For exercise 4, we worked in small groups to recreate scenes in cinema. Both of the scenes we were referencing were of a drama layout, so this meant that the roles we would work with were: actors (2&3), camera operator, sound recordist, boom operator and a director.

Reference scene A:
L’amour l’apres-midi
(Love in the Afternoon, 1972)
Dir. Eric Rohmer

For this scene, I worked on camera. Because the scene was just one shot, and a relatively short scene, it wasn’t a very difficult task, but it was interesting to note the movement of the camera during the scene, as it was often motivated by the movement in the scene by the blocking of the actors. With editing this scene, there wasn’t ever going to be much variation between group members, because it was just a single shot, but I do regret not experimenting further than just using the original clip itself. Seeing the still above, I really wish I had have taken the time to do some colour correcting, because sometimes the camera just doesn’t do some colours justice. Sometimes just a boost in colour really does enhance the visuals of the scene. The audio recorded for the scene also worked well and I didn’t believe I needed to much with it in post.

Reference scene B:
Vicky Cristina Barcelona (2008)
Dir. Woody Allen
Ph. Javier Aguirresarobe
Ed. Alisa Lepseiter

So the main issue in filming and editing this scene was with audio. I was the boom swinger on this task so I guess I take some of the blame. I also didn’t anticipate this problem, which I should have, so I didn’t allow myself the time to try and fix the audio in post. The audio in piece I edited just has the original audio, and it really is true when people say that audio makes or breaks a scene or a film. I also think that on the day, we thought we were quite pushed for time so we did rush this scene a little bit, so I think if we allowed ourselves to use more time, we would’ve sorted out issues like sound and possibly added in more of the camera angles that we had planned.

So when we actually went out in small groups to film some 30 second clips I was pretty apprehensive about how this would be an interesting learning exercise. Our group sort of decided to film with the visual theme of construction. This was mainly because it was right outside building 9 and the equipment was heavy to carry around, so it was out of mere convenience that we chose this, there weren’t many creative factors involved.

I’d noticed that during filming of different clips, we were filming both moments of construction without workers, and then lots of close ups of just the workers. It was like we were documenting human behaviour in such a non-human, mechanical, industrial environment.

Before editing, I didn’t really like the aesthetic of the clips we’d shot, but when I was looking through the folders of other groups, I found this clip shot from a distance (below), of this crane, zoomed in as much as the camera can. I think it was the colour of the blue sky, or maybe even the glowing white colours of the machine, but to me it had this dream-like quality. I bookended the rest of the clips with this image, and I personally think that it completely changes the feeling of the other clips.

I also made the choice to have the footage that included movement, not be back-to-back with other shots of movement. I think putting two moving shots together looks quite chaotic on screen, and because of the first shot and it’s dream like essence, I wanted to keep the full piece as calming as I could.

There was also another clip that I was quite mesmerised by. It was one of the zoomed shots of the construction workers, but it was this man hammering into steel. I think without the audio it works better because we don’t hear these loud bangs but just see this man really aggressively working. I also had the first shot proceed this shot because I think it works as a good juxtaposition between chaos and calmness.

So after finishing this exercise, I actually learnt quite a lot, and I realised that there really is a lot to think about and consider in this type of situation, putting together clips. I actually enjoyed editing it as well, so maybe I need to like chill and trust Robin more.

Original observation:
I was stuck in traffic driving home along Punt Road and while I was just static in amongst a long line of cars, I started to hear this loud yelling coming from the side of the road. I turned my music down and just watched this moment between these two people. A man and a woman were standing on the footpath outside a closed bar, and they both had their hands on this bike. Not in a way that looked like they were fighting over who got custody over it, but more so just leaning on it. This seemed so strange to me because they were yelling at each other incredibly, but still had their hands quite close together on this bike. They seemed still so intimate in such an aggressive engagement.

Film idea:
Instead of staying true to the observation itself, I want to just concentrate on the idea of conflict. I was thinking of going into the relationship and  conflict between a mother and a daughter, and show how life is often interrupted by these moments of conflict between people.

I want the film to be set very late at night or early in the morning, maybe 3am, with the weather being very hot, maybe 30 degrees, in this suburban setting. The girl is in her room trying to cool herself down by opening windows and turning on fans. She starts to walk to the kitchen for a glass of cold water but can hear muttering coming from the dark of the kitchen. She turns the light on and sees her mum sitting alone on the small round kitchen table, with fallen empty bottles and dried tears on her cheeks. She is very clearly still drunk. I wanted to write quite an emotionally abusive dialogue here coming from the mother towards her daughter. I want it to be very one sided, so all the dialogue is from the mother.

So the monologue is given without the mother realising in her head that it is actually her daughter that is in the room with her. She talks about how she blames her daughter for her divorce, and how her life is ruined because she was burdened by an unwanted pregnancy. She could’ve been famous, she could’ve been extremely successful, but the birth of her only child ruined everything for her.

I don’t want to give too much context in the monologue, I want it to be sort of a voyeuristic experience. Like if you saw two people arguing in the street you wouldn’t know any of the details, you’d just sort pick up a few bits and pieces about the situation. So I don’t want the audience to know why the mother is like this, or how this all came to be, I just want to have implications in the dialogue.

I wanted to then follow this journey with the daughter, as she escapes the situation by climbing out of her bedroom window. She ends up at the local roller skating rink that she works at a few times a week. We have a scene of her standing in the middle of the rink, bare foot, swaying to the music playing. The lights are bright and colourful, with lots of movement. She has her eyes closed and her arms above her head. She is crying.

I think that even though there’s no dialogue in the second setting, I think that it would still be as filled with as much emotion as the first scene because it’s sort of this solitude after this tirade. She’s just alone in this usually packed environment and that in itself is kind of emotional. It’s kind of like for me, whenever I’m in like a schoolyard at night or on the weekend and it’s empty, I get this feeling of like melancholy. But I also wanted to exploit the duration in the roller rink, and have it a similar time but filled with nothing in comparison to the kitchen scene. Sort of to juxtapose it, in showing these different moments.

So the format of the piece doesn’t have a beginning and an end, I sort of want to treat it as just viewing these moments. The layout of production would be a normal drama pre production, production, post production format. I’ll need to focus a lot on finding good actors, and locations. But I think time would be the biggest factor of this project.

If I were to make the film inspired by my 12th observation, I think I would want to keep it very minimal and restrictive in setting. I want to treat this sort of as if I were to be writing and creating a play. I want the film to have just two settings; the house and the roller rink. I think the contrast of the action and emotion given in these two settings work in juxtaposition and would show great contrast.

A roller rink like the one above generally uses coloured lights and gives off a sort of 80s vibe which I really like and think it is a dramatisation of a happy setting and nostalgia. Whilst if I have the setting of the house in an old suburban house with little character and blue lighting then this would really show a contrast between happiness and misery.

Still from Snowtown (2011)

Robin shared the Thomas Hardy quote to me, “Happiness was but the occasional episode in a general drama of pain”, and I think the idea that I am working with is portraying this, maybe even visually using the locations and settings to show this.

After my last observation, I noticed that I’ve actually been concentrating more on noticing situations of conflict in public. I just think it is so interesting to get this quick glimpse into people’s lives through one encounter. I always feel so embarrassed when I am having similar situations in public because I feel like people are just watching and judging, but some people just seem to have no awareness of the people around them, watching this intimate quarrel.

I was stuck in traffic driving home along Punt Road and while I was just static in amongst a billion cars, I started to hear this loud yelling coming from the side of the road. I turned my music down and just watched this moment between these two people. A man and a woman wearing standing on the footpath outside a closed bar, and they both had their hands on this bike. Not in a way that looked like they were fighting over who got custody over it, but more so just leaning on it. This seemed so strange to me because they were yelling at each other incredibly, but still had their hands quite close together on this bike. They seemed still so intimate in such an aggressive engagement.

THE FILM

Instead of staying true to the observation itself, I want to just concentrate on conflict itself. I was thinking of going into the conflict between a mother and a daughter. I wanted to show this from the daughters perspective, and how life is often interrupted by these moments. I want the film to be set very late at night or early in the morning, maybe 3am, with the weather being very hot, maybe 30 degrees. Her bedroom is covered in pink items; clothes, furniture, wallpaper. The roo is lit with a pinky/red light. The girl is in her room trying to cool herself down by opening windows and turning on fans. She starts to walk to the kitchen for a glass of cold water but can hear muttering coming from the dark of the kitchen. She turns the light on and sees her mum sitting alone on the small round kitchen table, with fallen empty bottles and still wet tears on her cheeks. She is very clearly drunk. I wanted to write quite an emotionally abusive dialogue here coming from the mother towards her daughter, without her realising in her head that it is actually her daughter. She talks about how she blames her daughter for her divorce, and how her life is ruined because she was burdened by an unwanted pregnancy. She could’ve been famous, she could’ve been extremely successful, but the birth of her only child ruined everything for her. I wanted to them follow this emotional dialogue with the daughter visibly upset by this, and climbing out of her bedroom window. She ends up at the local roller skating rink that she works at a few times a week. We have a scene of her standing in the middle of the rink, bare foot, swaying to the music playing. The lights are bright and colourful, with lots of movement. She has her eyes closed and her arms above her head. She is crying.

I want to just make a film that is a bit dark in subject matter, and focuses on the fact that sometimes happiness is fleeting.

I was at Centrelink a few weeks ago and I was left alone at one of the desks while the employee went to find something out for me when I heard a couple talking at another desk. I often find myself listening in on people’s conversations and I don’t even realise how rude it is until later or if they catch me watching. The woman was speaking calmly to the employee explaining that she hadn’t informed them of her new living arrangement because it was on and off, but the man slipped up and told them they were living together 24/7, this caused the employee to change the payments the woman was receiving. When I got up to leave, the couple were just ahead of me and once we were out of the vicinity, the woman started screaming at the man about how much he’d fucked up. She hurled abuse at the man for at least 30 seconds before she grabbed the keys from his hand and drove off without him. He stood there for a few seconds before walking in the opposite direction.

THE FILM

I think if I wanted to translate this into a film, I would want to make it a scene of a large conflict. Perhaps even keep the setting of the front of Centrelink. I think this setting would actually work really well in a film. The couple could either be very clean and well dressed, maybe to juxtapose with the setting and the commonalities of attire often seen there; or I could work with the sort of look the two actual characters were sporting: dirty tracksuits and a hoodie. I would want this to be a very short and only focus on one scene, and have it mostly focused on the dialogue and acting of the conflict, and not so much on the aesthetic and style of shooting.

During today’s class we started our group assignment on exercise #4. The task was to re-make two scenes from existing drama films by assignment roles to group members and creating it in our small groups. Even though I do think it can be beneficial to deconstruct a scene, I don’t think it was very beneficial for our learning in this studio. I think there was a certain limiting aspect to this, because we blocked the scenes to match the existing content, but we weren’t able to shoot in our own creative way, we just had to try and copy the original, which I didn’t enjoy at all. I think maybe I would have changed it by using an existing scene in terms of action, and try and re-create it by using own shots and set/location to try and build the scene in an idiosyncratic way.

I spoke to Robin after class yesterday, and he made me realise that it isn’t rude to try and teach people how to use equipment. We spent the class orchestrating a drama-like set up of a conversation between two people at a table. With only a director, camera operation, a boom swinger and a sound recordist, most of the class were left to watch. Having done two studios previously that focused quite a lot on the use of equipment, it is both tedious and difficult to watch the process of learning from the beginning. As I watched the set up and production of the scene, I reluctantly offered a few pieces of advice to the sound recordist and the boom swinger but I just felt rude doing so, and I don’t really know why. Robin can’t really go around and teach everyone how to do everything so I guess it is ok for the students to help each other out. So I think that’s something I want to do a bit more of in the coming weeks, because sound (and camera) is something that not many people in our class have really worked with before, and I have both recorded and mixed sound on multiple productions so I guess I should help out a bit u kno.

From now on all future observations have to be followed by how that observation could be made into a film. Looking back on my last 8 observations, I don’t see any instant film ideas come out of it, or even an image in my head of how it could be seen in a drama scene (I’m not really keen on documentary at the moment so I’m adjusting my eyes to only see drama), but I think with this new proposal, I think I might start to observe different things because of my new intention. I’ve also noticed that I don’t expand much on what I actually see. Last week a few people read out an observation, and they tend to write about how they view the situation rather than just what they actually see, and I think this is what I need to work on. I think if I start to kind of explore my observations more and give them more thought than just writing what I saw. Although in my last reflection I did start to reflect more on what I saw and how it made me felt so I guess I’m ~growing~ in this process.

https://youtu.be/ETarrHKaulg

Individual Exercise 2