The ideas and concepts explored in the ‘Memory, Identity and Neighbourhoods’ studio were abundant and constantly evolving as each class brought new meditations on what ‘home’ means, in both a literal and metaphorical sense. Our preliminary explorations of the theme came largely from a personal perspective, as we were given the task of finding places around our neighbourhoods that bear some significance to us and incite a sense of belonging. To reflect on my own experiences in my neighbourhood and consider the places that I have an emotional attachment to allowed me to think critically about the concept and apply it to situations from an objective point of view, which helped navigate the ideas we had for our final product. These tasks were used as preparation to get us thinking about the correlation between people and the places they inhabit or frequent, and how this shapes the construction of personal identity.
Part of what I found most enjoyable about this class was that it took a personal approach to film-making and encouraged you to explore something more meaningful than just the practical technicalities of film production. The topic is universal; everyone has somewhere they consider ‘home’, and seeing the passion and sentience in people’s responses to the studio prompts was inspiring. Several of our first exercises were designed to foster a more critical outlook on the places we are already familiar with; to look at our neighbourhoods through a different lens. We questioned what it is exactly that makes our neighbourhood our home, while analysing notions of gentrification and other disruptive forces that can result in displacement and considered how these can all impact a person’s identity. Prior to this studio I hadn’t given much thought to the ‘places’ in my life, seeing them as stagnant locations that didn’t carry much meaning. The theoretical framework of this course laid down the foundations for us to bring meaning to our films, and the processes through which we worked through these prompts as a class, in groups and as individuals was an enlightening experience.
On a more practical level, the studio allowed me to develop my film-making skills which is one of the main things I wanted from this course. I was drawn to the philosophical premise of the studio, but the film production aspect was also appealing. I wanted to hone my skills by experimenting with more artistic shots and learn about the finer processes of editing, which I knew this studio could accommodate. I can say with certainty that the course has taught me more than I expected, and the main credit for this goes to my team. I was lucky to be in a group of girls who are highly adept at film-making and were a constant source of learning for me. This, in addition to the materials covered in class, provided me with invaluable knowledge that I can apply to future media projects, in the context of both university and beyond.
In terms of my own performance, while I contributed a worthy amount of footage and sufficient assistance on days designated to filming and editing, I feel my input could have been more in depth. My technical knowledge was not as advanced as that of my team members, particularly when it came to adjusting the more detailed camera settings and editing mechanisms. At first I felt like I was not able to provide equal input when it came to our filming, but as time went on I became more independent with the use of cameras and editing, and I’m glad that I was able to watch and learn from the rest of my team while providing enough support to see the success of our project. As a group we ran into some difficulties that couldn’t be avoided as they were predominantly due to schedule clashes. Between the four of us and our jobs there was rarely a time when we were available to work collectively, and instead we ended up filming over several weeks with only two or three of us at a time. Bella and I conducted the first interview, which was with Jenna. I hadn’t had much experience with interviewing in the past and due to Bella’s delayed train, ended up spending a significant amount of one-on-one time with Jenna. We had only met once before this, so it was important that I was able to establish a rapport with her so that she would feel at ease talking to us and express her answers candidly. I was also present for the interviews with Patti and Bella and shot the side-profile footage and tracking shots that we overlayed in our film. These are a few still shots from general footage that I took which made the final cut:
The lengthy time period that we spent filming ended up benefiting our film; one of the key pieces of feedback we received from the class was the effectiveness of the variety of shots, especially the b-roll. Our filming spanned several weeks and saw us battling harsh weather conditions, and caught in a seemingly never-ending cycle of shooting and re-shooting. In the end it gave us a diversity of shots that satisfied our vision of cutting together lots of frantic skating footage, to effectively portray the hectic environment.
Along with Claudia and Grace I played a key role in formulating a comprehensive storyboard that proved beneficial to the making of our film. Given our time restraint it was important that we edited as efficiently as we could, so we spent a significant amount of time creating the storyboard to help us visualise a smoothly transitioning narrative and guide the film’s structure. I suggested that we segment the interviews into three themes: ‘place’, community’ and ‘identity’ and group the content into each relevant category. We wanted to ensure that all criteria had been met and each theme was sufficiently explored, by situating Riverslide in the City of Melbourne and relating the concept of ‘place’ and ‘community’ to the construction of the ‘identity’ of each subject. The storyboard came out like this:
My final contribution to the project was the film poster, which was created on Adobe Illustrator:
In hindsight, we could have employed better methods to create our project. Our team communication and organisation was slightly ineffective at times, however much of these obstacles were due to reasons beyond our control. Given the setbacks we faced such as poor weather, botched audio and interviewees bailing at the last minute I think we did well to push ourselves and create a visually pleasing film with a satisfying narrative that fits the vision we had as a team. The last week of production was certainly a test of the integrity of our team, and I am glad to say we came out successful and overcame the challenge to produce a final product that we are all proud of.
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