Category Archives: Scene in the Cinema – Methodologies

Reviewing the Act of Filming

Imagine an eye unruled by man-made laws of perspective, an eye unprejudiced by compositional logic, an eye which does not respond to the name of everything but which must know each object encountered in life through an adventure of perception.

– Stan Brakhage.

Throughout the first half of this semester I have been constantly trying to project my own living experiences onto screen (or more accurately in this case, recreate it through the act of filming). I saw the camera as only a lifeless tool that assisted my intentions (to communicate a sense of oneness with nature and a less human centered worldview through relationships with nonhuman characters). But it wasn’t until coming across Stan Brakhage’s idea of defining the camera as a non-human perspective that I realised what we often take for granted. The camera sees things that we are too limited by our human subjectivity to see. Though not an entirely an omniscient perspective (the very word implies the contrary), as reminded by an earlier inspiration John Smith’s The Girl Chewing Gum (1976) which sparked my initial investigation, the camera has its own unique perspective. Brakhage’s film Window Water Baby Moving (1959) presented the events of a birth from a neutral perspective yet portraying a realistically fragmented reality that is truer to our experiences in life than the conventional device of filmic continuity.

Since then, I have performed several experiments exploring the act of film by ways of seeing, filming and moving as well as investigating the relationships between them. Reflecting on my experimentations and observations, my research have diverged from the original research I proposed to conduct in week 8. Rather than developing a set of auteurist codes and personal filmic devices, I discovered tools that can be used to creatively navigate or engage the world around me. The act of filming when conducted aimlessly as a form of meditation, is an effective way to implement experimentation into the creative process.

I have also observed several classmates on their research projects as well as other productions outside of class. During these events, I observe and compare their methodologies to my own developing ways of working. This led to a further curiosity of whether or not they also contemplate about the meaning of the act of filming and the relationship between observing as a personal experience and the decision to frame or film something with the eye of the camera. With this in mind I conducted some recorded conversations with the people I have been working with to generate discourse surrounding this topic. The process of having conversations is an organic and dynamic one that I have discovered as part of my methodology, which I will continue to use throughout my creative endeavours. Through these conversations, not only did I get to know a bit about what others are thinking and how they perceive the act of filming. As well as generating a much needed local discourse surrounding film culture within the student community, it also brought upon insights on aesthetics, cinema, experience, identity, philosophy, culture and even politics. This became one of the significant revelations during this process: that cinema and filmmaking should be explored constantly in connection to the world around us, particularly in contemporary society.

Another epiphany led to the decision that a compilation video of my journey exploring the different perspectives on the act of filming, would be a more suitable documentation rather than creating a conventional scene or simply writing a reflection. The experimental footage and recorded conversations formed the basis for this visual summary:

As a result, accompanying this written statement is a film essay recapturing the journey of exploration and a concluding conceptual performance piece that summarises the relationship I have with the camera.

Research: Filming as Meditation

During this session of experimentation, I started off with a conventional perspective, holding the camera right side up and performing standard camera movements such as pans and tilts. But gradually my focus on such conventions dissolved, I started to ask:

– why do I need to keep the camera in the same position or orientation?

– why do I have to avoiding filming myself or avoid any kind of distraction from my subject?

I began to let my mind and my camera roam freely and separately, knowing that the camera is a free agent, capturing not my experience at the time, but its own perspective. I made turns and tilts that were mainly motivated by the simplest route to film from where the camera and I was to my next point of focus. This meant sometimes disregarding the camera’s orientation – landscape or portrait or on any other angle.

Without filming with any intention, my perspective and the camera’s starting to diverge. I focussed on my experience of being in the space, my physical and conscious interactions with the subjects, and the camera, in its own way, did the same without much of my direction (aside from loosely maintaining its perspective on the subjects). Doing so, instead of thinking about how to frame or what to film next, I was able to react to my surroundings as I filmed, experiencing several epiphanies during the process instead of after. Instead of discovering codes for how to film as I initially started out to look for, I discovered tools of how to creatively navigate or engage the world around me. The act of filming, when conducted aimlessly, can act as a form of meditation, an effective way to implement experimentation into the creative process.

Conversations: Azim

A conversation with Azim

– Memory in fragments, thinking back to our past

– Voyeurism, memory of eavesdropping

– simultaneous individual experiences, our ability to relate two individual experiences or events. (consider Soviet Montage)

– I am the camera, its my pair of eyes

– knowing what is beyond the frame vs. letting yourself be the camera through the screen

– presenting reality. Reality TV ‘more representative’ of America than movies are

– Ways of Seeing – John Berger, picture worth a thousand words

– Image or words are just different and equal mediums that can be suitable for delivering certain concepts depending on what it is

– The Nature of the Physical World – Arthur Eddington in David Lynch Swerves by Martha P. Nochimson

– imagery, visual aesthetics limiting concepts or imagination or experience down to a 3 dimensional visual experience that is then flattened onto a 2 dimensional plane

– act of filming being related to the expectation to present it to others. Filming for others

– Obsession with coherence in watching a film. A film as one story, has to make sense. rather than every bit of seemingly unrelated experiences or events being a part of one film (LIFE).

– Life is boring, spontaneous, random

– Film is a part of reality, films or film culture makes up part of our reality

– “Imagine an eye unruled by man-made laws of perspective, an eye unprejudiced by compositional logic, an eye which does not respond to the name of everything but which must know each object encountered in life through an adventure of perception.” – Stan Brakhage.

– The camera changed the world not just historically, but in a more recent context, globalisation would be a slower process. Moving images and images in the social network, or information world.

– Without TV I wouldn’t be able to articulate my thoughts. (We should have mentioned how language affect our thinking process)

– It’s more realistic to think of media depictions of culture as “what American like to celebrate or value” or “what Japanese culture like to celebrate or value”

– Australian identity? Australian cinema?

– conversation gets into hippy territory…

Conversations: Mia/Amy/Maree

A conversation with Mia, Amy and Maree

– beautifying through the camera (exposure, angle, editing)

– never able to replicating real life

– unpredictability of filming in natural light

– seeing the events unfolding with one’s own eyes before responding with a camera

– film is essentially life with all the boring bits cut out

– a non real life, not mundane experience

Walk Scene Reflection

A conversation with Jess

Whilst piggybacking on Jess’s exploration of the walk scene, I have discovered how others have approached this research of methodology differently. Looking at Jess’s project and mine, our approaches are almost opposite in nature. She has set very clear goals and parameters in conducting her experiments as well as always being aware of keeping it simple; whereas my own experiments tend to revolve around an idea of aimlessness and curiosity, with no perceivable goals or perhaps even more questions. I think the most important discovery out of working with Jess was keeping a dialogue going between two minds, despite how different our projects are. In one way, this helps stimulate our reflective thought process, and have someone to give you more available feedback. On the other hand, we can provoke each other as we respond to each others’ discoveries or epiphanies with a fresh perspective along with our personal experiences.

After our first conversation, it inspired me to appreciate the dialogue more than just working with or assisting other filmmakers. This added a new tool for me to explore my topic with, and a new way of documentation.

Research: Performance test

Tested the Sony camcorder today for the live performance. It was much more than i expected. It is less wide and distorted than a gopro which means that people’s faces will be more prominent in frame as this work is about the camera and people.

Testing the equipment raised a few question:

Interact with people or deliberately gaze with no interaction?
closer crop or wider?
Static or zooming occassionally?
Landscape or portrait?

Methodologies: an Update/a working Reflection

The beginnings of 4.2

After several weeks of experimentation and observations, it is time to review progress.

There have been several changes to the original proposed method and process of research in week 8.

Since then, I have conducted several exercises exploring the ways of seeing and filming and moving as well as the implications of their relationships.

An epiphany I had early last week was that rather than creating a scene or just written reflection, a compilation of my journey exploring the different perspectives on the act of filming would be a more suitable documentation. The experimental short clips and conversations with other filmmakers will be the main source materials for this final statement. It may also feature some reflections or quotes I have previously posts as well as some footage from other people’s projects which I have participated in.

Whilst looking at experimental films in another class, a quote from a reading intrigued me deeply and also began to answer the many questions I have been thinking about this semester:

“Imagine an eye unruled by man-made laws of perspective, an eye unprejudiced by compositional logic, an eye which does not respond to the name of everything but which must know each object encountered in life through an adventure of perception.” – Stan Brakhage.

Throughout the first half of this semester I have been constantly trying to project my own living experiences on screen (or more accurately in this case, recreate it through the act of filming). I saw the camera as only a lifeless tool that assisted my intentions (to communicate a sense of oneness with nature and a less human centered worldview through relationships with non human characters). But it wasn’t until coming across Stan Brakhage’s idea of defining the camera as a non-human perspective that we often take for granted. It has its own perspective, sees things that we are too limited to see. His film Window Water Baby Moving (1959) presented the events of a birth from a neutral perspective yet portraying a realistically fragmented reality that is truer to our experiences in life than the conventional device of filmic continuity.

As well as a video compilation and a final written statement, I will also like to do a performance piece that summarises the relationship I have had with the camera.

Research: Walk Scene

A conversation with Jess

This week, I have decided to join Jess’s in her investigation of the walk scene. Although we will be investigating different aspects of the exercise, it is a great way to keep the conversation going as well as making the organizing of a shoot a lot more manageable.

Research: Movement

Following the first scene I posted that initiated this research, here are some of the self conducted investigations of movement:

Dancing Pedestrians – This exercise was originally aimed to film the movement of the escalator. It was one of the most uninteresting footage I shot when I first reviewed it on my phone. However, when transferred to the computer, the file was registered upside down. It suddenly became an amazing study of our physical movement from an unfamiliar perspective. We are so used to watching each step fall downward toward the earth below that watching this in any other direction seem almost like floating or defying gravity.
Streetlights – an attempt to capture the movement and pacing of a car through its relation to its surroundings. The frequency of the streetlights provide a rhythmic indication of the car’s speed. The effects are also seen in the unstable handheld gestures of the camera as it is subjected to the physical vibrations of the cars movement.
Sun Dance 1 & Sun Dance 2 – after 5 minutes of wandering around with a camera in my room to some music, I found something to focus on. The music, my movement, and the visual that was captured in the camera merged into one performance that felt like it had a purpose. The result was mesmerizing and meditative. One of the videos is played backwards. It surprised me how the music sounded just as melodic and emotional when played backwards and also provided another level of interpretation to the piece.
Cat project scene – Over the week I also assisted on a project outside of class. The project was a story from a cat’s perspective. Although I was volunteering to act and provide location, I also participated behind scenes in working out how the ‘cat’ was suppose to move around. It was a unique exercise in trying to understand, mimic and capture its liveliness without showing any part of the cat itself. I chose to include this shot because it also captured an unexpected technique I may use in the future. When the camera is inside the box, it captured the pin hole image of the exterior world inside as I moved around. This was a unique way of capturing movement that we accidentally discovered.

As I am investigating movement in these exercises, some of the videos have been muted so that the viewer can focus on the visual movements in frame.

These exercises may be inspiring and creative endeavors, however, they are no more useful than poetry. I hope that in my next lot of investigations, more methodological process will be discovered.

Week Eight: Reflection/Epiphany

This week I attempted to investigate camera as movement.

“In the first volume of Cinema Deleuze reclassifies classical narrative filmmaking as a cinema of movement-images – naturally structured stories in which we do not usually feel the attitude of the camera (for example, the film will normally simply follow and react to character’s movements), and where edit shifts are there to deliver an indirect (realistic) image of time, time in its empirical form.” – Daniel Frampton, Filmosophy

A few ideas came to mind…

camera being pushed around by natural causes, moved by unintentional physical influences.
perhaps the camera doesn’t capture the moving object visually or photographically, but through the physical influences of its movement on the camera. This led to the next idea.
A dancer/performer with a camera strapped on in front or attached to them as they move and react to music. The dancer is never seen on camera.
a character sets up a camera ready to film, walks away, different characters come in, without predetermination, interferes/moves the camera around and displaces it or alters its visual settings.

…but nothing practical or solid that I could really shoot a scene on.

What I realised this week is that the research I have set for myself was inspired by an aimless experiment which led to a discovery of subconscious methodologies upon reflection. And what through me down the rabbit hole was the attempt to design the experiment by determining its outcome before conducting it. Therefore, the investigation from now on can not be “designed”. Perhaps the experiments are focused, not on such discoveries, but on technical/narrative/conceptual investigations. Another thought is to assist and participate in other classmates’ shoots to study their methodologies, whilst working out my own without having too much concern with narrative or the end product.

Nevertheless, and feeling rather desperate, I shot, with my phone, whatever movement I could capture.