REFLECTING ON WATCHING NEWS.

Working on someone else’s script with the freedom to adapt the script was quite an enjoyable experience, a process I had never engaged with before in this context or manner.

My organisation of shots occurred in the post-production stage as my method involved creating a score before embarking on the visual accompaniment; an audio-visual essay, if you will. This allowed for relevant imagery to sync with the audio, although in doing so the length of the piece exceeded my initial intentions, a lag in the render/export process disrupted the timing of many of the rapid cuts, much to my dismay.

Having further explored sound design in class, an aspect of filmmaking that is of great interest to me, I embarked on an aural collage experiment in Adobe Audition. In a film I produced last semester, Reformation of the Canon, I utilised my CDJs and Mixer to mix a score, layering film scores, dialogue and tracks I had sourced from my peers. I would have liked to have done the same with this piece if time permitted as it allowed for more flow in the layering of different samples and sounds in relation to beat-matching, as well as applying filters and/or effects in real-time. Perhaps this is where I reflect on the importance of a pre-production schedule. Lesson learned.

Sourcing audio from one of my collaborators, Simon, I selected lines from my chosen anonymous script for him to read to have diversity in narration and vocal sources; a way of presenting dialogue that was featured in the script, though not presenting it in its conventional form. Why is dialogue so prominently relied upon in film? To think to Cinema’s origins, or the avant-garde films of yesteryear – dialogue has not always been at the forefront of how a “narrative” is presented, so why does its dominance remain in how meaning and messages are presented in all “genre” films?

Combining Simon’s vocals, my own, as well as found audio from newsreels and Kevin Rudd’s 2008 “Apology” speech, I explored sound mixing and layering all of these vocals to create an auditory soundscape. Blended together, with vocal effects and distortion added in Audition, I drew on the script’s central theme of social cohesion and “the news.” My intention for doing so was to deconstruct the simplicity of the script and approach it in a form of merging experimental film practises as well as documentary in its narrational approach.

It was Kaplan’s reading that prompted me to consider how to position a cultural and socio-political meaning in my film’s presentation of “the news”. In doing so, I aimed to challenge perspective and POV in that what was being portrayed in the final piece were the motions and actions featured in the script (of volume, of expression, of motion) and the impact imagery has, and moments in history that can be drawn upon to re-appropriate them into conversations of today.

Any engagement with any work is perceptual, and though my perceptual offering of the script was probably not at all what its author envisioned, I did not want to dismiss the initial ideas that presented themselves to me in my pre-production process. Trust your instincts, I say, though not after questioning my own.

Even reinterpreting the title of what was initially a “watching of the news,” I hoped to achieve a visual representation of the conversation Joyce was having with her father, though rather than a two-person dialogue, the script’s dialogue was instead presented in the news. Choosing to present the dialogue in text titles, rather than in spoken word was a last-minute addition as I feared I had not stuck to the script as much as I should have, my hesitant thought process strikes again. One thing I wish I had factored in was the creation of a title sequence, as it is the introduction that always sets the tone for what audio-visual experience is about to ensue.

Highlighting the movement and expression in the introductory sequence of the script I settled on the visual motif of eyes to represent a “watching” – related to news being a presented perspective of what is going on around us, dependent on the source we are engaging with. The news is reporting what is happening around us, though this does not always mean what is being reported is truth. Conceptually, the recurring motif of eyes [both in visual and aural form] serves to tie back into “the watching” – of the news, and of our surroundings, a reason for the aesthetic choice of grainy footage and abstract figures and blacked-out screens.

Conceptually I wanted to explore this in long-form as a “televised broadcast” sourcing footage from news channels, featuring a collage of different news presenters as the VCR overlay/glitch effect serving as a visual representation of ‘channel surfing’ and disrupted frequencies, something that was emulated in the film’s score, of distant echoes and distorted speech, once more presented in the action of the TV set being turned down.

In this piece I wanted to explore colour and abstract shapes, employing a kinetic pace of editing, drawing inspiration from Jil Bilcock’s rhythmic style and my own experiences in live VJing.

“CAN I ASK A QUESTION ABOUT THE NEWS”

Is it an Orwellian influence? Am I paying homage to Dziga Vertov’s ‘kino-eye’? Or is It merely a reminiscent piece of memories watching Big Brother in my youth… You decide.

 

 

 

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