The Capitol

The Capitol // Assignment 3

In this production report I am going to elaborate the process of making the film for our final project and my thoughts about it. I will explain this week by week.

Before week 9
The process of making this film had already begun when we worked on assignment 2, which we made to be a teaser for this project. We had already established to contact to Ghita Loebenstein, who Is the Creative Producer of the Capitol, and knew she was willing to do an interview.

Week 9
In week nine we finalized the date for the interview with Ghita through email and brainstormed ideas for questions and how the video should turn out. We focused the questions on the Capitols role in Melbourne, the collaboration with ACMI, what events that will be held in the Capitol and what they hope the partnership will mean. Ghita asked us to make five questions and send them to her in advance, so we also did that in this week. We also talked to Kristy from ACMI but unfortunately, she was out of the country and thereby unable to participate in an interview.

Week 10
In week ten we conducted the interview with Ghita and was pleasantly surprised that we were able to do it inside the theatre. There was however a lot of background noise due to the construction workers which was a challenge. The lightning in the theatre was also a bit dark. After recording the interview, we started the editing process. At this early stage our biggest focus was to minimize the background noise and brighten the footage. This we succeeded with to some point by deleting the sound recording from the cameras microphone and only utilizing the audio from the lapel microphone. We also found a feature in Premier Pro that could light up the footage to a satisfying level. After figuring this crucial detail out, we started the editing process. We also found a no copyright song to use for the video. Furthermore, this week we had a lot of contact with ACMI via mail to find the right person and time to do the interview and ended up making an appointment with Alison McCormack, who is head of Commercial and Visitor Services and has been highly involved in the partnership with Capitol. After this we made the questions for Alison from ACMI and they were quite similar to the ones we asked Ghita about. By doing this we hoped that it would make it easier to make a coherent film in terms of what they say. In regard to oral history I believe that Ghita was very good at telling the general story about the theatre and which role it plays in the Melbournian culture.

Week 11
In week eleven we contacted Darren from the Capitol to hear if we could film the interview with Alison here, and luckily it was possible. For the interview with Alison we rented a light and did the interview in the salon of the capitol. Looking back, we should have brought a light to the interview with Ghita, but unfortunately, we were under the impression that we could not rent a light. The interview with Alison went quite well and the background noise was much lower this time. We also did some editing this week. We researched on how to make a good intro for the film and cut out the best parts of the interview that we are using in the final film. We also spent a lot of time deciding on the editing and composition of the film so we had a clear idea and just needed to fill in the different pieces of the footage. Alison was a bit more personal in her interview than Ghita was which means that we got a different type of oral history from Alison because she told a story about her father’s relationship with the Capitol.

Week 12
In week twelve we finished the editing of the film. This was a long process and we had some trouble with the sound which we spend a lot of time trying to improve. We ended up with a film that I think has a lot of potential content-wise but the sound is unfortunately not optimal. What I mean by this is that I actually found that Ghita and Alison gave some really interesting interviews and makes me sad that some of them are a bit interrupted by noise. After finishing we submitted the video to YouTube.
I have learned a lot about oral history in the past twelve weeks and what I think is especially important is that it a story can be different from person to person. Furthermore, I have gained a lot of knowledge on how to conduct interviews and edit films and I have to admit it is more difficult than it looks.

 

Link to video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NsNlMV3fLLw&feature=youtu.be&fbclid=IwAR2L1KHhS0oZ862muya2MZUiiSv-Ced94DcqenqGHNSo07zlyH3c9YEDtkw 

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The Capitol // Assignment 2

My initial idea for this assignment was to make an oral history project that focused on the evolvement of the capitol theatre. The video project should outline the differences that are being made to the theatre and the way it is used. I found it interesting to look at the differences between the usage of the theatre in the 1900´s time and how it is to be used after the relaunch. I quickly found out that this project was a little too extensive for just a one-minute video because it would need at least two interviews. I also had trouble finding the people to interview. Therefore, I decided to do a simpler project together with Claudia. We both found the cooperation with ACMI to be very interesting and a good match so we decided to go with this idea instead.

The first thing we did after coming up with our new idea was to contact different people with the intention of interviewing them. This was unfortunately not possible within the given timeframe. The good news was that we will hopefully be able to conduct the interviews for the next assignment. That is why we decided to do a sort of trailer video that leads up to the big project. I find the collaboration between ACMI and the Capitol to be interesting because it utilises the Capitols new potential after relaunching. It is also fascinating to see what the two partners hope to get out of the collaboration and how they can benefit each other. By using the Capitol theatre ACMI inserts a great part of the Melbourne media history into their work and I think this will benefit them a lot. I also believe that the Capitol benefits from this collaboration by drawing attention to itself and showing off the new ways it can be used. Because the Capitol is more than just a theatre.

When we realised that we were not able to do the interviews in time for the assignment due date, we decided that at least we needed to use our own footage. We had a little bit of video footage from around Melbourne city and the Capitol that we shot in previous classes and in addition to that we rented a camera and did a small timelapse in front of the Capitol and ACMI. The reason for doing a timelapse was that we figured it would be a great background for inserting pictures onto. In my opinion a timelapse is more exiting to look at compared to a still picture. Furthermore, we were constrained to do footage outside of the Capitol as we did not have access inside of it. The first thing we did was to do a brainstorm on how to do the trailer video. We decided on using as much of our own footage as possible and to do a voice-over. We decided to do two timelapses and quickly rented some equipment so that we could film while the weather was good. Next, we sat down to discuss what to say in the voiceover. The first half is a quick historic recap of the Capitol’s history and the other half introduces the collaboration with ACMI. We tried to record the sound in a room with as little background noise as possible which I think we managed okay. The next step was to find the photos for the video. Luckily, we had access to several photos that shows the Capitol in the olden days. We also found a recording of an organ playing that we used as background sound throughout the video. We chose this because we know there used to be a great organ in the Capitol theatre. When we got to the editing process we tried to make the video visually appealing by choosing different methods of composing the videos and images.

What I learned from the process of creating a short one-minute video was that it is both a short and a long amount of time. Footage-wise there has to be quite a lot of material so that the video does not become boring to look at. I find that we do have the amount of footage needed but not much more. This meaning it would have been difficult making a longer video. What I think we managed to do was to have a lot of different types of footage in the video so hopefully it is interesting to look at. Also, we tried to do different types of compositions of the video and photo material in the video to make it appealing for the eye to look at. In terms of the voice-over I found that one minute is not a very long time and it was difficult to make a manuscript that fit the time. I would have liked if we could say more in that time because in my opinion it was a bit shallow. But then again that is the meaning with a trailer, so it might be sufficient to do that job.

To sum up I have learned a lot in the process of doing this assignment and I am looking forward to doing a longer and more in-depth project.

 

 

Word count: 864

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The Capitol // Assignment 1

What is your interpretation of the term ‘oral history’?

I understand oral history as a research method that collects, documents and interprets testimonies and memories through oral interviews. It is about documenting history retrospect. The advantages of oral history are that it can give us a different and more personal perspective on historic events. By actually listening to real, individual people and not only looking at historic documents you get a more nuanced look into history.
But when utilizing oral history there are many things to be aware of. Something that Shopes mentions in ‘What Is Oral History?’ from 2002 is that it is important to consider the terms reliability and veracity when engaging with oral history (p. 2). In my opinion these terms can be very hard to judge when it comes to oral history. If more people confirm the same story you can with some certainty rely on it. But what about the personal stories? Isn’t it the whole point to get their individual story as they experienced it?

The interviewer plays a big part in the outcome of the interview that are conducted and eventually considered as oral history. Shopes claims that “There is no doubt that the single most important factor in the constitution of an interview is the questions posed by the interviewer” (p. 8) which underlines the great influence the interviewer has on the output of the interview. Therefore, the interviewer should ask open and unbiased questions which allows the narrator to tell their version of the truth. But this is not as easy as it sounds. Both the interviewer as well as the narrator’s knowledge and statements derive from their prior experiences and are influenced by their respective interests. Furthermore, the interview will always be influenced by the context and the environment it is conducted within. This I think is very imported to know. Therefore, you should always be critical toward the source.
This understanding goes hand in hand with Shopes’ understanding of oral history interviews as texts that can be interpreted (Shopes, 2014, p. 260). I also think the text/interview should be the center of the work and the theory around that as support – and not the other way around.

What examples of oral history do you find inspirational? Explain why they inspire you.
I recently watched the docuseries “Jonestown: Terror in the Jungle” from 2018. It is about the priest Jim Jones who founded the People’s Temple in 1955, a church or sect that built on a mixture of Marxism and Christianity. In the mid-1970’s the sect moved into Guyana’s jungle to create a paradise on land, the agricultural community of Jonestown. But it wasn’t a utopia. In November 1978, 900 members committed collective suicide. The series investigates the tragedy by interviewing survivors and former members of the sect. What I noticed while watching it was that they interviewed a lot of different people who in each had their own individual story to tell. I thought that was very interesting how the documentary let all of them tell their individual story while simultaneously telling the story about the Jonestown massacre. It was very inspiring how these interviewees viewed the event in retrospect and how they you could see that they have had a lot of time to reflect on the events. Even though this documentary is about a tragic part of history, I still find inspiration in the way it lets the interviewees tell their own story and how these are put together to see the event in a bigger picture. I imagine the same method can be used to dig deeper into the past of the Capitol Theatre.

What I hope to uncover about the Capitol Theatre is both small and big stories told by ordinary people. As Linda Shopes emphasizes, these ordinary people are a great source when it comes to oral history. For me, it is not necessarily about finding facts about a particular event, but more about finding out the feelings and memories associated with the Capitol.

Another thing from “Jonestown: Terror in the Jungle” that inspired me was the how the spoken word and the archive pictures and videos worked so well together in telling the story. What I especially found interesting about this was the big focus on using photos if the interviewees. That underlined that it was their stories being told.

How will your own work in this studio be informed by your understandings of oral history and the examples mentioned above?
In my understanding of oral history, I’d like to emphasize that what I find most important about the research method is that it allows the interviewees to tell their own version of the story. This aspect I find greatly important and I think that is why documentaries can be very interesting – because they often offer to view the case from different perspectives. I hope we can do the same in our project regarding to the Capitol Theatre. Even though I hope that we can interview people who have experienced the theatre in the olden days I still think that interesting interviews can come out of talking to people who have not witnessed the theatre, but instead have some kind of expert knowledge about it. It could for example be interesting to talk to an expert of architecture and hear their perspective on the Capitol’s architectural features and Marion Mahony Griffins’ influence of it.

Even though my example of oral history is about a completely different and much darker topic, I still find inspiration in the way the documentary utilizes interviews and oral history to tell a story. I will attempt to interview the narrators in a such way and environment that they feel free and comfortable telling their very own version of the story. I will also try get make an ask questions that makes the narrator talk about the atmosphere of the Capitol theatre, so that the audience will be able to imagine the old Capitol as vividly as possible. By using photos, videos and perhaps background music I hope we will be able to underline the atmosphere the narrators will describe in the interviews.

Literature
Shopes, L. (2002). “What Is Oral History?” In Making Sense of Oral History (pp. 1-18). History Matters: The U.S. Survey Course on the Web.

Shopes, L. (2014). ““Insights and Oversights”: Reflections on the Documentary Tradition and the Theoretical Turn in Oral History.” Oral History Review (vol. 41 no. 2), pp. 257-268.

Jonestown: Terror in the Jungle (2018) [Documentary]. https://www.amc.com/shows/jonestown-terror-in-the-jungle/full-episodes

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The Capitol // Assessment 0

The relaunch of the Capitol Theatre has created a great chance for us to dive into the history of the iconic theatre and the stories of the people affected by it.

One of my ideas for the oral history project is to compare the theatres original use and purpose in the 1920’s to its purpose nowadays. I think we will find big differences here. From the original theatre that included a lounge just for men to drink whiskey and smoke cigars, to the open, inclusive environment it is going to be when relaunched. By doing a comparison, we can tell a lot about the society and how it has evolved. Practically, this would be done by interviewing different people, who in some ways has a knowledge about this. It could be a historic expert, a person who has visited or worked the theatre in ‘the olden days’ or some of the people in charge of the relaunch.

By using interviews, we can learn more about the Capitol Theatre through oral history. Oral history can be both small and big stories, but something very important, I think, is that it is told by an individual, who is telling their version of the story. Even though oral history should probably be about factual events, it does not have to be objective. By people telling their subjective story, we can get a more complex look into history.

Our visit to Screenworld taught me that there are a lot of different and creative ways to present history to an audience – something I will try get inspired by especially when creating material for the launch. When visiting the Capitol Theatre I was particularly interested in the architecture and the different spaces of the theatre and their respective purposes – and how it has changed.

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