Unfortunately, I didn’t get to attend Week 7 but I did have a bit digging around to do from my peers and of course, from Robin himself. They all gave me very informative advice and supported my cause into discovering what it is I actually want to film – essentially, one of my observations. I have never had the opportunity to direct my own work so this was a perfect opportunity to do so, along with the support of Khurram.

A work in progress, we both decided to go with my ninth observation and that is, my experience with blood. This observation both appealed to us in a sense that it was about the bodily functions and the sensation of seeing, or simply even thinking about blood. Khurram’s observations fall in line with this particular one which is why we are both choosing to do this.

In order to execute this task, I thought it would be best to start with a mood board, potentially a script and a storyboard. The first two are still in progress but for now, a mood board should suffice:

As seen from the video, I managed to document my actual experience, so there is visual guidance, alongside with the mood board. It does not necessarily have to be a replicate of the exact scenario – if anything (as Robin has said), I could even dramatise this observation and escalate it to a different level, depending on how I wanted to present this certain scenario.

From this mood board, I would imagine this project to get a little bit messy, involving a lot of close-ups to extreme close-ups of the talent’s facial expressions and body parts. This short film is definitely not for the faint-hearted because of the blood but at the same time, I don’t intend to darken the theme/s of this observation but instead, simply put the viewer through my own experience of blood.

A couple of events happened surrounding Week 6 and one of those events involved a couple of screenings. One of the screenings had been developed from my group work on Exercise Five:

It had actually been my first time watching the finished product of Exercise 5 and I have to say that it was edited in a linear and structured manner. What I mean by this is that the questions were included, giving the viewer a concise idea of what it’s about. There were a few transitions in between the questions that weren’t necessary but kind of worked. However, I liked the charm and the character of the whole video, especially when it zoomed in on Aria’s face towards the end, an indication that there was a change in topic.

This definitely gave me a different perspective as to how I would conduct interviews and the extended capabilities that I can do with them. I never really thought about shooting the subject from a further/closer perspective but through this exercise, it gave me more creative inspirations to shoot the subject in different ways.

As for the second part of the class, we took part in Exercise #6 where we were required to act out one of the given scenarios. I worked closely with Khurram and Mohammed in order to achieve ‘receiving a phone call and eventually declining the call’. That activity helped us map out the concept of continuity and the different roles that you take on when filming.

As you can see in the photos above, we composed three different shots in order to add a variety. I was the subject for this exercise however, my role as an editor was to think about the feel and the flow of this video as a whole. It helped me reflect on the responsibilities and the constant decisions you have to make when constructing a whole video.

All in all, this exercise is one of the stepping stones for the upcoming film tasks that we will encounter later into the semester.

To be completely honest, this assignment had greatly disadvantaged me in the progress of becoming a better observer and a better student for Translating Observation. This was due to the fact that I had missed out on Monday’s class which was crucial to the first part of this assignment. Luckily, I still had the opportunity to choose from one of the videos shot from exercise four.

As previously mentioned in one of my blog posts, what really caught my attention was Ellie’s group with the train anecdote:

I decided to utilise this video because if it was going to be part of my individual exercise, I wanted it to match my aesthetic and this was perfect in that aspect.

There are about five parts to my final video that I have submitted and they are comprised of my own shots, in sync with the audio from Ellie’s group. My intentions for Individual Exercise 2 were to match the story being told in the audio. Had I not explicitly said this, it would not have been obvious and would have left a huge room for interpretation. However, I do want to make sure that the audience understands what is happening in the video.

Here are the parts, explained by yours truly;

Part 1: 

“The train slows to a stop as it pulls up the station”

I attempted to mirror the actions being described in the narration – as I enter into the frame, it comes in hand with “slows to a stop” as I walk in slowly to the shot.

Part 2: 

As for the next shot, there are aesthetic/creative reasons for this and does not necessarily match the second passage being read:

“People get into a scramble and sprint up the ramp in order to make it to the train”

However, I did try my best to attempt to match it to the narrative. For example, when the word ‘scramble’ was mentioned, you could see me during 00:08 moving abruptly in order to do so.

I also put in an obvious emphasis into the words and took it literally – when she mentioned ‘people’, I inserted a shot with people around me, hence the literal aspect of this video.

Part 3: 

I also wanted to roleplay the characters being introduced from the story. For example, she mentions that “…within the mob, there is a man…”, inserted with a shot of myself standing closer to the camera. At this point in the video, my face had not been explicitly displayed, which is why it was a perfect opportunity to display myself as the ‘man’. My interpretation of this certain character was almost menacing, which is why I decided to slightly make it a close-up, giving it an intimidating aura.

Part 4: 

“…stranded and alone on the platform, watching the train leave…”

Yet again, I am putting emphasis to certain parts of the story because it was more accessible for me to imitate those certain words. In this shot, I almost have an unbothered look, similar to how the man may have looked when he missed the train. This is my answer to the question at the end of the video – “Or was he just looking for an excuse to miss the train all along?”. To me, it may not have bothered this man to have missed the train, hence why I looked in a certain direction, carelessly looking around. Through this speculation, that may have been how the man felt or looked when he missed the train.

Part 5: 

In relation to part one, the last and final shot of me comes to a full circle as I stand up walk out of the shot.

It concludes and matches the questions being asked from the story. Not all of them necessarily have an answer ready and I find that the ambiguity makes it more alluring. Not everything has to be answered all the time – this could also be seen as a rhetorical question, as if we already know what the man’s motives were. This is exactly what I attempted to do with the ending of this video, exiting the shot.

During the Monday class, we had the opportunity to look at more video examples of how people observed – this, in particular, was about interviews, vox pops and the type of filming that was involved. We went back as far the film era, where everything was all filmed in black and white.

One of the interesting content show in class that caught my attention was the vox pop style of video where these two French ladies went up to strangers in public and asked if they were happy. It is a fascinating take on ‘observations’ and interviews in general because it didn’t have the traditional format where the camera would be in front of the person being interviewed. Rather, these participants were unaware that they were being filmed which was what appealed to me. The examples shown in class are highly relevant to the practice that we do during class.

Exercise Five is an example of this, as we collaborated and decided to make a formal style of interview. It took us a while to decide on the positioning of the camera but it all paid off in the end because we got the desired shot. Our main topic was about ‘food’, including the questions that were asked. As interviewer with a time constraint, I had to think of the questions on the spot which was both exciting and nervewracking – it had been a while since I did an interview, even though this was a short impromptu-style of interviewing. Getting thrown into the deep end, that is, having a small amount of time to set up a bulky camera and tripod puts you on the spot and forces you to as efficient as you can possibly manage.

It was a more relaxed lesson during Friday’s class as we got around to the technicalities of the camera. The only different thing about Friday’s lesson was that we actually studied the external part of the camera. Basically, we examined the manual of the camera, got to know the settings, that is, all the controls and buttons. I learned a few things today and also got to recap some of the information that we’ve previously learned these past few weeks. An example would be discovering that there is such thing as a black balance, there are different types of aspect ratios and is closely related to the video format (1920×1080, 16:9 – all that numerical jazz).

This camera is great in producing high-quality footage, however, it causes great inconvenience for me having to carry a big bag and a heavy tripod home in public transport. If ever I were to enter the media field as a cinematographer, this camera is a great starting point. At this point, however, I have access to other cameras that would produce similar quality and would be much more simpler to use. If at this point the camera was not a compulsory part of the course, I would navigate around simpler and much more compact cameras. At the same time, I do recognise the purpose of learning how to use the Sony EX-3 as it is the industry standard and sets the tone for how you would operate with other cameras in a professional manner. Robin has taught me a lot as to how one should carry themselves when setting up and operating a camera, especially in a professional scene.

Unfortunately, I had missed out on the Monday class which was a huge mistake because the class had worked on an exercise that was important for the upcoming assignment. However, we did receive our first set of reading which I will divulge for Week Four’s reflection.

Palomar looks at the sky: Moon in the Afternoon 

Reading the first line, I realised that this was the standard that I had to put into practice when it came to describing an observation. The author wrote everything in great detail and was highly descriptive – for example, he would describe the colours of the moon, its shape and the phases that it came in. Along with the descriptions, the author also made it sound factual, providing scientific facts about the moon. My favourite line from this reading was:

“…it never fails to show up for an appointment.”

It is as if the moon itself had human-like qualities, making the observation a little bit more relatable.

This example that Robin had provided gave me some more insight as to how we should be writing our observation. This is definitely an example that I can follow and learn from.

For Friday’s lesson, I had the opportunity to catch up on what I missed out on for Monday’s class. We got to utilise the boom pole and experiment with the audio, such as looking through the peaks in the camera. On top of that, Robin also taught us how to use the white balance settings and adjusting it – there were three main colours that were important to white balance: green, red and blue (from memory…?). In order to get the ‘perfect’ white balance, these settings had to be in harmony with one another, meaning that an image can’t look too green/red/blue. I had difficulty getting around to the manual aspect of white balance, especially with the Sony EX-3. I’ll have to put that concept more into thorough practice.

Through Google Drive, I was able to watch a few snippets of the videos they had produced for Exercise #4 and discovered that we were going to this content for Assignment 2, Part 1. Just by looking at the thumbnail, I already knew which video I was going to use and that was from (group name). As important as the audio is for this task, it is also important to consider the way it is filmed. This in particular stood out for me because of the whole look of the shot. Her green jumper with the green plant behind her appealed to how I would have liked my footage to look.

I also discussed with Robin that I was going to be using a different camera because of how inconvenient it would be to bring home a heavy tripod and a heavy camera home. However, this wouldn’t be affecting my work because I would still have control over the camera settings. The camera that I will be using is the Sony a6000, a camera that I am familiar with and a camera that would produce my desired aesthetic (I hope).

I would have to say that the whole process was both familiar and unfamiliar to me. Being in my final year, I was familiar with the whole procedure of these exercises, however, I was accustomed to them not being graded the first time. The first assignment being marked adds a whole another pressure to making your work presentable, especially for myself, since I missed the first two classes. All in all, I executed what had to be done to my satisfaction, despite a few bumps on the road in making this first individual exercise.

My motivations were already innate, as I am an avid observer of everyday life. It was just the matter of presenting in a light that I wanted it to be shown. To me, an observation is describing what you felt or what you experienced during the time. The way people can connect to your experience is by inserting in your thoughts and opinions. That was particularly the motivation behind this. As for the intention behind this, I wanted the person/people watching to see the intricacies of my observation. For example, the close-up shot of the plant – despite being a common weed, I wanted to portray the little details that make it up as a “common weed”.

Through a close-up shot, there is a certain vulnerability to what is being shot, hence, getting to know the subject a little bit better.

The second shot was influenced by the fact that the first shot did not show the wider frame. Of course, there is a closer observation to the first shot but it is also important to see the wider picture. What was also different in this second shot was that there was a new subject, which was my dog. It is almost as if the first and second shot aren’t related but that wasn’t my intention at all but rather, to show the position of the plant. My dog just happened to be the new angle of this observation.

After I had transferred the files on my laptop, I realised how big of a difference there was with how it looked through the viewfinder and on my laptop. I was almost dissatisfied with how both shots looked but it’s not like they were completely unusable. I discovered that I hadn’t focused on the subject properly, the ND filter was off (I was filming outside) and the exposure was way off. I do have my justifications behind these errors but despite that, I still realised and learned from my mistakes. As I had previously said, this individual exercise puts you through a lot of trial and error and that was the important component of this assignment. At the same time, these can also be seen as a “happy mistake” because the “look” of the footage didn’t veer too far off from my aesthetic. It has a faded film effect to it which I usually gravitate towards to in my photos and videos. I didn’t particularly do any experimental work for this exercise, mainly because I had already imagined what it would look like. Although it didn’t go to plan, there were no apparent experimental processes that I went through in order to make this.

This assignment has given me an insight as to what we will be doing throughout this semester. This was a good warm up to the more in-depth observations and short films that we will be making. Learning the technicalities of this camera will also serve a purpose for me and peers not only in the studio, but in the long run of our media careers.