https://vimeo.com/showcase/6011896/video/340588644

Speaking to someone online versus seeing them in real life is a concept that is baffling to many individuals such as myself. My plans to meet up with a friend I rarely see but speak to online happened on a Wednesday afternoon. Brunch was the chosen mode of activity at a local cafe. There were no expectations of how it would be like when we met up, but once I saw her, it felt completely different as to how I would usually interact with her. Because we seldom see each other, there was no sense of familiarity as you would have with an old friend but also, it is a completely different type of interaction even though we’ve spoken on multiple occasions online. There is just that explainable awareness of one another, especially because you witness everything is in real time and in the flesh.

The story behind this observation:

This was actually a personal anecdote of mine in regards to a friend whom I met through a unique circumstance. It’s weird how the world works because we had actually already met prior to our friendship. We had both attended a birthday party and had greeted each other but we didn’t get to know each other until I met her through an ex-boyfriend. Unfortunately, I felt that it was going to be hard to maintain the friendship, especially since I had severed ties with this person. To my surprise though, she still wanted to catch up every now and then even if I was not associated with that person anymore. The only way I was connected to her was online, specifically through the social media app, Instagram. Once we had finally caught up, it was so different to how I saw her through Instagram and face to face.

This second video the challenging part of this assignment, to say the least. Working as a group can be difficult because sometimes, you feel that you are the one carrying the weight of the team, especially if it is your observation being used. I felt that it was my responsibility to lead the group with the whole process, especially in the pre-production and stages and my role as a talent. I was chosen and I nominated myself to be the talent because as the person who had lived through the observation, it was the most appropriate action to move forward with.

As we were a group of six, the daunting question of who was going to edit was coming towards the end of shooting. I, however, volunteered to do it because once again, I felt that I had a responsibility to accurately represent this observation. The only thing that I wanted to put off was directing and that was left with Aria to do.

As mentioned in my week twelve reflection, the weather was quite temperamental and it was hard to get the right lighting and colour in certain shots. That was one of my main concerns whilst I was editing but luckily, Neville helped out with the colour correcting process. Have a look at the difference:

As seen above, there is a vast difference in the lighting and essentially, the mood of the whole video. Colour correcting had made a huge difference in how the message of this video was conveyed along with the consistency of each and every shot. Had it been the original lighting, the video would have gone for a more serious tone which was not what I was intending. Instead, I wanted to go for a more light-hearted version of the situation. Thinking about the actual observation itself, it was not even supposed to be about the awkward interaction itself but rather, the difference between someone’s online and offline persona. Obviously, that was not the case with this video because there was no clear outline with that scope of the story. Despite all the twists and turns (different interpretations) of this observation, I believe that the story was concise and straightforward.

The production of this video piece was an extremely breezy process – it was done within in an hour or so, with minimal adjustments made. When I say minimal adjustments, I mean the pre-planning of this whole video was followed accordingly, with modifications of the shot.

Leaving out certain shots were no problem for me because the ones left in the video could still capture the essence of my observation. The shots that did not make it were crossed out in the script and shot list. My reasoning for leaving these shots out was due to to it being repetitive, unnecessary and more importantly, it would have been an obstructive process. The cafe is quite small in size and if I were to do a tracking shot of the talent walking in, the cafe owner would not have been pleased. Prior to the shooting, I asked the cafe owner if we were allowed to film inside. He was reluctant to let us do that because he did not know the nature of the shoot but once he saw us shoot inside (which was low-impact), he was relieved. He initially thought that we were going to take over the whole cafe but in reality, I was just shooting from the table we were allocated to, and used my mini tripod to film. Filming outside had also little challenges, despite the rain. If anything, it was easier to film inside rather than a closed location such as the cafe.

These were some of my favourite shots taken during the filming and editing process – it captures the whole mood of exclusivity as well as the coziness of the cafe. The fact that the weather was gloomy adds to that effect. My expectations of filming my observations did stray away from the actual video – of course, it would be difficult to replicate the exact same moment that I had experienced from my observation but I would have to say that it was pretty close.

I enjoyed making this “routinely” type of video – it may be hard to decipher its exact meaning without reading the observation, however, the aim for this video was to present Degraves St in the exact way it is.

I would have to say that Week 12 is the culmination of the knowledge and bits of advice that we all have received during the semester. From all technical tips and the life advice that Robin has given us, it is a chance for us to utilise it and pour it into the final studio assignment for the semester. During Week 12, I filmed for both my group and individual video piece – a week full of video productions.

Punctuality has never been my strong trait and unfortunately, this semester was a reflection of that. I have been trying to be more on time, if not, a bit earlier but I have failed to do so on so many occasions, being early only once to my studio classes. I was running extremely late to this group meeting but to lick my own wound, I wasn’t the only running late. I do, however, feel incredibly bad for making my group members wait and that is something that I must actively improve on. Wasting people’s time is extremely inconsiderate and unprofessional and reflects an individual’s commitment.

Despite my lateness, it was still overall a really good day of filming – the energy was great and we were all communicating very well. Neville was familiar with the use of the sound recording device, Aria and Jackson were experts with the Sony EX-3 and Liv and I made to practice each and every scene before filming. I was really pleased with our team because everyone was patient and considerate. Because of our teamwork, the weather’s temperament also did not get in the way of filming this video piece. There were times when the sun came out (not ideal for filming particular scenes) and when we would experience the occasional shower or two.

filming in cloudy conditions
vs
filming with the sun

The weather’s inconsistencies reflected on the look of certain shots as seen above. This can be easily fixed in post-production – in the future, however, it is best to ensure that external elements won’t affect the ongoing consistency of the shoot. Now that we’ve completed the production process, I am excited to start editing this video which is my favourite part of this whole process!

With my own individual video piece, I filmed on a cold and rainy day. This was not too much of a problem because this mostly comprised of me shooting indoors which was at the café. Of course, this was relatively more easier to film as I was the director of this process and it was really up to me how the shots would look. The only inconvenience I would have to point out is filming inside small locations with consideration of the cafe and its patrons. I asked the owner if it was okay to film and they were a bit hesitant at first but eventually they said that we were good to film.

I’m happy with how my shots came out and this is probably something I’m a little bit proud of (in terms of the aesthetic value) than the group assignment. However, there is a difference between them and that is the story being told. A video can have completely different looks from each other but it is important that the message you want to be conveyed is clear!

Week 11 was an eventful week, full of pre-planning and organising, leading up to one of my final assessments of the semester (my second final semester too ah!). Prior to all the planning of my individual and group video, I helped out with Liv’s video piece as the sound recordist. Helping out Liv gave me an idea of how it would be like working together as group. At the same time, it made me realise how stressful it can get filming in a busy environment, especially if you are filming in a public space. Nonetheless, we still managed to achieve and get through all the shots as planned!

Taken on set during Liv’s video piece production

Organising two types of video pieces is a difficult task to get around, especially if you are working as a group. The difficulties that arise are usually the level of commitment between group members, clashes of schedules and the creative differences.

During Week 11, we had the opportunity to venture and discuss between peers what it was we wanted to achieve for this final project. Everyone had a vague idea about what it was we wanted to do so it was quite hard to set our sights on a particular video idea. However, there was this one profound moment during the discussion between my potential film partners – this was in regards to choosing which observation we were going to adapt. Neville brought up a couple of my observations, stating his interest in them and I was quite taken aback (in a good way) because I did not think that anyone would care to stop and read my observations of the world. This observation, in particular, was about meeting a friend I speak to online more so than real life. To my surprise, a lot of people seemed to agree with this idea and also had their own interpretations of what this observation meant for them. For example, Neville perceived as a story with two points of views and then eventually, these points of views would merge and become one. On the other hand, Jack thought that the whole scene was based off the awkward interaction between this person and the observation. As it is my own observation, it was definitely about the awkwardness but that was not the main reason – it was about my perception of this person’s online and offline persona and the differences between them.

In the end, we veered towards the idea of going for the ‘awkwardness’ between these two characters, mainly because it has the potential to be entertaining on screen and also, everyone seemed to gravitate more towards that idea. During pre-production, I wrote a script and we all worked on a storyboard in order to get the final idea of this video. It was fairly simple, with very little dialogue and heavily reliant on the voice-over to convey the awkwardness.

This storyboard was helpful in constructing how the shots would look like and how we could enhance the ‘awkwardness’ between these two characters. I’m glad that everyone seems to have the same vision for this project which is effective for teamwork, especially when working with tight deadlines. I’m looking forward during production with my group and I’m excited to see how far all of our combined skills can take us!

This week was a pivotal time for me to start the pre-production process of the final assignment – Assignment 3 Part II. I had the opportunity to scout my location and discuss with Robin what my initial and continuing plans were with this project. Robin had given me great advice in terms of what this video was going to be about and one of the main factors was the whole essence of this observation, translated into a video format. I wrote a few notes regarding the advice given to me, which were great ideas in making this video piece:

• The transition between what is busy and what is intimate – the potential purpose of this whole observation
• The exclusiveness of the space – how can I capture that? Will that be through sound and/or visuals?
• The idea would be to follow the talent, preferably from behind
• The film would be 60% outside, displaying the visual aspects and aesthetics of Degraves St and 40% of it would be inside the cafe. That way, it would make the cafe a little bit more special, conveying the exclusivity or its ‘secret’ to the general public

As for the location scouting, I made sure to do it right before Friday’s class, just in time to show Robin the progress I’ve made. The following are reference photos I’ve collected:

You can imagine how this video would already be like (or at least my vision for it) – scene moving images, with a lot of close-ups to extreme close-ups. I’d like to also implement the slow-motion effect if possible, particularly for detailed-oriented scenes (such as the close-up of coffee, the back of the talent’s head and the close-up of the menu book).

As of right now, I have a strong idea in terms of this video/observation’s meaning and now, it’s all just the matter of getting that message through the video. With that, comes the technicalities of it and making this video piece look as good as I had seen it in real life.

Week 9 was a very important week for various reasons: one, we learned the whole concept of staging and rehearsing, and how it was pivotal not only for the talent but also for the film crew to coordinate their roles in order for the whole film set to synergise. Two, it was a chance for us to collaborate with our peers and get to know what each and everyone’s motivation was for the final project.

In terms of the staging exercise, there were various factors that came into this – it was teamwork, learning the different types of roles in a film production and not overstepping your boundaries once you have established your film role. At first, I thought that this process was tremendously tedious and would take forever to film. It took a while for everyone to get comfortable in their roles but once we got the groove of the technicalities, everything started to flow faster. One of the few things that I learned from this exercise that not only are the actors and actresses are in the spotlight but so are film crew. For example, there are a lot of responsibilities that the Director’s Assistant would have to oversee, artistic choices that the director of photography would have to make and so on. I was privileged enough to have experienced some of the major roles and that is, to be a director, a focus puller and an actress. Experiencing the variety in these roles has enabled me to get a better idea of how I would run my own film production for one of my observations. Experiencing the role of a director was what appealed to me the most because I’d like to see one of my observations come to life, and potentially being the director for that would be a fulfilling experience.

As for the second part of this class, we had the opportunity to mingle and figure what it was we wanted to do for the final film project and essentially, find people who had the same idea as I did. For the past two assignments, I had chosen to work individually due to creative differences I have encountered whilst attempting to film my own observations but this time, I thought it would be a perfect learning experience to collaborate with people whilst learning and growing at the same time. Because this assignment gives you a chance to work on two videos, it was provided every avenue for us to work individually as well as collaboratively. Jack, Liv, Aria and myself decided to work with each other – even though we did not have any ideas at the time, we decided to work together anyway with consideration to our different skills and different ideas.

I can honestly say that I am looking forward to working with these talented individuals!

Simple Video Piece:

This will fairly be a straightforward reflection as it was simple to do this video piece. As previously discussed in the Part 1 reflection, I have constructed reasons as to why I chose these particular shots to be incorporated with the audio being listened to. Despite the lack of literal relevance in the original video (between the visuals and the audio), I still attempted to make a connection between the two as explained in my reflection.

Searching through my archive of observations, I managed to find one that one relevant to the visuals this time. I made ‘relevance’ an important point for this assignment as it was more digestible for the viewers and easier for me to make connections between the audio and the visuals. Therefore, I chose this observation (observation three) as I thought it was the most appropriate – for example, as I was surrounded people in the video whilst doing mundane tasks, the way it was filmed was as if it was through another perspective, other than my own. You can see how relevant it is to my observation, because I discuss how I see myself through videos, essentially seeing a new side to my appearance and how I carry myself.

The new audio inserted to the original video piece works hand in hand together as there is a strong connection between my observation and also my video piece.

Advanced Video Piece:

From my week seven reflection, I discussed my potential plans as to what I was going to be filming for the advanced video piece. The following will be numbered in regards to what I had in my mind for this advanced video piece:

1. Prior to filming, in order to translate this observation into something that was film-worthy, my action plan would be to write a script. This was both for myself and talent in order to imagine how this observation would transform into a medium of video.
2. My experience with blood was something I wanted to document but looking at it from a practical perspective, I thought it was the easiest to make a short film out of. The location was easy enough to scout (my friend’s room) and there would be minimum props needed in order to produce this mini-short-film. The props used were a lamp for the lighting, a sun reflector (used for cars to keep the heat out) as a second lighting device and red food dye for the blood. It was all fairly simple and straightforward because of how simple my chosen observation was.
3. As previously mentioned, I was also intending to collaborate with Khurram and that would be to have him as my cameraman/cinematographer. Unfortunately, this did not work out due to the lack of organisation and also the creative difference we had with my own observation. I thought it was best to work independently because I knew of my own personal experience and it would be more ideal to avoid a disagreement that would hinder both of us.
4. The camera used was Sony a6000, similar to my previous project. I thought it would be best to go with something familiar and easy to use. At the same time, I knew that it would produce the desired results. It was to use and of course, it was under the manual settings. Most of the time, my shots ranged from 1.4 – 5.8 in terms of the aperture. This is due to the set being in low light conditions and the Sony lens (1.8/35) that I’ve used does a good job shooting in low light.
5. Post-production: Once again, this was another smooth process due to the observation being straightforward. My editing was sequential because during production, I filmed everything in order according to my own observation. The only thing few things I made changes for was the order of the observation itself – as heard in the beginning of the video, “…bright, blood orange colour”, I went straight to second line of my observation because I thought it was the most appropriate in accordance to the visuals. That goes for the rest of the lines of my observations within my video.

To be completely honest, I wasn’t too sure what components this ‘advanced video’ piece should entail because we lacked brief for it. I initially thought that it was just going to be the simple video piece and that this advanced video piece would be for the next assignment. Despite this the little mishap and the time pressure, I still managed to produce this video that I am satisfied with. I know within myself that I can do a better next time with better preparation.

Otherwise, my original intention for this video is to stay true to my personal experience, reminding not only myself, but the audience of what it was like to bleed from your ears.

After our mid semester break, we got straight into the groove of the technical side of things and that was learning how to use the H4N Zoom Microphone. I have previously used this item so there was some familiar aspects of using this microphone but otherwise, it was like learning how to use it all over again.

The highlight of this lesson was the video exercise where we had to sync the audio and the video together, whilst filming the contents of your bag. I collaborated with fresh and familiar faces, operating the H4N Zoom. It was a new experience to see how the camera and the audio would have to work side by side in order to get the perfect timing. Of course, it helps that there is a clapper in order for it to be in sync but we only found out about that after we finished filming. Otherwise, here is the video for you to enjoy.

During Friday’s class, we reviewed the videos – the comments we received from this one shot video was the clarity of the audio (thanks to Khurram’s amazing lapel mic work) and how we managed to sync the video and audio together. This exercise was great in teaching us how to time the different aspects of cinema, because after all, film is not just a visual art but also an audiovisual medium.

Similar to Monday’s exercise, another collaboration occurred for Exercise #7. I would have to say that this was a more advanced piece of work, requiring more communication between our group and the different roles. The following roles were; Director, Assistant Director, Audio, Editor and of course the crucial role of the actor and actress (aka, myself!). I’d have to say that this exercise was a little bit stressful considering the little time frame we had: one hour. As much as we wanted to perfect the shot, we had to keep moving forward and cover all shots needed in order to complete the suspenseful story between Mayrum and Murphy. That is yet to be reviewed and edited once my group and I have sorted out who is supposed to be the editor in charge. This exercise has made me remember how difficult yet rewarding it is to work in a group. Despite the clash of ideas, us like-minded individuals produce content that we all have the skill and drive to do.