-Train to Melbourne Central –

Doors opened, I took a big step to the train as I have been always worried I might misstep and fall in the gap between the train and platform. I looked around to see if there is a space no one sitting, so that I can lean on the window side for a nap.

I was the last one in the queue who got into the train, everyone was sit when I almost reached the end of this carriage, there was an empty seat beside the window, but there was a man, an old man wearing a navy sun hat sitting opposite. He has long grey hair, wearing a black jacket and he latched a blue shopping bag in his arm which seemed very old and filthy.

I stopped behind him, at that moment a word appeared in my mind – alcoholics? The moment reminded me a friend I met when I first came to Melbourne, she told me not to stay near those people whom you think they look mad; alcoholics or drug abuser, or else they may hurt you.

I walked slowly over his seat, but I could not bear my curiosity and turned my head around. I saw his eyes, the eye lids were dropping down, and whilst he blinked his eyes I felt the sense of wistful. His race was clean, shaven and flushed with cold. He sat upright, with his knees modestly together.

When I stopped in front of my seat, he lifted his eye lids and glanced at me, that moment I felt so sorry to him.

We were doing re-making of two different scenes, in a small group each of us need to take a role either acting or manipulate to filming. In the first scene, my job was to manipulate the sound, but to be honestly I have never done this by myself so I was a little bit worried at the beginning. Luckily, we were given a check list bother for the camera and the sound, so I can follow the sequence to check if the meter works normally. However, not everyone in our group collaborated very well at the beginning, so we took quite a while for the first scene (one take scene).

In sound set up, the problem we first faced was the sound came through the head phone was so soft that we can hardly hear out from the background noise, I checked if the volume has turned up; if has switched to line instead of mic; if every cable were connecting fine. One thing everyone has forgotten was the ‘Monitor Volume control’ button on the camera, I pressed it up for three stops and then everything works fine!!

The second problem we had met was the background noise, we were using an empty room with all the door and windows closed, but there were constructing area behind the building so we cannot blocked the noise coming into the recording. For the second scene, as there was only one line for the male character, so we can add in the music track instead of sound recording after. For the first scene where it was one take, but there were still quite a few lines and we are planning to re-record afterwards.

When we decided to record the lines again afterwards, the moment really reminded me when I was watching the Chinese dramas, they always do post-recording for most of the movies and dramas in China. The reason was for good pronunciation, need to change any line when they are being examine before release. Personally, I hated to hear the dubbing after, even it is the same person, because it sounds very wired and a strong sense of not matching to the movements.

Rainy day

I was late for my shooting today, I got off my bed with bare feet, pulled up the thick curtain in my room. ‘It’s raining today!’ the worst thing ever I guess is when you planned to shoot something but you found out on the day that it is raining. I rushed out of my room to the balcony with my eyes half closed, stepped out to  the balcony, it was biting cold outside. After I rescued my washed clothes, I noticed today is very cloudy – not a good whether for photo shooting. The clouds seemed to be very low which pressed me down and I felt I can hardly even breath, the sun hides behind the clouds which I can’t even see a tiny bit of it.

I stood outside of my apartment building, stared at the rain dropped on my dirty white shoes.

New dance studio

It was my first time back since 2011, a tiny door with an unassuming yellow logo nailed above the door. I pushed in the door and there was a high stairs to go up just like what it was 5 years ago. I browse the tutor introductions just like I used to do when I walked up those stairs, and clearly, the teachers seemed more professional than they used to.

There was a new added TV to play music video, and that’s probably the only thing that really changed in the 5 year period. At my left hand side was the reception table, a staff sitting behind the table and leaning back on the chair looking relax and calm. I turned to my right hand side and glanced at everyone sitting in this area all looked so professional and confident. I stood outside the two classroom, there were too many students which I cannot even see the teacher’s moves so clearly from the back.

I stood there for long, until a staff patted my shoulder and asked if I need any help.

Film

If I ever going to produce a film based on my own experience, this observation is what I consider to include in the middle – conflict/ turning point. I used to stay in Studio A for 5 years, but I decide to come out of the studio because there isn’t much I can learn from. However, I don’t want to tell anyone as the owner of studio A is someone I value a lot.

This scene is the first step I take to a new journey – Studio, I am very nervous and worried for this journey because now is no one with me in this new studio. I will get the camera to start by a focus shot on the logo, and then to shoot from my perspective once I entered the new studio just to let the audience feel the character’s feeling from the first person’s view. I will switch the frame to show how does Studio B looks like few years ago when I first been here with now. After ‘I’ started to take lessons in this studio, there will be more focus shoot on my face to show the embarrassment and unfamiliar.

                                           D’est (From the East, 1993), directed by Chantal Akerman

Connecting with lecture –

I was very lucky to have a chance to look at the scenes shown during the lecture, a scene from ‘D’est (From the East, 1993)’, directed by Chantal Akerman, the scene is in a cold blue tone, the camera moves along the street shooting the pedestrian who avoid to appear inside the frame. The most impressive thing that I remember is the little boy with a serious face gazing the camera from a distance, he seems so curious to the camera but he is also afraid to get into trouble, so he was hesitate to follow the camera or not. This scene really reminds me my trip in Shanghai, when I say Shanghai everyone will think it as a metropolis, international city in China. However, when I spent my holiday in Shanghai it wasn’t that great as we always heard from the others.

What I did feel in Shanghai was, when the city is too big and too busy, people there only have time with their own business and they never had time to look at their surroundings. Maybe I am used to live in Melbourne, when we smile to the others, their will be someone that react to you. In Shanghai, they seemed so cold-blooded to me whereas they just walk pass by or ignored my difficulty.

OBSERVATION – It was freezing cold and wet in Shanghai’s December, wind blew up my jacket and drilled into my bones, I would rather stay in Melbourne and burn out. I reached the nearest metro station going to meet my friend, there was a tiny sign on the traffic light pointing to the direction of metro station. I stretched my neck out from my scarf trying to look for the entrance, after 10 minutes, the entrance of metro station was still not a mystery. I stopped in front of a drink stall and asked if she knew where is the entrance of the station, she didn’t stopped to swipe her phone when I asked her, few seconds after she slowly put down her phone and lifted up her eyes. With a hesitated face staring at me, quickly lifted her arm up and pointed to a direction. ‘Oh, that way?’ I re-pointed to the direction, but she had her phone on her hand again when I looked at her.

FILMED – 

This is the beginning of a documentary film. Content is about the girl comes from the country and this is the first time, first day in Shanghai. The scene opens with a long shots at Shanghai’s landmark, few shots on the streets of Shanghai to show how busy Shanghai’s streets are.

Few shots of the girl wandering along different streets, have her phone out to take photos. She than is looking for the metro station, she follows the signs along the street and stops at a big intersection. She tries to ask people passed by, but no one stop to help her.

The girl signs, she sits down on the nearest bench and browse around. There is a drink stall in her sight, there is a girl like her age looking at her phone. She walks toward the stall and speaks with a loud voice, ‘hi, where is the entrance of metro station please?’ The girl did not answers her immediately, she slowly put down her phone and lifted up her eyes. With a hesitated face her eyeballs moved to the right seems like pointing the direction, and starts to swipe her phone again.

– The Dance Lab –

Where I used to feel the most comfortable and attached to, since when, everything has changed. 

From the outside of the glass door, I saw a group of dancers sitting on the floor chatting, I can even feel the solemn from outside of the studio. ‘What are you guys up to? need help with anything’, there was silence for a few seconds after my question, the leader of our crew took a sip of water from her eye catching pink drink bottle. Jessie peeped at my new shoes and spoke with her typical high tone, ‘Oh… Hey I didn’t see you’. The others stood and walked slowly into the main classroom, left me with a desert. Coco waved to me, and tone up her voice ‘come and start the practice!’

After I taught my lesson, I sat there for half an hour and which I felt to be the longest half an hour I have ever experienced in this studio. Students came and past in front of me, some of them glanced on my face without saying a single word; some of them smiled at me. Everyone seemed to be so busy with their own stuff, like practicing for performance, daily training, finishing off their lunch, resting after a class, choreographing etc. I stood in front of the mirror, looking at the studio being filled with people and I was the only one sitting still, everyone was moving fast or rush out. I felt being left behind.

The choose of location:

As Rebecca will be talking about her daily life as a uni students, and also else things she does outside uni. I have chosen to shoot inside uni, at the court beside building 11. The setting was Rebecca sitting on the bench waiting for her class and doing her make up, I(the camera) was looking for someone to interview and suddenly saw Rebecca.

Use of Camera:

The interview with Rebecca was separated to two parts, the first part was hand-held but the second part was fixed with the tripod. I have designed to shoot from the interviewer’s eye sight, especially at the beginning when I ‘discovered’ my interviewee, walked toward her and ask for her permission to interview. Moving to the second part, the interviewer has sat down along with her and chat with her.

Audio:

I think audio will be something I will plan more carefully next time, as this is the first time to interview while holding the camera it was quite hard to control both of them well. Without a microphone around me, the recording of my voice wasn’t that loud enough for the audience to hear, its probably covered a lot by the sound of the wind, so I have to type up the questions on the frame while editing.

For the next time, I think I will plan to get someone else to ask the question for me and let both of interviewer and interviewee near the microphone. Or if I do have enough time, I will re-record the questions after the shooting, and add them into the track. The reason I haven’t got time to figure out this time was because when I finish all the recording afterwards, I found the new recordings don’t have the same ambient sound and it was way louder than the interviewee’s voice either.

Exposure & white balance:

The exposure and white balance were not too complicated under a sunny day, what I did was to make sure the frame was not over exposed that cause the subject too bright. Colour tone through out the whole interview was cool but quite similar to the actual colour.

Sugar- Apple

This is one of my boyfriend’s favourite fruits, its also named custard apple and this is one of the most disgusting fruit that I have every seen. My boyfriend took a custard apple out from the grey plastic bag, sat down on my chair and start to separate into two half of them. The color is typically pale green to blue-green, with a deep pink blush in certain varieties. Inside is creamy white to light yellow, seed unevenly sitting inside the whiteness. When my boyfriend squeeze it the juice came out and dropped on to his pants. It seems is soft, grainy and slippery, especially obvious when the seeds slide down from my boyfriend’s left hand.

– The Dance Lab –

I pushed in the glass door, there were few people sitting on the floor drinking milk-tea bought from Chatime and chatting about each of the product they tried in Chatime. Three friends of me were practicing in front of the huge mirrors in order to get ready for the up-coming performance in September, they smiled and looked straight into the mirror with confidence. Two new members joined in for the next classes, they sat on the sofa looking nervous, they smiled awkwardly at me when I walked towards to the sofa and put down my stuff. Reception Melody was busy typing up new members’ information to the system, she had her chin on her hand looking confused, I guess she was trying to figure out how does the new system works.

He walked in, with no facial expression. He had his glasses on which he doesn’t usually do have them on his face, I put my hands high and wave at him, but he ignored. I was sitting behind the reception desk, the fence was higher than my head so when he bend down I lost him in my view. Then he stood up with his face had reddened and turned his head to me, he stared at me for a few second and his lips slowly curved a smile ‘Hi, didn’t see you’.