Author: noahhodgson

Observation 13:

Translating Observation | Observation 13 | Noah Hodgson

Reflection 7:

Translating Observation | Reflection 7 – Rain | Noah Hodgson

Observation 14:

Translating Observation | Observation 14 | Noah Hodgson

Observation 15:

Translating Observation | Observation 15 | Noah Hodgson

Reflection 8:

Translating Observation | Reflection 8 – Powers | Noah Hodgson

Observation 16:

Translating Observation | Observation 16 | Noah Hodgson

Presentation Reflection:

Translating Observation | Presentation Reflection | Noah Hodgson

Observation 17:

Translating Observation | Observation 17 | Noah Hodgson

Observation 18:

Translating Observation | Observation 18 | Noah Hodgson

Reflection 9:

Translating Observation | Reflection 9 – Documenteur | Noah Hodgson

Practical Work Reflection (Half-way point):

Translating Observation | Practical Work Reflection (Half-way point) | Noah Hodgson

Reflection 10:

Translating Observation | Reflection 10 – Peer Observations | Noah Hodgson

Reflection 11:

Translating Observation | Reflection 11 – Final Thoughts | Noah Hodgson

Final Practical Work Reflection:

Translating Observation | Final Practical Work Reflection | Noah Hodgson

 

The journey of creating the video piece for this assignment has been a pretty long and at times quite challenging process for me. What started as an idea for a broad documentation of the lockdown period and a visual translation of its effects has turned into a much more personal project, which in many ways could act as a sort of personal statement of my outlook following the lockdown period. The journey to where this film ended up was certainly not a straightforward one. It began with a long period of what I can only describe as ‘writers block’ – I could not come up with anything. I had my concept, I thought I knew what I wanted to focus on, but I had no idea how I wanted to tackle that concept. I knew it would have a visual focus, as much of my work does, but that was about it. I could not for the life of me come up with anything, every time I attempted to write something around the topic nothing would come to me. So admittedly as the presentation date for assignment 3 approached I was very nervous and very underprepared. So a couple days out from the presentation knowing I needed something to show, I got my camera out and went to a couple of my favourite spots around my hometown and just pointed the camera at whatever I felt was interesting. Obviously the haphazard, semi-random approach was never likely to give me any insight into my prompt, and to tell the truth at first it absolutely didn’t. In the days following this shoot day as I began to collate my footage and try to piece something together out of it, I was just as confused as ever. Somehow though, just before the presentation was about to start I had a breakthrough. I realised that the footage I had collected shared a sort of theme (or at least I thought so) – that being change. On one hand I had images of a forest, something which could very likely have looked the exact same as it does today a decade ago or even longer. Whereas on the other hand I had footage of a beach, something which changes moment to moment and never looks the exact same twice. So this was where I found my entry point – I liked the footage I had so I wanted to use it, and I felt that writing around this idea of change, I could somehow create a different kind of documentation of the pandemic, perhaps with a more personal spin to it.

So this was where the final version of my video really began for me. I quickly began to have ideas for the voiceover, at first beginning as some kind of retelling of my experience during the lockdown, moving from Australia to the UK and back again unexpectedly, etc. But as I began to write around this I began to feel that if I were to continue in this vein the film may come across as a little self indulgent and failing that I would likely not be able to accurately judge its quality with my own biased eyes. So I switched gears again, which eventually resulted in me writing a sort of personal manifesto, a statement of my changed perspective on my own life and experiences and the way I want to live going forward. Once this voiceover was written I quickly recorded it and began using the footage I had collected early on to sort of complement what was being said, keeping in mind the underlying theme of change. It was at this point that I first showed Robin my progress. This prototypical version of my film was one I was genuinely pretty happy with, though I knew it was very much incomplete. I was happy to hear that Robin in large part agreed that I was on the right track – though with the added suggestion that it could benefit from a more rich and considered sound palette.

So following this meeting began the third and final phase of this assignment – that being creating the soundscape. This to me was probably the most challenging aspect of this assignment, and the component which I am most unsure of now that it’s complete. First I returned to my two locations, gathering as many sounds as I could and trying my best to get a broad array of different sounds. That was the easy part, the challenge began when I returned home and began trying to piece together some sort of soundscape to accompany the video. Even though the writing and planning stage of the assignment had been difficult at first, once I got the inspiration for my idea I was off and running and had little difficulty going forward. The same cannot be said for the sound component. To put it mildly, I had no idea what I was doing. I didn’t know what I wanted the finished product to sound like and in many ways I felt like I had far fewer reference points to draw from for inspiration. So what followed was a fairly excruciating process of just plain trial and error. At first I tried just to match the sound to what was happening on screen, but found it to be extremely boring and it wasn’t really adding anything that wasn’t already there if that makes sense. So I switched to a more subjective sound palette, placing different sounds in places that I felt accompanied the voiceover more so than the visuals. This approach just plain didn’t work to be totally honest, so I again scrapped it. The third version I decided to get some additional sound effects online, which certainly helped a great deal. At this point I decided on doing a combination of both previous versions of the soundscape, first adding a sort of bed of sound which matched the screen action (I did not record any live sound when I was getting the initial footage), and then adding some additional spikes of sound that were more for dramatic effect such as thunder, breathing and the doppler effect of a car passing. Once I had done this I was only semi-satisfied with the final result and went against Robin’s initial feedback, bringing back the music from the initial version I had shown him – only this time I was far more deliberate with its use. For starters I only used it to pad out the soundscape I had already created and essentially just used it to sort of punctuate the voiceover and visuals. I feel like this way it’s a lot more subtle and just sort of adds to the complete picture without overpowering anything.

All things considered, I’d say I’m somewhere between neutral to positive on the finished product. I’m definitely proud of the work I’ve done and regardless of whether the finished film is ‘good’ or not I learnt a whole lot in the process of making it and really allowed myself to experiment, take risks and often fail in pursuit of making my film better than it was already. At this point I honestly find it really hard to be objective about it as I truly have spent so much time looking at it on an editing timeline that I think I need a bit of a cooling off period before I can really judge in on its merits and weaknesses. That said though I am just really happy to have it finished and I do sincerely hope that it’s well received by the class and by Robin. This assignment really has been a rollercoaster, I’ve had a great deal of fun, experimented a whole lot with almost every element at play and have spent a hell of a lot of time doing what felt like smashing my head against a wall until something came of it. Despite all that though I have genuinely enjoyed making this film and I hope people like it!

‘Manifesto’ by Noah Hodgson

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1-daCxCFghLTV7JijjD2TeBk-Nc1tqrZ5/view?usp=sharing

**Google drive is a higher quality upload, just providing Vimeo link in case there is sharing issues with google drive**

Translating Observation has been for me, a class with a great deal of eb and flow. As the semester has stretched on, its purpose and thereby the intent of the work I’ve put out (particularly in regards to the practical work) has shifted significantly from where I had originally thought the class was headed. In many ways I think the concept for my final assignment is a considerable deviation from the original studio prompt of using our observational writing as the basis for practical filmmaking. However, despite my final video piece having no direct ties to any of my observations, it was no less informed by their existence. As such, the answer to the question of ‘have I been successful in exploring the idea of using observational writing as a basis for a personal film project?’ is not clear-cut. Looking at it objectively, sure my final film is not a visual interpretation of an observation I wrote, but it certainly would not exist as it does had I not been writing and observing my surroundings every few days. Which brings me to the side benefits of observational writing, which has been for me a certain degree of enhanced mindfulness, coincidentally the central theme of my final film piece for this class. I think that through the process of constantly looking deeper into my surroundings in search of inspiration for observations everywhere I go for the last few months, has meant that I’ve de facto needed to be more present, more regularly than I was used to – and it is from this headspace that my final film was formed. Mid way through the semester I had thought my final video piece was going to be some kind of visual recording of the lockdown (empty streets and such), or at the very least a more literal translation of one or more of my observations regarding the things I’ve noticed in my environment through the lockdown period. Instead what I’ve ended up with is not a direct documentation of lockdown and the effects of it on myself and the spaces I inhabit, but rather a response to them. So no, my film isn’t directly linked to my observational writing. What it is thought is the culmination of the journey this class has sent me on – I think that the process of doing all this writing and experimentation with film form has caused a genuine shift in my outlook towards the positive, and to me that can only be a good thing.

One by one I pull my records out in search of inner sleeves or posters to breakup the endless plain whiteness that is my bedroom. The first LP I pull out is lightly textured with a smooth-grain sort of feel to it, my fingers run across the slightly popped out text on its back cover before my eyes have even seen it. It reads ‘Arcade Fire presents The Suburbs’ in shiny brass font, covering much of the black and white backside. I unwrap the gatefold record cover and look through each compartment, finding only the vinyl record itself. I drag my finger across the spines of my collection, in search of my copy of ‘Dark Side of the Moon’, which I recall may have what I’m looking for. Finally my eyes lock onto the spine of the record, marked out only by a thin white line running from the famous prism on its front cover across the spine and onto the back cover. Reaching inside the sleeve, my hand lands upon the smooth paper of a poster, in this case a rather odd image of the Pyramids rendered through some kind of violet-coloured filter. In the other side of the sleeve is yet another poster, this time a hot-pink backed poster carrying images of each member of the band in performance. I remove each poster, taking them with me down the dimly lit hallway and into my bedroom. With both posters up at last the walls of my bedroom carry some suggestion of the person who lives within them.

The approach to my favourite secluded beach spot is more overgrown than usual – perhaps a symptom of the town’s lack of tourists this year. With the nearby caravan park lacking visitors I suppose there’s just no need to keep the path maintained. On either side trees and bushes overhang the fences that mark out the entryway. The sides of the path are lined with the ignored dogshit of at least a handful of irresponsible dog owners. As I reach the crest of the dunes the view opens up, extending from one periphery to the other. To the east the Point Lonsdale lighthouse peaks out from behind the ocean spray, marking the entry point of Port Phillip Bay. To the west the sky is split from the ocean by the Barwon Heads bluff. Waves roll in one after the other, clean faced and smooth they crash down into nothing. The wind is still as the tide begins to rise up the beachfront.

A thin blanket of mist hangs lightly over the town, spreading and diffusing the fading light of the sun as it bids its farewell to the day almost past. It’s 7:32pm, yet somehow still just bright enough that my headlights only just show through onto the road. I guess daylight savings time has yet to settle into my brain. I drive through the slow bends of the gentrified corner of town I call home. The lack of fellow road dwellers only adds to the petrified scenery. The sky holds a single grey tone from edge to edge, showing no hints of the setting sun which must inevitably be making its final descent, hidden somewhere above this misery.

Step by step the forest grows thicker and thicker. The ground becomes more treacherous with every move. I place my feet firmly one after the other with great consideration. This looks like prime snake country, but perhaps the hidden sun will be my saving grace. As I continue forward the ground slopes up to meet the sky and the trees around me change from thin and gangly trees common to this part of Australia to taller and thicker growths. As I reach the crest of the ascent my view opens up and the forest reaches its end. Ahead of me is kilometre after kilometre of open grasslands. At the bottom of the valley lies a lonely stream, stretching it’s way across the countryside. To the right of me in the distance is a humble farmhouse surrounded by grazing cattle. The only semblance of civilization amongst this wild expanse.

Out here in the woods there’s a palpable stillness that’s missing from the ‘real’ world. The wind blows blissfully through the tall stoical trees, birds chirp and sing all around me. Beneath my feet lies a mess of debris, fallen from the trees and accumulated for years upon years. These forests look more like something you would find in the Canadian wilderness than nearby to a coastal Australian town, yet here it stands regardless. This place feels like a sanctuary, unaffected by the COVID-afflicted world outside. As I walk across the old railway sleepers snaking their way through the landscape I remember what life was like the last time I was here several years ago now and I can’t help but feel a sense of loss.

Up to this point, I’ll be the first to admit that the concept for my project is rather loose. So in the approach to our presentations I honestly wasn’t entirely sure how or where to start with it. So what I ended up doing was just going to a couple of my favourite locations around my hometown and just simply pointing my camera at things until the inspiration came. Unfortunately the idea for my project didn’t immediately become clearer just from the act of filming – however when I brought this footage into my editing software and began piecing it together, I started thinking about how it could relate to my desire to ‘capture the lockdown’, or at least what the lockdown feels like. What came to me through this process was the realisation that the footage I’d captured both tied into a theme of change. On one hand I had filmed on an old railway line with a forested area next to it, which upon reviewing the footage I realised could stand as a symbol of permanence. Here I had an example of a part of the town which has stood untouched for as long as I can remember – I used to go there just to chill out during year 12 (4 years ago now) and it looks the exact same then as it does now. I even filmed part of my year 12 media project there, the footage of which being a prime example of how little it has changed. On the other hand I filmed at the beach, a location which is constantly changing as the tides go in and out, manipulating the shore’s shape as it does.

So what I decided after having this realisation, was that I had stumbled onto a theme for my project – that being how much things have changed in just six months of this pandemic. I feel like this is a much more concrete concept than what I had before and is already beginning to get my brain working for what the voiceover element of the project could be. Initially I had been considering telling my own story during the lockdown, of how I had been living in London and had to come home due to the pandemic. But when I tried to write around this idea, nothing really came to me – and I also had the fear of creating something which was a little more in the realm of catharsis than it was in the spirit of translating observation. With this updated concept I feel I’ll be more able to take a step back from my own work and be a little more objective with it – plus I’ll be able to craft something more universal and in that way perhaps viewers will be more able to connect the theme of the visual to that of the voiceover.

Once again it’s been great to see the work of everyone else in the class, especially in regard to just how diverse a set of projects we are all working on. Not only do we each seem to have a unique subject matter, but also a unique approach or focus. One particular presentation which really grabbed my attention and that I found really interesting was Sufeeya’s. I thought that the composition of the visual component of her piece was really excellent and was absolutely loaded with subtext and extra levels of intrigue, given how simple it was visually. I thought that the sort of quadrant framing she had created was really cool and that it would give her a great platform upon which to build a sort of soundscape for. I think that the potential for this project, especially given the nature of this class, is quite boundless. I really love her idea of having a sort of blended sound palette that merges the cool and warm sides of the frame and I hope that she gets really ambitious with the audio element as I feel this would really bring her project up a notch. In its current state, I think her video is great – but definitely could use that extra element of sound to really hold your attention and add more overall depth to the piece.

If it were me making a project based on this concept, I’d almost have the instinct to move the camera a little bit – ever so slowly, from the cool side of the frame into the warm side, as I think it could be really cool to see the image evolve as it moves between two polar opposites. I don’t know if this might take away some of the impact of the original concept though, as I feel that the way in which Sufeeya has done it originally makes the idea behind it abundantly clear and if only the sound was fully integrated with the visual it would need no further adjustment. That said though I’d almost like to see it done both ways and to compare and contrast the two together to gauge the impact. Regardless I think Sufeeya has done an excellent job with this first video piece and has certainly created something which is absolutely in the spirit of this class.