My community of practice and literature

Thanks to my far from perfect english I didn’t really understand what this question meant and had to resort to help. Dream Team kindly explained to me that it means “general influences from things I’ve seen and read”, so that is what I’m going to do. I love asking advice- now if I get a bad grade I can blame them! 🙂

I feel like my work was primarily influenced by the readings and by the documentaries I watched. I have been reflecting on these new insights for the past few weeks, but I guess it can be summarised in three main revelations:

1. The idea of clashing the incompatible (http://www.mediafactory.org.au/ekaterina-borisova/2018/08/05/assignment-2-week-3-soviet-montage/ and http://www.mediafactory.org.au/ekaterina-borisova/2018/08/02/assignment-2-week-3-inspirations/)
2. Fluid borders of the concept of documentary (http://www.mediafactory.org.au/ekaterina-borisova/2018/08/08/assignment-2-week-4-keep-on-expanding-borders/)
3. Impossibility of the ruth  (http://www.mediafactory.org.au/ekaterina-borisova/2018/08/01/assignment-2-week-2-the-truth/)

Those new understandings have heavily changed the way I would have approached this project otherwise. I would never even think to make a documentary without a voice over or an interview, or at least some in-text subtitles! Not to mention that a documentary had to be true and unbiased, otherwise what’s the point? I though of a documentary as of an educational film that lazy teachers show the first graders. Over the last month, I came to realise that a documentary is so much more than that- a form of art that can take any form (forgive me this tautology). These two particular insights have developed through class discussions and Broderick’s reading, and I’m very happy that it did.

As for the clashing of incompatible, my documentary is basically build around this new concept. I really liked this idea and it was my main inspiration for this project. I owe this exciting new understanding to, once again, Broderick, but also a film I discussed earlier- “Don’t Think I’ve Forgotten”.

What did I discover through making these videos?

First of all, I discovered a pretty cool projections festival that I would never otherwise visit. Outdoor art for the win! More seriously though, working on a montage documentary, as opposed to a strictly structured plot line, I found myself noticing more and more interesting shots that I didn’t plan on filming. In my previous courses I was mostly working with a throughout storyboard and all of the creative work was done in the pre-production process. Once you go out to shoot, you just focus on what you already planned to film and don’t really pay attention to many beautiful shot possibilities around you. Working on this assignment, however, I didn’t know what I was going to find in the museum and I definitely had no idea of what to expect from the projections festival. I had an idea in my head and a vague vision, but not more than that. When I was out filming, I was on a constant lookout for a good shot, always aware of my surroundings. I discovered a whole new approach to creating a video: just grabbing a camera and hunting for a good shot! And what’s more importantly, I really liked it. Such creative freedom is intoxicatedly liberating.

Second, and that’s a quick one, I rediscovered the hellish frustration of editing. Last semester I was doing a live television studio, which spared me of torturous hours in the editing suits. This time the pain was full on. Oh, did I mention that Da Vinci Resolve decided to freeze and I lost my nearly completed project? Yeah.

What did I think went well?

For me, this is the most difficult question. I can never assess myself, and it’s impossibly difficult for me to say if I did well. No matter how hard I work or what others say, I rarely ever like what I did. I can’t explain it, but whatever I do is just never good enough for me regardless of how much time and effort went into it. Sadly, this goes far beyond university assignments, but hey, anxiety never sleeps, right?

From where I stand, I’d say everything went relatively well in terms of the process, but, as always, I can’t say if the overall result is good. I really liked my group: we always helped and supported each other throughout the project, and Bridie and Lindsay are some of the nicest people I’ve ever met. So, I guess I can say that the collaboration and the team work went very well. I also liked the new “minimum pre-production” approach and I think it worked our quite well. I really enjoyed filming for this documentary. I hope that the filming went well in terms of quality, but I definitely enjoyed it very much.

Another aspect that I think could have gone worse is editing. It was excruciating and I was on the verge of throwing the computer out of the window several times, but the overall video montage is not bad. Especially considering I’ve only had two days to put it together after the festival. Just for comparison, the last time I did editing it took me and my classmate 2 weeks.

What didn’t succeed as I would have liked?

Firstly, I messed up my life-work balance. Some personal problems got me distracted and I completely lost track of time. I am ashamed to admit it, but I only remembered about this assignment on 9th August- 4 days before the due date. In my mind I kind of remembered that it exists, and that we have to hand it in in a couple of weeks, and than it just hit me- not week, days!!! To be fair, I couldn’t have started sooner anyway- the projections festival took place on 10th August, but it still was a highly unusual for me situation. I will try very hard to never let it happen again.

Secondly, as much as I enjoyed the “go out and film” approach, I would really prefer to have a more solid understanding of what material I am going to shoot. The projections festivals was beautiful, but very different from last year’s videos I found on their website and I had to change the video I had planned quite dramatically. As much as I would love to be, I am not an adventurous risk taker and I prefer to have at least a basic understanding of what’s happening.

How has my work so far influenced my future work in this studio (what’s next)?

This project reminded me of importance of pre-production and time management. As I said, in the future I will allow myself more time to get ready and plan ahead. In terms of choosing a topic for the final project, I can say that I 100%will not be doing a montage documentary – I liked it, but one time was enough. So far, I am thinking of doing something for their website- several articles with material from the museum or maybe a pamphlet. As for a topic, I am really interested in looking into local history of feminism or discrimination against the aboriginals (if it’s not a politically correct word I’m sorry, I’m still new to this continent). I’m going to focus on choosing a topic in the following weeks- I don’t want to quickly pick a random topic and then be stuck working on something I am not interested in.

Finally, there are our videos! Enjoy:))

References:

F. Broderick (2010). Documentary Media : History, Theory, Practice. Taylor and Francis.