Author Archives: jackfahey

Development Post 2

In class today, we had to do an audiovisual project combining photos with the spoken word. For our project, I like the idea of overlaying visuals from one place with audio from the other. That would work well if we do end up focussing on the idea of disjointed, dissonant audio and visuals discussed in my first blog.

Even if we don’t end up overlaying opposite audio and video, I think the spoken word could add an interesting layer to this project. Having a voiceover address what isn’t visible in the shot is a really intriguing way of making a more involved experience. The Audience hears things they can’t see being described by the voiceover, and that makes them imagine what else is in the location that isn’t in that shot. I think it might be a good way to add depth to whatever we end up shooting at our locations.

We also focussed on how text impacts the visual elements when they aren’t really related, or at least, when the text doesn’t describe the picture directly. One such example was Blind Spot by Teju Cole. One particular image stood out to me; Capri. A photo of the Mediterranean sea littered with boats sits on one page, a quote from the Iliad and some descriptors of the “fleet” sits on the other. What initially stood out to me as a calm, relaxing image of Yachts, shifted into a chaotic, rapid, almost military-like image because of Teju’s text. It doesn’t really describe the image, it just shapes what the audience notices. The reference to the Iliad, the term of an “apparition of a shining fleet” and the quote “We know about these beautiful waters that have death in them” all helped shape and change what I initially saw. This furthers the point that text can be a very useful tool when trying to influence the noticing of the audience, which I think could be used for our contrasting audio-visual experience.

 

References:

Cole, T. (2017). Blind Spot. New York: Random House, Capri.

Development Post 1

I hadn’t even selected my location yet but I had a sense of what I wanted to do in the final edit. I’m honestly not sure how it would work/play out, but I have an idea of juxtaposing the sound and the images throughout the video. At first glance of the assignment, I just wanted to have footage from one location, and then  audio from the other. Trying to match these contrasting senses would have been interesting in the edit room. But upon reading the assignment, we need to at least attempt to use basically everything we capture. So a revised plan might be to use video from both location, but split the audio from the visuals and cross them over. Whenever one location is being visually shown, the sounds from the other is being played underneath. I think this could create a sense of dissonance  in the audience which might be interesting to play with. I think this would work especially well if the locations chosen are very contrasting. For example, one of the locations I’m thinking about choosing is an outdoor park. Playing sounds from an inner city urban area with trams/cars/people etc over visuals of a calm, quiet park might create an interesting juxtaposition for the audience. This would definitely be fun to play with, trying to create a disjointed experience, and leave what makes each sound up to the audience’s imagination. Having them paint the picture of what kind of place the sounds are making and how it differs from what they are visually experiencing would be an intriguing audio-visual project. This particular format would also give us a pretty straight forward formula to follow while in the editing process, which I think could really speed up the work we have to do.

Noticing and Nonfiction Reflection

Shooting these 10 second clips of artificial light sources was honestly out of my comfort zone. I felt really odd standing around filming mostly motionless light sources whenever I did it in public. I suppose that’s a good thing though. It’s always useful to bend what you’re comfortable with in film-making.

It’s interesting what the phone does to focus attention. Often times, I found myself drawn to the shadows/what the light was hitting rather than the actual lights themselves. The overhead lights on the train and the kitchen light with the COLLINGWOOD ST sign in them were prime examples of this. Even though the entire purpose of the exercise was to focus on the thing that I would usually ignore (artificial light sources) I still found myself not actually focusing on the lights. Though the camera was squarely on the lights, the entire time I was filming I watched other things like subtle movements and reflections in the window nearby, or flickering of another light source in the background.

Upon re-watching the video, I would often notice things that weren’t really “there” (or at least detectable) when I was shooting. This is most blatant in the audio. The sounds of the traffic is obviously something that draws the audience’s attention in the video of the traffic lights. The sound of the train jolting and the sudden beep of the doors is another. But even more subtle than that is the creak of a floor board at the very end of the Hallway light video (around 50 second mark). The video of a bathroom light that starts around the 2 minute mark also has a very loud fan in it, that is barely noticeable in person, but the phone speaker picks it up and elevates it to the point where its really difficult to focus on anything else in the video.

As for the actual film-making process , it’s very…different. It’s going to take me a while to break out of the preconceptions I have concerning what a “film” is. I have never really considered experimental film-making as part of “non-fiction”. I always thought of it as just sort of its own category until now. I never really thought I would enjoy this kind of thing, and even though I was a bit uncomfortable while filming, I did actually surprise myself in that I enjoyed watching it back, especially the clips filmed outdoors. I like that it was still daytime when I got those shots, because there’s something oddly interesting about completely focusing on small, artificial light sources, while there is still the light from the sun illuminating the entire shot.

One last thing I’d like to touch on is the second last shot in the film (2:10-2:20 in the film). It was the only shot that had a camera movement in it. I think this is because it was the first shot I took chronologically. I’d actually only just woken up. I liked the idea of shooting the light first, and then bringing in the natural light for contrast. I thought about re-shooting it and getting just a stationary shot, but then just sort of decided that wasn’t really in the spirit of the project and kept the original in the video.

What is nonfiction?

When I hear the word nonfiction, the first thing that springs to mind is high budget, well produced documentaries. Which is interesting, because in terms of my own consumption of non-fiction media, documentaries wouldn’t really be near the top of the list. I see things like news articles, photos, social media etc much more frequently than the amount of feature length documentaries I’ve watched. Still though, that stands out as the pinnacle of non-fiction media within my head.

In our studios so far, I’ve interacted with much more experimental nonfiction media. In his nonfiction collation, Reality Hunger (2010), David Shields pulls together quotes from hundreds of pieces of nonfiction, and groups them together in terms of central themes. Several immediately leapt off the page and seemed to have a form of almost inherent meaning. I don’t even know why, but number “130 act naturally” kept coming back to me. Perhaps just because it was short and easily remembered, but maybe because subconsciously it resonated with me.

This is the kind of media that I hadn’t really even thought about as being considered “nonfiction”. Narrative-less, experimental expression. Incredibly subjective, and completely different to any two audiences.

Leviathan, a 2012 film by directors Lucien Castaing-Taylor and Verena Paravel, is another example of experimental non fiction that we looked at in our first studio. One shot from the portion of the film I saw really stood out to me. A camera, bobbing in and out of the water facing the front of the bow as it tore through the ocean. It just looked so incredibly cinematic. I immediately imagined it as the opening shot in a blockbuster, feature length film and wanted to try and recreate that shot myself some day.

Perhaps that’s the most important part of this kind of nonfiction. Everyone resonates with something different in these pieces of work, and those subjective responses can be used to draw inspiration from and develop new, different media.

 

Reference

Shields, David (2010), Reality Hunger: a Manifesto, New York: Knopf

What is Noticing?

Before this studio, I’d never considered noticing as an active practice. It was never something that I devoted much thought to, if at all. Much like breathing, or walking; noticing, to me, was obviously something I do almost at all times, but an action that never really requires consistent, conscious effort.

I simply thought noticing was becoming aware of something. But it can be much more than that. And it can be a much more active, conscious process than I initially thought.

Prior to our first few classes, I hadn’t really thought about how what I notice impacts my film-making. Obviously as a filmmaker, you try to control what the audience notices within any given shot. However, I hadn’t thought about what I notice. When I am setting up a camera or choosing somewhere to shoot, what things do I notice that shape my decision making? And how could I interpret similarities in what I notice throughout a film-making process? Perhaps even more importantly, how can I ensure that the audience notice the same thing I do? If I’m trying to bring the audience’s attention to a particular part of a shot or something within the shot, what is the best way to draw them in? What do people inherently want to notice, and how can a filmmaker use that to their advantage?

Noticing is not simply one action, but it is a collection of practices that enable us to learn from, experience, and inform our future actions (John Mason, 2001). It is something that can be honed and practiced, rather than something that simply happens to us. While it’s true it can be reactive, say suddenly shifting and intently focusing on a new, unexpected noise or flash of light, it can also be proactive; in that we can deliberately attend to something and actively focus our attention on a desired object.

 

Reference

Mason, John, Researching your own practice: the discipline of noticing, (p. 29-38). London: Routledge Falmer, 2001

Assignment 4 – Final Reflective Blog Post

When I began writing Alone, it was just a premise. What would a story be like with no dialogue and only one character who himself has no name and no idea who he is. It’s become an exploration of colour, surrealist ideas and toying with the idea of descent in order to rise. Somewhat similar to the story of Dante’s Inferno, in that the way out of hell, or in this case purgatory, is to push deeper and come out the other side, rather than turn away.

Once I’d arrived on the idea that my main character wasn’t waking up in an abandoned city within reality, but really waking up in purgatory and suffering through the seven deadly sins, I decided that visual representation, imagery and symbolism would be key (as it is in any text that leans on religious icons and ideas). Focussing on his first impasse, Gluttony, I thought I’d need to begin strong and convey exactly what was going to happen as he delved further into the city.

Every sin would correspond to a certain colour, and some sort of natural element. For example, Gluttony in this instance, corresponded to orange and thunder/lightning. Orange has a historical precedent. It has often been associated with material wealth/possessions and worldly objectives in opposition to those spiritual ones in Christian culture/artwork. Secondly, the thunder/lightning was because the sound of rolling, loud thunder is all consuming and fills your ears.

Lastly, the snakes, rats and toads are present in the feast scene, because in catholicism, the punishment in hell for a life of gluttony is being force fed those very creatures. I also strongly linked Boars with gluttony because of the association between gluttony and pigs.

As a through line, which would continue in the other 6 deadly sins, I used gold to represent safety. It is often associated with purity, royalty, god and heaven so it made sense that every time there was something that could save him, it was resting upon something golden.

 

In terms of how my story reflects on the prompt of the Picture This! Studio, I think it achieves the initial goal I set for myself, namely, could I write a compelling story with zero dialogue. I had never attempted even a minimal dialogue story before, let alone one without a single word. Its certainly not as long as I would have hoped, but I think it captures the audiovisual style I was trying to get from my mind onto the page quite well. Striking differences scene to scene, sudden transitions from very quiet to very loud audio and very dim to very bright light and a changing colour palette that becomes unrecognisable start to finish.

As for what I could have done better, I think I should have focussed a bit more on the main character. He is used in the script as a vehicle for the surreal audiovisual elements to occur around him, but I think it gets a bit close to convenience rather than narrative structure at some points. If I was to do another re-write, I might flesh out the beginning are bit to get the audience more accustom and more invested in him surviving this gauntlet of sins. I also think it is perhaps too jarring. Even though the effect Im going for is that each sin is distinctly different from the rest, I think maybe it needed to have a longer, more drawn out descent into surrealism than what it has. Perhaps I could have brought back the photograph in the gluttony section, though that would play out more prominently in both Lust and Envy.

Assignment 3 Index Post

My Visual Influence Presentation – http://www.mediafactory.org.au/jack-fahey/2018/05/09/picture-this-visual-elements/

Blog Prompt 1 – http://www.mediafactory.org.au/jack-fahey/2018/05/11/134/

Blog Prompt 2 (Reflective Piece) – http://www.mediafactory.org.au/jack-fahey/2018/05/11/picture-this-presentation-feedback/

Picture This Presentation Feedback

In Class on Wednesday, I gave a short 3 minute presentation about what I had written for our final assignment. I talked for about a minute on what I’d written so far, one on the visual inspiration I was drawing upon and one on the audio inspiration I was hoping to use to influence my work.

The biggest piece of feedback that was important in my opinion was that the main character had no real sense of identity. I didn’t really elaborate on them at all in the presentation, because in my short film they are much more of a vehicle for the film to explore visual and audio experiences. However I think I still need to develop him further. Its one thing to have a film use a stereotype as a character to discuss something bigger (breakfast club for example) but I think having a character without an actual identity is something else entirely. And while anything is achievable in film with a good enough script, it might be making it more difficult than is necessary.

So I think my first course of action over the coming weekend is probably have some kind character backstory laid out for my character. Even if the audience never learns about any of it, I think it would be useful to flesh out the character more because the kind of person he is would influence his actions in certain situations. It will obviously be reflected in his behaviour and how he responds to this strange, illusory world that he has found himself in.

 

One other piece of feedback I wanted to reflect upon was the lack of an end goal in terms of what I want to achieve in week 12. So I thought I’d elaborate on this a bit here. After thinking about it, I doubt I would be able to finish this script in its entirety to be handed in by week 12. It started out as just a simple idea of “what would happen if someone woke up and had no idea who they were, and there was no one around”. But now its evolved into (hopefully) a vehicle for a surreal audio/visual experience and I think it will be a much longer screenplay. So, because of this, I think I’m going to aim for maybe aim for at least 5 pages of a script, and have 2 different areas of his city (hopefully one indoor and one outdoor) explored on top of the opening I have already written. While this obviously wouldn’t be a finished piece, I think it will be a good representation of the feel of the film I’m trying to write.

Alone – A Work In Progress

Int. Bedroom

Clothes are strewn around the room, a layer of dust clings to everything. A man lies on an old bed, sleeping.

He rouses from his sleep, picks himself up and sits in bed. Staring at the wall. He is wearing a stained button down shirt with blue jeans and worn leather boots.

With a loud grunt, he lifts his body off the bed and paces over to the door. He pulls at the handle, but it doesn’t open. He braces himself and yanks hard at the door, with a loud creak it pulls itself free of the doorframe and swings open.

 

This is the very first introduction to the main character in my piece. This scene is entirely visual, with little audio effects and no dialogue. It took me a while to settle on the look of the character. I think his visual representation is incredibly important in this piece because the audience won’t hear him speak (this short film contains no dialogue from the protagonist) and at this point they don’t really know anything about him, not even his name. So how he looks is vital to gaining at least some basic understanding of the kind of person he is.

The shirt – Clearly not entirely casual. Possibly professional/adheres social norms.

The Jeans & worn Boots – Someone who values comfort and functionality over simply appearance.

 

INT. Hallway

The Hallway is covered in dust. A small table sits at the end of the corridor, a photo with a broken frame sits on the table. A stair case leading downstairs is next to the table.

He ambles over to the small table and wipes the mirror clean with his hand. He stares into it and rubs his beard.

Looking down at the photo. Its a man standing next to a blonde woman. His eyes widen. His thumb runs across the mans face in the photo, and he quickly looks back up into the mirror.

He pulls the photo out of the frame, places it into his pocket and turns towards the stairs, looking down into the dark room below.

This scene in the Hallway I think starts to set the image of the world into the audience’s mind. They get the understanding that he isn’t just someone who has a messy room, this house has been abandoned. Though I think it is still vague enough to not really hint towards whats happening. Is this some sort of post apocalyptic world?

The part where he recognises himself in the photo is still a bit clunky in my opinion. I think visually it is the right idea but it doesn’t read as well as I want it to. It definitely needs a bit of revision. Though I think just from the look on his face as he notices the people in the photo the audience will understand that he does not know who he is until that moment.

The actual Hallway was inspired by P.T. (a horror game from 2014) which I have in my video of inspiration. That image is the kind of aesthetic I would go for in terms of visually setting up the hallway scene.

 

INT. Living room

The room is dark, the curtains drawn. The room is lit only by the static on a television screen in the opposite end of the room. An old couch sits facing the tv.

He walks through the room to the television and tries switching the channels. Nothing but static fills his gaze.

The television light spills into the next room and illuminates a large wooden door. At the bottom of the door, light shines through the crack.

He swiftly walks over towards the door and pushes it open. Light floods the room.

 

Something I want to keep occurring throughout the short film is sudden visual shifts in tone. The further into the house he explores, the darker the room becomes. I want this sense of constriction and claustrophobia to continue to be a through line in the film. Whenever he enters a building, I want the world to get darker and darker until it is suddenly incredibly bright again.

I think something I can add in this scene, which I will elaborate on in the audio part of my presentation on Wednesday, is adding some surreal elements as sound effects. Perhaps the crackling/static of the television can grow louder as he walks away from the television and towards the door and suddenly end when he opens it.

 

EXT. Front yard

A bright day. Abandoned cars litter the street. The houses dilapidated and broken. Silence.

Rubbing his eyes, he walks out into the street. Glancing left and right across the empty street.

 

This is the sudden shift in visual tone. I want the darkness to immediately dissipate and be flooded by light as he walks into the street.

I think Im going to make the streets seem realistic at first, but then have them sort of twist and bend unnaturally in the distance. Something that isn’t exactly noticeable at first but if someone paid attention to the background as he walked into the street rather than focused entirely on the main character they might be able to notice that something feels…off…about the street.