The aim of this media portrait was to portray a somewhat disjointed documentary, that focused on the subject of Tom Douglass – a good friend of mine – and his experience with, and enjoyment of, music and his guitar. This portrayal was inspired by the avant-garde films I had seen in a cinema studies session that used repetition, sound and movement as motifs in the films. I chose to incorporate found footage that corresponded to the subject and audio, rather than that of contrasted footage. I decided upon this and I was attempting to create a fluent and (to an extent) relevant self portrait.

I consider the most successful parts of the video to be the editing (cuts) between shots, and the relationship between the found footage and the given audio it is paired with. I also enjoy the section of the video to where still photographs are interjected with footage of Tom playing the guitar, that mirrors the music playing. I like to believe that this section of the video provides a new rhythm to the overall video, allowing it to be more visually awakening, and to avoid a plateau in the pace of the media portrait.

The most problematic aspects of this media portrait I believe is to be the sound and its volume and quality. Working with many sound bites, voice recordings and pieces of written music, I found it difficult to arrange these audio pieces so that they remained at a fluent and normal volume – this could have been improved by using a more systematic approach is adjusting each audio piece. Furthermore, having conducted the interview and recordings in a room filled with other musical instruments, technical equipment and speakers, the acoustics in the room sounded different and a little ‘off’ when heard through a laptop. This making the editing process a little more difficult, and quality a little more poorer than what I had hoped.

In the entire production process of this media portrait, I learned that not everything may work out smoothly, perfectly or according to plan. People may not be available, equipment may decide to stop working in protest of its constant use and your footage may not be exactly what you thought it was. But all these bumps in the road led to productive and pragmatic responses, and gave opportunities to revaluate the work at hand. This process of dealing with complications I believe is good experience to have under your belt when developing to become a media practitioner, as difficulties and obstacles are given to return in future media productions. 

Also here are photos of myself using the ZOOM recorder. Once at the front of the State Library, experimenting with the equipment for the first time. But as I forgot to take another picture of myself using the recorder at the site of filming/recording, here is a photo of the ZOOM recorder is use, when filming.