The first day of shooting for the project has not come without some complications, changes and challenges. To start with, in preparation for the first shoot I wanted to film on a train, to fully recreate the scene I wrote. However logistically, it wouldn’t be possible to film on a train with the many costs and other preparations involved with doing so. Which could’ve thrown a whole spanner in the works of the production, however after some reflection I realised that maybe this is a good thing. With no preconceived ideas of the setting in my head I could go out to another location and try to place the scene there, possibly adding, changing or capturing what I am initially looking for. So the location I chose was a park bench, out the front of the Victoria State Library for the first shoot. I did not set myself a specific shot list, as I wanted to give a large amount of shots a try once I got out there and started shooting. My focus of shots varied from long racking shots to capture scenery as well as what’s in the shot’s foreground, to close ups on action to get Jordan’s emotions and performance. The close up shots I felt, at least while shooting, seemed to be framed the best and show most in the scene, whereas the wider shots seemed to do not much more than set the scene up. Which while effective won’t be used in the final edit as much, though I’ll have to wait and see when I look back at the footage in the cutting room.

In terms of putting the scene together I chose Jordan Williams as my actor, an Australian with Indian ethnicity. He brought some required and unique elements to the role. Firstly he looked the part of a foreigner in Australia who doesn’t know the language, as well as he himself living abroad most of his life, so having his own personal experiences and interests to my research. Jordan had certain actions that stood out to me as ‘different’ even ‘foreign’. When he sat down before shooting on the bench he had his legs crossed, which, while not a crazy action, did stand out to me as something normally people don’t do in public. It was almost like finding a comfortable position in an uncomfortable place, which is why I told him to sit just like that when we start shooting. The other key aspect of the scene was the English grammar book, it’s essentially the main story/scenario icon. However I went with a similar yet slightly altered approach, an English dictionary, with dozens and dozens of sticky notes marked throughout it, as if it’s being read by the ‘character’ regularly. I felt that was an even better icon that a simple English grammar book.

After finishing filming the scene itself, we went out and recorded Vox pops with foreign people on the street, to get their stories and situations. The interesting thing for me was the thing that evoked the most emotion of the whole shoot actually came from hearing people’s stories. I asked questions like, “What was the toughest part about moving to a foreign country?” and “Were there any situations that you felt isolated in society, or out of place?”. I talked to Jordan, my actor, as he has an interesting story himself, as well as several others on the street to discover other situations that could convey the emotions I was looking for or could be interesting to explore. However the thing that stood out the most was when I mentioned to one of the girls I interviewed, that I was from another part of Australia and I had moved to Melbourne on my own this year. She then asked me, “Have you ever felt out of place yourself?”. Which really hit home, because it made me realise that maybe my fascination with this whole research question and scenario, stems from my own relation to the situation I first saw on the train many weeks ago now. It’s possible that even though I am Australian myself, that I can relate to this scenario more than I thought, and that its my own perception and perspective that evokes that emotion. I have some thinking to do and a bit more reflecting to do before I can find my thesis or some sort of answer to my initial research question, starting with looking back at my footage that I filmed.