Monday’s class had us deliberate more on our thought process and moving forward with our next assignments. With some students, much to my surprise, outlining they would rather work on other peoples projects than on their own. I found this interesting as I assumed each person chose an observation to present because it had some level of resonance with them and in that, being something they would more likely to carry forward if they had a personal investment in the observation. While collaborative bodies of works do have many benefits, my personal opinion is sometimes this process can be at the expense of artistic integrity in vision as well as slowing down the creative and development process by reliance on others. Moving forward I intend to make use of peers for specific aspects of my project however in terms of the level of collaboration it will measurably minimal in comparison to some of my peers, it will interesting to track this process and observe how this will overall impact the quality of my final project.

As stated during the presentation, I intend to construct a short film (or music video rather), coupling the Australian national anthems lyrics with found footage from new reports, the internet and Australian films with the purpose of highlighting the hypocrisy and inaccurate lyrics of the national anthem that do not at this point in time reflect our country. The intention of the film is to have a political message that hopefully will highlight a lot of the issues within today’s society in terms of xenophobia, hate speech, class warfare, the surface of a  oligarchical society and other national issues. This decision was formulated using one of my observation as a foundation: (http://www.mediafactory.org.au/liam-morkham/2016/09/06/media-4-observation-6092016/), which featured a homeless man wrapped up in a blanket with the Australian flag on it, a sad irony in the fact that he is wearing a symbol that reflects a society which has abandoned or failed this person. As discussed in feedback from the presentation I will be observing filmmakers with similar artistic visions who have already made powerful political pieces such as Santiago Alvarez as well as Peter Watkins (who i have already watched the film The War Game (1965) for, which stylistically shared a lot of aspects with my vision of having a piece that warns of societal hatred and fear.

On Wednesday came the day where we finally began to lay foundation for Assignment Outcome 4 by presenting to our peers as well as a board of guests our proposals for a short body of work (short film) with the intention of developing it in the coming weeks. My chosen observation about a homeless man was my chosen piece to present and explain how I could cultivate it into a film. I believe the observation and idea for direction in which I am going to take the piece was relatively well received. A particular note in feedback for my presentation was the potential to really make the piece feel more of a personalized story or observation rather than just a more distanced view at a lot of issues plaguing minority and impoverished communities. Moving forward with this I have been provided with some sources that will help in developing my idea, Santiago Alvarez , a cuban filmmaker looks to be a useful source at observing some existing bodies of work that may be very much in line with the political undertones I intend to weave into my piece. “Now” (1965),  “LBJ” (1968) and  “To Die For Your Country Is To Live Forever” (1976) have all been brought to me as useful tools that I intend to watch to inspire my position taken on the matter narratively as well as hopefully to find some more technical aspects of the filmmaking process I can utilize moving forward.

(Link to Observation used in Presentation: http://www.mediafactory.org.au/liam-morkham/2016/09/06/media-4-observation-6092016/)