Personally, I believe my noticing experiment responded to my prompt word encountering quite successfully. However for my specific type of video I need to think about the audience response to the video, I was not the one in the video that encountered something. Therefore from an audience perspective, I believe the audience could successfully comprehend what was occurring in the video, and through thinking in another type of way or by looking through a unique lens, it can become clear that the video is all about the encountering of ingredients. I believe that the shots themselves demonstrate the encountering of ingredients, and that it does come across in a clear manner to the audience. However due to individual audience opinions, perhaps my video may not come across as encountering as there are no people in my video and perhaps some simply may not see what occurs in my video as encountering. Yet I do think I do a good job of making it clear to the audience what my opinion of encountering is, and what thoughts I am trying to create.

Through making this project I have learnt that noticing nonfiction, especially nonfiction one would perhaps usually not notice, can more likely occur through a still frame shot. For example the noticing/encountering occurring within a still frame comes across extremely obvious which is what I want, because the frame itself is so still that anything that moves, even in a subtle way, is obvious movement. I came to learn this through practice, yet also by watching James Benning’s videos such as ‘Small Roads’ which enabled me to see clear evidence as to how still frames, be wide shot or close up, can open a viewers eyes to noticing any details of nonfiction. The quote from the James Benning reading “we see everything that moves because the camera doesn’t”, expresses exactly how I feel towards still shots with noticing in nonfiction. The word encountering itself is a very broad word that I have learnt has unlimited definitions. As my initial brainstorm for that word was very literal and included people bumping into each other unexpectedly etc. Yet the more I thought outside the box and let the inspiration come to me, I realised to film and notice encountering from a unique and close up way and to not include people would be quite challenging, yet interesting. As the overall purpose behind my video was to allow the audience to shift their perspective on what encountering means to them, and get the audience to see encountering can occur with literally any aspect of nonfiction, and most likely nonfiction us humans don’t usually notice or think about.

For assignment 4, I will continue to work further on the idea of close up or extreme close up shots of encountering occurring through nonfiction, such as nature or weather as I think they are both fascinating aspects of nonfiction that humans can definitely not notice in this materialised, industrial world. I think what I can refine for assignment 4, and what was an issue in assignment 3, is to have my shots focus just on the encountering in the frame, as I will try to make sure my hand or shadow is not in any part of the frame, as that can be a bad distraction.

In between the days Monday to Wednesday of week 8, I took on board all of the positive and constructive feedback from Hannah, Kim and Sophie from Mondays presentation and continued to further edit my piece. First of all I cut my overall video down from 4.45 seconds to about 3.30 seconds, which was a big achievement for me. I was able to do this by keeping to the ratio of the duration of the shots for example having the mixing shots last longer than the shot of an egg cracking into a bowl. Yet I cut almost all of the unnecessary footage of where there is no encountering occurring and cut and compressed the lengthy mixing shots to create one shorter montage in the piece to save time. During Wednesdays class of week 8 I got some final yet crucial feedback in that I should colour correct my video. As the shades of white throughout the video were off balance, yet I had not noticed the white balance prior to Wednesdays class.

The idea of me recording a voiceover for the piece was an idea I did like, yet I was still not sure of how effective it would be. Therefore in Wednesdays class I wanted to discuss further about what specifically would be appropriate for me to say over the top of my piece. Due to the class feedback and feedback from Hannah, after the class on Wednesday I recorded me simply saying recipe words such as “pour, mix, bake, beat…” with saying the numbers 1-7 before each word, just like a method of a cooking recipe. Although this is not what I originally anticipated on doing initially in my piece, when looking and hearing the final edit, I think it adds more structure to the piece, whilst allowing the audience to notice the encountering more as they hear the different types of ways the ingredients are encountered in the video.

The video/pitch presentations during Mondays class was extremely helpful and was a real insight into seeing how far other students in my class have come since the beginning of the semester. I thought it was a clever idea to have three different tutors at RMIT who teach in this field of media to express their individual perspectives on everyones videos. In terms of my video and presentation specifically, I thought the feedback I received was all valid and helped me see new sides to my piece I hadn’t noticed before. Hannah gave great advice on how to effectively cut my video down to reach the required duration of 2-3 minutes, by sticking to the correct ratio of how long each shot should be, whilst still cutting each shot down. Hannah also thought it would be a good idea for me to continue filming and working on this idea of encountering with close up or extreme close up shots of different subjects other than cooking, such as weather or nature for assignment 4.

Sophie, the other tutor suggested I could perhaps use voiceovers over the shots of the encountering occurring, to describe the smallest of encounters between certain ingredients that are not so obvious. However it was Kim who did not take to my video piece so well, as she found it hard to comprehend how extreme close up shots of ingredients being mixed together is encountering. As Kim takes the view that encountering can only happen between people and places, yet what I have learnt over the course of this semester is that people can notice with literally any kind of nonfiction. Encountering is a type of noticing that can occur within all realms of non fiction, not just the obvious kind. Therefore I will have to respect yet disagree with Kim’s opinion on my piece as I do believe my piece does portray encountering occurring with ingredients, and not with humans, because encountering does not have to occur with humans.

Throughout week 7 so far, I have continued to have technical difficulties as although I managed to update my laptop and Premier Pro cc, I realised that the initial footage I shot on the video camera was in 4K. Therefore the footage was too higher quality for me to properly edit due to the fact the footage would constantly lag. However because the computers in building 9 use a more recent software, I was able to begin properly editing on the computers in the building 9 edit suites. It automatically felt natural to edit according to the order the cake was made, therefore the order of the of the piece wasn’t a tough decision to make, however trialling what the duration of each of the shots should be was something I had to really think about. In class on Wednesday of week 7 I showed to the class 1 minutes worth of edited footage and the feedback I got was very helpful. As in my first edit it was evident that it was me doing the baking, as in some shots my hands were visible and it took the attention less of the actual ingredients encountering, and more on me simply just baking a cake, and the purpose behind the piece itself was lost.

The film we watched on Mondays class of week 7 called Filter Beds by Guy Sherwin, enabled me to think further about the effect close up and extreme close up shots can give to a piece, as Sherwin’s shots were so focused on specific elements of whatever was in his shots such as power lines, planes or tree branches. This video as well as the feedback from Wednesdays class allowed me to edit my shots, focusing solely on the close ups of just the ingredients encountering, as that is the overall point of the piece.

Between the weeks 6 to 7 was when I filmed my actual assignment 3 video. I recorded me baking a marble cake, using my recipe, in my Kitchen, using a Sony XD camera, a Tripod, a lighting device as well as a Tripod for the lighting device. Using the lighting equipment was something I do not regret, as it created enough light needed for the ingredients to be seen encountering each other through the extreme close up shots inside the cooking bowl. Therefore overall I was happy with the footage I took, yet I was not able to transfer the footage from the camera to my laptop easily, as the Premier Pro I originally had was not up to date enough. This made it difficult for Mondays class of week 7 as I had none of my footage on my laptop to be able to do the editing exercise. Yet in class I thought it would be a good chance for me to seriously think about how I will edit my footage, once the footage works for my laptop. I did really like the idea of using a graphic match style of editing, because I think it is a very creative way to edit that I do want to use one day, however I thought for my cooking video specifically, I need to think more about a rhythmic style of editing. To edit according to what is occurring inside the frame, as I do need to make every shot in the video try to last as long as it took for the ingredients to be encountered. However because the video can only go for 2-3 minutes, cutting the video down will be a challenge for me. I am looking forward to begin the editing process and to be able to see exactly what editing styles work with my video piece and what styles don’t.

Throughout the week 6 class on Monday both the brainstorm and activity were interesting for me to think further about my video for assignment 3, more specifically about the types of shots I should use and the duration of the shots also. Therefore in terms of the equipment, for the activity I did just use a Sony video camera to focus on creating and experimenting with close up shots using high angles. However I was not happy with the look of using a hand held camera as my footage in the activity was shaky and gave off an effect I was not going for. Therefore this activity really made me realise I do want and need a Tripod for my type of video as part of my equipment. For the activity, my shots went for roughly 10-15 seconds as planned, yet again this made me realise that for assignment 3 I will change this rule, as I thought filming the shots for as long as it takes for the ingredient to encounter for example, ‘the eggs to crack into the bowl’, would be more suited to my style of video. For the activity Jordan, Mia and I just filmed on location at RMIT therefore the location in the activity does not in anyway reflect the location for my actual video, yet I took the opportunity with this activity to focus on distinctly the close up and high angle shots of any location and again, to work with the idea of using hand held footage or using a Tripod.

The Scott Macdonald reading for week 6, ‘Eight Intersections’ was useful for me to read as it got me realising how past filmmakers, such as Rodakiewiez believe a movie or video camera shows so much more of our “daily surrounds than we normally allow ourselves to notice.” As this reading highlights how as humans we only notice the very obvious aspects of our everyday nonfiction in our everyday lives. And to challenge that thinking in assignment 3 in terms of encountering, intrigues me.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1i2WUitun30w16PmnKkaCQLBM9tI0V0sx/view

Above is the link for the activity we did in class for week 6.

Encountering from Maddie Hewson on Vimeo.

Lingering from Maddie Hewson on Vimeo.

The above videos are the encountering and lingering videos I completed in between weeks 5 and 6 that I showed to a small number of people in class.This activity did get me thinking about what I am trying to achieve in assignment 3 and what type of video I want to create. Therefore, for this activity I decided to use the idea of ingredients encountering each other whilst baking or cooking is occurring. This idea definitely did not easily come to mind, as initially when I thought of the word encountering, and what I did first brainstorm, was people meeting each other unexpectedly or on purpose, and that could be positive or negative scenario. Yet the main reason why I gravitated to the word ‘encounter’ was because of how broad the word is, and how it does not even have to be limited towards people necessarily. I thought of the idea of cooking when I was on Facebook and a Buzzfeed cooking video appeared on my Newsfeed, it was a short cooking video on how to make yummy desserts, and because I was already thinking about what to do for this exercise anyway, I noticed how interesting the idea is of the ingredients being encountered by other ingredients was. The types of angles and shots used also intrigued me and basically was my main inspiration for this exercise and assignment 3 overall.

To continue with the discussion Tiahne and I had about Benning’s work, we used the activity during Monday’s class to enhance the idea of letting the camera frame be still and having the noticing encounter the frame, not us trying to find things to notice. Therefore we used the idea of continuing to film people cross the road when the green man is present, until the red man is present, and people can no longer cross the road, right up until another person presses the traffic light button , wanting to cross the road again, waiting for the green man. This was an interesting activity, as we did not put any time limit on the filming, we were happy to continue filming for as long as it would take for a person to press the button. We repeated this video 5 times, the 4 out of 5 times we filmed this activity, the videos were all relatively the same length, as it took a similar amount of time for a person to press the traffic light button each video, except for the last video. We had to keep filming for around 4 more minutes, as it took longer for the button to be pressed. It was interesting to notice the reasoning behind this, as perhaps the button was pressed from the other side of the road, and an invisible pattern began to occur of people entering the frame continuing to not press the button as they relied on the person in front of them.

During Wednesday’s class we began to really think about the words that we are using for inspiration for assessment 3, such as encountering, wondering, tuning, priming, lingering etc.. I specifically chose to focus on the words encountering and lingering. For the word encountering I thought of people unexpectedly bumping into each others, or purposely seeing each other, a harmful conflict between people and places or things, or a peaceful interaction. For lingering I instantly thought of something lasting with a shot lasting a long duration.

Week 5 was an interesting way to begin discussing assignment 3 in regards to noticing. As the reading for week 5 which included the James Benning interview, gave a clear insight into how and what Benning notices while he creates his videos. A quote from James Benning that stuck out to me is when he can “see everything that moves because the camera doesn’t.” This explains a lot as the video that I really enjoyed watching of his, called ‘Small Roads’, consists of a still video camera, filming on a Tripod in the same location for 15 minutes each. Therefore Benning does not move the camera to try and find things to notice, things move in front of the still camera, then a viewer can notice, even the smallest of movement. Therefore I thought an idea for assessment 3 could be to film and let things enter the frame of the shot without trying to find things to enter the frame. Tiahne and I in Mondays class in week 5 discussed Benning’s films as like watching through a window, the camera is static and so still and would lose this effect if the camera was handheld, as a handheld camera brings the audience inside of the frame, yet using a Tripod is more observational.

Tiahne and I further discussed in class that in the same reading, Benning also makes reference to the fact that we as an audience need to always find narratives as our “minds always try to create narratives in anything.” This seems fairly accurate personally, as I do always try to look for meaning or a story behind something, yet I would like to challenge myself to film literally just to film, and to let whatever occurs inside the frame enter the frame, and be. Then re watch the footage, without having a pre planned narrative in my head and just notice the footage and what occurs. Tiahne and I agreed that Benning does not seem to create a narrative as he is filming, the viewers do afterwards, they use his footage as a catalyst for a narrative. As there is no pre planned narrative, perhaps viewers try to put meaning to footage after viewing it if there is no pre planned narrative from the beginning.