As the focal point of our expertise exercise, our group fixated our attention on contrast, juxtaposition and texture, within and outside the confines of a certain space. This poses questions such as how does our sense of “space” – and thus, in effect, texture, contrast, colour, shape and light – juxtapose between locations so different yet so close to another. Further to this, how can this be communicated during, as well as, post production in some sort of poetic illustration investigating these film modalities and their sphere of influence and effect in an investigation through film?
I found the expertise exercise difficult because the direction in which I wanted to take the project was quite different to other members of the group: I wanted to investigate this contrast between the constructed and natural environments (indoors versus outdoors in a concentrated urban environment). I also noticed that it was easy to just respond to and waste time filming irrelevant stimulus for the sake of it, rather than really considering what contribution this would have to the overall piece.
Additionally, there wasn’t a great degree of clarity in terms of what it was that we really wanted to capture and communicate throughout the piece, and I think that this is evident in the final product. In future instances perhaps I could complete my own take on the activity and apply the ideas that I initially have to the task at hand? As well as this, the ideas that I have in my head retrospectively, as to how we could have better illustrated these film features (most notably being contrast and juxtaposition between the natural and constructed) are far more concrete.
For a start, the use of contrast through lighting indoors could have really helped to accentuate a certain “harshness”, compared to the more relaxed and organic atmospheric outdoors. To exaggerate such an effect, black and white effects could have been applied to the indoors footage to help encourage this analogy, however, perhaps this would have been too obvious and cliched? Irrespective of this latter point, cinema has demonstrated time and time again the impact of contrast and lighting in creating a sense of atmosphere and the conclusion this can lend. We can see these clearly from the clips below, illustrating this degree of difference and the result it can render.
http://www.sciences-fictions-histoires.com/medias/images/petit-trianon.jpg
http://www.sciences-fictions-histoires.com/medias/images/petit-trianon.jpg
https://dab1nmslvvntp.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/old-boy.png
https://filmgrab.files.wordpress.com/2010/07/14-tunnel.png
As I have already raised before, I don’t find the immediate surroundings of RMIT overwhelmingly pleasing. But, by specifically fixating the lenses attention on contrast, juxtaposition and texture within and outside of a certain space (in this case being a building in RMIT), it really allowed me to look beyond my own perception of aesthetics and to communicate atmosphere and the impact of space in a different and somewhat unique way.
