I guess I expected there to be more people traffic and more noises from the street.
The people were lightly scattered and cars took priority driving up and down the tram tracks.
I spent a good hour in the street with 8-10 trams passing by both ways, their bells sending echoes through the air.

Remembering the discussions in class while I was out in the streets helped me focus on the poetics of the place.
I sat in my car for a while, using the comfort of the indoors to cast my net across the street, looking up and noticing reflections on the windows of buildings opposite one another.
Tram lines and street wires intercepted one another, all expected of Smith Street.

Oscar and I collected our media similarly, opting to stand still and allow external stimuli to enter the frame, initially positioning it in a complimentary setting.
Our way in collecting the media was essentally the same.
Setting out to try and find collections was harder than was expected because once you head out into the space, it’s really up to the surrounds and anything that enters the space to create that collection.
That being said, I believe that our minds play the primary role in selection of subjects and things of interest.

Oscar collected images of of a lot of flowers on grave sites that constrasted with the man made stone graves – softness vs hardness.
Through these videos, he focused on the beauty of decay, life after death.

I collected videos of classical architecture with poorly written tags in bright to neutral textas and paints – old vs new.
The writing and street are exhibited the underlying aggression of the neighbourhood, as people took to the public streets to voice their opinions on any surface they could find at eye level.

Going to our places was an eye-opener. I know we both felt that because we were actively noticed, we focused on things that we may not have noticed otherwise.
So, it increased our awareness for one and allowed us both to read into things a little deeper.
Crossing the street became a composition, rather than just a simple task of getting from one side to the other.
Trees blowing in the wind were now a time to stop, think and recalibrate – allowing us to slow down.
Another aspect worth noting was the tempo at which this project was undertaken; slow and calculated.
My eyes moved slowly, grazing over the landscape, noticing movements like I was some sort of predator.

Overall I feel we did really well with collecting media with similar undertones.

The discpline of noticing…

Our environments may have been vastly different by comparison; Smith st and Carlton Cemetery but the collection of videos we captured were actually quite similar.
We looked over the content and found that we both found interest in decay, movement, inertia and symmetry.
Upon closer inspection, I realised that not only had Oscar and I collected similar findings but we had also framed our work similarly – creating compositions that complimented the surroundings.
As our media was collected in high traffic zones, we collected similar atmos; vehicles, wind, people, bells, horns, birds etc..

Labelled ‘a place of rest’, the noisy backdrop intervenes with the serenity of the gravesites.
‘Slowing down’ is difficult.
I sent Oscar  to the Lygon st boundary line where large cyprus trees once shielded the street from the tombstones, creating a sound buffer.
Now, it lay open and bare, exposed to the streets opposite.
Cars went by in droves, going about their daily routines – oblivious and focused on their paths.
Residential houses occupied the spaces opposite the graves – life as usual.
Trucks created a moving backdrop to the motionless gravestones in the foreground.
Flowers were laid on graves, looking more lifeless than broken grey stone, withered and weathered.
Graves that looked to have burst open, unprooted by trees nearby over the years passed – grotesque and haunting; it was easy to see why my mother would bring me here as a child to tell em ghost stories. They practically wrote themselves!
Trees that appeared forest-like, off in the background created a Tarkovsky-esque eeriness that rang truer to the themes of a graveyard in one of Oscar’s captures.
The natural backdrop almost appeared unnatural.

In Smith St, cyclists peppered the streets in bright colours as cars drove up and the intersection of Gertrude and Peel St.
Paint was in abundance, marking all surfaces, each and every one a new canvas.
Tags and graffiti; good and bad screamed abuse at passers by in bold, bright lettering – ‘SLUT’. No one seemed to notice.
Memes and pop culture references, motivational and inspirational quotes tagged blue stone curbs, rainbow painted walkways, all going unnoticed by passers by.
Textures and materials, paper paste-ups, large-scale murals, stripped paint and cracks in the architecture grabbed my attention.
It interested me the way in which street art differs from art we see in a gallery.
We attach meanings to artworks in galleries because they’re a) in a gallery and b) because they’re framed (most anyway).
It intrigued me how colourful this part of Smith street was and just how it all goes unnoticed.

As I already spend a great deal of time in this space already, usually dining out at Bowl Bowl for dumplings, or haunting Angelucci 20th Century, I had my habits and had overlooked almost all of the things that I had collected in my videos.
I had noticed however, the large murals and various tags on the record store and kebab shop.
Reflections were heightened and water movements in puddles in the ditches were overlooked.
Usually noticing people and their movements, I was drawn to people less in this exercise, looking at things instead.
Powerlines and the tops of buildings that I had seen but not really looked at filled the frame of my camera, creating shapes where there had not previously been any.

All the while I was noticing, I also noticed others noticing me.
I paused for long periods of time, capturing things of interest.
One gentleman interrupted one of my recordings to ask me what I was doing.

‘I’m just looking.’

Links to media:
Oscar: here
Lana: here

After having seen the Patrick Pound exhibition, Oscar and I took note of the collections that were created.
The large scale of work acquired, in contrast to such a select subject pool was fascinating and led Oscar and I to explore our own collection for this second noticing task.

Our aim for this exercise is to head to each other’s chosen places and let the space and it’s rhythms evolve. Oscar had predominantly been to a street in Fitzroy during the evenings, saying it was the hustle and bustle of people and restaurants, bars and clubs that overwhelmed his senses. As he was always there with purpose, he couldn’t reflect on the place and recall anything else but the events he attended and his friends around him.

I sent Oscar to the Carlton Cemetery. Having gone there many times as a child with my mother, who told me ghost stories as we rode through on our bikes, the place was etched in my mind. Mostly there at night, the place held a certain appeal to me, whereas the day was associated with a purpose – attending a funeral procession.
The positioning of the cemetery intrigued me as well. Located on a busy road, the once large cyprus trees shielded the old and cracked graves from the passers by; now removed and open to the foot traffic and cars alike.

We decided that we would take approximately 10 videos each, breaking them down to 5 long videos (approx 15-30 seconds) and 5 short (1-3 mins) each.

Living in the area, I was accustomed to the rituals of passing through, day and night.
I knew the footpaths, the artwork, businesses and people – the fact that this place could open itself up to me further was a stretch.
The Fitzroy I knew some 10-15 years ago was an escape from the plain grey backdrop of metropolitan Melbourne.
I still remember my mother telling me  something and I must’ve mentioned something as a kid about someone’s fashion sense, “anything goes”.
It held a lot more weight back then and clearly enough to have resonated for me to have quoted her this far down the track.
What you see in Fitzroy has become ubiquitous with the rest of Melbourne. One large bleeding canvas of paint and grit.
I expected to hear tram bells, horns and general traffic chatter against the low murmurs of cafe life and whatever native species of bird was flittering about the streets, fighting over crusts and crumbs.

I didn’t expect to see too much that I hadn’t seen before.

Ezra and Rowden suggest that Transnational cinema “comprises both globalization…and the counter hegemonic responses of filmmakers from former colonial and third world countries” (2006, p.1). They suggest further that “the Transnational can be understood as the global forces that link people or institutions across nations” (2006, p.1).

Ang Lee, the director of Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, Broke Back Mountain, Hulk, Lust, Caution and Gemini Man; is known for his emotionally charged work that explores conflicts and relationships between tradition and modernity, in both Eastern and Western contexts.
It is because of his stories dealing with many hidden and repressed emotions that lee is known for his emotionally charged work, which critics believe is responsible for his success in off-setting cultural barriers and achieving international recognition.

The themes present within Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon have allowed it to be an international success due to its stylistic approach to framing, composition, lighting, photography, direction and performance.

Deeply rooted in Chinese tradition and history, the use of mise-en-scene allows for an intimate or “real” perspective, allowing Western audiences to empathize with its characters.
Costumes allow the audience to understand the different roles and hierarchy within the film.
Martial Artists, Li Mu bai and Yu Shu lien are clothed in single-wrap fighting robes, whereas Jen clothed in royal gowns and a dark wrap for her and Jade Fox as the villains/thieves.
The lighting is not deliberate throughout the film, in that it is said that Ang Lee wished to disguise the personalities of the characters without high-key or under-lighting; making it difficult to tell who is good and who is bad.
As we can see in the below example, it’s difficult to decipher who represents which side:

After watching Hero and familiarizing myself with its inception, I found it interesting to note that because Zhang Yimou was committed to making his films in China and aspiring to reproduce the formulas that gave Ang lee’s film’s international popularity, he also misread the reasons behind the making of Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon.

To appeal to a wider Western audience, the use of special effects was implemented to create a seamless air throughout, teamed with wind machines to enhance the characters fluidity within the space and their grace.

Zhang worked hard in creating relationships with the Chinese Government and authorities and once restrictions eased because they realized the importance of foreign film distribution to their economy, Zhang came under fire following the release of Hero due to his choice of Emperor, it’s lack of resolve and its unknown agenda.

As briefly discussed in class, Hero is clearly a nationalist film and Zhang’s close relationship with government authorities led many to believe that it was a propaganda film.

Both film fall under the Wuxia film genre.
‘Wuxia‘- which literally means “martial heroes”, is a genre of Chinese fiction concerning the adventures of martial artists in ancient China.
Uncommon to Western society is the dominant female roles and action heroes that have deep roots in Chinese history.
One can imagine how shocking and inspiring it would be as a Western Audience to view.

Without doubt, Hero is a film undoubtedly rooted in patriarchy.
The king is read as a positive authoritative figure, no doubt confusing to the Chinese populus who knew of his history.
He has the gift of wisdom, deciphering the meaning behind the Calligraphy and reading his assassins “murderous intent” most notably possessed by father figures.

As opposed to the themes present in Ang Lee’s, Crouching Tiger, the women’s roles are personalized through subjective camera angles and an engaging love story.

By comparison, Zhang attempts to capitalize on the love story, making it a focal point, whereas Ang Lee chose to give women freedom through expression, shown in their ability to seamlessly move in and out of the fighting realm.What I found interesting about Hero was the interplay between love and violence and how both are presented to be on an even playing field.Shown through White Snow’s under-handed wounding blow to broken Sword and the forgiveness of China’s most treacherous emperor’s; who goes on to kill hundreds of thousands more because of the love and conflict felt by Nameless and Broken sword before him.
Hero takes us through these conflicts and emotional trials and tribulations through his implementation of color in costume, lighting and setting.

Red, Blue, White and Green play out, painting the films narrative with a not so clear description of their meanings.
As was stated in a class discussion, Asian cinema, most notably Chinese cinema, does not shy from the use of bright colors.
In Western cinema, the use of color is often seen as tacky and distasteful.
Quoting Naya, ‘the more successful a superhero movie, the less colorful it is.’
The purpose behind the obvious coloring of each of the scenes was to possibly help reach a broader audience, playing on the basics of color psychology;

Red – anger, passion, vengeance, jealousy
Blue – calm, tranquil, cold, understanding
White – neutral, defeat and traditionally the color worn when someone dies (not generally known by Westerners
Green – hope, natural, compromise, jade (strength)

Not only do the colors make it easier to decipher the onscreen unfolding’s but the actor’s gestures, movements and expressions help feed the narrative too.
Overall, the movies both share and weave traditional and modern themes throughout their story lines, executing their stylistic approach with a grace that serves to conflict, surprise and unite a global audience.
As the characters glide through the air in heated battle, they exhibit the poetics and artistry behind violence, love and conflict, serving as a foreign concept to a global audience that knows only of the rigid confines of good and bad, with a single patriarchal victor.

References:

Chen Xihe. ” On the Father Figures in Zhang Yimou’s Films: From Red Sorghum to Hero” Asian Cinema. Vol. 15, No 2 (Fall/ Winter 2004) pp. 133-140

Similarly to my last post, I discovered that I have a fixation with movement, light and architecture.
They’re broad topics of exploration but I like the idea of starting out in this capacity and then allowing myself to narrow down my area of noticing to a smaller pool over the course of the studio.

I do wonder why it is that I notice the things that I do. I wonder why I am attracted to light and certain light too. Usually light being reflected in pools of water, creaking through doors, cracks or light leaks.

The way I was collecting my media was made easier by the fact that I used alarms to prompt my noticing, rather than relying solely on myself to remember to notice – which I find difficult in the early stages of learning.
The alarms alerted me to my surrounds and it’s almost as though I kicked into gear and my process of selection and elimination took over and my instincs decided what was worth and what was not.
I would like to continue working with alarms even as I grow more accustomed to noticing as the set moments during the day, regardless of where I am will serve as an interesting element to the media project – what will I find that will catch my eye?
– I may be in class, in a sterile environment and find a sliver of light particularly interesting as my alarm goes off – who knows.

Overall, I was satisfied with my findings and I’d like to begin forming a narrative with the work through the use of video as a study to help incorporate motion into my work.

Architecture plays a pivotal role in my images, lines and form compliment and accentuate the shadows and the structures upon which they’re reflected and projected upon. It’s always prevalent in one way or another, mostly silhuouettes and replicated by way of shadows.
Angles are created and focused on, rather than curves. While I like an undulating form, I tend towards sharpe angles and contrast a lot more than anything.

Texture is also prevalent in the images, both smooth and coarse surfaces – tacitile elements are interesting to me because of their visceral nature, as is the overall vibe of the images.
Each image contains a shadow which incorporates movement.
If I were to have filmed one single spot where the light made a sharp line across a brick wall, it would have shown the slow progression of the day. The light, rising and falling, closing the chapter of that day until the next.

When sharing the images I took with the group on Thursday, no one mentioned anything to me that offered any alternate perpectives as I think the images themselves are self-explanatory – simplistic. The fact that the images are simple is what I like about them but I would like to evolve the images further by exploring the subject of simplicity and intricacy further.

I struggled to set myself the guidelines within which I would begin to develop my media for this first exercise.
However, faced with the prospect of having to focus in and notice things around me sparked an existing interest in light, shadows, movement, stillness and reflection.
Creating boundaries was and is still difficult for me but I  decided to set alarms on my phone to remind myself to notice.
Already quite an observant person, I found that the act of actively noticing was something that I had to adjust to, as most things tend to go ‘unnoticed’ in that I don’t document all my findings by taking a photo or recording them.

10am:
I found myself on my way to work as my first buzzer went off, cutting through to the park near my house to avoid the icy wind. I saw a puddle of water on the cobble below and noticed that by looking down how I could delve deeper into my environment and take in more of my surrounds.
It was a glimmer of light that first caught my eye as soon as the alarm went off.
I used my dslr to frame different shots, noticing angles of the houses around me that took on a new perspective now that I was focusing.
The light breeze created ripples that looked to charge the reflection with a surge of power, creating new dimensions and perspectives – it was just so simple and captivating.
The process of elimination is another element of noticing that interests me. What is it that we deem interesting, worth noticing and worthy of accumulating or sharing?
I feel noticing is an intrinsically personal a thing. Why did I notice this puddle and opt to ignore something else?

I’m also drawn to shadows and lights that take their narrative and cast it onto a new surface to create an entirely new one.
Take a tree on Cardigan street, the wind rustling through its branches. I can see the textures of the wood clearly, the grain and the coarseness of its branches, their wirey tendrils reach out across the road, making pathways for the birds that perch themselves high up there. Their plumage is clearly visible from where I stand, I can take in the textures, sounds, movements and the infinite three-dimensional details of the scene.

When you add sunlight to the equation, it trickles through the branches and casts a silhuouette onto the wall opposite, painted soft pink, the branches are simplified to a soft grey shadow – the entire scene is now a two-dimensional, un-choreographed shadow puppet show.
By no means reduced in that it is lesser than 3D, just simplified, opening up a new avenue for exploration.
The branches dance across the wall, now appearing a soft custard yellow, bathed in sunlight, the colours and story begins to evolve, adapt and change.
It becomes a poetic display of nature, without texture or detail, it’s now a rhythm and dance of the branches and birds. The lights and shadows perform a ritual of day to day – therein lies my interest in the intricacies of simplicity.

I was really lucky to have been placed in a hard-working and cohesive group at random.
We began a little shaky, not knowing where we wanted to take the topic of attention and eventually settled on Game of Thrones, as we felt it would be a great idea to choose something that we had all seen but wasn’t too simple in subject matter.

We evolved our original ideas in the second week, opting to incorporate HBO as a conglomerate; discussing its decisions to take on GoT and similar shows that captivated our attention, but didn’t end up using a lot about what we found in research, as GoT served as an in-depth topic as it was. Gender alone gave us a lot to talk about, so we began to finalise and refine all our information.

We worked really well as a group, discussing and sharing articles and information on our facebook chat group, then meeting weekly in building 10 and in class. As the weeks progressed and we were shown examples of stylised and dramatic podcasts, we began to feel there was a lot more legroom for the podcast but grew uncertain as to how we’d relay the information as a narrative, feeling inspired by the examples in class.

In week 12, we presented a rough cut; an intro that encompassed the overall feel we were wanting to evoke throughout.
As we hadn’t reached a conclusion as a group as to how we wanted to creatively describe the findings, we settled on using Ben’s dramatic voice.
He began by opening the cut by posing a question to the audience as to why they watched game of thrones, thus opening a discussion about attention and it’s relevance, based on our information.
It was simple and effective; cutting the fat, much like the tv show itself.
Catherine was a little unimpressed with the lack of ‘meat’/content that was present, but in the end we all agreed that the themes worked and so we began filling it with content.

Taking on board the critique from Catherine, we settled on holding a casual discussion about the research and our personal vibes on the show as viewers ourselves, we thought this was help personify the overall feel.
We found a time in week 13 to get together and hold a panel discussion.
Unaware, or at least just exhausted from all our other group assignments for other topics, we may have missed the fact that there had been an allocated room for us to work in, so I booked an on air studio which suited us a lot better, and we looked really super professional too.
I borrowed a zoom recorder for us to use but because we had the option of using the studio, we set up the mics and began.
We ran a few test recordings and found that there was a low buzzing noise in the background. We hunted for it, screwing in cords tighter in case it was a technical issue.
We asked for the AV guys at the desk to come and take a look but we were told that this was ‘just the way the room was’ and that we would have to ‘deal with it’ because all the other students do apparently.
Studio’s are supposed to be completely silent, right?
We were running short of time, so we persevered.
This was the most difficult aspect of the project for me; coordinating written topics to spoken word amongst four people. Additionally,  we attempted to make it easier in the editing process, by rounding our words off. Avoiding bringing our voices up at the end of our sentences.

As Ben had the most experience with Adobe Audition, he offered to take the cuts and begin editing them before we met again on the Thursday before submission to finalise the edits as a group.
We got together and listened to the grabs he had chosen before incorporating the youtube clips that we had all chosen to further embellish topics discussed throughout.
Ben mentioned that there were very few issues that he encountered with the clips, it was just that he found it a little difficult to tie things off seamlessly.
Additionally, the YouTube clips that we had chosen to back-up our arguments, found in articles, weren’t always cleanly done, so tying those off seamlessly was a little difficult.
Another issue we found that because we had already established the voices of the podcast, only to embedded another entirely different American man, we opted for humour and included an intro to the chosen clips.

Overall, our group was a pleasure to work and collaborate with.
We never encountered any issues and each member held up their part of the agreement of showing up when they could and doing their share of the work.

I think the most recent podcast that I had listened to was The Ricky Gervais Show with Karl Pilkington.
I remember my ex boyfriend would play it in the car on long drives. Romantic.
Karl would be the butt of every joke and I’d just love the real laughter that Ricky would bust out at the sheer disbelief of the density of his co-host/martyr.

I don’t think I’ve listened to many other podcasts, to tell you the truth.
The sheer thought of making one has confused me a little.

I’ve forced myself to listen to one now on the BBC.
I love the English. I just feel they do comedy so well because they’re often so warped, similar to Australians but then completely different, if that makes sense. Probably not.
Anyway, it’s called The Listening Project and there’s a little girl interviewing her father. She sounds about 8 years old (specific) and she just asked him if he likes mummy better than any of his ex-girlfriends.
Kids are brilliant.

Podcasts have this incredible creative freedom to launch and translate information accumulated in any direction.
The issue I think lies in the information found, the creative efforts of your group and the shared direction – let’s also not forget that there are a tonne of other deadlines that we all respectively have to get done, amidst the podcast flurry.
We opted for a simplistic format to kick things off.

I think now that the podcast has been done (yes, I was late with my blog posts), I liked constructing it all and watching it come to fruition.
Grasping each member of the groups strengths and weaknesses helps to gauage what they can tackle as their parts and then bring it all together and make a podcast pasta.
I think we did a fairly good job for our first try, to be honest.
We had a good laugh too.

I had the most fun tackling the first recording exercise ‘do I have your attention’, forming a narrative, which I believe may have actually been the idea that Ben, one of group members, was hoping the podcast, was hoping our podcast would have become.
In hindsight, could’ve been pretty great but it’s a learning curve that’s only just begun.

We presented our rough cut to Catherine on Thursday – link here.

I really liked the sound clip that Ben prepared.
Having not been able to come up with an idea as a group, Ben took the inititave and threw a recording together, akin to what he had been trying to describe to us a week prior.
We felt that it worked in jest, as those of us in the group weren’t keen on being too serious throughout – Ben had accomplished a happy medium.

Our rough-cut was very rough but it gave the overall idea for how we wanted to present our findings.
It began with Ben, narrating and setting the tone with a little sarcasm, which was later described as arrogance by Catherine.
She suggested that we use it as a means of further developing characters throughout the podcast.
Considering our limited time frame, we found the concept of creating characters for four people to be an additional weight that we didn’t wish to carry. We were aiming for simplicity.
Catherine mentioned that she had not watched the show we were discussing, Game of Thrones.
Having only watched one episode and seeing the stereotypical female roles as mother and exotic female, she was unimpressed and didn’t give the show a second glance.
Which was what a lot of my findings were telling me too – articles in abundance convincing the public that women do in fact like GoT.
Catherine’s reaction to it as being ‘sexist’ was something that we took on board, myself especially as gender was my primary focus on the project.

She went on to say that she liked the overall tone of the clip but she didn’t think that we should poke fun at the audience, as was lightly done in the recording – so we scrapped that but kept the overall theme set by Ben in the beginning; music intro, then narrator, then launch straight into the topics broached.

Overall, the feedback was helpful and allowed us to gain a firmer grip on what we didn’t want, which eventually paved the way for what we should do.

Thanks!