A primary task for this assignment is to build a recipe for noticing in relation to your chosen prompt word. I was tossing up between having my prompt word be lingering or encountering, playing around with the ideas of how nature interacts with industry. After discussing with Hannah and the class about which prompt would work better with my concept, I decided to go with encountering, and built a recipe out of this concept. The best media recipes are like the best cooking recipes. You need a clear outline for both the ingredients and procedure, and clear steps so that anyone can follow, no matter whether the author is present to evaluate or not. Below is a pretty final draft of my recipe for Assignment 3:

Ingredients

• Tripod
• Camera (non-phone)

Procedure

• Journey out with your equipment during the early stages of the morning or evening, once in a city area, another in a suburban area, and once in a park/nature area
• Keep a keen eye out in your location for signs of industry encountering nature and nature encountering industry
• After you have spotted something, assemble your tripod and camera, and produce a tight frame around the subject, focusing on close ups.
• Keep your shot still, and record for anywhere between 5 to 20 seconds, wait longer if there is the potential for something interesting to occur
• Record diegetic sound while filming
• Continue this till you have a minimum of 10 shots for each location
• Repeat this process for each location you’ve chosen that relates to the prompts

My focus with this recipe was clear language. Short and simple sentences, clear instructions and a repetitive process. This simple process allows for the practitioner to be creative and free with what they film, allowing for unique films to be produced through the simplicity of it. This post may be changed an altered throughout the process of this assignment.

Over the weekend, we were asked to produce 2 products, whether they be videos, audio files, text or any other medium we were inspired to create, in response to the two prompts we chose from Assignment 3. The words I chose were lingering and encountering, and I was inspired to produce 2 short test videos in my environment, of things i noticed that I felt connoted my ideas of lingering and encountering.

 Below is a Google Drive link to the two test videos:

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1kSV1G8aFJ8EhEdTGs0MHRTmRBvZtPup-

For the one titled “Encountering”, I decided to focus on a small part of my neighbourhood, being the leaves growing off the tree, and observe what other things encountered the world around it. While I started the filming with the intentions of the piece lingering on the branch, I felt the world around the focal point of the video said a lot more. Coincidentally, it was bin day on my street, and the garbage truck was doing the rounds for the houses in the background. Cars also drove passed and other everyday sounds happened in the background. My interpretation of encountering is all about the unfamiliarity, discomfort and uncertainty, and I feel this short shot captures that in several ways. The loud drones of the garbage truck and wind disorientate and discomfort the viewer, and the close up of the plant gives no context to where the shot is being taken, causing a state of unfamiliarity and uncertainty. This was inspired by the uncertain and unplanned video of the killer whales in a previous blog post

Similarly, the video titled “Lingering” is inspired by the long drawn out shots of the Boston snowfall video. In this video, the camera lingers on the focal point, being water in a gutter. This water ripples due to the force of the passing vehicles on the road, highlighting the water the lingering effects of the cars and trams. Furthermore, if the video is silenced, you are unsure of the cause and effect of the ripples, adding a layer of unfamiliarity, like with the previous video.

One of the tasks left for us to complete over the weekend was to find pieces of a medium (whether that be a film, straight audio or text etc.) that relate to our chosen words and inspire that chosen word and / or the creative process. For both of these pieces, I purely searched the chosen term and a few key words such as “short film” or “video” and “piece” at the end to find these two examples.

For lingering, my first of two chosen terms in Assignment 3, I stumbled upon this short film by a small YouTube channel called “Lingering First Snow – a short film” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jurx_cthSZg). The piece is a two and a half minute creative short film, similar to what we have been shown in class, about the effect that snow has during its first few days in Boston. I feel like the film inspires my understanding and creativity of the term lingering through its shot duration. Some shots are longer and more drawn out, and some a more snappy. These longer shots often contain scenery or objects that would linger after the fall of snow, such as the icicles that hang from the roofs of homes, or the patches of snow that fill the streets. Furthermore, the constantly lacking soundscape could be reflective of the lingering silence that occurs post a sudden change, e.g. snowfall. This symbolic use of sound is definitely something I want to tackle in my Assignment 3.

For encountering, the piece I chose was a home video of  kayakers encountering a school of killer whales, and their genuine reactions to the incident (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pYgkWerSstk). The piece itself is the purest form of the term ‘encounter’, and captures the sheer amazement, fear and relief of the experience of having huge killer whales swim underneath your small water vessel. The uncertainty of where and when we are in the video, as an audience member, forces us to live and be immersed within the immediate moment, which is something  I want to explore and experiment with in my Assignment 3.

While I am unsure where the term brainstorming originates from, I do know that I have been using the technique since the very start of my learning life. Brainstorming is a perfect way to completely unpack and display everything you know or want to know about a subject or theme, making them a perfect starting point for any creative or technical group or solo project. We often brainstorm as a class in the Seeing the Unseen studio, and while typically I haven’t found this very helpful or crucial in other classes, for this studio, its integral. We deal with such vague and multi meaning terms in this class that it’s hard to know where to start. Brainstorming fleshes out all these hesitant definitions, concepts and key words, in a neat and central map.

While I wasn’t able to be present for the class where we unpacked the 6 set words, Tuning, Lingering, Wondering, Priming, Encountering and Vanishing, I was able to review what the class brainstormed, as well as attempt the process solo. The two words I chose to explore were Lingering and Encountering. Lingering, because the idea of waiting and observing in a location has been a main focus of this class and how I’ve learnt to make the projects for it, and encountering because the conscious concept of trying to / unintentionally encountering something while filming is somewhat foreign to me.

I first brainstormed without the aid of the class examples, and came up with ideas like “longing”, “waiting” and “patience” for lingering and “meeting”, “unfamiliarity” and “discomfort/comfort” for encountering.  From there, I reviewed the class brainstorms, and added to my previously mentions lists, adapting some of the points to “maintaining”, “stillness” and “observing” to lingering and “discovering”, “physical/emotional” and “wanted/unwanted” for encountering. These brainstormed lists will aid me in my creation of an idea/theme for Assignment 3.

Throughout the planning stages of this assignment, Yucheng and I discussed the many themes we wanted to explore in our media product. These included the differences and similarities in the environment, specifically the natural aspects and the industrial aspects of each location. Through making the video, we noticed the colour pallet of each location was vastly different, with the train station having lots of vibrant and warm colours such as orange and yellow, whereas the park featured more cold and washed out colours such as green and grey, specifically due to the overcast weather on the shoot.

Another aspect of the product we set out to notice and manipulate was the power of memory, and its association with place. I spoke about this in a previous blog post, but we decided to incorporate it in the video itself by recording our written memory from class, and chopping it up and placing it within. This was to tell two different stories related to each place. I spoke about a memorable gathering I attended last year and the positive feelings I felt from it, and Yucheng spoke about her first time travelling to Melbourne Central Station, and the initial unease she experienced. I feel like this recordings add a layer of truth and vulnerability to these places, that they are actually lived in and can effect people. We were inspired to incorporate this style of voice over through the in class example of  Chantal Akerman’s ‘News from Home’, released in 1977. The voice over in that film was so powerful, because of the contrast between the often mundane shots and the powerful letters being read out.

However, a theme we didn’t notice until the editing process of this task, was the flow and pace of the two locations, a majority of which was conveyed coincidentally. We noticed that the train station was chaotic, most noticeably in the busyness of the people, rushing in and around the station, the constant announcements and the frequent services. But what we didn’t notice initially was the shaky movement of theshots (filmed by me), that enhanced the rushed and high intensity feel that we were attempting in the shots and the story being told over it. In contrast however, we noticed in the editing bay how calm, empty and peaceful the park seemed to be, with the exception of the 4pm school rush. Furthermore, Yucheng’s shots and movements were a lot more smooth and steady, again, enhancing that slow and calming vibe of the park. These qualities in the different videos made it interesting to contrast between locations, as we manipulated them further with their timeline placement. For example, whenever we are highlighting the park, the shot duration is often longer, and less frantic, with a maximum of two images being shown on screen at once. However, when displaying the train station, shots are often layered and ever-changing, with as many as 4 videos playing at once. These deliberate editing decisions further emphasises the pace and nature of each place, with the final shot layering the two places, both visually and audibly together, suggesting they are more similar than once thought, specifically the fact that both places have people pass through them, no matter what their speed or goal.

Memory is defined as the storage and retention of information that has been processed. Some memories are more vivid than others to a person. For example, you probably can’t remember exactly what you lunch 2 weeks ago as easily as the time you met a celebrity two weeks ago. Memories have inspired many words of non-fiction, from autobiographies to scripts for movies.

During class, we were asked to write about a strong memory we held that occurred in or related to your chosen place from Assignment 2. I wrote:

It was a Christmas picnic in December last year. This is the park we used to go and ‘hang out’ on weekends during our high school lives, forming lots of strong memories and bonds with these people. We sat on the grass closer to the road, as a different group had taken the gazebo we usually sit around. Our group had established and discussed a kris-kringle program, and we exchanged our gifts between our mysterious pairs. I received a handmade t-shirt of an in-joke between a few of us, which was a great surprise. One of our friends was moving back to France soon, so it was a reasonably emotional time, thinking this could be our last Christmas with her. We sat around, drinking beers and eating snacks until the sun went down and it got too cold and we migrated back to our respective homes.

The thought of this memory got me thinking about how peaceful that day was, and how peaceful parks can be, especially when contrasted with the frantic nature of a train station in the city. Then we began to think about the pace of each place, and how our shots reflected that both in what was within the frame, such as the masses of people in the station shots compared to the emptiness of the park, as well as the shaky footage at the station and the stiller, smoother shots at the park. These themes that we will incorporate into the production piece were influenced by memories, showing how a memory of a place and influence work.

Noticing during the post production stage of a product is just as important as noticing during the production stage of a product. When you go out to film for a project. you always have your mind on one thing, getting the best footage. This involves framing the shot just right, making sure it isn’t over or under exposed and ensuring your subject is and will be in focus. Once the shooting session is completed, a media practitioner would go back to their respective studio, store the footage in a safe space on their personal computer and review it for errors, preparing for the edit.  While this might seem like the right thing to do, there is a crucial step missing, noticing. Noticing in the post production stage can drastically change your opinion or perception of a shot.

This idea was discussed in class using Cole’s work in”Blind Spot”, specifically the section containing their picture from Btouratij. The image is of a small section of a village, later to be discovered as in the Middle East. What was just a beautiful image at first glance, is now so much more through lingering on the image and noticing its details. The formation of the buildings give this sense of proximity between them, when in reality they are probably further away than the eye and mind perceive them to be. This theme of clustered closeness is only discovered to the viewer after looking and noticing.

This new technique also aided me in finding coincidental themes in my own footage for Assignment 2. While reviewing the shots taken in the station, I began to notice the vibrancy of the colours orange and yellow, which were bold features of the location. Furthermore, the flickering of the lights caught by the cameras shutter speed gave a sense of urgency to the shots. These themes were noticed and created through noticing within the footage, and will aid in the creation of the  overall final product and its presentation.

Cole, Teju. Blind Spot. Random House, 2017.

Wondering, Lingering and Priming are three terms associated with noticing, and can be used to increase  intentional noticing, no matter what your profession. In the reading “Ghostly Forms and Forest Histories” by Andrew Mathews, Mathews suggests that by using these three actions, to linger, to wonder and to prime oneself, a person can notice and comprehend their world around them to a fuller extent. Furthermore, he talks about how a persons profession can further aid them in noticing and understanding.

Mathews, who has studied in the fields of forestry and anthropology, took a journey through the forests of Italy. He writes that we was “walking, looking and wondering” through these chestnut forest ruins, being primed for whatever he faced and lingering on the special parts of his journey. He used these three tactics to notice as much as he could during his trip, and while it may not be as intense as Mathews, we as media practitioners can follow these same rules of wondering, lingering and noticing within our profession to enhance our films.

As discussed in class, these three strategies of noticing can aid in the creation of recipes for production. Taking the time to set out and linger on a location, just to observe, allows that person to notice and pick up on aspects of the place that weren’t instantly recognisable. For example,  a person setting out to record audio on location wonders what they might pick up, priming themselves to hear certain sounds. Listening back to that recording intently allows the creator to pick up on unique sounds and events within a space that they did not expect. This will give the person an advantage in knowing what they want to film, based on what stands out within the recording and what they know will be interesting and engaging, because of their media experience.

Mathews, Andrew S. “Ghostly Forms and Forest Histories.” Arts of Living on a Damaged Planet: Ghosts of the Anthropocene, edited by Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing et al., University of Minnesota Press, 2017, pp. 145–56

Recipes are essential for any kind of creation. You can’t bake your first cake without sourcing ingredients, step by step instructions and an idea of an outcome. This is the same for filming. You can’t produce and collect the footage and audio you want without first planning how you are going to collect it, what process you are going to use, such as shot types and movements, as well as what you want to film. We discussed in class how important it is to be specific with the movements, object themes and time periods for content. This was something that we as a pair discussed immensely in the process of writing up a plan. The big terms we took from the class were:

• Equipment
• Orientation
• Movement -Pan, handheld vs tripod,
• Budget
• Length/duration
• Framing/Shot Types

From there we talked about the themes we wanted to explore in our chosen areas, which happen to be a park and a train station. We settled on this idea of nature and industry, and how these ideas overlap and contrast in the different locations. For example, how and what light sources work within the location, such as the flickering lights of industrial white lamps in the stations and the completely different, bright rays of the sun in the park. We kept with this idea of broad themes and terms for what to film and notice in our locations, drafting up this list:

• Light – 3 five second shots tracking up (portrait) (still)
• Dark – 3 five second shots tracking down (portrait) (still)
• Straight Lines – 3 five second shots panning from left to right (landscape) (still)
• Abstract Lines – 3 five second shots panning from right to left (landscape) (still)
• Walking – 3 five second still shots (portrait) (moving)
• Sitting – 3 five second still shots (landscape) (still)
• Nature – 3 five second still shots (landscape) (still)
• Industry – 3 five second still shots (portrait) (still)