Monthly Archives: April 2016

Teamwork or die

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I think that if you believe in a Hell it would look something like this. You’d be put into a group with Satan, Hitler and Joseph Stalin and assigned a task that’s due in a week about the difference between amphibians and reptiles.  You’d have to make a poster with your members and you’d be marked individually. Everyone would probably try and lead while you sit there in a pit of fire trying to make up a realistic bibliography fake dates. The stuff of nightmares.

Today I experienced what I’d like to think of as the most preventable and unnecessarily complex issue I’ve ever faced when it comes to group work. We had barely begun our first meeting when tragedy arose. The situation snowballed into a horrid melodramatic debate fuelled by impulsive jabs worthy of a heated episode of Dr. Phil. The meeting ended as quickly as it had begun. If you’re wondering what had caused the chaos it was something very controversial indeed. Yep, it was our meeting place.

-gasp-

Each group member had staggered their arrival into the city and up until this point we had had consistent and reliable contact in our group chat on Facebook. I sent quite an innocent message inquiring where everyone and quickly received a message with someone’s location. I waited with them for more than an hour for the others to arrive assuming they had read the chat. But as it turned out they had been waiting together in the opposite building tempers rising at our tardiness. But we weren’t late we were just blindly waiting for them close by. Apparently they didn’t have any internet to check the chat and had gone by the original meeting spot, not having seen the update.

Of course a group member stormed in, eyes watering with the the sting of betrayal as I retracted in fear.

“WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN?”

“H-here…?”

And so the interrogation and accusations began. Never have I longed more for clarity and good communication.

If nothing else, I’ve learned that a steady online connection =a steady team.

an optimistic update 3rd of May ’16

Things seemed to calm down very quickly after we had a quick chat and decided to not let history repeat itself. Group project: today was astronomically better in terms of work distribution, idea sharing and general progress. We all arrived on time and got started very quickly. We had a list of things to do and we checked them off as we went. A group member brought along a friend to play devils advocate and randomly throw questions at us to help us full proof our idea.

wk 7 Group Meeting- institutions

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I’ve been put in a lovely group of 4 (the one and ONLY group of 4) with Isobell, Kris, Joss.

We quickly established an overall group goal to achieve a better grade than our previous one; which for us was a distinction at least. I personally would like to think of a creative way to approach this and have a lot of fun with it.

After receiving our prompt INSTITUTIONS immediately the discussion of typical corporations came to mind like schools, prison and the ABC. We wrote these down. But then we started talking about less obvious organisations that act like institutions such as UFC, talent scouting agencies and churches.

We agreed that kpop factories have a great media presence so It would be interesting to have a look at that as an idea.

wk 7 feedback

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I’ve always had a terrible fear of showing my work because unless its “perfect” the thought of anyone seeing it is too cringeworthy. And my work is never perfect so of course viewing our PB3 portraits in class was a challenge. The class was so friendly and accepting of the great work we saw I started to feel a lot better as we went down the roll all the way to “v.”

After getting into groups I received some great feedback that I will use to improve my next project

Since I dealt with a sensitive and controversial topic to some, it was suggested that I should tone down my portrayal of Charlotte as a raging gay. I decided not to because I felt that it is an essential part of who she is. I suppose I could next time find a way to not seem like I am criticising others (ilke Christian youth groups). In retrospect I should have asked Charlotte to emphasise that it was just the one incident. It was also mentioned that I should have used more stock footage as I was meant to have at least 30%.

The others appreciated my choice of colour using orange in most of the frames. I managed to somewhat create a sense of unity within the short film by keeping the colour pallet similar in each frame. They enjoyed my use of different music to change the moods during the film.

In reflection:

Personally next time I would cut out some of Charlotte’s responses so I have more room for relevant questions. I would also cut down the audio intro at the beginning (with all the news reports and speeches so I can have more of Charlotte’s voices. I thought the over laying of voices was done to a satisfactory level but I hope to make it smoother and more natural next time. Making this made me realise the difficulty in balancing the magic of spontaneity and organisation. I did have a rough storyboard but that got discarded pretty quickly. Next time I’m going to storyboard after I film. Maybe I will organise all the shots by naming them on sticky notes then arrange them on my wall like in Mistaken for Strangers (2013) directed by Tom Berninger. Another thing with organisation is placing the footage into folders. I should have done that as I was adding them after each shoot.

Wk 7 Workshop

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After watching our PB3 portraits in our workshop, we split into groups and discussed our reactions and thoughts. I will be making “green hat” comments because its my favourite colour and I feel that alternative solutions and seeing other wise of doing things is great for learning and improving. “Red hat” thinking comes most naturally to me and what the we are feeling is central to what the film is trying to say.

Adrian Lapiz

He established a good relationship with his subject Brandon, defining him as a “distant” but fascinating person. His use of colour and and lighting was very distinctive he says he “turned up the contrast and the brightness.” His use of stock footage was very well implemented and it related to his metaphor of building boxes.

Green hat: I would have made Brandon’s voice as loud as Adrian’s for more balance.

red hat: This made me feel inspired and intrigued by the architecture.

Blair Conway

As usual Blair takes a more interesting alternative approach to his briefs. His use of rainforest stock footage created an appropriate serene mood as his questions were more abstract and emotional. Also it linked well with his setting as he shot in the backyard lawn.

black hat: don’t tell death jokes. good music more questions

Blair said that his subject wasn’t as confident on camera and was an emergency step in. So I thought his approach was good in not making her too on camera too much. The clips of her dancing and moving showed her quirky side without it being too explicit.

green hat: He could have asked more questions

Matthew Duong

Matt’s introduction was very good in showing his subject in their natural setting. His symbolistic use of stock footage was great in creating meaning for example to represent his subject’s relationship with her pets he showed baby lambs and their mum.

His final shot of Tina and her husband cuddle on the couch all made us go “aww” and summed up his theme of love and care.

green hat: I would have added an emotive turning point about something in Tina’s past or had something about her husband for more depth.

red hat: His portrait made me feel very happy and reminded me of family values.

Eloise Large

She had excellent use of stock footage which conveyed deeper meaning and added to her subjects emotive story. Particularly the discussion on gender binary where she had a drawing of a man and a woman in chalk (stock footage).

Eloise had good lighting and composition creating a formal interview style.

Her use of POV in showing the process of graphic design added variety to her shots.

red hat: I felt that she did a fantastic job in subtly touching on a bigger issue by intertwining her subject’s story with her struggles with gender and her outlet in creating art.

PB3 Reflection

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I definitely tried to be a bit more risky with this project brief; playing with audio and new equipment. I was never clear about exactly what I wanted this film to look like in the end, as it was more of a work in progress type task for me. A surprising amount of it was improvised; but of course that just made it more fun. For example with the interviewing I had a set list of questions in mind until our conversation directed me into a different idea where I’d focus more on my subject’s rebellious side.

The idea of calling the the interview “Ambiguous” came from the ‘one word’ exercise I thought of to get warm up for the actual interview. I randomly said a few words, then Charlotte would respond with a single word that she thought of first. I think this exercise revealed a lot about her without having too say much; which ties in nicely with the theme of ambiguity. I had so much fun with her during the one word interrogation that I decided to keep the recordings and use it as a way to casually introduce her to viewers; just like I had been introduced to her.

It’s also a great (sort of planned) coincidence that aspects of her room reveal so much about her. Such as the bursts of orange, the rainbow flags. guitars and action hero figurines.

I feel like I could have made a 10 minute video about Charlotte from all the interesting things. The time limit forced me to select the most significant things that from her responses and cut them together like they were one question. I learned a lot about cutting to the point.

Playing with found footage was a new challenge. I found that I could link some of it with what Charlotte was saying for example when she spoke about her fears I showed a snake even though she was talking about being scared of vulnerability.

 

PB3 Narrative

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  1. What is the ‘controlling idea’ (Robert McKee) of your portrait? In other words, what is the most interesting thing about your participant/interviewee that you want to communicate?

 

Charlotte has always been quite the outspoken character, I met her in highschool. She was the one always speaking over teachers, putting up posters and treading on the line of uniform rules. Not only is she good on camera but she’s always had a clear message in everything she says and does. Charlotte lives by the idea of being able to express yourself beyond the limits of those who judge you. In this case, I wanted to focus specifically on gender roles and how her endeavors in blurring historically distinct line between male and female.

 

  1.  How is your portrait film structured?  (Remember there might be multiple forms of structure employed)  E.g. Discussion and depiction of an event or process? A Journey? Use of voiceover narration? Other?

The narration will mainly be from Charlotte’s own voice and I will play little part in voicing questions. The structure is more of a recap of her journey so far with anecdotes. A lot of her answers come with a story so it is more of a retelling of her journey up until the present.

 

  1. What do you want your audience to make of your interviewee? (e.g. What are you saying through them and/or human nature, human folly, or noble human inspiration?)

I’d like to portray Charlotte as vibrant yet chill with use of colour and sound. She appears to be a very easy going person but she has had her fair share of conflicts. Her most distinct traits would be resilient, eccentric and bold.By emphasising her lack of conformity to social norms I’d like to use her as a pioneer in the journey for allowing oneself to not be defined by gender roles, but instead what makes you happy.

 

  1. How is your portrait being narrated? Why? How does it affect the structure?

The portrait is being mainly narrated by Charlotte as she answers the questions. Her answers will include an implied question so it will still feel like a question and answer video.

 

  1. What role will the ‘found footage’ play in your portrait? For example, reinforcement? Ironic counterpoint? Contrast? Comparison? Other?

Found footage from creative commons online and her own childhood videos are used in my film to show what we are familiar with in terms of people’s aesthetics, then contrast it to what she says.

 

  1. Does your portrait have a dramatic turning point?

There is no dramatic turning point, instead it’s more about how she has become who she is today.

 

  1. When does this turning point  in your portrait and why? At the beginning? At the end? Two-thirds through?

The turning point is towards the end where Charlotte makes a statement about how she has become comfortable with herself.

  1. How does your portrait gather and maintain momentum?

It maintains momentum with voice layering. The music is a big part of creating mood and allowing viewers to be smoothly carried to the next answer to a question.

 

  1. Where will your portrait’s dramatic tension come from? The gradual exposition of an overall situation? A volcanic, climactic moment? An impending change or crisis? The contrast between what the interviewee talks about and the found footage?

The beginning is meant to seem conversational and friendly to allow viewers to warm up to her. Then it quickly delves into an emotive montage of the issues of gender and sexuality.

  1. Does the portrait have a climax and/or resolution? Outline them.

The resolution is that she has found what she is comfortable with but willing to continue changing as ‘constantly changing’ is a part of who she is.

wk 5 Reading

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McKee, Alan (2001) A beginner’s guide to textual analysis. Metro Magazine, pp. 138-149.

 

There is no such thing as a single, ‘correct’ interpretation of any text. There are large numbers of possible interpretations, some of which will be more likely than others in particular circumstances.

In the case of Lance Armstrong, perhaps there is no “correct” way to interpret his media ventures and steady decline. There are definitely many ways to interpret his journey through the many texts about his struggles and it all depends on point of view. He has featured in many ads that portray him as a hardworking underdog, completely avoiding the issue of doping.

Years ago he gave up the battle of stopping drug charges against him as he didn’t want to turn up to fight against them. Many people say that this was a sign of guilt, some say it was being smart. It was quite a shock at the time, especially since it went against his legacy of never quitting. He certainly kept the public guessing the intent behind his actions and he sowed the seed of doubt in our minds.

Either way he was a genius at avoiding answering questions.

“People ask me what I’m on…what am I on? I’m on my bike busting my ass 6 hours a day. What are you on”  

Reputation is vital and reputation depends on interpretation. In many people’s eyes he remains a hero, as a pioneer in cancer fundraising. This is due to the new direction he took in selling his image to the public, and regaining his credibility. Behold the power of emphasis.

He was diagnosed with brain,lung and testicular cancer at the same time, but then proceeded to win the Tour de France 5 times in a row, hard to overlook. And so began his self branding of the idea of hope and survival.

Whether or you agree that he did the right thing or is inherently a good person there’s no doubt that the opinions of these issue range from seeing him as a fraud or a hero.

The case of Armstrong demonstrates that repositioning an argument can change the interpretation as we went from saying “I don’t do drugs” to “I’m a cancer survivor.” So as as the reading states, there is no correct way to interpret this, there is simply different points of views. The majority seems to be disappointed in him despite his incredible contribution to the fight against cancer.

 

PB3- First shoot

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I had some set questions for Charlotte like:

“what was your biggest challenge?”

“how would you describe yourself?”

“how have your parents affected your life”

But we ended up have a deeper conversation about her life which sent the interview in a different direction. Initially I chose Charlotte because she is can talk naturally while on film and has good camera presence. I felt like I should have been more prepared to ask questions that guided her answers a bit more. I wanted to get a really brief sweep over who she is, like a profile, so I thought of some word association questions. This why I could get an idea of her psyche without delving too deep while she was just warming up to me.

After going through the footage I’ve realised that i should have kept the questions short and the clips short so its easier to edit. Right now I have an endless pile of long clips that I am excited to go through

On “set” which was her room I quickly noticed the amazing bright bursts of orange everwhere, “how good is this mise on scene” I said, trying to impress her with my film jargon. It looks like orange is going to be the theme of the the film. I chose a day when I knew it would be quite sunny to achieve a nice warm glow. Before shooting I had visited her to scope out the area and decided that her room was ideal as it has a huge window that takes up a wall. Conveniently for me, Charlotte has it decorated with flags that diffuse the light and create a soft glow.

Screen Shot 2016-04-21 at 1.44.20 PM Screen Shot 2016-04-21 at 1.44.30 PM

 

I found it a lot easier to time the microphone camera and asking a question this time around after the interviewing workshop exercise. Although I did have to tell Charlotte to press record on the mic so that it could sit close to her while I filmed a bit further away. I used a monopod of today’s shoot because:

  1. It’s easier to carry.
  2. I was able to get smoother panning (sort of) shots
  3. It could fit in many places in her room so I could get great angles by awkwardly crouching in the corners between furniture. How professional.

Although I am quite biased as I just want to convince myself that my sad one third of a tripod is useful.