All these images were captured on a Canon 70D. As part of the video portrait I wanted to film Robert Owen’s public commission collaboration on the Webb Bridge. In 2003, Robert Owen collaborated with Denton Corker Marshall to develop Webb Bridge and earned them the prestigious Joseph Reed Architectural award for urban design in 2005.

Luckily, filming at Webb Bridge didn’t require any filming permits, however, filming during the daytime was a bit hectic than expected. Many pedestrians and cyclists were around during the lunch time period and filming at such tight spots didn’t help either. On the contrary, the sun came through and provided these shadows from the reflection of the bridge’s structure. At night, the only thing that we were tackling while filming was the infamous Melbourne weather. But then serendipity did its work that when it stopped raining, the water provided that same reflective image of the structure through the puddles. For us, we had to tackle the typical wind and coolness of Docklands but I guess it was all worth it. Check out the images below:

Joyce Seitzinger visited our Wednesday class to provide us strategies for our social media website. She provided us with advice that we will definitely take on while we launch our website and promote it on our various social media sites:

Find and connect with your audience

• Start early
• Follow the competition
• Find the communities and their platforms
• Search for keyword/hashtag
• Begin connecting
• Connect with super nodes and communities
• Choose an identity and channels to work on

Deciding on a name

• Help the artist build their identity
• Where are you comfortable with?

Identify your existing channels

• Artist?
• Or new project identity?
• Gallery? Agents?
• Publishers?
• Artist collective or peers?
• Funding bodies?
• Who do you know?

Keep connecting/curating

• 80% connecting and 20% curating. This will still keep the interest of community and keep people updated

Location of Original Work

• What is the url?
• Will you use a shortener? Bit.ly? Tinyurl?
• Include in every shared artefact

So here’s a list of what I should and shouldn’t do before and during an interview, this may or may not have happened during the process:

• Check to see if the lapel microphone works and connects with the Zoom H4n microphone before conducting the interview with the subject.
• Make sure to have an extra SD card with you just in case the one in use runs out of memory and to avoid deleting any footage from that SD card.
• Send the interview questions at least a few days prior to the interview, in order to keep your subject comfortable and prepared too.
• Check that every setting was is set correctly on the Sony X-200 video camera, especially white balance, in order to avoid fixing it during post-production.
• Always have a back-up microphone such as shot gun microphone or even a mobile.
• Compile interview questions that have a particular focus and to shorten the interview time as well.

After the initial interview with Robert, I felt a sense of relief in knowing that this was a collaborative process. Despite his busy and hectic schedule, Robert was able to accommodate an entire day to interview and film him in his studio. Even when it came to filming at Webb Bridge, Craigieburn (urban) bypass and his exhibition, Robert was able to provide me with information to support the style/way I was going to film each of his completed work.

So far, I have technically finished production, and now it’s a matter of thoroughly going through all the images and footage and make sure that everything meets the standard (or beyond). Of course, there were hiccups that happened along the way but thankfully there were alternative solutions to each of the obstacles I encountered.

For instance, the radio wireless lapel microphone was unable to connect to the Zoom H4n, so instead, we used the Zoom on its own. This resulted to repositioning Robert to be close enough to the Zoom so that it would record his voice with as much clarity as possible and therefore re-frame the camera shots in order to conceal the Zoom. (Melbourne) weather was especially difficult to cooperate with when it came to filming his public commission works such as Webb Bridge and Craigieburn (urban) bypass where rain/wind would often be the reason to reschedule and delay the production stage. A major technical issue was from the Sony X-200, where I was unable to use it to film Webb Bridge due to the shutter being on a weird setting. It was that weird that the tech guys had no idea how to fix it that the camera was reset to its original settings. Another thing about the camera, is that its hefty weight combined with the durable tripod made the commute difficult, especially in unexpected weather conditions.

My focus for these next coming days is to decide on a focus for the video portrait before continuing post-production. Once I’ve found a focal point, I’ll then have to condense the interview as much as possible while referring to the rough script I’ve completed. With week 12 creeping in, I have only two weeks left to do any last minute re-filming while also juggling assignments from other subjects.