Links to Assessment 4, Part 1 Blog Posts
Final Reflection
Week 13
Week 12
Week 11
Week 10
Week 9
Week 8
Week 7
Week 6
Week 5
Week 4
Week 3
http://www.mediafactory.org.au/isabella-oliveria/2018/05/10/week-3-reflection/
Week 2
Week 1
Final Reflection
Without this studio to contextualise the concept of ‘home’ as being relative to a person’s cultivation of memory and identity, the idea of ‘neighbourhoods’, at least from the outset, seemed broad and unfocused. Upon entering Memory, Identity and Neighbourhoods, however, I came to appreciate the holistic approach towards understanding neighbourhoods as embodying the social, physical and internal factors that influence our associations with the idea of ‘home’. Indeed, it is the emphasis placed upon neighbourhoods as as being more than a fixed place—and more about the characteristics we ascribe to it—that I felt my own definition of ‘home’ begin to change and expand. Rather than viewing home as static and dependent on its architecture and geographic location, this studio underscores neighbourhoods as superseding location. At its core, this studio looks beyond the literal meaning of neighbourhoods as simply being a place of residency. Instead, we come to understand that it is the intricate threads of a person’s perception of home, the feelings they associate with it as well as the people, senses and emotions that comprise a particular space that fundamentally weave a person’s identity to their neighbourhood. At the heart of this studio, we come to understand how the idea of ‘home’ is constantly moving and changing as the person does.
The combination of tutorial discussions, practical workshops and screenings of different documentaries (some of which range from the disadvantaged suburbs of Hoop Dreams to the political dissatisfaction prevalent throughout feminist documentary Pussy Riot), this studio encompasses a diverse range of tutorials that challenge us to think both philosophically and technically in how we view and represent neighbourhoods. Indeed, it is the group discussions facilitated by our tutor, Kim Montgomery, that served as a springboard for debate and prompted us to consider the many facets of ‘neighbourhoods’ and how we associate ‘home’ in relation to ‘place’. In particular, it is the questions posed during tutorials that gradually shifted our understanding of ‘neighbourhoods’ from merely a piece of architecture, to viewing ‘neighbourhoods’ as something that can occur internally through an intangible feeling of connection. These forums, in addition, played an integral role in fostering a sense of camaraderie and rapport between myself and my classmates. Moving beyond theory, this studio emphasises an exposure to skillsets and technical knowledge that are paramount during the planning stages and eventual realisation of our final documentary.
Being in this studio showed me the need for technical competency and how having proficiency, or at the very least, a willingness to experiment with digital platforms and softwares, is significantly helpful in creating a project that realises what my group and I have envisioned for our documentary. While a few of our tutorials were dedicated to familiarising ourselves with equipment, I found that we also needed to be self-sufficient and have the capacity to self-learn when it comes to researching and operating different lenses, cameras and audio equipment, that I otherwise would not have experimented with before coming into this studio.
The complete creative freedom and liberty that we were granted in this studio provided me with a platform in which to explore and engage with a subject that I feel truly passionate about. This being the democratisation of skateparks through female skateboarders and how this ultimately contributes to Melbourne’s changing identity as an inclusive and progressive community. Indeed, being given the license to portray and direct this paradigm according to my own taste and creative direction, admittedly, pushed me to challenge my previous editing and filming capabilities; driving me to learn entirely new softwares, such as Premiere Pro and After Effects, as I wanted to prove to myself that I am capable of creating advanced edits.
Screenshots of me editing the title page in After Effects. Rotoscope Brush tool was used to achieve the ‘text behind moving image effect’ and required on approximately 100 frames to create seamless effect.
Due to the endless creative possibilities presented in this studio, and because I felt so strongly about the neighbourhood that I was documenting, I ensured that the pre-production stages were used to research the best equipment to use in order to maximise the quality of my group’s project. From looking into the best lenses that cater specifically to skateboarding and skate photography, to the best DSLR settings to use when filming, I came to understand the importance of research in order to attain the best, most aesthetically pleasing results. In addition to my research, I quickly learned that building a sense of rapport and respect between myself and others, to a large degree, forms an integral part of documentary-making as approaching individuals, regardless if they are strangers, is essential when finding an interview subject. This proved especially true when venturing out into Riverslide Skatepark as many of our interview subjects were found through a simple greeting and a smile. It is here that I came to understand the importance of interpersonal skills and relationship building, as this aids your interview subject to feel comfortable enough to share their story in front of the camera.
For the duration of our production process, I was wholly responsible for researching which equipment caters to our specific requirements for skate filming and which gear is needed to capture the vibrant, clean and crisp tone that we had envisaged and pitched for our project. This required making equipment bookings with RMIT AV Loans in advance and scheduling the most opportune days to book equipment as we only had access one day per week. In addition to taking charge of the equipment, I also took the helm in filming and finding all of our contacts that were later used as our interview subjects. This required approaching the skaters, befriending them and providing them with a rundown of the purpose of our project. As I was their main source of contact, I was present at all shooting days where filming often began immediately after tutorials had ended and finished well into the evening. Filming did not come without its struggles, however, as I did encounter issues with audio during our first filming session and later needed to be re-recorded. To do this, I was accompanied by Claudia to reshoot our interview subject, Jenna Pignotti, who resides deep in the suburbs of Box Hill, Mount Waverly, and is at least a two hour commute for both Claudia and myself. As filming took place well into the season of Autumn, the weather conditions were not always optimal, but as we all will come to realise, undertaking a media studio requires a certain level of perseverance and determination to overcome the often uncooperative conditions that come with shooting on-location.
Screenshot of equipment research and re-shoot of Jenna.
Screenshots of organising film time with skater, Jenna Pignotti.
Screenshots of organising film time with skaters, Patience and Bella.
Overall, I am content with the success of my group’s final cut of our documentary Girls Shred Riverslide Melbourne. Although we did face some challenges over the course of filming, including scheduling conflicts, where some members were not present at shooting days, to technical difficulties, such as unsalvageable audio, and difficulty with setting up interviews with girl skaters, we were able to work collaboratively as a team in order to complete a documentary that portrays female skateboarding in a positive and empowering light. Ultimately, it is both the practical and theoretical components provided by Memory, Identity and Neighbourhoods, that has given me the creative freedom and competency to realise an entire documentary.
Week 13: Thursday’s Tutorial
The day has finally arrived wherein the last 13 weeks spent planning, producing and eventually realising our documentaries is to be shared with the rest of the classroom. Dedicated to screening all each group’s documentaries, today’s tutorial served as a sort of exhibition in which members of each group were to present in front of the class what they had been working on, contextualising the purpose of their documentary; what they wanted to explore, how their interview subjects and their stories related to identity and neighbourhoods.
After showcasing our documentary Girls Shred Riverslide Melbourne, we received an incredible amount of positive reception from our classmates. Many of whom were particularly receptive of how our documentary was storyboarded and the general narrative direction of our piece. This was extremely validating to hear as my group and I were initially paralysed and overwhelmed to the point of hysteria and dejection as we had, what felt like, an endless amount of footage to work with. Here, it became apparent that organising our documentary in sections, from start to finish, plays an integral role in the flow and fluidity of our narrative. In addition to these comments, we were also applauded for the cinematic and diverse range of our clips as we had a “good combination of both static and moving shots” that added a layer of diversity to our overall documentary. In this way, it becomes obvious that putting in the time to research equipment that is tailored to the specific needs of the documentary, and practicing with these pieces of equipment, is paramount in achieving the desired tone, look and feel of our overall project.
Week 13: Monday’s Tutorial
Week 13, otherwise known as “crunch time” by many panic-stricken students on campus, today’s tutorial saw the entire classroom in the editing suites to continue editing the final cut version of our documentary, that is to be submitted during Thursday’s tutorial.
Here, we were given the opportunity to sit down with our tutor and provide an update on our footage, our progress in editing and how much more needs to be done both technically and with our interview subjects. As Claudia and I had only just re-recorded Jenna’s interview on Sunday, the day before, Kim understood our limitations and how this had delayed the process of editing her piece together. While we had more setbacks than work to show our tutor, today’s tutorial served as a good time to get together with my group mates to review our recent footage and how we can thread her audio and video clips together.
For the remainder of the tutorial, we reviewed Jenna’s footage and used this time to pick out key quotes, time stamping where she mentions these quotes and inserting these on the shared Google document. We ensured that the quotes we made note of had addressed notions of identity and neighbourhoods; whenever Jenna spoke about her contrasting living conditions in Melbourne compared to her home in California, or how meeting like-minded individuals, both male and female at the skatepark, we ensured that this would go in the final documentary.
Indeed, because Jenna had no other availability but to film on Sunday, our group was left on a tight schedule when trying to edit everything together before Thursday’s tutorial arrived. We found that while we had an array of beautifully shot footage, there seemed to be an abundance of footage to sift through and categorise, to the point that my group and I were extremely overwhelmed by the amount of footage to consider and review. In order to alleviate our qualms, we put together a storyboard detailing, from the opening to the ending sequence, what details need to be addressed first. What kind of b-roll we want to correspond with the narration and the kind of narrative progression that we were trying to achieve. This helped significantly in organising the way we edited our footage and gave us a direction and guidance when piecing our footage together.
Week 12: Thursday’s Tutorial
After meeting skaters, Patience and Bella, during Monday’s film session, I reached out to both girls via Instagram direct message and organised to record an interview with them during today’s tutorial. We experienced many setbacks when trying to organise a time that accommodated for both the girls and my group’s schedules, wherein the girls would not arrive at all on the agreed meet-up times, or we would receive a cancellation last minute. Fast forward to today’s tutorial and we were finally able to go through with out interview in which the girls ended up being such co-operative and energetic subjects for our documentary. We did need to brief them on the kinds of questions we would be asking, telling them that we weren’t simply focusing on girl skaters in Melbourne, but also how being a girl skater in Riverslide, in particular has, helped shape their identity and associations with the neighbourhood. This required guiding them on how to respond to questions such as telling them to structure their responses as full sentences, for example, “Hi, my name is X and I’m from Y”. When we explained this to the two girls, they were able to answer our questions without anymore direction or guidance from us.
After we had finished filming their interview we then used that time to record some footage for our b-roll collection. Patience had recently returned home from hospital after recovering from an extensive surgery to treat a bottle that had left her scalp split open. As you can imagine, this impacted her ability to skate as she was under doctor’s order to not engage in any physical activity that may be considered strenuous. With this in mind, we made sure to only have Patience cruising on the board – away from the skatepark – so as to decrease any risk of her getting hurt or flustered by the other skaters.
Week 12: Monday’s Tutorial
This week my group and I decided that a more productive use of our time would be to use our Monday and Thursday tutorials as time to film the remainder of our shots. This was due to the fact that all members would not experience any scheduling clashes that would prevent us from filming together and also because this is an optimum time to film the skaters during the earlier and often peak hours of the day.
In both tutorials, we agreed that we needed more establishing shots of Riverslide Skatepark to situate it more clearly within Melbourne’s CBD. This involved setting up the tripod in the middle of Alexandra Garden’s entrance pathway in order to obtain a scenic shot of the beautiful route that is involved in getting to Riverslide. Eager to make this our opening shot, we did multiple takes as we were often interrupted by different people passing by. We did, however, manage to record a spontaneous shot of a skater who happened to be skating uphill where our camera was set-up. The scene was executed beautifully even if the shot was not pre-planned, however, our plans to use this as opening shot were sadly disrupted by another passerby who ended up interrupting our shot (view clip here).
The rest of the day was dedicated to filming the actual skatepark from different angles and distances in order to give the viewer a better understanding of the look and feel of the park.
Week 11: Thursday’s Tutorial
After completing our first shoot with Jenna, Grace, Claudia and I used Thursday’s tutorial to film Riverslide Skatepark to get a better look and feel of the place. This was one of the most lively and active days we had when filming at Riverslide, where the three of us were able to shoot the park at its upmost peak. Children, teenagers, adults and everyone else in between, women and men, were present at the park and gave us a greater opportunity to capture the sense of community and inclusive nature that skateboarding in Melbourne has evolved into. While we weren’t able to film any female skaters, we came across a number of guy skaters who more than willing to speak on camera about their excitement to see more females shredding at the park and, ultimately, how supportive they are of seeing skateboarding becoming a more progressive and gender-inclusive sport.
We spoke with skaters, Lachlan and Joshua, who told us about Riverslide hosting a ‘Girls Skate Progression Session’ where they’ve been seeing a surge of women partaking in the sport – and they couldn’t be happier to see this sudden change in demographic.
This proved to be a very productive day as we were able to interview the evolution of girl skaters from a male perspective who spoke candidly about their support of skating’s inclusive and supportive nature. We were also able to capture additional skatepark close-up shots that further showcased the sense of community, friendship and camaraderie that permeates Riverslide skatepark.
Week 11: Monday’s Tutorial
Last Saturday, Dana and I headed to Riverslide to film our first interview subject, Jenna Pignotti. Our filming was hugely under the mercy of the weather and to our dismay, it had continued to rain for a significant portion of our filming time, wherein a lot of our time was spent briefing Jenna on the project, we informed her that our focus was in trying to weave her identity as a female skater and how she associates this with being a skate at Riverslide.
As this was the first time Dana and I had hired and worked with the new lenses and camera equipment, many of our video clips ended up being shot either too closely to the subject or completely out of focus. Back at RMIT, my group and I decided that the footage was still usable for b-roll and the blurry footage could be used to add a sort stylistic effect for our documentary.
The most disheartening aspect of this filming process when we reviewed Jenna’s interview during our tutorials, we realised that while Jenna’s interview footage was shot beautifully (and in focus), the audio was completely unusable as we had forgotten to place the muffler on our zoom recorder and therefore, the recording device had picked up all of the background noise from the skaters and excessive wind that drowned out Jenna’s dialogue completely.
Week 10 Reflection
First hour:
Went through the room, group by group, to discuss the process of our filming – how we found it, trials, challenges, accomplishments, clips that we were especially pleased with and how we were able to attain these particular shots.
We were then asked to divulge tips, tricks and hacks in alleviating the anxiety and stress that comes with doing on-location shooting. For our group, the challenges that we faced was the constant clashing schedules during our peak and most opportune time for filming. This meant that there was often two of us filming at a time, making it more difficult to maximise our shooting time as having more members would enable multiple perspectives and ergo, more clips to work with in creating and establishing the neighbourhood of Riverslide. One of the tips that I offered in terms of filming was doing your research in terms of which equipment caters to the specific needs of your shoot. As we’re filming skaters in action and they’re very much mobile subjects to film, it was essential that we had a lens that could capture these skaters in their entirety, from a distance, that didn’t compromise the quality of the shot. The range afforded by the 70-200mm lens gave us an impeccable scope to work with as we were able to film our subjects from both a distance and close-up when shooting portrait frames.
After a brief viewing of our work to Kim and to some members of our tutorial, we received feedback on our raw clips that were shot over the week. Here, we were able to hear from classmates who complimented us on the instant cinematic look of our footage despite them only being raw files; files untouched by colour grading or any kind of editing.
Second hour:
We used the later hours of the tutorial to do a screening of two documentaries that, although were significantly different in nature and content, were impeccably threaded together in terms of narrative and effective in eliciting emotions of empowerment, wonder and awe. One documentary that stood out to me almost immediately was Pussy Riot: A Punk Player, a Russian documentary exploring a female/feminist punk rock girl band who orchestrate public spectacles while decked out in balaclavas in order to create politically provocative stirs in public and religious spaces. I was especially taken by the stylistically edgy, albeit cinematic look and tone of the film while still maintaining that quintessential documentary look and feel through hand held shots and use of archival footage.
Week 9 Reflection
Eager to review the footage we captured from our last tutorial, Grace, Claudia and I visited the editing suites to begin our opening sequence. Here, we began to brainstorm different ways we could open our documentary, whether we wanted to adopt a humorous take, or stay true to our initial vision of an edgy albeit refined and sleek atmosphere. Many of us had conflicting opinions of how our opening sequence should unfold as this scene would ultimately set the tone of our overall documentary.
Workshopping our options we decided to go for the humorous take first in which we used the footage of the single skater skating uphill towards the camera, but later being interrupted by a tourist who inadvertently sabotaged our shot. Determined to use this clip as our opening sequence, we tried to find ways that could make the unplanned video-bombing of the tourist to look purposeful or at the very least, humorous. We did this by having serene music playing while the subject skates towards the camera and as soon as the lady enters our shot, we immediately disrupt the serenity of the scene by inserting a scratch-disk sound effect to further draw attention to the abruptness of the lady’s appearance while trying to do in a comedic way. After putting together a rough edit, Claudia raised the point that the schtick we were trying to incorporate was too juvenile for the overall sleekness that we were trying to convey for the rest of the documentary. Agreeing with Claudia, we needed to come to terms with the fact that we would need to reshoot. Here, it became clear that filmmaking often requires a lot of sacrifice, such as excluding a shot that you were once previously married to, and that flexibility and adapting to the circumstances is necessary when completing a documentary.