Consciousness to me, is the quality of Reactive existence.

It is the ability to notice the things around you  with little to no heed.

… the vigilance of artist Richard Mosse when he carried an infrared camera into the wilderness of war torn Congo.

 

When we beginning this semester, my aims were quite general allowing myself to apply them to nearly every filmmaking environment. Through our consistent course work however, it has become more apparent to me that what I desire is not as general as once perceived, what I desire is a sense of filmmaking consciousness.

This idea derived from Paul’s idea of shooting-to-edit and the awareness that is brought when implementing such notion.

An overall consciousness I think will come from development of the following elements:

Consciousness of myself, of others and of process

Finally, I arrive at the practise itself, how do I wish to achieve such during the remaining duration of this semester. I think that my goals can be applied to a range of situations and practices.

My proposition is therefore to create a series of short sequences exploring the character of a family friend of mine Ko.

Ko is a friend of my dads and I have known him since I was a little kid, I’ve used him as an actor before in my year 12 media short film. Ko even used to do some acting when he was younger so I know from this that he has a good presence on camera and will being able to translate himself across to an audience well.  Ko is interesting for numerous reasons and I think that there is a lot to work with in exploring his character. I wish to capture him in series of short abstract sequences that each give a small piece of his much larger and complicated story.

Ko is actually my boss at my part time job at a furniture store up in Clifton hill. He has been working there for ages and has a good repour with customers and products. I think that this workplace in particular though, is remarkably odd. It’s a big old three-story warehouse, and Ko’s desk sits in the basement that sees its only natural light obscured by lower legs of pedestrians on the street as they walk by. The basement is where the bathroom displays are kept, and it is occupied with tiles on the walls and floors and dull colours. Bathrooms don’t usually reflect the most vibrant of colours, but they do see ranges of artificial lights bouncing off the porcelain sinks and tubs and mirrors. Ko stands out in this environment and I think it would be interesting to explore him as highlight in this location through a number of different shots. We could observe him at his desk, at the workshop repair things etc.

Ko is also a reflection of his past. He was a refugee from Burma who fled during the 1988 people power uprisings. He was part of a group of protestors who stood up against the ruling military regime over a period of six months, which at the end saw the deaths of thousands Burmese people. This is the period in which human rights activist Aung San Suu Kyi became known.

Ko has these really small Burmese tribal tattoos on his upper arm that he got when he was about 12 or 13. You can only see them if you look really closely and to the unaware eye, much to the like of his past refugee status, they remain hidden.

I want to create a series of abstract documentary type sequences that capture Ko beyond these tattoos, beyond the obvious exploration of his past. In doing so I wish to further my consciousness of process in how I record Ko’s story as I think multiple sequences will allow me to shoot a varied range of shot types some dramatic, some static. I think that variety is key to my development and research by practise will allow me to investigate lots of different aspects of filmmaking.

This exploration will allow me to further reflect on this idea of consciousness that I am trying to grasp, as Ko as an identity himself represents some kind of source of it, his story, his life and his faded tattoos.