WORK-IN-PROGRESS:

For the initial idea is to shoot four landscapes which are The Botanic Garden, the river, St Kilda beach and St Kilda shops; however, when we went to the Botanic Garden, we changed our mind. The Botanic Garden is exactly a wide range with many separate parts of scenes and each one got their own names. Thus, we thought it might be more specific if we set The Botanic Garden as the case study to do the further research. Similarly, we still chose four landscapes in the Botanic Garden, which are Tropical Glasshouse, Nymphaea Lily Lake, Guilfoyle’s Volcano and Water Conservation Garden. Tropical Glasshouse is a closed greenhouse, Nymphaea Lily Lake is the rive opposite of Tropical Glasshouse, Guilfoyle’s Volcano looks more like a viewpoint and Water Conservation Garden is a view of the roadside, so each of them has their own features and the plants are different. We were still hesitating when we started to change our minds, but after the end of the shooting we found that everything was natural and coherence, so we confirmed our thoughts.

As we have already done the rest of two clusters, we set Mia’s house as the closed space for the last one. The final cluster consists of videos of only hands recreating movements from the landscapes with ASMR inspired sound from the landscape. We tried to film in RMIT at first but we found it is difficult to achieve because we need the white background, bright lights, quiet environment for recording, and some props for making sounds. Thus, we decided to meet at Mia’s house on Saturday to finish it so that we have some options of props.

As I mentioned above, we shot in four different landscapes but all of them are located in the Botanic Gardens. We filmed four actions in each landscape, and for the last cluster, we used our hands to imitated the scenes we shot. Meanwhile, we used the props we have to create the sounds that sound similar to what happened in each scene in reality. I think it is the most interesting part of the project and just as Insook (2009) points out, ‘In the interactive documentary the performance is an act of authoring parallel to illustrated storytelling or annotating a flow of media resources.’ We try to inspire the viewers’ imagination through the hands’ movements.

Tropical Glasshouse:

1. Hand touching water – hand touching water
2. Panes of glass – glass sounds
3. Hand on the rock – opening plant and rocks
4. Dangling reeds – dangle something 

Nymphaea Lily Lake:

1. Shadow in the lake – the sound of water
2. Pulling on leaves – scratchy branches
3. Pulling on reeds – flicking sounds (wag)
4. Dropping things in the lake – dropping objects into water

Water Conservation Garden:

1. Balls – balls/nuts falling
2. Tree trunk- scraping tree trunk
3. Flowers – soft sound someone playing with flower or petals
4. Dirt – hand in dirt sound 

Guilfoyle’s Volcano:

1. Succulent made from hands – wind
2. Palm outside- palm sounds from the palm tree
3. Fingertips – rub succulent
4. Railing – hand running down the metal

After filming, we exported all the videos and turn them into black-and-white. Meanwhile, the thumbnail for each cluster is completed. I think black-and-white is a better choice, by comparing with colorful scenes. The color of the environment would distract the viewers’ attention, it is harmful to their imagination and would affect the result of the feedback. If everything is in black-and-white, the viewers’ would pay attention to the subject, which is the hands, instead of the background in the video.

In addition, we did the pitch to the rest of groups to illustrate our project on Thursday. Thanks to their feedback, we are glad that they interested in it although we changed the positions of landscapes. They thought focusing on one place would be better because it seems more cohesive, more relevant and more specific. Some groups thought the fourth project is a continuing experimental project that based on the last one, but some thought this project is very different enough because we add the element of audio. They considered the order for these four previews and our answer might be: at random! The viewers interactive by clicking each one and it is more like a cycle around. We encourage the viewers to understand the content and enjoy the project by the visual connection. For the improvement, Hannah gave us a huge hint, that was set up the title be a question to give context and guide the experience of that. Or, to set up some questions after the viewers finish watching the project and I think it might be helpful to get the feedback for reflection.

We came up with some possible questions so far :

• What movement did you notice?
• What pattern did you notice?
• What did it make you feel?
• What do you think the aim is?

We do not want to dictate what the audience will feel. Curious about what emotions our work could generate in the audience however we understand that its unlikely that every audience member will feel the same emotions in experiencing our work. 

Some possibilities are: 

• – Relaxation
• – Confusion
• – Curiosity
• – Awkwardness
• – Distaste
• – Pleasure

We were still thought about how the questions will appear in front of the audiences. For the initial idea, we hope to set up the block of ‘End’ in each preview and if the viewer clicks it, one of the questions will appear at random. We agreed with this idea because the viewer has the right to do the choice if they want to continue watching. The question will only appear when the viewer exits.

Thanks that we finished all filming in week 11 because everyone is busy with final assignments at the end of the semester, so it is hard for us to arrange the shared free time. Fortunately, we have done the hardest work of the project. We reschedule editing the project on Korsakow will start on next Tuesday and we expect to finish on that day so that we have time to gain the feedback on Thursday if we still need to do some more modifications.