STUDIO REFLECTION

This semester I completed the ‘Future Machina’ studio. The studio is an in depth dive into emerging technologies and future possibilities for society with these technologies. The first few topics that we learnt about all involved artificial intelligence. Ai is quickly becoming very prevalent across all major industries. Technology develops an exponential rate, allowing for faster advancements to be made in the field every year. With this development comes dangers and benefits, it all depends on how responsibly we develop this new technological field. It’s already becoming a danger in online spaces due to the collection of data and targeted advertising and the slow rise of Ai influencers. The last scaring me immensely because of how easy it would be for nefarious companies and corporations to indoctrinate the masses by using these Ai influencers as a vehicle for propaganda. We also delved into other technologies like Virtual Reality and Alternate reality headsets. These are fairly new mainstream mediums for media. Another topic of discussion we delved into a few times was how technology is affecting climate change, and how it can be used to create a better future. We are quickly approaching the point in history where the disastrous effects of climate change will be irreversible and have untold impacts on ecology and life. New green technologies are being created to combat this and help transition off of fossil fuels. From electric cars, to new solar and wind technologies. Fusion technology is near the point of commercial use, with multiple nations investing money into power plants that will pioneer this next age of power. Future Machina has allowed me to become more aware of the varied fields in which technology is being developed, while also the effects on the world that it is currently having; giving us a glimpse into what the future may hold.

PRODUCTION BREAKDOWN

Our video idea was to make an ad break for a future television network, with the primary focus on two competing bio-domes on Mars. This meant we also had to make other ads to make it seem more like and ad break, otherwise it would just be two propaganda videos. Our preproduction was quite simple though, we only really had to make two full length scripts for the bio-dome propaganda videos. The only other script I had to make was for the short mining ad, because I was getting someone to do the voice over for me. We finished the scripts, and Marlon did some story boards, during the week before we were going to film on the green screen. As far as the production was going we were steaming ahead.

The following Monday after our presentation we began production by shooting in the cyclorama green screen room. It felt good to be working on a set of sorts with a crew again. The only issues that occurred was that we should have hired an LED light to properly get the green screen lit up, and realising that small room has a massive vent in the roof, providing a whole bunch of noise I didn’t notice at first. We had booked the cyclorama for three hours and finished thirty minutes early. When it came to the editing we continued our trend of splitting the responsibilities three ways. Marlon and myself were each going to edit our respective ads, and the extra ads we developed, Joe would compile them all together. Unfortunately, due to events out of Joe’s control he couldn’t compile the video, so Marlon and myself had to split that between each other. We both prepared a rough draft for class that week (twelve) and chose who’s was best to present, which was Marlon’s. then I re-edited my section, and edited the rest of the ads in the style Marlon established. I think over-all it came out quite well.

ANALYSIS

The first video I want to discuss is the cameo ad we made about Rhys technology from his video. His is about a chip that you implant in your brain to ‘cure’ mental illness. I had a very clear vision for this from the beginning. I wanted it to emulate an Apple advertisement, with the minimalistic presentation on a white background. One issue that arose was we thought that the other was writing a script, so one wasn’t prepared. This mistake actually turned out to be a blessing because we had Rhys do multiple mistakes, and while shooting realised I could use a mistake with mistakes to make it look like he is malfunctioning. I achieved this through repeating frames and applying various different kinds of noise filters, paired with a chromatic aberration, colour emboss, and glow effect. It gives him this holographic-glitch look and I think juxtaposes nicely with his presentation and topic.

Another ad I created was the ‘Austra Mining Co.’ advertisement. Originally the concept for the video included a third ad that focused on a mining company. This would have primarily been for world building and give the video a sort of three act structure. Early in preproduction I realised that it would blow out the run time too much, so I toned it down into something short. I wanted a female voice for the voice over because all of the ads are very male dominated, and personally felt it would give some more variance and representation by including a female influence. Luckily one of my friends from high school is learning to sing at oxygen College, so she had recording software and equipment. I had a pretty simplistic vision for this ad too, one shot of an asteroid travelling in space, with the voice over appealing to the aspirations of the audience. I think it turned out pretty well in the end.

My original edit of the ‘Nerio One’ bio-dome ad was a bit more comical than the end result. When I compared it with what Marlon had made, his leant more into that dark future Total Recall and Robocop aesthetic. After we presented a rough draft on the last Tuesday I went back and made a fusion of the two. Implementing the assets from both. The toughest part of the edit was the fact that my script actually ended up with a run time of around three minutes uninterrupted. I couldn’t allow it to go for that long because it wouldn’t be fair to Marlon and the hard work he was putting into his sections. I managed to get it down to roughly two minutes fifteen seconds. I tried to add some breathing room into the edit. After we shot on the Monday I went back and listened to the audio recorded from the Zoom H4n, and found that the room tone from the vent in the roof wade it unusable. I know to use a shotgun mic next time now at least. Luckily the camera audio was actually pretty decent so I salvaged what I could from it, removing as much noise as possible and adding a reverb effect to hide the distortion from the remove noise effect. I used a variety of transitions on this video too, which I never do. When I think of eighties infomercials and movies (Star Wars) I think of swipe transitions, and they worked fantastically in going toward that eighties aesthetic here. Once I had the final edit done I then had to give the video a tape/CRT look to it. I started by half imposing a venetian blinds transition (and darkening the image) and then duplicating the layer and removing both effect, to make it like screen bars. After this I used the VR digital glitch effect and upped the sub influence massively to make it look like noise is distorting the image, key framing roughly thirty rotations of movement for the duration. It achieved it, but the image was still really clear, so I added a noise filter at eight percent, which really pushed it hard into the eighties look I was going for. After this I added a glow effect and upped he radius massively (and the intensity a bit) to make the colours look like they’re bleeding a bit into each other. I am really happy with the final product that I got from this video, and learnt a bit about applying tools in After Effects that I never thought of doing beforehand.

COLLABORATION

Working with Marlon was a fantastic experience. I had seen a bit of his work in my previous semester, so I was keen to see his creative process up close. Marlon is extremely organised in his editing, and meticulous with his edits. The animations that he creates are extremely charming, I love to see the detail and quality of them. I’ve done some rotoscoping on past projects and it is without a doubt the most painful thing I put myself through; the fact that he does it so well is a testament to him. I always make sure to learn from the people I work with to improve on my own skills and habits. Organisation has always been something I struggle with, working with Marlon really helped me keep on task, and dedicated to making the best quality product I could. His work ethic is incredible too, it really was a pleasure to work with him. I look forward to working with him again soon, and hopefully will be able to get his input on future projects I have planned for next year.

Working with Joe is always good. We met in my last degree, all the way back in twenty eighteen (feels weird to think that was three years ago now). When I met Joe I was only six months out of high school and barely knew anything about production and editing, outside of stuff I had self-taught. We both got to grow as filmmakers over the last degree, and still are progressing together in this degree. Joe organised our studio booking and drive folder where we can all share resources. He also created all of the wireframe visuals in an oscilloscope too, which never fails to impress me. It’s a shame he couldn’t participate much more in the editing process from there, I know he was really looking forward to it. Even still we wouldn’t have been able to create what we did without him, he was integral to our success.

INSPIRATION

My major influences creatively are the Schwarzenegger action blockbusters from the eighties. I grew up watching them since I was a small kid. For this video I wanted to lean heavily into that near parody. Specifically, the ad for Rekall in Total Recall is a style I wanted to emulate. IT’s so purely eighties, but else verging on the parody of other real world deceptive business practices. Another film that I wanted to use as a template is The Running Man. The Running Man represents a very dystopic world controlled through the propaganda of corporations; and served as influence for ‘Nerio One’. Another influence was the ‘I’d buy that for a Dollar’, a great parody on capitalist marketing iconography. We as a group were inspired by a variety of topics that we touched on in the duration of the studio. The biggest was our discussion’s and exploration into what Mars may represent for the future of Humanity, and the implications that may hold for us currently. I think it is inevitable that humans will colonise the solar system, and maybe even the stars, but it is critical that we develop as a culture and society in the right direction, or we will ride the line between utopia and dystopia very finely. That’s what our video wholly represents. It’s a utopic vision of the future, but the underlying capitalist themes are hinting at an impending dystopic turn in progression.

LINK TO VIDEO:

Martian TV Network on Vimeo

So the plan was that Marlon and I would take care of the edits for our individual sections and then Joe would take care of the final compositional edit. Unfortunately, Joe had some personal stuff arise, and he will no longer be able to take part in the editing process of the video. This meant that Marlon and myself would have to work together when it comes to compiling. I had to rush an edit of my section and add it into the draft from the other week. The morning of class Marlon told me he did a rough full edit too, which turned out to be really good and far surpassing my version. We used the class time to coordinate and plan our next steps now that Joe wouldn’t be able to do his part in the edit. It feels under control now, but still stressful. We may need an extension. Either way we are still going good for the moment.

This week we shot our green screen footage. It felt good to be working with equipment again. There were a few hindrances though. I assumed Joe was going to book at least one LED light, and he didn’t (my mistake I should have communicated this more clearly to him). It means I had to use a dedo light to light the green screen. I was only ever going to do a two-point lighting set up because I like it most aesthetically. The green screen not being properly lit could produce problems, but I’ll work with what I’ve got. The other issue is while filming I noticed that on the roof of the cyclorama room is what I suspect to be the buildings main ventilation shaft. I listened for a bit and realised that there is a definite low hum produced by it. So that may have been picked up by the zoom we were using. All solvable things though, can potentially hide it under a sound track. Joe made a draft using the green screen sections and the storyboards Marlon produced, it’s looking quite good so far.

For this week as a group we were primarily focused on our pre-production, specifically script writing and storyboarding. Marlon chose to take on the responsibilities of the fifties inspired bio-dome, I the eighties inspired dome. IT felt good to finally be working in a group environment again. I haven’t been able to experience production as a collaborative process since twenty nineteen in my las degree before Covid hit. Joe organised for us to shoot our green screen footage the following Monday. So it appears as though we are on track and going full steam ahead. Our concept is going to be a fusion of different aesthetics and styles. It just gives us the most creative freedom to express our selves. We’ve organised for Rhys to appear in our video too, as a little easter egg promoting the technology that his video is based on. We all thought that would be pretty cool and funny.

This week we presented our groups concept for Assignment four. Leading up to the presentation we had an online meeting to get the narrative and basic conceptual knowledge developed. Our idea is to create and ad break on a future Martian television network, where various different ads will play showcasing what life is like in the future. The two main advertisements being for two different competing colonies. One is influenced by a fifties aesthetic and the other an eighties aesthetic. We all also agreed to split responsibilities equally. I think working together is very advantageous because our group isn’t so big that there could be organisational problems, and better than working solo because we can share the workload. We got positive reactions from Paul when we presented, as well as from the rest of the class. Unfortunately, I forgot that I unplugged my mic adapter and it defaulted to my laptop mic, which was pretty embarrassing. That was the only negative part as far as I can tell.

Week eight was an in person class, and we reviewed everyone’s videos in person. I enjoyed this viewing far more because the video quality was better. I’ve discovered that I don’t like watching stuff I’ve made around people though, it’s pretty nerve racking to be in a crowd as people watch your stuff. We started talks about assessment four in class. Assignment four is a five-minute video that should be a reflection and what future technologies may be in store for humanity. And how it could affect the future. Joe and I knew we already were going to work together for it, we’ve known each other a few years now and work well together. Our initial idea is for a space mining company, and we pitched this in class. A lot of the ideas were really good and interesting; I’m looking forward to seeing the final results. After class walking back to the train we struck up a conversation with Marlon and found that we all had very similar ideas, so we teamed up with him to make something better and work to our strengths.

This week we had a viewing of our videos that we created for assessment two. All the videos were really interesting, and displayed a very wide variance in conceptual thinking. I was heavily worried about mine because the trend was primarily with Ai assistant’s and delivery drones. Whereas I went with a really hard science fiction angle about an Ai in the future that slowly questions its own existence and consciousness. The visuals I employed were also pretty abstract. I didn’t want to film myself with my phone because it wouldn’t have been to a quality I like to aim for. I seemed to get a good response from my peers though which was good. The theoretical concepts we looked at were about the future and the possibilities that come with it societally and worldly. We watched a section for ‘2040’, and Australian film on the future of sustainability and the impacts not going down that path would have on the world. Good watch, I’ll have to watch the full doco soon.