Through this process I have found that the person I am working with brings out a different eye to me. Claudia makes me push the boundaries in what is the norm for fashion film because that is what you need to do. This is the biggest thing we have learned. It is in actual fact harder to make a good fashion film than a good short film that has structure, story and well thought out dialogues. Fashion can be like this but in order to communicate it you need to capture that in a smaller amount of time.  In addition an audience for a fashion film has a shorter attention span than that of a short film so you need to make them understand your concept in a shorter time.

This in mind we decided to go with the commercial style that we came up with. I believe that it was a great way to get us into the more abstract and adventurous style of filmmaking and gave us the freedom to express and play with things like focus and quick editing. This was evident when we went to the edit suite. Whilst we were editing the film we were finding it difficult to pin point the exact tone and motion we wanted the film to have, so we decided that before we took on the actual film editing we decided to do the sound editing first. This proved to be a smart and efficient move as we were able to structure the shots and cut on beats. It allowed us to cull a lot of the footage that didn’t fit the aesthetic of the film and truly delve into the best parts of the clips. These were in the little details such as a focus pull, eye movement, turn of the head and so on. By taking an emotional approach to the film you start to feel rather than observe and that makes for a more thorough and thought out final piece of work.

I think in terms of our final fashion film it truly depends on the style of garment or garments that we decide to use. I say this because I believe the feel, texture, colour and structure of the garment decides the direction the film takes. You need to understand the way the garment makes you feel in order to portray it in film. I think if we take this into consideration and decide on audio before we edit we will be able to make a great and thoughtful final film. This was fluid with the feedback received in class from Christina and classmates. They commented on the preciseness and efficivness of the editing. Which I think we can play to as a strength in the final film. Also the variance of the shots was what allowed us to get the variance in focus for the audience and this was commented on as well. It played to the pace and tempo of the music which was a great advantage. Overall, from this collaborative process I am looking forward to co-creating, editing and previewing our final project.

This week in the studio we had Bryan come in to walk us through the use of camera. It was like an informative crash course. Although I have gone through nearly three years of film school now it is always good to have a refresher and you can never stop learning. You learn something new every time you look at  a camera and sometimes getting things explained differently is a good thing.

I think however we were itching to just film something and start seeing how fabrics move. Claudia and I concluded in the end to work on a shoot that Claudia had already going on this week. We think it will be good practice for our final film and will get us back into the swing of things. We also made some headway in deciding what we wanted for our final film. We were able to start brainstorming some ideas of who and what we want to work on. We have decided that we truly want this to be a strong evidence of our skills and creativity. We want to produce something that is strong in both areas and can use to market ourselves to employers post uni. I am excited to get into some editing next week of the short clip and see what everyone in the class comes up with.

I put down the to be apart of the More Than Fabrics studio because in all honesty it was the most interning and different to what I have done in my now 3 years of university. I wanted to make sure that for my final semester I was doing something I enjoyed over something I had to do. As fashion has always been of interest to me I was interested to see how fashion films worked and how I could make one. The main skill I want to gain from completing this course is to be able to create a piece of work that I could actually use to pitch myself and my personal brand to an employer. I don’t want to really make something like a documentary as I want to exercise my skills in film making and go beyond the common rules of filmmaking. I want to be able to create a marketable, unique and stylistic piece of work that catches peoples attention.

At this point of my degree I want to work with similar minded people who are willing to actually apply themselves and understand the need for marketable skills in the industry. Not everything can be the next indie film that is going to get you nowhere!! I suppose my main goal from finishing this course and my university degree as a whole is A, to prove to myself that I could actually do it and B, that I have a varied skill set that will get me work in doing what I love. I can already feel this class is going to help me achieve that.

The images I have chosen for this assignment reflect my strongest passions when it comes to filmmaking and just being a creative person in general. These are, vibrancy but not pretension and insightful messages without being tasteless. I am not going to profess to being the most avant-garde and edgy intellectual when it comes to fashion but there is something about being able to take high fashion and commercialised fashion and make it unique. This is where my interest lies but as we all know you are not able to create without influence or inspiration of some sort.

“There is something about fashion that can make people very nervous” (Wintour, 2009) A statement that rings true to a lot of people but it is how you tackle this will determine how you create. It is with this statement in mind that I chose my images. All my images have a reoccurring use of strong contrasting colours whether they are calm or bold and fiery. For me colour in meek or dark backgrounds is something that demands attention and really underpins a strong image. Also the varying use of somber, eerie and intense directional lighting is rampant within the images and they play an integral role to the understanding of place within the image, not only for the actual models or actors but for the viewer and audience alike. Something different, something bold, something that transports you is evidence of a strong piece of fashion work that doesn’t fall victim to the nervousness that surrounds the fashion industry.

References:

The September Issue. (2009). [DVD] USA: R.J. Cutler