The Galaxy: a haiku

In this week’s workshop we filmed some static footage around Melbourne for an editing exercise, pairing the footage with a haiku poem. Above is my attempt, titled The Galaxy.

Compiling this footage into a short film was surprisingly fun. I wanted to try to build some sort of narrative from the naturally narrative-free bits and pieces in the collection, if possible, and I think I managed to do that by piecing together the clips in such a way that implies someone travelling to the State Library. It’s not particularly complex, but to be able to build even a simple narrative out of a random collection of static clips shows the power of editing.

A lovely thing to see:
through the paper window’s hole,
the Galaxy.

I chose this haiku because it’s evocative of the sheer size of the galaxy and how, by simply looking up at the night sky, we can see objects that are an incomprehensibly long distance away. We can actually see further than we could ever hope to travel in our lifetimes (or anyone’s lifetime, really). In my film I tried to draw a parallel between the subject of the haiku and the feeling I get when I’m in a library: that there are so many stories and worlds and characters contained within all the books in a library (paper windows) that I could never even get close to reading them all.

Media 1, Readings

Learning by doing

If you had to teach someone to play guitar, would you just hand them a book on the history of guitar music and say “off you go”, without letting them ever actually touch an instrument?

It seems obvious and self-evident that if you’re attempting to teach someone a practical skill (such as media production) that you would teach them by doing, by actually using that practical skill, rather than by relying solely on theory and history. This is the main idea in this week’s reading, a pair of blog posts and a video by academic David Gauntlett.

Gauntlett argues that the traditional backwards-looking mode of studying media – characterised by study of institutions, productions, audiences, and texts – is, today, essentially useless and not at all reflective of the current media landscape. There are two “peaks” of activity that Gauntlett describes as coming along with the rise of DIY, lo-fi media production, one positive and one negative:

Optimistic – people empowered through technology to make media, for marginalised voices to be heard, democratisation of media production and consumption, etc.
Pessimistic – exploitation and capitalism, Big Data, government and private surveillance, etc.

But the part of Gauntlett’s posts that most resonated with me is that media studies is a field particularly suited to learning by doing. Theory and history are valuable, but what’s really going to get you somewhere is to just start making things. This ties into our readings from a previous week about the passion trap, and how important dedicated practise is, which I discuss more in the blog post Passion.

It also ties into the ideas of the filmmakers Quentin Tarantino and Paul Thomas Anderson, neither of whom ever went to a formal film school to learn their craft but who are now universally regarded as masters of their form. Though they each clearly had an encyclopaedic knowledge of the foundations of cinema to begin with (gained through years of watching thousands and thousands of films), in interviews they both say that what really helped get their careers as filmmakers off the ground was to simply start making films.

As the directors of two of the all-time greatest debut feature films in American cinema history (Reservoir Dogs and Hard Eight, respectively), and possessors of immense natural talent, they are surely exceptional examples of this theory and therefore may not necessarily be representative. I definitely wouldn’t assume that their success is easily replicable. But their success also proves that what makes someone a good maker is not necessarily theoretical knowledge.

Cinema Studies

Film form, Holy Motors and The Wizard of Oz

The following is a blog post written for my Introduction to Cinema Studies class, re-published here so all my work is in one place.

Holy Motors is an ideal film to analyse in terms of film form, because its unconventional structure and seemingly disconnected narrative allow us to concentrate on the details of form and structure rather than the story.

Each of the elements of film form as described in the text — pattern, expectation and anticipation, convention (and subversion of convention), similarity and repetition, difference and variation, development, unity and disunity — are dealt with in an interesting and unique way in Holy Motors.

The film uses repetition on a basic, structural level — M. Oscar, the main character, travels from appointment to appointment in a limousine, reinventing himself into a new persona using make-up and prosthetics each time. This repetitive structure forms a basis for understanding the film as a coherent whole even though each individual persona is odd and unexpected.

The first time Oscar adopts another persona, transforming from a middle-aged business man into an elderly woman, it confounds our expectations because, generally, in cinema actors play single character that remains stable through an entire film.

Expectation is an element of film form that Holy Motors exploits to great effect — and, in particular, subverting expectations in ways that are surprising and compelling. We expect that when someone is shot or stabbed in a film that they have died, and won’t be present for the rest of the film, but Oscar is stabbed and shot on several occasions, each time getting up and moving on to his next appointment.

It is then shocking when Kylie Minogue’s character Eva Grace commits suicide by jumping off a building, because by this point in the film we have been conditioned to expect that actors (like Oscar) “die” multiple times a day without ill effect. The film exploits our expectation (which has already been modified once before) to create meaning.

Difference/variation is one of the main techniques used in Holy Motors to dictate experience, even in small ways. The comparison of Oscar’s bright green suit and dirty, unkempt appearance with the sleek earthy tones of the model is striking. Slow, sensual camera movement during the motion capture sequence serves that scene well, but a later scene involving a shooting is shot in a busy, hyper-kinetic style.

I interpreted the film to be a celebration of the cinematic form and its essentially endless possibilities, and the film itself is a wonderful expression of its own meaning.

The Wizard of Oz puts comparatively more emphasis on narrative structure and development than Holy Motors, and comparatively less emphasis on cheating expectations, but each film uses form in a multitude of ways to elicit meaning. Some of these formal elements are shared by both films — for example, the use of clearly defined vignettes to break up the central “journey”, or the use of contrasting colours to place characters in opposition to one another in a scene.

My favourite example of the similarities between The Wizard of Oz and Holy Motors was in the latter film’s “interval”, which is structured like a miniature Wizard of Oz. The main character (Oscar/Dorothy) starts off on a journey alone, but is gradually joined by other supporting characters who travel with the main character and form a band. With the addition of each member the party gets bigger and louder, and the motif is strengthened before the main character ends up where they began to continue their life alone, though having shared an experience with their band.

The number and depth of such formal experimentations in Holy Motors makes it an excellent example of the importance of film form.

Lectorials, Media 1, Readings

Michael’s extreme closure

Part of the reading this week, the comic Blood in the Gutter by Scott McCloud, explains that people are very good at filling in the blanks when given partial or incomplete information. For example, if in one image we see a woman riding a bicycle, and then in the next image the bicycle is upturned and the woman is lying on the ground, we can infer that between the two images the woman fell off the bicycle, even if we don’t actually see this part of the scene occurring. This is called closure.

Closure is a really intriguing phenomenon, and when reading McCloud’s piece I was reminded of an incredible example I discovered at the Melbourne International Film Festival a few years ago.

The film is called Michael, it’s a relatively obscure Austrian film from 2011 that follows an insurance salesman as he quietly and unassumingly goes about his mundane daily existence. It’s all very boring, but for the fact that he has a 10-year-old boy, Wolfgang, locked in his basement. The relationship between Michael and Wolfgang, on screen at least, is basically parental: they have breakfast together in the morning, Michael goes to work (having locked Wolfgang away), they play musical instruments together at night, watch television, etc.

The film never actually portrays Michael abusing Wolfgang in any way, but that is clearly the subtext of what’s going on. Amazingly, this aspect of the story happens entirely in the mind of the audience. The viewer has to realise and understand what’s happening off screen, and how awful it is, using closure. And because of this, in many ways Michael is a far more disturbing film than if it had shown the abuse on screen.

This is an extreme example, obviously, but it’s interesting how editing can force a viewer to imagine things in their own mind against their will.

Lectorials, Media 1

The edit

Editing is one of those things where, if it’s doing its job right, you won’t even notice it at all.

Jeremy Bowtell, our guest lecturer this week, explained that editing is a process of manipulating an audience in a desired direction. That is, an artist or author must have a particular outcome in mind when editing their work, and the edit must in some way work towards that outcome. But if an audience feels manipulated, or a work is attempting to achieve a certain result too conspicuously, it can backfire and have the opposite effect (or, perhaps worse, no effect at all). An editor has to walk a fine line.

Walter Murch had what he termed the “rule of six”, a list of priorities that should be considered before any edit is made:

Emotion – does the cut reflect what the editor believes the audience should be feeling?
Story – does the cut advance the story?
Rhythm – does the cut occur at a moment that is rhythmically interesting or “right”?
Eye trace
Two-dimensional space
Three-dimensional space

The idea is that higher points are more important to the result than lower ones, and in the event of a conflict an editor should choose to make an edit that favours emotion over the story, for example. (The lecture only discussed the first three points.)

We were shown a small scene from Martin Scorsese’s Casino (edited by Thelma Schoonmaker), in which editing is used in service of emotion, story and rhythm.

Bowtell mentioned that the editing in this scene, which is mostly wordless, works to demonstrate the genesis of a love story between Robert De Niro’s character and Sharon Stone’s character. As we cut between shots of the two actors, slowly zooming in on De Niro’s eyes as he’s transfixed by her every move, and her gaze fixes back on him and she walks off the gaming floor, the film allows us to feel the chemistry between these two characters without them ever speaking to one another. (This is an example of closure, where the audience “fills in” something implied but not explicitly stated or shown in a work.)

But having seen Casino many times, watching this scene closely afforded me a new way of reading it. Later in the film De Niro starts to act abusively towards Stone, as if he owns her – he disapproves of her independence and free spirit, he’s jealous of her relationship with James Woods’ character, etc. – and this fundamental power imbalance is evident right from the very beginning (the editing services the emotion of the scene).

De Niro watching her over the security camera now feels like he’s looking down on her as a God-like figure, able to take whatever he likes and make it his own. And when he makes his way down to the gaming floor and the shot alternates between close-ups of the two actors, I noticed that as Stone walks out of the room it doesn’t cut back to De Niro. The rhythm of the editing changes, and the audience is placed in De Niro’s point of view as he watches her with lust and desire, without breaking his gaze. Like a predator stalking prey.

So what first looks like the genesis of a love story is actually something much different and more sinister – and this subtle difference is communicated entirely through editing.

This scene is a wonderful example of the power of editing to shift an audience’s response in a particular direction, and I look forward to re-watching other Scorsese/Schoonmaker collaborations for more now that I’ve learned a little about the mechanics behind editing.

Media 1, Workshops

Thinking caps on

The “six thinking hats” feedback system, developed in the 1980s by psychologist Edward de Bono as an extension of his ideas on parallel thinking, is a way of giving structured feedback in one of six “personas”. By playing one of the six roles, and being forced to provide feedback of a certain type against one’s natural instincts, the feedback process should, theoretically at least, be much more productive and less adversarial.

Today’s workshop saw us present our creative self-portrait elements to each other in small groups, with other members of the group each assuming one of four hats:

Yellow – optimistic, positive, something that works well
Red – immediate gut reaction, emotion
Black – something that doesn’t work
Green – alternatives, new ideas

I’m not particularly happy with what I put together for my creative self-portrait, so presenting it to a group and having to talk about or justify my pieces of media was daunting. But, thanks in part to the hat system – which ensures you receive positive comments as well as negative ones – it ended up being an enjoyable exercise.

One finding that I’ll take away from the process is that too many of the pieces I chose actually say the same things about me, and I could instead have used those pieces as an opportunity to explore other facets of my personality.

As the yellow hat, responsible for giving positive or optimistic feedback, I was able to let my group-mates know how much their self-portraits impressed me (which is true – they were all great). Doling out good vibes is a fun thing to do.

I really valued this exercise as one of the things I want to achieve in this program is to learn to give and receive better feedback. Structured feedback like the six thinking hats offers an abstracted way to provide honest, constructive feedback while separating the feedback system from the creative process.

Assessments, Media 1

Project 1: Creative self-portrait

I am a product of my environment. I’ve lived in Melbourne all my life, and apart from the odd weekend here and there have spent almost every day of my life within it. It’s hard to quantify just how much being born into a middle class, white male existence in a developed country has dictated my life, but everything I do I do as a Melburnian.

This is me riding my scooter through Flinders Street at night. This video subtly says a lot about who I am, from my choice of location (see above), to the fact that I’m riding a scooter at all (which I do for environmental reasons).

The crowd at the Sydney Road festival was so immense that I was inspired to take a timelapse video walking through it from my point of view. I can’t say that I love people, generally, but I do love crowds and community events like music festivals and street fairs.

This is me and my friend Simon discussing the movie Space Jam for our podcast, which is themed around nostalgia and cinema. Analysing, discussing and dissecting media, particular cinema and music, is one of my most passionate interests, and I’m fascinated by the idea of nostalgia as a mediator of experience.

The sound of hundreds or thousands of people all making the same noise at once is incredibly powerful. There’s no sound on Earth quite like the roar of the crowd after the national anthem at the ANZAC Day AFL match – but in lieu of that, which won’t happen for another few weeks, I instead took a snippet of audio from a recent concert I went to.

My small courtyard and garden is a particular source of joy – I love to be able to sit with friends and chat about life, the universe and everything. Just over the fence is Glenferrie Road, home to many of my favourite cafés, shops and restaurants.

I love life’s contrasts and contradictions, like when two unlikely worlds collide. This is a beautiful old church on Sydney Road, relic of centuries past, hosting an anti-establishment feminist punk band. I’m made up of so many contradictions that it’s sometimes hard to keep track.

This photo of a sculpture is supposed to indicate that I’m a creative person – of course, I realise now that it’s the most literal representation of creativity one could imagine. (There’s another contradiction for you!)

A clean, blank page is both my favourite thing in the world and a scarily unsettling image. I consider my writing to be one of my personal strengths, but the process of starting a piece continues to be, and will forever remain, incredibly daunting.

I’m still growing. It took me a lot longer than it should take someone to figure out who I am and what I want to be doing with my life, and it continues to shift from year to year and from day to day. Continual self improvement is something I hope to strive for for many years to come.

As much as I hate to admit it, a large part of me is defined by the media I consume. This bookshelf (which I built myself) houses part of my book collection, and I believe you can tell a lot about a person by the contents of their shelves.

Ironically, for someone who considers their writing to be a strength, I really struggled to come up with a succinct description of myself in 50 words. I decided to contrast the ways that I’ve been described by others (descriptions that naturally I believe are unfair and untrue, but those people hold to be the truth), with how I see myself and what’s important to me.

Media 1, Readings

Focus and attention

The second reading for this week, Hyper and Deep Attention: The Generational Divide in Cognitive Modes by N. Katherine Hayles, explores the difference between two modes of focus and makes the argument that current and future students will default to hyper attention mode, in which they take in multiple sources of information and favour stimulation over deeply focussing on a single object (which is how students of previous generations operated).

Despite generally living in a mode of hyper attention – I often listen to music and a podcast at the same time, for example – when I’m sitting down to achieve a particular task, such as writing something or reading a long-form article, I find that my productivity suffers unless I can enter deep focus, removing all distractions.

I think I prefer a mixture of both hyper and deep attention, and I’m pretty good at switching between the two depending on context. A poll in our workshop this week demonstrated that most students in my class consider themselves either hyper attentive or, at worst, somewhere between the two. Very few people considered themselves deeply attentive. This was not surprising considering the reading discussed the fact that younger people prefer hyper attentive modes, and so as today’s young students grow up to become adults deep attention will start to become quite rare.

This is a result of multiple factors, some well-defined and some not at all, but a major one is the proliferation of technology and the internet – young people are now accustomed to having an entire world of knowledge and entertainment at their fingertips 24 hours a day, so learning material has to be engaging and varied or students will just tune it out.

It also strikes me that even deep attention has to, by necessity, involve some of the techniques associated with hyper attention. When reading a long text (for example a novel), it’s very rare to actually consume such a text in one sitting – so your brain already has to be able to re-focus and re-familiarise itself with its content each time the book is picked up. This ability will only be developed further the more one practices hyper attention.

Media 1, Readings

Passion

The first week’s Media 1 readings asked a significant amount of self-reflection.

First, a series of blog posts by computer scientist Cal Newport discuss what the author terms the “passion trap”: the idea that society’s default formulation of the key to a fulfilling career (summed up as “first figure out what you’re passionate about, and then go find a job to match”) is not only backwards but actually harmful, and the more self-imposed pressure one feels to love their work, the more unhappy they will be when they don’t.

When reading this passage I found myself thinking of some of my friends who have recently graduated from university and are struggling to enter the job market in their chosen field. They put so much pressure on themselves to find the perfect graduate job (so that their degree isn’t a “waste”) that when they don’t immediately find that elusive perfect job they feel like failures before their career has really even begun. This will then necessarily lead to a decrease in confidence, which itself adversely affects their ability to find a job, and the cycle repeats itself.

Newport offers an alternative way to think about workplace satisfaction, one that places high emphasis on craftsmanship and deriving pleasure through expertise. In other words: people enjoy doing things they’re good at, so if a person gets really good at something they’ll feel satisfied doing it regardless of what the activity actually is.

But how does one get good at something? By coincidence I recently finished reading a book that Newport cites in one of his posts, Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell, which argues that to master a given skill or activity – such as playing a sport, or performing a job – you generally have to have devoted at least 10,000 hours to it. Only those with the dedication and drive to obsessively pursue something for much longer than others (and, in the early part, to be really bad at that thing) are able to truly master it.

But Newport also points out an important caveat to the 10,000 hour rule, and it’s that while work or study is necessary to become successful, it’s not by itself sufficient. It has to be the right kind of practice, a specific form termed “deliberate practice”, with specific attributes that orient it towards developing one’s skills to a point beyond that possible with ordinary practice.

And so, taken together, these posts suggest that the key to a successful career is to systematically attain the skills to become a master in a particular field, and then train yourself to find value in just doing the work. Luckily, the media and creative industries are fields where, thanks to the democratisation of the internet and technology, it’s possible to continue to engage in the activity even if it’s not your job.

This sounds both reassuring and scary, and seemed an interesting choice of reading given that so many students must have chosen Media because it’s their passion.

Cine Man

Where you gonna run to?

Monthly Archives: March 2016

The Galaxy: a haiku

Learning by doing

Film form, Holy Motors and The Wizard of Oz

Michael’s extreme closure

The edit

Thinking caps on

Project 1: Creative self-portrait

Focus and attention

Passion