Slight goof up here; whilst going through the checklist for Project Brief 3 I had noticed a lack of recordings posted from week 5. Considering I actually want to pass this course and at the very least meat the requirements for each task (of not to excel in them), I thought that I probably should post the recording so that I may complete PB3 and NOT make an idiot of myself.
Here goes!

This always seems to happen to me when editing, I’ll put large amounts of time, hours even, to making the beginning of a video, only to look back and see I but a meager 15 seconds of footage. So I’ll spend some more time on it, sifting through all the footage I have until I find something of worth to place in the video. I’ll go from have 15 seconds, to 16 seconds, then 16 to 20, then 20 to forty, until what seems but a few moments later I suddenly have 27 minutes of REFINED footage to edit!

Anyways, here’s some inspiration.

One statement today in our lecture struck me harder than anything else that was said for the entire day; “look around you, it’s best to make a good impression now because these are likely the people that you will be working with”*. The more I thought about it, the more excited I was and the more daunting it became. For now it’s very easy to have the typical student mentality going on, focusing on whats happening now, planning for the future, but not actually fully thinking as to what that future holds. I gave a cheeky glance around the room and looked into the faces of everyone that I could see. What were these people like? Could I do well by them? Could they do well by me? Will I work with them, or will I never see them again? Will I come to dislike some of them, or will they become my best friends? It’s impossible to tell right now, we’re only a few months into the course and still have years to come, so I can’t say I know the answers to these questions yet. However, what I can say which I know is certain, is that without a doubt, in some way or another, the next three years of my life will heavily involve you all. We will all have our (hopefully minimal) bad moments, but it’s in this time we will also have our greatest; experiences and memories which will come to shape who are, who we become, how others see us, and the rest of our lives.

What is the ‘controlling idea’ of your portrait?

I guess the main idea that I wanted to push in my interview is the old cliche of ‘practice makes perfect’ and that if you work hard enough you can do well. For years my interviewee had striven to become better, trying, failing and succeeding in various projects until he found what he was happy with.

How is your portrait film being constructed?

I wanted my interview to be a hybrid of a video talk and having narration over secondary footage. for the most part I will be focusing on the video of my interviewee himself, as that I can focus on his facial expressions to bring further depth and emotion to what he’s saying, I will also be having intersecting footage of his band playing, and so on.

What do you want your audience to make of your interview? 

I wouldn’t go as far as saying that I want my audience to be inspired, but more present this as an anecdotal ‘how to’ video; showing how practice can turn into progress and give the steps for other budding performers to take a similar path and achieve their goals.

How is your portrait being narrated?

Although I did record myself asking the questions in the interview, beforehand I ask my interviewee to rephrase the question within his answer, that way when editing I would have a bit more leeway in my presentation, being able to choose if I want myself in the interview or not.

What role will found footage play in your portrait?

To be honest, I haven’t quite fully made up my mind regarding found footage. however, if I were to make a decision of what I would want right now I would want it to reflect what is being said within the interview, or to give an example of what’s being said.

Does your interview have a dramatic turning point?

Although it doesn’t have a ‘dramatic turning point’, it does have (or will have) a point in the interview where it switches from being about the interviewee and more about the audience and what advice they’d give based upon the struggles he and his fellow band members have faced in their progress of becoming an actual band.

When does this turning point occur in in your portrait and why?

To reflect a typical story arch of most characters presented in film, being a journey format audiences are accustom to, I’ve decided to place this turning point about 2/3rds – 3/4th of the way through, so that I may begin to ‘wind down’ the interview follow this.

How does your portrait gather and maintain momentum? 

I plan to maintain (and gain) by not relying on one source of video too much, mixing it up a little and discandying between interviewee footage, found footage, and secondary footage of the band together, using my cuts effectively to create a sense of a quicker pace.

Does the portrait have a climax and/or resolution?

It doesn’t quite have a proper climax, but towards the end it does have the reveal of how the band has managed to reach the point they’re currently at, thanks to a culmination of their hard work.

Whilst not within this class itself, I found my recent blog in Cinema Studies to be highly relevant to our current task of PB3. Regarding editing, I thought it would be advantageous to delve deeper into the study of editing as well as the impact it has on film. So to take into account in the editing for my interview, I thought that I’d keep this post in mind and share it with other in hope that it may do the same for them.

Editing is a highly useful tool in the creation of any film; often being the driving force of the films’ sense of pace and timing via the frequency of cuts,creating tone in how it transitions from cut to cut, and heighten impact of certain shots and actions via the timing of the cut. . Why do we cut? Not only for the aforementioned reasons, but to allow various perspectives to take place within the one scene. Cinematography lets us see WHOSE perspective we’re seeing, whereas editing allows us to experience their feelings as well as gain a a sense of their surroundings via what shots are shown in conjunction to that regarding the character/subject at hand, and further develop relationships, such as when an editor or director decides to hold a shot longer between two characters, whether it be a singular shot of them both, or a shot-reverse-shot structure, insinuating a more intense relationship between the two.
In “Enemy Of The State’, director Tony Scott primarily uses discontinuity editing to hasten the pace of the film to create a higher sense of drama. In the beginning of the film during the movies’ first action/chase scene we are presented with various quick cut shots displaying a myriad of perspectives; that of the chasers, the escaping filmmaker, CCTV street cameras, hidden cameras in numerous locations,  aerial shots and even satellite footage. The quicks cuts between these shots not only quickens the pace of the film, but also makes a displays the numerous ‘eyes’ and points of view that may on be one subject at any given time, making a statement against the NSA’s ever growing want for more control and power in civilian surveillance, being the premise of the film.
In conjunction with the timing of shot cuts, displaying what is in the shot,, what order in comes in,and the the severity of action in the in frame can too develop narrative. In his action scenes Scott predominantly focuses having close ups of the character limbs, showing the most significant movement of the body- showing severity of action, whereas in his more calm scenes, he tends to focus on facial expressions, using close ups and ECU’s to further develop inter-character relationships and create empathy with the audience.

Gross, sweaty, tired, knees weak, arms spaghetti, and I just got home from my third shoot for the interview. Again, shooting exclusively for the B-roll camera, I just spent the last 4 hours in a cramped rehearsal space, feebly attempting to move between them as to not disturb their playing and divert their focus from their goal of trying to deafen me. We were all tired and stressed, we had all traveled far to be together, and we had all skipped out on food and our personal time that would’ve otherwise been spent arguably more productive, but once again that didn’t seem to dampen everyone’s mood. Whether they were playing, listening, filming, mixing audio, fixing equipment or advising the band, every single person in that room was doing something that they loved, and that was fantastic. Despite our different passions and burdens we had upon us at the time, we were all drawn together tonight to pursue our passions, and we did exactly that.
Sure, some things did go wrong; the bassist was late, the drummer had the wrong snare, power cables were missing,batteries weren’t charged, lenses weren’t appropriate, and so on, but we made do with what the had and the result was more than worth it. I got some great footage, I got the band some decent pictures, their manager gave some fantastic advice, and the band got better and more confident with every song.
It just goes to show that there’s always another way and that you can work past your problems, and that while you may not be perfect yet, if you persevere and practice to be good enough you can end up doing something you love.

I should probably follow my own advice more often, but I treasure sleep too much. Oh well.

Fellow students. The posts are coming.

Far too long have I remained idle on this bless’d site, withdrawing mine tongue from the proscenium which is your gaze.
I have been told that the posts of my past have been known to resemble short stories-novels, making Tim Winton shiver in fear of rivalry. I would accept the challenge but after having read and way too closely analysed Cloudstreet, I want to be as far away from him as possible.
We were told today that we must broaden our horizons on our blogs; stray away from the norms of yesterday to which we’ve been adhering to and change up our formats – short posts (no), long posts (more likely), POSTS WITH PICTURES! All on a myriad of subjects. (Just some forewarning, in the event that I do post an image or GIF, which will become more frequent, they will likely progressively become weirder.)
And so I must do this! Starting tonight!.. well, it’s late and I’m a little tired.. Tomorrow morning! – wait, I have class… STARTING TOMORROW SOMEWHERE BETWEEN MIDDAY AND LATE AFTERNOON UNTIL I HAVE TO GO BACK INTO THE CITY, I will start my soon to be infamous blogging journey.
All I ask is that no one issues a restraining order due to the content of my posts, please. From time to time they may be concerning but there’s no reason to alert the authorities. Not that I imagine anyone reads this anyway, I could probably say anything I want and get away with it, like where I hid that Nazi gold, but that’ll have to wait for another time.

I’ve always been a big fan of drama and the performing arts, so I may have gotten a tad excited when I first saw the second part of our readings by M. Rabiger, focusing on a common story arc often used in theater.
Rabiger brought to the fore the importance of how we view our characters and how we want the audience to empathize with them; what makes them special enough to be worthy of our attention and to be deemed entertaining. In this we found the classical archetype of a ‘hero’, and more specifically, one whom adheres to the ‘three act structure’ of a play. The three act structure primarily focuses on the ‘hero’s journey’: rise, fall – redemption/climax, resolve. Facing and overcoming their hardships is what comes to define the hero as a hero, and which is why find this structure so inspiring and entertaining; we admire and want to be able to do the same as them. This structure has individually been around for thousands of years in hundreds of cultures for this very reason.
transitioning to television now, likewise this is the reason as to why someone with this sort of story makes an ideal interviewee.
In the past many typically “successful” interviews would also followed this format, beginning casually, slowly leading into more serious questions followed by reaching their intended point, the hardest hitting question of the interview (the climax), then to resolve it by wrapping it up with closing statements. these questions and answers being similar to ‘beats’ of a plot in a play, thus being able to follow a similar format.

“learning from experience requires more than just experiencing, you need to be noticing.”*
The John Mason readings highlights the tragedy happening both in practice and far too many classrooms; looking, but not watching, hearing, but not listening, thinking, but not understanding. Too many of us feel that merely experiencing the class or working in the field constitutes as enough as actually learning, however what many of us also fail to do is to pay close attention and notice what is happening around us to truly take in the information. To ensure that we may take further notice in our classes, Mason suggests looking at the finer details, taking note of a lecturers mannerisms or way of speech, something that we may easily connect to, can replicate, and/or associate with the learning experience itself. In a sense, by coming to reflect the styles and behavior of the teacher or experience itself, we may gain a greater understanding of the task at hand.
Whilst we can’t simply “decide to notice” as that it cannot guarantee noticing for sure, what we can do is decide to be more attentive and train ourselves to notice.

Last night was the night. After a 2 hour drive, 9 hour shift, and quickly piecing together the last of the questions, I was finally able to film the brunt of the interview.  An trust me, I took the advice from Friday very seriously to achieve maximum coverage. No more than 10 questions turned into 2 straight hours of answers. Being set up in a room where we literally had to crawl under a tripod through the door to get out it, it got fairly cozy in there, not that I’m complaining though, the interviewing process definitely had a few laughs in there, not to mention being someone I know I found it rather easy to engage with them to gain quite expressive responses.
The hardest part of the interview, other than having to rephrase an answer or question every 5 minutes/hurry it along to keep answers short, was definitely setting up. Using a new piece of equipment for the main footage and audio whilst using my own camera for the profile shots felt strange, but it made sense to do so, for quality reasons. Figuring out where to place the cameras and reflector  and chairs in such a confined space without having to compromise the shot seemed like a much easier task beforehand, but a mere half hour later I finally figured it out (sort of). Now to just go through all my footage and relentlessly judge every decision I’ve made! Happy editing days ahead!