“The Idea of the North” confused me a lot. Why were there all those voices overlapping at the start? I gathered it was a recount of the arctic, a representation of events in the north through people telling stories. It was really difficult to listen to. I get that it was artistic and abstract, however, I couldn’t focus on any voice since I almost felt schizophrenic during the first few minutes. I realised the audio of different tracks were dropping in and out so that the one or the other were in focus however it wasn’t done in any sort of clever arrangement so I would randomly hear words like “polar bear” and “birds”, without understanding their context. It was pretty boring and quite messy. It felt outdated, maybe because the lack of sound design. The rest of the piece at least had a few sound effects here and there to give the piece some texture. Different people spoke about the North and what that meant to them.

Brian Hill’s ‘Drinking for England’

I didn’t attend the lecture as I was on a plane, however I youtubed the documentary and found it very different from any documentary I’ve watched before. It focusses on the drinking culture of England, exploring a few subjects and their attitudes towards alcohol through poetry and song. The topic intrigued me as attitudes towards alcohol in different areas and people fascinates me. However, I found poetry in the beginning of the documentary quite unusual and repelling. I didn’t feel like watching the rest of it although I did. To me it didn’t really have much of a purpose, although I’m sure it did. It did make it seem more comical and light hearted especially since “colourful” language was used like “shitfaced”. I guess it targets a younger market rather than being a warning to parents? When it got to the middle aged man singing a song about his drinking habits, the documentary felt quite tacky. The documentary to me felt like one of those documentaries you watch in high school that promotes “drugs are bad, stay in school”. I was quite displeased, although it was interesting in parts, it was hard to watch for me. It isn’t how I want to explore my subject in my documentary.

I want to be able to tell a true story through documentary and keep it captivating without seeming like a video you watch in highscool about the french revolution. I want to be able to capture the true essence of those I interview and learn how to edit together interviews and slices of facts and archival images all together in a way so that it flows. My goal is to create a documentary that both means something to me and is memorable to those who watch it. I hope to create something that people are interested in, even if by the sounds of it they aren’t. I hope to create something worthy of being entered in a competition. I obviously also desire to get a good mark.

I am a Final Cut Pro user and this was the first project I ever attempted to use Premier on, and considering that I am the main editor I had to learn all the shortcuts of Premier to attempt to edit at a really fast speed like how I do in Final Cut. The CMD A and CMD B in Final Cut is not CMD V and CMD C in Premier which is killing me because I click it without thinking and end up doing something completely different. All in all Premier is actually a lot more user friendly as much as I didn’t want to admit it.

(ILL UPLOAD THE REST OF THIS SOON)

In this clip form the Coen brothers ‘Blood Simple’, a lot of extreme closeups/close ups are used, intercut with the actions of the characters. I love close ups of little actions like that as you can really focus on the sound effects and can exaggerate them as seen in the clip here. The click of the cigarette lighter, the cigarette sizzling as he butts it out, the slap of the fish on the table. It reminds me of ‘Requiem for a Dream’, a lot of ECU’s with really satisfying and exaggerated sound effects. Throughout the scene you can hear crickets, setting the time of day as night.

Sandra’s lecture was really enjoyable.

A point I found really important was the mood on set. I’m looking to study film because I absolutely love it and want to have a career where I am thrilled to wake up each day and go to work. I’ve worked on sets before where the directors are egotistic and angry and boss everyone around in a really uninspiring way and it’s just horrible to work with. If the director is stressed and angry it will affect everyone on set. Sandra stated that the best way to remain on set is enthusiastic yet relaxed. If the director is unhappy the actors will sense it and therefore not perform as well as they can ending in a film that could have been a lot better. It’s important to communicate with your actors, and tell them what you want – ‘dumb it down’ in a simple way yet encourage them that they are doing an excellent job. Although I wasn’t the director on set I found that encouraging the actors and joking around with them in between takes put them in a better mood and therefore provided us with a better performance. Having fun is important!

Another point Sandra made was keeping the ‘B-scenes’ a secret between only a couple of the crew. Letting everyone know about the B-scenes would lead people to believe “at least we get the B scenes everything’s all cool”. You should make the team aim to get all the “A-scenes” without knowing there’s a fall back plan.

I really enjoyed Ella’s sketch of the ping pong balls moving around. You can find that video and her critique here: PING PONG

I love the edited speed and how the balls slow down and move fast at some point. The video is really ‘surreal’ as Ella described herself, it reminds me of a galaxy. Because the video is so obscure, everyone can interpret it differently. It looks like one of those old 80’s documentaries on the solar system as the camera travels past the planets. Something that adds to that is the purpley tint which was not intended but worked really well and make it look very aesthetically pleasing.

We recently watched Nanook of the North (1922) in my cinema major and I loved it. Partly because I am always hot when I sleep and sleeping in an igloo would be ideal, but mainly because I was so fascinated by the Inuit people and how someone in the early 1920’s could film such a thing. Although the film followed the daily life of Nanook, a father Eskimo and ‘the greatest hunter’, it didn’t really have a narrative which led me to believe it felt quite experimental. There definitely was meaning insinuated with every carefully planned shot however there wasn’t a plot. There is a part of the film where Nanook is presented with a record and a phonograph that plays the recordings of a person’s voice. Nanook picks up the record and bites it. He tastes it. This really struck me as defining the cultural difference between the inuit people and westernised culture. Many people would probably see this as the difference between primitive and civilisation, however if we tried to survive in their culture we probably couldn’t as we aren’t aware of danger as they are. They check everything before they trust it because that is what they have come to know, if it is foreign it can’t be trusted.

More lecturing on narratives and constraints. More explanation that Korsakow is different from anything we’ve ever experienced in our whole lives. To be honest it still confuses me with it’s SNU’s and what not. I feel like the application is a whole lot more difficult than it needs to be. I guess the whole thing about conclusions is very true. Conclusions are just where you choose the story to end. And in real life there is no conclusion to things. Things go on forever, like soap operas (Adrian’s example). They only have conclusions that the audience choose in their own minds. Basically any story can go on forever and ever. But that would be boring. To me conclusions just offer some sort of satisfaction for the viewer, they wrap everything up in a nice little package so that everything made sense. I just think things with a conclusion or some sort of narrative are a lot more gripping and interesting. That is personal opinion of course.

The scene from Blow Up (1966) contained a lot of movement; both actors and camera were constantly moving. A scene like this would have taken on location rehearsals prior to the shooting date with both the actors and the camera operator to ensure they both match and work in sync on the day as pacing is very important in this scene. Antonioni would have had to clearly communicate with both the actors and the camera operator and DOP both in rehearsals and on the day of shooting to achieve this scene as there are a variety of camera movements including  dolly shots, panning and tilting.