Project Brief 3.

This is our third assessment for the year, as with the previous two it is a portrait, this time thankfully not of myself, but instead, a person I know. Thankfully I managed to rope one poor girl, Kate, into volunteering.

This portrait focuses on a few key aspects of the participants life, first as an introduction she discusses why she is here, then she talks about her move to Melbourne and her love of supporting social minorities through her artwork. Finally she reveals her disability and discusses the issues associated with being a graphic design student who can’t draw without experiencing pain. The reason I omitted her name is because that has little to do with who she is, it isn’t needed and there simply wasn’t time. This documentary doesn’t follow any strict guidelines in terms of form. It loosely resembles the 3-Act documentary structure (Intro to hero and conflict/ obstacles and set backs/ resolution), but for the most part this documentary portrait has a more free flowing form detailing first who she is, second what she loves and third the struggles she faces in achieving these goals, before finally telling us how she turns these disadvantages to advantages and resolving the portrait.

To film this portrait I used exclusively RMIT equipment.

• Sony Video Camera
• H4N Zoom recorder and microphone
• Tripod
• LED light

The filming process went smoothly with the participant happily signing her personal release form and little other interference. Though the poor lighting meant we needed to change location and the sound needed to be recorded on a H4N zoom recorder as there was a lot of background noise. The main issue we had on the day was that the participant was, at the time, in quite a bit of pain. She was therefore less expressive than she would normally have been, however, the footage and audio taken was still adequate for cutting and unfortunately the participant has since been unavailable for interview due to the pain she is currently experiencing.

I myself faced quite a bit of trouble in creating this documentary in terms of editing, at first i was obsessed with trying to make my footage fit the 3 Act structure, however, after finally achieving this the portrait seemed disharmonious somehow. I personally preferred this more organic structure, where we learn about the subject bit by bit giving a more fluid more well rounded view of the subject in question, creating a more conversational form, with her first introducing herself and progressively moving onto more personal topics. A way in which I wanted to reflect this more organic style in a graphic way is why I left in her ummm’s and arrr’s. When she struggled for words we could see it, the last few frames of the last shot we see her look up from the camera for approval, this show of weakness makes her a more repeatable character. The next major issue I faced was the project brief itself. This portrait had a time limit of 3 minutes and at least 30% of the footage on screen needed to be found footage. That means 54 seconds needed to be made of found footage, for anyone who hasn’t tried this before’it is not easy. Personally I think there is something really personal about showing footage of the actual person and what they do in a portrait such as this, therefore I tried to as much as possible whilst still adhering to this 54 seconds (I had 61 seconds if anyone’s counting). This is also the reason for the artwork as backing footage used in the shot with Kate just on her own. As I wanted to keep her on screen for as much time as possible and wanted to show off her artwork, and fulfill all the other requirements this was the solution formed, 2 crop layers were placed on these shots, cropping with the line of the curtains, with the cropped sections displaying the participants own artwork.

This is also why she appears without the backing footage at the beginning and end, as at these points in the interview I wanted the audiences attention based solely on Kate.

In all honesty I do wish this documentary had gone differently. If I had more time with the subject, and more creative freedom over the content. But such as it is I think this documentary is pretty decent satisfying all criteria and providing a platform for further development.

References for found footage:

Cars Driving On A Highway Blurred. Pexels. video. Accessed at <https://videos.pexels.com/videos/cars-driving-on-highway-blurred-410>

Sketching A Layout On Paper. Pexels. video. Accessed at <https://videos.pexels.com/videos/sketching-a-layout-on-paper-438>

Four Seasons. Tomoko Konoike, 2005. video. Accessed at <https://ia802306.us.archive.org/19/items/Four_Seasons_Tomoko_Konoike/four_seasons_tomoko_konoike_512kb.mp4>

Gesture Drawing Demonstration – Portrait. Archive.org, 2006. video. Accessed at <https://archive.org/details/MarleneAngejaGestureDrawingDemo_port>

Phases Of Funny Faces. J. Stuart Blackton. video. Accessed at <https://archive.org/details/HumorousPhasesOfFunnyFaces>

School, Scribble, Student, Drawing. Pixabay. video. Accessed at <https://pixabay.com/en/videos/school-scribble-student-drawing-80/>

Digital Landscapes: Painting Environments With Photoshop. www.archiving.ir. video. Accessed at <https://archive.org/details/DigitalLandscapesPaintingEnvironmentsWithPhotoshop>

Typing On Keyboard Of Macbook Pro. Pexels. video. Accessed at <https://videos.pexels.com/videos/typing-on-keyboard-of-macbook-pro-323>

Workers / Students Go Into A House. Pexels. video. Accessed at <https://videos.pexels.com/videos/workers-students-go-into-a-house-395>

Music:

Memories. www.bensound.com. Acessed at  <http://www.bensound.com/royalty-free-music/track/memories>