1, Episode 1. After the production team was unable to find a suitable place to film, the set was created on a very small scale in the studio. After assembling the bare bones of the structure; the walls and pillars, it was the post-production team’s task to add the water to the pool, as well as the steam rising from it. This, combined with the shooting angles and lighting, enabled the bathhouse to seem entirely realistic, and far larger than it was in actuality. Perkins even said that many people ask him where the Turkish bathhouse in Melbourne is; testament to the fantastic job that post-production did, and the valuable role that the department plays in collaborating with the production design team.

Overall, the night was an important and influential night for me, as not only did it grant me an opportunity to speak in length with industry professionals, providing me with unique insight into the industry and the many different roles, opportunities and career paths within it, but it reinforced precisely why I am pursuing a career in the film industry. I cannot wait to be an active part of it.