Here is a link to my Portrait of Ted Hatty as part of my Project Brief 3.

Unfortunately, I was sick this week and just like the lecture was unable to attend the workshop.
(As I live out of home I’ve have endless lectures from my mum about eating enough veggies so hopefully news of this illness doesn’t get back to her…)

I’ve decided to compensate with another initiative post! (Yay that means I get to watch movies and tell everyone it’s homework)

Since starting this course I have taken a liking to watching movies and interviews and thinking about what I have learnt in class, it makes me feel like I’m a part of a bigger group of general media-makers out in the big wide world, a sort of “I see what you did there and I understand why you did it” vibe.

Most recently I was watching ‘Friends with Benefits’ (great film) and it stood out the way the movie goes onto a whole new dimension of movie-magic. Like most life-like films, they make you forget you’re watching a film by referencing the real world in their world. For example in ‘Friends with Benefits’ they mention George Clooney, and talk about all the great things about New York City – as it is in the real world. It’s a way to bring the audience with it, for them to be like “I know George Clooney, I get that reference” and “Omg NYC is exactly like that!”. I guess this is a way for film-makers to drag people into the world of their film without them even realising it.

Once that thought struck, I started thinking about the endless lists of films that do this. Every rom-com out there has elements of this phenomenon.

This week I was editing my portrait. It was difficult to decide which bits of footage not only best matched what Ted was saying during his interview, but also what would be most interesting to watch for an audience. It was difficult deciding when to put in the background sounds of the cutaway footage and when not to.

All of these different elements can change the entire outlook of your video, it can make it more emotionally appealing, or it can make it more factual and informative. Deciding which angle I preferred was easy. Films that pull at your emotions are always more entertaining.

When you look at specific documentaries, the most successful ones are those that bring emotions into what they are talking about. Specifically referencing David Attenborough’s nature documentaries. The detailed shots of a mother penguin returning to it’s mother, or a seal struggling to out manoeuvre the jaws of a great white make you feel something. That’s the essence I hope to be able to capture one day

Unfortunately I was sick over this week and was unable to attend the lecture. However the reading “The Night Of a Thousand Wizards” kind of touched on and built on what I was thinking regarding Game of Thrones last week. It’s amazing how something so fake can seem so real to some people. How the way things are created and described, and the way characters each have their own personality despite (particularly in books) only having one person create them. How something can seem – in reference to Harry Potter – “So Ron”, or “Classic Hermione”. I’ve always been fascinated how authors transform words into worlds.

I’d love to be able to master that art, because of course it’s an art. Anyone can write a story, but it takes a master to bring it to life.

I think the most successful part of the interview was the cutaway footage. I haven’t shot anything like that with a proper camera before and I think it came out great. I think the material, as in the old photos bring a nostalgic, vintage element that mixes well with the modern farming machinery and general definition of the footage.

Alternatively, I think the editing regarding the interview itself is not as smooth as it could be. I haven’t had much practice with editing mid-dialogue, and while I tried my best to keep the flow, I think there are still some parts that lack that perfect smooth element.

I learnt that there are so many ways to represent someone. Every person has endless things about them that it is hard to find one singular one to focus on. Even in this case, I found my focus in farming and there were still questions and answers that didn’t fit in to the final edit time restraints. On top of this, you don’t need much dialogue (in fact, less is better) to demonstrate someone’s way of life. My favourite parts of my final edit at when there is just the music in the background, or the sound of machinery. I personally find it more interesting and relaxing to watch.

I learnt that you can cut out a LOT of time by cutting the little gaps in what a person (in this case interviewee) is saying. When I first put the whole interview on the timeline, it was almost double what the final cut was. I did have to prioritise questions and cut some out, but the final edit is cut so much shorter just because of the many, many smaller cuts. However, I did find it hard to cut properly, in some cases you need more time between words and sentences to keep the flow. It took me a while to get this balance right, but I think I got there in the end, (after rounds of cutting and then un-cutting and then cutting again).

Recently I have gotten back into Game of Thrones (I know, late to the party). I’m not one to enjoy the blood and gore which makes some scenes difficult to watch, but I have found that they don’t over do it. I would not describe Game of Thrones as a particularly ‘gory’ show, while it does include a lot of gory material. I attribute this to the way it has been shot.

Game of Thrones has been brought to life. The intricacies of the story line and the details of all the characters make Westeros seem so real and life-like that I have found that when I am watching a particularly bloody scene, I don’t feel like I’m watching blood and guts. I feel like I’m watching the terrible things that have been happening to some characters (whether they deserved it or not). I feel like the world has been brought to life and the things that happen in that world (mostly death) are just a part of it.

I would also attribute this to the editing team. The camera does not show particularly horrible things in details, it does not highlight the gore. Instead it shows the audience what they need to be shown (mostly to get the idea of the suffering of the character) and then it moves on, usually to another character. While you can still hear what is happening, you are watching the reactions. I think this is what makes it real. The reactions of the actors make you feel what the characters would be feeling, instead of the ‘ickiness’ of the blood and guts.

I found this week’s reading “Why I look at animals” For Gilles Aillaud extremely interesting and eye opening. It is pointing out how animals are such a huge part of the human world because they are used metaphorically. In particular to describe certain characteristics that can be found in people. For example, “as brave as a Lion”, “as quiet as a mouse”. It is also pointed out that humans rely on using animals as metaphors so strongly that without them situations would be indescribable. The example used is an excerpt from the The Illiad when Homer uses the metaphor of a mother cow standing over her young to describe the protective behaviour of a warrior.

During my gap year in 2015 I worked at a summer camp in Canada. Camp’s love to create their own world and make the real world seem distant for the kids during their time. As part of this, each counsellor had to choose a “nature name” (a nick-name of sorts that the kids called you that had something to do with nature). When we were first given this task, a group of us sat around the joked about who should be called what. These jokes ran along the lines of “you should be called Snake because you’re always snaking girls” and “You can get Eel because you’re slippery and untrustworthy”. It was all in good fun.

This reading really resonated with me because of how true it is. Without even realising, I had given different animals traits and stereotypes that can be used to describe people. When the joke was made about someone being called Snake, I immediately got the reference and understood the association.

This idea also comes back to movies with animals in them. In most cases, the animals reflect the kind of character they are associated with in real life. You look at Disney’s Robin Hood, for example. Robin Hood is represented by a Fox, quick and agile, while Little John is represented by a bear, big and cuddly, and Fryer tuck is played by a mole, vulnerable, and frail.

It’s a very interesting thing to have pointed out, when you think about how ingrained it is in our lives.

This week’s workshop we were sent around campus to muck around with the camera’s again. But this time we were made to shoot a ‘one-shot’ film based on ‘Misunderstanding’. After some serious location scouting and rehearsals of timing (which is – unsurprisingly – very key in these sorts of films), we took a shot and decided that that was the one. We nailed it and called it a day with 5 minutes spare to get back to class.

What I learnt:
-timing is everything when it comes to this kind of film
-You can only really improvise when you have a clear idea of what you want
-You have to nail the entire sequence in one go as there is no editing

Here is the result:

In this week’s workshop we went over our rough cuts. Alas mine was less than prepared… However it was still really good to be able to see what other people had produced and had interpreted the idea of the Project.

We then were tasked with creating a movie under the theme of ‘Pursuit’. There were no rules apart from that, well not including the general instructions of including each different type of frame in the film. My group sat down to brainstorm the ideas for what we could create and to me, the idea of Chandler chasing Cathy down the street to say “Hi” scene from ‘Friends’ came to mind.

Our group rolled with that idea. We formed the idea of someone dropping a pen and then someone else chases them a ridiculous amount to get it back to them.

But the point of class? What did I learn from this? A lot actually. I learnt that you can come up with something at least half decent in a short time frame and put it all together. I learnt that people can’t actually read my mind and the ideas that I have in my head, so I do actually have to communicate them properly. I learnt that planning is very important to save time and you can’t improvise everything. However, in saying that you can’t plan everything when you’re not shooting on a set. You can’t plan the kind of activities people in the background will be doing, or where exactly you’ll have to film around campus so it’s important to have a fair amount of flexibility in the specifics of the story line.

All in all, I really liked this idea, and filming outside of the classroom (while a hassle to get and return equipment and actually ‘do stuff’) is always the best way to actually learn the lesson’s we’re being taught.

During this workshop we watched everyones self portrait video, it was good to see what everyone else had produced and interpreted their own lives to be.

We then got to play around with the camera’s and produce what we could with the footage we shot on them. This is what I managed to scrape together….