Category Archives: WAYS OF MAKING

Yesterday in class we had a go at replicating a Mad Men scene. I think the intention was to film and then edit, hence the use of three cameras, but what felt most important to me was getting to know camera angles. I didn’t realise how much a small change in direction impacted the picture and scene.

The monitors that we had access to really helped emphasise this point and gave me a better understanding of how to frame and shoot a scene with multiple cameras. For over the shoulder shots of two people in conversation, matching or accentuating height is all about positioning the camera to form a clear pathway for eyesight. If the angles don’t meet along the path then the shots can easily turn sour because of the confusing and unmatched visuals.

Shooting with a single camera makes the task even more difficult, but the experience using a multi-camera setup is a good point of reference. Being on a budget and a low income, it is worthwhile to consider how a scene would look if I had access to multiple cameras and external monitors.

– Gabe

My work is slowly gravitating towards an investigation of the relationship between the following elements: 

• Lights and lighting
• Music
• Movement
• Genre

At the moment, it is a bit experimental and mumbo jumbo though because I keep getting pulled in different directions to try new things. This can only be good experience though right?

I have been obsessed with cars travelling along the Eastern Freeway as documented in a previous blog post. I did another shoot there a couple of nights ago and fiddled around with the shutter speed which brought about some cool results – that I will post soon.The joltiness of the lights had a particular rhythm that would be nice to add music to. This time I used a tripod and I think I prefer the steadiness of it to the shake that comes with using a handheld camera.

– Gabe

My approach leading up to the week 7 assessment has been different to past assignments. At the moment I am exploring as many different avenues as possible in the hope that my ideas will gradually evolve, become more refined and concise. 

I feel like I am using my time well by continually filming different ideas on various devices. It’s been helpful having access to these four cameras capable of capturing video: 

• Sony Alpha a65
• Sony PMW-EX3
• Sony PXW-X200
• Panasonic NV-DS65

I discussed in a previous blog post the use of handheld camera techniques and the reason for their use. My DSLR (the alpha a65) does a pretty good job of capturing video. At times the movement looks a bit dodgy, but when it is still, it IS beautiful. The portability of it and the fact that it doubles as a quality camera means I am using it often. This is the slight downfall of the cameras at uni – they are bulky and difficult to transport. That being said, the videos they produce, particularly during hand-held recording are better than mine. The control of focus and lighting makes for really nice footage, but I do like the instant nature of my DSLR. 

I inherited the panasonic camcorder from my girlfriends dad. It’s just a bit of fun at the moment – something different to filming in HD. I haven’t been able to edit any of this footage yet as I don’t have the cable, but it will be interesting to see how it looks. 

I’ve been using the cameras more often than not without a tripod, purely due to conveniences sake. It’s difficult to lug around the camera and the tripod by yourself… Probably need to hire the equipment and work with a group. 

– Gabe

I’ve been back at uni for one month now and have certainly noticed a shift in the way that I approach Premiere Pro. Before the semester began, my projects were extremely messy and difficult to navigate through. Having organised folders has made it easier to create, and less laborious. The time that I once spent locating files is now spent solely on making… The more I use the program, the more I pick up on little hints, tips and shortcuts. I don’t expect to learn them all at once, but a gradual approach is starting to pay dividends.

Being in a designated studio suite has reduced the amount of distractions that surround me. Living with 7 other people, there is a constant buzz of noise, but the option to come in to uni to work has been helpful. I don’t know why I only found out about the suites this year.

– Gabe

The abstract audio exercise in particular got me thinking about what it would be like to be blind. How would I go making sense of the world purely through reception of audio and my other senses? I was at the bus stop the other day and noticed the braille on the signpost. I believe it was a phone number to call for assistance. I commend those severely visually impaired who remain mobile and able to catch public transport.

With my vision still intact though, I respect the ability to see. As for hearing, it’s hard not to appreciate my ears when I spend a lot of time making music. The music I have been writing of late is on the experimental side – featuring synthesisers and drum loops. It is music that I could potentially add footage to. This class is pushing me to thoroughly explore the connection between audio and visual. 

Some artists have attempted to recreate audio as a visual experience. One example that I was directed to is Oskar Fischinger’s An Optical Poem. To quote the video: “To most of us music suggests definite mental images of form and color. The picture you are about to see is a novel scientific experiment – its objective is to convey these mental images in visual form.” These ‘mental images of form and color’ are mostly depicted as circles, squares and triangles. I wouldn’t say that these shapes specifically come to mind when listening to music, but I do acknowledge that visuals can be produced. 

This piece blew me away. Fischinger has done extremely well to rhythmically match the visuals to Franz Liszt’s 2nd Hungarian Rhapsody. Without the aid of a digital production suite such as premiere pro this would have taken an extraordinary amount of time. The description states it was “made entirely with paper in stop motion fashion.” According to the Wikipedia page Fischinger “received no profits due to studio bookkeeping systems”. If I toy with the idea of making videos to fit audio or vice versa, and I plan to, I don’t expect to make money, but poor fella… At this stage it is all about experimenting. 

Going back to the Braille I noticed at the bus stop earlier, I want to apply Fischinger’s circular design to create a visual alphabet using out of focus lights. Something like the footage I shot over easter (below) but with more emphasis on the letters themselves. 

Combined with this:

Eastern Lights from Gabriel Strachan on Vimeo.

Will hopefully end up being something. The shakiness of the footage adds to the swirling effect, but using a tripod would probably have worked just as well…

– Gabe

Collaborating in groups for the three shot exercises felt like a smooth process. We bounced ideas off each other, all contributing to the construction and production of each individual shot. I think I can speak for us all when I say that there was little concern about how the end result might look and more appreciated the collaborative experience. This is the attitude I’m learning to adapt to – more doing and learning by creating. The narrative is easy to follow and each of the three shots progressively reveals more about the story (even if it revolves around something as small as a lost phone). See below.

Whose Phone? from Gabriel Strachan on Vimeo.

In saying that I appreciated the collaborative experience, this particular edit still turned out okay. Even though the position of the camera crosses the line, which I think is generally not so accepted in the film world, the close up of the phone in shot 2 creates some coherence. And why not do away with some of the rules of film-making? It’s a surefire way to progress development. The cut to wide shot as the dialogue begins reopens the scene, and doesn’t feel cramped for space. The light coming in through the window is maybe too strong however. I can’t recall if we white balanced it which may have had something to do with this. That and the exposure level. 

Just by watching the short scene it is hard to pinpoint a genre. We didn’t outline a genre to begin with, just kind of did it. I think the main thing that would contribute to the genre in this scene though is the acting, which I am responsible for. Changing my tone in voice and exaggerating actions would certainly alter the tone and genre of the scene. 

It was fun being the ‘actor’ in this scene. The more time I spend in front of a camera, the more comfortable I will become. I don’t necessarily plan on forging a career as an actor but I can sense that I’ll benefit from the consistent exposure. I wonder how long it will be before I am truly comfortable being captured on video though, if ever? This is probably a question that I won’t ever be able to answer, but an exploration of it could be interesting. Often I’ll just film my friends doing everyday things. Most of the time, they are aware of the camera being around, and this tends to alter their behaviour. But when someone you know slips fully into behaving naturally, you can generally tell. I wonder how many videos I have of people noticing the camera and acknowledging it compared to videos where people do not…

– Gabe

Linking abstract footage and abstract audio was tough. Making a choice on where to start had me stumped. Purely out of chronology’s sake though I decided to begin with the footage, which was shot first and attempted to put the audio to it. At first, I was probably trying too hard to match up the audio so it sounded as if it was coming from the video source – hence the footsteps at the beginning. This just wasn’t working. It was a much too difficult task for something that is meant to be ‘abstract’. I found myself playing around with some of the video effects in Premiere. 

Changing the colour of the sky in the state library statue footage was enjoyable and something I have experimented with outside of assessment tasks. It takes the principles of green-screening and reverses them to create a psychedelic visual. This Mark Pritchard music video directed by Jonathan Zawada masters this technique. The song is nice too: 

Mark Pritchard • ‘Sad Alron’ from Warp Records on Vimeo.

I have established that this works well when there are blocky elements to the picture. By that I mean there is a large amount of one colour to edit the hue so that it doesn’t look patchy. The sky in the previously mentioned footage takes up a large portion of the screen which makes it work. 

With the footage and audio that I had available though, I did my best to create a sense of narrative, albeit loose and probably clutching at straws. As cliché as it is, I realise that no matter what material you have available, you can make something from it. And no matter what message you try and present (if at all there is one), the interpreter has an input into the story they follow. 

The message that I was trying to get across though roughly has to do with escaping from the grasps of technology – quite literally displayed in the last image. Then again, you could draw many different readings from the final edit. Perhaps this edit is more of a self-portrait than an abstract video though. I can easily relate to each shot and audio snippet. I have begun to follow the NBA closely and with it comes keeping up with statistics and analysis meaning I spend a lot of time on my phone to get updates. Any relationship to the video? Maybe.

Technically, the footage is a step in the right direction. We made sure to white balance each shot and I think this shows. Getting the spiderweb in focus was a challenge because it is in such small detail, and with more time it could probably look a bit better (this will be an aim for next time I use the camera). But other than that I am happy with how the other shots look. The framing of the last shot (student captured between the hands) in particular really makes use of the surrounds.

Abstract v2 Hue from Gabriel Strachan on Vimeo.

– Gabe

We were asked to put together a few lists to use for our exercises. So far mine is this:

Actions

• Basketball
  • Dribbling
  • Passing
  • Shooting
  • Shooting a buzzer beater to win the game
  • Movement
• Playing football
• Washing dishes
  • Rhythm of washing – like dancing
• Drinking undrinkable liquids
  • Use of music as drama (sportsbet ads – dramatic)
• Playing guitar
  • Chord changes
  • Playing a gig
    • Lighting to express emotion
  • Making music
    • DJ’n
      • Flipping a record

Locations

• The couch
  • What can you do on the couch?
  • Can you do everything on the couch?
  • Watch TV
  • Eat dinner
  • Maybe not…
• Park
  • Basketball court and ring
• Bridge across the road – freeway below
  • Lights
  • Traffic
  • Noise
• Melbourne Museum
  • Sky at night looks amazing
• Tunnel
  • Lighting
• Garden – Galen’s house
  • Perfect for a tea party…
• Basement
  • Grimy
  • Uninviting
  • Crowded

People

• Sam
  • Prolific production
• Annie
  • Procrastination
• Julia
  • New ideas

It is pretty basic at the moment, but it will continue to grow as long as I am paying attention to things around me. It may not make a lot of sense to others, but at least I understand what I am talking about. So far I am yet embark on filming a combination of these, but it will be handy to refer back to.

– Gabe

Something that has stuck with me from class so far is the idea that filmmaking isn’t just about making films, it is about the process of making them. There is a lot of trial and error involved in the process and practice is the best way to improve. Rather than crafting an entire film from scratch, start to finish, I am excited to develop my skills exercise by exercise. 

So far we have been using tripods more often than not to get the right shot. For the three shot exercise though, I went with a mostly handheld approach. The point of view shots are reminiscent of Peep Show whereby the actors look directly at the camera for point of view conversational shots. This is something that I want to explore further. 

The handheld camera technique is not new, but I think I started to first notice it’s use in the Office. The mockumentary style brings Steve Carell’s character to life, creating his humorous demeanour. The frequent breaks of the fourth wall invites the audience in to the life of Michael Scott. 

It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, which began at the same time as The Office, is another sitcom that uses a handheld camera. The reason for it’s use though seems to be different to the mockumentary style. Judging by the pilot episode of It’s Always Sunny, budgeting was much more of an issue. That and obviously a mockumentary style was not desired. Nevertheless, the cost factor is an undeniable reason why people would choose to go with a hand held approach. I made a pretty shitty movie for my first degree called ‘Unsuccessful’. I tried to do a bit of everything (write, act, film and edit) but I found it quite difficult, particularly with time constraints. Throughout the semester, I would love to develop an idea for a web series with classmates.

I came across this article outlining a few reasons why people go handheld. The 6 they came up with are cost, efficiency, effect, lower profile, surprise and time: “Hand-held camerawork is a great option for filmmakers looking to cut costs, reduce set up time, lessen equipment, and create an authentic, intense atmosphere”. 

Reflecting on the scene we shot as a group for the three shot exercise (which turned out to be more than three shots), I am happy enough with the end result. There are some obvious errors, such as the reflection in the window and the jittery zoom pans, but I will have this in mind for the next exercises. So far I’ve enjoyed making little snippets to learn from. 

– Gabe

Something that I have little control over on my DSLR is focus. If it is set to auto-focus, the microphone picks up the shutter and if it’s on manual it becomes a bit of an ordeal to use. For home movies it’s fine, but for anything else the camera pretty much needs to be still. Using cameras built specifically for video has been breezy. There is less fuss about the restrictions of the machine and more actual filming/doing/creating. That’s not to say that my camera can’t be used well though. Lately I have been filming a lot of stuff and plan on adding audio tracks to the visuals, much like the abstract exercise in class, which was difficult to say the least.

This is the first time I have used a proper video camera though, and the stability of it takes the guess work right out of capturing something in focus. Zooming in completely on a subject to obtain sharp focus, then zooming out to the frame is a technique I have tried to implement in my DSLR practice. At first it was difficult to understand how this improved the shot. I’m not confident in explaining it to someone, but I have learnt that the further away you are from a subject the greater the depth of field, meaning there is more leeway for the subject to be in focus. My kit lens is 18-50mm which is nothing compared to the cameras at uni, but refining my skills with this equipment will surely be good practice.

Making a choice on what to have in focus has a lot to do with framing. I need to work on frames at both the beginning of a sequence and the end (for panning and tilting shots). This will hopefully make for cleaner footage.

– Gabe