Tag Archives: project brief 3

Assessments, Media 1, Workshops

PB3 critical feedback

In today’s Workshop we watched each other’s PB3 films, and it was really great to see how excellent most of them were. In PB2 there were a lot of common themes/shots/ideas across films (including mine), but I think as we’ve become more confident with our skills we’re all starting to creatively branch out a little more.

I’m going to do a little critical reflection exercise for the people sitting at my table – Isobel, Rosie, Riah and Hannah. I’ve decided to use two of De Bono’s thinking hats – the yellow hat (positivity) and black hat (negativity) – to frame my feedback in a constructive way. For the most part I’ve really had to try hard to find things to criticise for the black hat. On the whole everyone’s films are fantastic, and they all make mine look boring in comparison.

Isobel – “There’s No One Like You”

Yellow hat:

  • The opening/establishing shots are really nice, with the camera focused on a small detail and everything else blurred. These shots combine well to ease into the interview.
  • The layering and compilation of B-roll footage is fantastic – probably the best of all the videos we saw today. I particularly liked the transition from footage of the subject performing in The Rocky Horror Picture Show into an original shot of her pointing herself out on the poster. So good.
  • This film shows the importance of having a subject who can talk at length and lead a conversation. I’ve interviewed actors in the past and there are some who are very comfortable reciting lines but couldn’t have a natural conversation on camera to save themselves, but the subject of this film has some really interesting and compelling things to say and knows how to speak in complete sentences. A really good choice of interviewee.

Black hat:

  • Even though I love the big colourful patchwork chair the subject is sitting in, I feel like it might be a little too noticeable and overwhelms the subject in some of the wider shots.
  • The answer about Rod Taylor comes out of nowhere and isn’t completely explained. From context I think the audience can piece together that she’s talking about her favourite actor to work with, but that could be made clearer.
  • This is a bit of a nit-pick, but there’s a television on in the background of some shots which is slightly distracting.

Rosie – “Escapism to the Country: The togetherness in isolation”

Yellow hat:

  • The shots of travelling are great – combined with the music bed they really evoke the feeling of taking a long trip out to the country.
  • I really like the found footage explaining the golden triangle, and it’s integrated very well into the surrounding parts.
  • The moments of humour are genuinely surprising and funny. I particularly like the visual framing of the “toxic gas” shot, which emphasises the sign by shooting it from two distances. The joke probably wouldn’t have worked if it was shot differently.
  • Ending on the best moment of the video, “finding that one thing”, is brilliant and really ties the whole piece together.

Black hat:

  • The subject speaks very quietly – this is obviously something that might be hard to control, especially if he’s naturally a quiet speaker, but perhaps some coaching/direction to speak loudly would have resulted in better quality audio (the hiss is quite apparent in some sections).
  • On a minor technical point, most of the found footage is shown very small in the centre of the frame. If this was scaled to fill the screen I think it would have been easier to see.
  • This isn’t even really a criticism, but I loved the shots of the landscape taken at sunset. I wish there was more of it.

Riah – “Finding Passion with Phoebe Rose”

Yellow hat:

  • I really like that this film has a subject matter to explore (keeping passions alive), rather than functioning as a more general portrait. I feel like I was able to get to know the subject just as well this way, and it gave the film a more concrete direction.
  • Found footage is integrated exceptionally well – the music video, the photos, the screen test, and the footage playing on the iPhone are all perfectly timed to support the voiceover narration.
  • The French accordion music that comes in when the subject starts talking about learning French is fantastic.
  • The credits, which highlight the photo of Phoebe and Riah, is a great idea executed beautifully.

Black hat:

  • Is that footage from Queen Live at Wembley really Creative Commons?
  • The music overwhelms the audio and could probably stand to be lowered a few decibels.
  • The transition into the music video could have been cleaner, maybe by having the audio fade up well before cutting to the footage.

Hannah – “Conor Grace: A Portrait”

Yellow hat:

  • The opening credits are really nice. I’d like to learn how to make titles like that.
  • Found footage is beautiful, particularly the tracking shot of the rower at sunrise.
  • Having a rower for a subject leads to some really fantastic on-location action footage. This is another great choice of interviewee.
  • The shot where the rower has to dodge a swan is surprisingly hilarious.

Black hat:

  • The audio levels could be adjusted a little – it’s very loud, and the music occasionally overwhelms the interviewee.
  • Beautiful found footage is great, but it highlights how ordinary the footage from the Sony MC50 looks in comparison.
  • Some of the editing transitions are a little abrupt and jarring.
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Assessments, Media 1

PB3: Eraserhead

Behold, my finished video for Project Brief 3.

I decided to call it Eraserhead, both as a reference to collector culture and as an ironic nod to one of the most disturbing films of all time — and possibly the film least like mine in all of cinema history.

The film is an interview with my brother, Gavin, who has held on to his small, crappy collection of erasers for 30 years despite their total lack of usefulness. I’m really interested in the idea of nostalgia as one of the biggest mediators of human experience/behaviour, and my brother’s collection is a direct manifestation of his attachment to childhood objects.

Aesthetically, I decided to place Gavin against a plain white background and shoot him with high contrast lighting and exposure. I hoped that this would visually separate him from “real life”, to reinforce the idea that his collection is a bit weird and abnormal, and also to give the interview a slightly clinical feeling. I first saw this visual style in the films of Errol Morris, my favourite documentarian, and I tried to replicate his aesthetic as best I could using a home-made lighting rig against a wall in my living room. I was pleasantly surprised at how close to my vision it ended up being. In a studio environment with a professional lighting set-up it would be quite easy to improve it even further.

Another aspect of my film that I’m happy with is the audio, and specifically how it is constructed. I made heavy use of J-cuts after first learning about them in our week three Workshops, and they really help to tie everything together into a cohesive whole. Each sentence flows into the next and it feels like a single piece of dialogue even though there are dozens of cuts in the audio track.

It was a real struggle to find footage online that I could incorporate into my project. Even when I could think of suitable types of footage that I could use to illustrate what Gavin was saying, I would search online and more often than not I would come back empty handed. I had a very specific idea of the kind of footage I wanted to incorporate (vintage black and white educational films) because it would tie into my theme of nostalgia, but it was actually impossible to find such footage in most circumstances, particularly the shot of a child crying. I ended up having to “grunge-ify” some recent footage so that it would fit the rest of the piece. Next time I’m planning a video project that will incorporate found footage, I think I’ll try to source it before I finalise my vision for the project, because it really was the hardest part of the whole exercise.

But I think the biggest weakness of the film is that it was difficult to shape Gavin’s interview answers into a narrative that adequately gets the film’s point across. I think audiences will likely watch my film and then afterwards think, “so what?”. I am really interested in making documentary portraits, and this was a useful experiment for my first time, but in the future I think it will be valuable to ensure my subject has an interesting story to tell that doesn’t need to be shaped too much (or at all).

On the other hand, I really like films where the “point” is either ambiguous or subjective, and it’s up to the audience to do the work to understand it, so that could be true of Eraserhead too. I guess I’ll find out when it’s presented to my classmates.

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Assessments, Media 1, Workshops

Narrative structure in PB3

  1. What is the ‘controlling idea’ (Robert McKee) of your portrait?
    Nostalgic attachment to objects has an influence on our lives far greater than its practical use. People will go to ridiculous lengths to keep and maintain connections to their childhood/former self even if to other people the value may not be immediately apparent. My subject has a small, crappy collection of erasers that he’s kept for over 30 years (through marriages, divorce, moving house multiple times, having children, etc.) and will keep for the rest of his life, purely because of his nostalgic connection to them.
  2. How is your portrait film structured?
    My portrait is structured around an interview with the subject, using voiceover narration to allow the subject to speak about his collection, what it means to him and why he still has it in his possession. While the audio of the interview continues for the entire duration of the video, the subject’s words are supported and reinforced by cut-away shots to B-roll and found footage.
  3. What do you want your audience to make of your interviewee?
    I hope the audience perceives the interviewee as a bit weird or strange to begin with, but as the video continues I hope to spark a feeling of empathy as the audience recognises the same nostalgia in their own lives.
  4. How is your portrait being narrated?
    The only voice heard in my video is the subject’s interview answers as he reflects on his experience. I chose to do this to give the video the feeling of an uninterrupted series of thoughts from the subject, as if he is reflecting on his own history and what it means to him. Because the audio from the interview needs to be cut and pasted together to form coherent thoughts, the structure of the video necessitates cut-away shots to mask edits in the audio.
  5. What role will ‘found footage’ play in your portrait?
    Found footage will be used as reinforcement at certain key points, to illustrate what the subject is speaking about or to create associative connections. I’ve chosen to use vintage footage wherever possible to reinforce the theme of nostalgia.
  6. Does your portrait have a dramatic turning point?
    Not in the traditional narrative sense, but I hope that the audience’s realisation of empathy for the subject will be an emotional turning point.
  7. When does this turning point occur in your portrait and why?
    I hope the (gradual) turning point will occur towards the end of the video when my interviewee is explicitly talking about nostalgia and how there is inherent value in still having something you’ve kept for a long time. I’ve structured it this way to allow the audience to come to realise this idea naturally first, and then the subject will emphasis the point in his own words.
  8. How does your portrait gather and maintain momentum?
    Through chronological storytelling, by diving straight into the story and evoking curiosity, and then further explaining and building context.
  9. Where will your portrait’s dramatic tension come from?
    Dramatic tension will be built upon the strangeness/uselessness of my subject’s hobby – the audience will wonder why he has such a collection, why he’s kept it so long and, most importantly, why I’ve made a film about it.
  10. Does the portrait have a climax and/or resolution?
    There is a small resolution to the film when my subject accepts and defends the uselessness of his hobby – which is, ultimately, what my film is about.
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Assessments, Media 1

PB3 inspiration

I’ve started doing some research for Project Brief 3, after deciding on my subject: a local Melbourne sign painter named TJ Guzzardi, whose work can be found on hipster restaurants and barber shops all over town. I thought TJ would make a good subject because his work is visual by nature, allowing me to shoot some great B-roll footage of him at work, and from what I’ve seen he appears to be quite knowledgeable about the history and principles of his craft, which would make for a good interview.

My inspiration for this was the short film Up There, which is an amazing portrait of a group of American painters who hand-paint giant advertising murals on the sides of buildings. I saw it on Vimeo when it was uploaded (six years ago, apparently!) and it’s stuck with me ever since. I would obviously have to be careful not to actually replicate anything from this film, but use it more as a guiding light towards what’s possible in the medium.

But after a bit of Google research, I discovered that someone else made essentially the same film about TJ Guzzardi, only three years ago. It even utilises some of the shots that I had visualised trying to create for myself (shooting through glass, at work in his studio, slow pans of his previous works, etc.). This is a pretty frustrating development because I feel like I can no longer pursue this idea, and will have to find a new subject for my interview. But it’s a good little film that I think I can still get something out of, in terms of inspiration and example.

And now I have to pick a new subject – I think I have one potential option, but we’ll see.

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