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As an aspiring documentary filmmaker, many of my opinions and beliefs, and therefore much of my personhood, is constructed through learning about the experiences of others. Consequently, I decided that a documentary-style film would be a fitting, if somewhat abstract, way to create a self portrait. The questions that I asked my subjects all related to their experiences in moving to Melbourne’s city, as I have also done. Interestingly, despite coming from vastly different backgrounds, many of their answers reflected my own encounters, as well as each other’s.

As perhaps the film’s most prominent feature, the choice of sound was deliberate. Without utilizing generic traffic recordings, the audio in the film intends to mimic the pace of the city soundscape. This allowed the focus to be kept on the people, as visual reinforcements of the city were rendered unnecessary.

Due to the intensity of the audio, it was important to keep the film’s visuals minimalistic; to balance out the sound. In addition to this, I graded the film with a soft, light colour, to both reflect and reinforce its relatively intimate nature. The film’s shots have been taken quite close to the subjects to further reflect this.

The abstracted framing, used to show only small aspects of the subjects’ features, was used in order to allow their experiences to be related to universal experiences, instead of being tied to one identified person. Their names were withheld until the film’s end for this reason also.

As someone who has had virtually no experience in sound design, I am pleased with the way in which the audio works to achieve its intended purpose, and furthermore, how the film’s different layers come together to tell a complete story between people (even if it takes multiple listens to fully comprehend). Although I made minor tweaks to the audio levels in order to better harmonise the separate tracks and create smoother transitions, I would like to experiment further with audio editing in future to create something with a more cohesive, professional treatment. It may also be wise to look into finding more creative ways of using text within film. Further, I could perhaps have included footage of my environment in the assignment, as I believe this is instrumental in constructing identity (as spoken about here).