Link to final film: Anthropomorphic Anthropocene .mp4

The finished work of my group for invisible environments, Anthropomorphic Anthropocene is a short film following a fictional ladybird that navigates littering, noise pollution and human negligence along the streets of Melbourne. Unsettling and verging on absurdist, this film aims to encourage viewers to consider their ecological footprint through an insect’s perspective. We hope this major project evokes a powerful sensory experience that lessens the distance between audiences and the impending doom of our environment. In alignment with the studio values, we additionally hope this work equips viewers with a sense of agency and not hopelessness in the current eco-crisis. 

Although I was unable to attend the studio showcase, my group informed me that the exhibition came together smoothly and was effective in its projector/speaker format. I hope that any viewers appreciated our experiments with breaking the fourth wall and the layered audio tracks in this presentation space.

I believe the most successful aspect of our short film was the playfulness of our concept. Having a model of a ladybird with its vivid colours amongst the piles of rubbish and monotonous city streets was both a powerful visual metaphor and an engaging subject for a short film. This concept permitted us to capture many compelling shots including the imagery of the ducks and rubbish bins. Additionally, it encouraged us to employ various immersive visual techniques, such as the flying shots and angles taken through the grass as the camera assumes the perspective of the insect. The most prominent issue with our final work is its duration. I believe that with more content, we could have achieved a more nuanced depiction of the issue, or drawn out the dramatic narrative more. Had we worked on this problem, the final product could have also been more effective in its messaging.

Addressing the aforementioned issue with content, this would be an area of improvement if we were to continue working on this film. Additionally, I would like to improve the camera quality and take audio recordings of ambience to layer as backing tracks to the film without needing to source them externally. Regarding theoretical aspects of the film, I would love to recreate this entire work, but from the perspective of an animal or species native to Australia that is suffering from endangerment or perhaps habitat decay. After reading Bienvenue and Chare’s (2022) chapter interviewing Harriet Rivo in which they discuss the manipulation of human emotions when portraying endangered animals, I feel we could better select a species to represent in our film. Similarly, as Ajibola-James, Awotoye, and Sonibare (2024) discuss in their scientific paper on the impacts of noise pollution on a nature reserve, we could take a more research-based approach and investigate findings of our own local to the area we film in. This would make for a far more topical film with relevance to our target viewers within Melbourne. A possible start in researching this field could be the World Wildlife Foundation’s article (2022) which lists threatened wildlife in Melbourne, including the golden sun moth and great glider. One of these species would make for a more suitable eco-conscious subject than our current ladybird, as sweet as our current protagonist’s colours appear on screen. 

The most important lesson I’ve learnt during this studio experience is the value of iterative feedback amid the creative process. I believe I have been too concerned with treating each piece of work as a final product rather than a work in progress, assuming a sense of finality with each experiment rather than embracing the vulnerability of media-making. This mindset has left me feeling slightly unsure with my sense of improvement and direction as I have been too eager to move onto the next project each time. However, I believe that seeking out and embracing feedback from my peers a lot more could really increase my creative performance. I enjoyed the iterative process during our class presentations and my involvement in providing feedback for other groups, however, this could be a significant area of improvement for myself. Sharing my work early on in future projects could not only provide me with fresh perspectives, but highlight mistakes in the works that I may have overlooked. A constructive critique could aid me in viewing my projects as malleable pieces and enhance the quality of my media. I would like to encourage my future group members to embrace vulnerability during the iterative process as well to ensure these feedback loops are integrated in the most effective way possible to produce results we can all be proud of. Valuing the input of our peers, tutors and other advisers can help us to create a more dynamic and exciting creative practice that even appeals to wider audiences.

Despite being a highly individually-driven media maker, I have learnt from this studio to be excited by the possibilities of other people’s creativity and technical skills. Initially, I believed that using one person’s ideas on their own with minimal input from others would be the best solution to producing a cohesive final product, but truly, the equal level of creative input during this final project has encouraged me to realise the power of pooling multiple perspectives into one film. Working alongside my team members helped me to tap into innovative concepts including some of our most immersive flying shots. I aim to create more projects that value the contributions of my peers in the future.

References

Ajibola-James, O. O., Awotoye, O. O., Sonibare, J. A., & Oroboade, J. G. (2024). Assessing the ecological impact of industrial noise pollution on wildlife behavior in Okomu Forest Reserve, Nigeria. DISCOVER ENVIRONMENT, 2(1), 1–14. https://doi.org/10.1007/s44274-024-00092-8

Bienvenue, V. & Chare, N. (2022). Animals, Plants and Afterimages : The Art and Science of Representing Extinction. Berghahn Books, Incorporated. ProQuest Ebook Central, pp. 77-78. http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/rmit/detail.action?docID=6882402

World Wildlife Foundation. (2022). 7 Threatened Wildlife to Spot Near Melbourne. WWF. https://wwf.org.au/blogs/7-threatened-wildlife-to-spot-near-melbourne/

Media Work: Anthropomorphic Anthropocene .mp4

Week 7: https://www.mediafactory.org.au/claudia-nancarrow/2024/09/21/week-7-initial-ideas/

Week 8: https://www.mediafactory.org.au/claudia-nancarrow/2024/10/25/week-8-research/

Week 9: https://www.mediafactory.org.au/claudia-nancarrow/2024/10/25/week-9-presentation-reflection/

Week 10: https://www.mediafactory.org.au/claudia-nancarrow/2024/10/25/week-10-creative-tests/

Week 11: https://www.mediafactory.org.au/claudia-nancarrow/2024/10/25/week-11-rough-cut/

In Week 11, we didn’t quite have a rough cut of our final media work as I had already edited the film to a point where we were prepared to display it at the showcase. Unfortunately, we were very occupied with responsibilities and illnesses that limited us from meeting in class to discuss this work. However, when I shared the edit with my two group members, they were satisfied with the result and were ready to present it the following Thursday. 

In editing the short film, there were several moments of reflection that informed the final revisions I made to the work. Firstly, we had not captured as much effective footage as I believed we had. Many of the establishing shots were missing from our footage bank, which I felt limited the storytelling capacity of our work. We were not able to seamlessly introduce the ladybird into the film the way we wished. In order to solve this complication, I experimented with integrating text to the video. There are now several sentences, almost poetic in nature, capturing the insect’s anthropomorphised thoughts on the negligence of the city’s human occupants. Although the text is sometimes comically dramatic, it is a fun way to play further into the perspective of the ladybird without needing to record in the field. It builds off of what we already have and adds a touch of reflectiveness back to the film.

On a positive note, the playfulness and even the brutality of some of the shots we did capture were excitingly effective. They were easy to splice together alongside sound recordings and with the calmer footage of nature taken elsewhere. The perspective shots of the ladybird flying are particularly fun and translate quite well in the final product. I do wish we had better recording devices and more time as a group to shoot more footage, however, I am happy with the current result.

This week, my group was minorly behind for the creative test in class. We had all been very busy with other commitments, but I managed to put together the ladybird sculpture out of tape and newspaper, and Teah edited several images for our shotlist with the ladybird inserted to create immersive cinematic frames. Her idea to insert the ladybird into our desired shots was helpful because it offered us a sense of how the film might look. It also helped us think about the emotional impact we want to convey and how we may integrate explicit references to eco-cinematic works in our final piece. The images sparked conversations about the environment and the ladybird’s journey. 

The feedback we received in class was valuable. Many praised the creativity of the sculpture and our film idea. Although we didn’t receive any constructive feedback on our test, I found that the open discussion panel in class was useful for stimulating ideas prior to production. One of our peers brought up sound design and this led to a conversation about noise distortion to convey a sense of disruption and to reflect the harshness of noise pollution that is so especially prominent living near the Melbourne CBD.

We plan to integrate more audiovisual techniques into our short film. This will ensure the audience connects with the ladybird’s experiences, but also overlaps the anthropomorphic elements into our film to inspire audience empathy. Specifically, we want to explore sound design. This will help us capture the essence of noise pollution.

In summary, the creative test was a success. It allowed us to visualise our project and discuss our themes. The class panel highlighted areas for exploration. We are excited to apply these insights as we begin filming next week. The goal is to create a compelling short horror film that resonates with viewers. By focusing on both visuals and narrative, we can achieve this.

This week we presented our short film to a panel of experts on eco-conscious media creation. Upon reflecting on our presentation and the feedback we received, there are several points that will significantly help us shape our project moving forward. As a whole, there were very positive responses to our project and the organisation of our presentation. However, one key piece of advice from the panel was to embrace a less scripted production process. They encouraged that we let the material and creative process take us where necessary. If we were to take on this approach, I believe our work could become more dynamic as it would be filled with the unexpected results of our filming.

Secondly, the panel recommended that we rethink the narrative of the insect’s perception of climate change. This thought provoking suggestion was based on the fact that many species globally benefit from aspects of climate change such as littering and architecture. This lens adds an interesting angle to the horror genre we wished to represent and offers something more in the direction of a survival piece about the duality of climate change. However, I do feel that if we were to take this nuanced approach, some of the power of our film would be lost.

Finally, I found another group’s presentation very interesting as a comparison to our own. This group’s showcase will focus on human bias exerted on representations of the natural world. Their mostly-photographic piece will emphasise the highly anthropocentric lens through which we often view environmental issues. Their use of the exhibition format was particularly interesting to me as they plan to integrate a physical divide in the space on the day of the showcase. They also want to incorporate audiovisual elements into their work. This group’s idea, being similar to our, but taking the opposite direction in avoiding the anthropocentric aspects, is an interesting development. It was fascinating to see a group so opposed to doing the very thing we set out to do. I will be interested to see the development of their project.

Overall, the feedback and insights gained from both our presentation and my peers have provided invaluable direction. Embracing a more organic production process and expanding our thematic exploration will undoubtedly enhance our film’s impact and resonance.

My group has developed a dominant creative idea for our major project. We will create a short film from the perspective of an animal or insect and use this to explore the impacts of climate change. Additionally,w e have discussed that we would like this piece to encourage action and confront viewers with a powerful message, not just with audiovisual techniques. 

So far this semester, I have been inspired largely by numerous works of ecocinema we have viewed in class. However, a less obviously environmentally conscious film I have seen recently, Marcel the Shell with Shoes On (Camp, 2021), has prompted me to consider ways of embedding a playful tone within our final work. The film follows an animated shell, Marcel, who lives in an Airbnb and seeks to reconnect with his family and community. The film is shot in a documentary style with various comical moments, but the storyline is framed mostly within the adventure genre. I would like to draw on the stylistic elements of this film, an animated character in an otherwise human world in order to raise awareness for non-human perspectives, even if they are highly anthropomorphised.

In the research paper, Assessing the ecological impact of industrial noise pollution on wildlife behavior in Okomu Forest Reserve, Nigeria., Ajibola-James et.al. note how industrial noise pollution disrupts animal communication, affecting vocalisations and scent signals. They write about how this leads to decreased population and breeding success, ultimately jeopardising their survival and food availability (Ajibola-James et.al., 2024, pp.9). Drawing on the impacts of noise pollution on animal welfare is a subject I would like to explore within our short film. The particular research points this paper covers could be great foundations to ensure our work is backed up by scientific information. 

Finally, I would like to draw on the tactics of emotional engagement when creating ecologically conscious media works that Harriet Rivo speaks to in Chapter 2, Visualizing Extiction in Animals, Plants and Afterimages : The Art and Science of Representing Extinction (Bienvenue, 2022). By anthropomorphising the creatures in the imagery and drawing on the animals’ existing human qualities, Rivo believes viewers are more likely to mourn their extinction. Similarly, I would like to create human attributes in the creature we represent to manipulate audiences.

Ajibola-James, O. O., Awotoye, O. O., Sonibare, J. A., & Oroboade, J. G. (2024). Assessing the ecological impact of industrial noise pollution on wildlife behavior in Okomu Forest Reserve, Nigeria. DISCOVER ENVIRONMENT, 2(1), 1–14. https://doi.org/10.1007/s44274-024-00092-8

Bienvenue, V. & Chare, N. (2022). Animals, Plants and Afterimages : The Art and Science of Representing Extinction. Berghahn Books, Incorporated. ProQuest Ebook Central, pp. 77-78. http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/rmit/detail.action?docID=6882402

Camp, D. F. (Director.) (2021). Marcel the Shell with Shoes On [Film]. A24.

This week we began working on our Sensing Climates Major Project. We had the opportunity in class to reflect on our progress over the semester to assist us with our final media work.

On Friday, after selecting our groups, we discovered our compatible skillsets and common interest in making audiences uncomfortable in order to incite positive action for environmental purposes. In the image above, we analysed what it means to ‘sense’ and to be ecologically aware while producing media. From there, we brainstormed initial ideas for our project based upon eco-cinematic techniques we had both learnt about in class and integrated within previous experiments. We found that techniques such as extended shot durations, and emotive sound/imagery would pair well with our shared goal to confront audiences, according to the success of certain experiments from the course. For example, I cited the concepts from Experiment 1 and Experiment 5. For the first experiment, I learnt from the reading Attunements about the hidden, non-human narratives within natural environments (Carbonell, et al., 2021). Then, Haraway’s Staying with the Trouble : Making Kin in the Chthulucene was a reading that inspired all of us to reflect on the specific ways we can use media to disturb viewers and represent climate issues (Haraway, 2016). Similarly, Teah referred to the Feral Atlas from the week prior that had used jarring music and off putting imagery to force her to contemplate. Inspired by these ideas, we came up with one of our own (Tsing, et al., 2021). Based on the broad question: ‘What does climate change seem like from non-human perspectives?’, we will seek to create a short film from the perspective of an insect that experiences aspects of environmental damage, including noise pollution. We will use immersive cinematography and sound distortion to achieve this effect.

Carbonell, I., Tsing, A. L., & Tsai, Y. L. (2021, September 14). Attunements. https://culanth.org/fieldsights/attunements

Haraway, D. J. (2016). Staying with the Trouble : Making Kin in the Chthulucene. Duke University Press. http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/rmit/detail.action?docID=4649739.

Tsing, A. L., Deger, J., Saxena, A. K., Zhou, F. (2021). Feral Atlas: The More-Than-Human Anthropocene. Redwood City: Stanford University. http://doi.org/10.21627/2020fa

Week 3: https://www.mediafactory.org.au/claudia-nancarrow/2024/08/20/experiment-3-ways-of-moving/

Week 4: https://www.mediafactory.org.au/claudia-nancarrow/2024/08/26/experiment-4-attending-to-whats-left/

Week 5: https://www.mediafactory.org.au/claudia-nancarrow/2024/08/30/experiment-5-staying-with-the-trouble/

Week 6: https://www.mediafactory.org.au/claudia-nancarrow/2024/09/06/experiment-6-sensing-change/

Video Link: https://youtu.be/3z3bR25NFTg

Without access to class discussions on the topic of ‘sensing change’, I felt both limited by the lack of dialogue around the subject, and allowed to explore it in my own way. This week, I learnt that there is potential for film to reflect changes of environmental damage without necessarily capturing the entire timeline of decay. Exploring the landscape – or ‘changescape’, of the Bondi/Tamarama sandstone, I found that two distinct narratives of transformation emerged: the crumbling of the cliffs, and the patterns of gradual wear on the stone. These each reflect timelines of the stone’s deterioration without requiring direct portrayals of the damaging acts themselves.

As Lang proposes, we may materially construct these changes, while representing the ‘more than humanness’ (Lang, 2022) of the landscape through focusing on specific locations, empathising with the land, and focusing on relationships between the non-human features of the land. In my experiment Changescapes of Bondi, I focus on two narratives and use different filmmaking techniques to convey the messages. I analysed the relationships between the ocean and the rocks, as well as human engravings for cultural purposes in comparison to recreational purposes. The first video, Revenge of the Cliff focuses on the decay of the rocks on the ocean’s edge and the striking imagery associated with such an event. I contrast the near-advertorial sights of Bondi Icebergs with the fallen rocks and wire barricades. By lessening the saturation, I also aim to achieve this concept of breaking down the superficiality of the region to shift towards an environmental focus. In the second half, I analyse the erosion of the rocks, both enforced by humans and by natural movements such as wind, particle abrasion, and abrasive waves from the ocean. 

If I were to repeat this experiment in the future, I would prefer to avoid anthropomorphising the landscape as I have. I believe that to truly engage fairly with a landscape within a work of film as Lang and Gibson have, the film must fully assume the non-human perspective. Additionally, I would like to take an angle of digitisation in the future. As the nation of Tuvalu disappears under rising sea levels and they seek to preserve its culture and geographical features with technology, it would be fascinating to recreate the withering landscape of the Bondi/Tamarama rocks in this way.

References:

Fainu, K. (2023, June 27). Facing extinction, Tuvalu considers the digital clone of a country. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jun/27/tuvalu-climate-crisis-rising-sea-levels-pacific-island-nation-country-digital-clone

Gibson, R. (2016, February 1). Changescapes. Meanjin. https://meanjin.com.au/blog/changescapes/

Lang, S. (2022). Brown Lake/Boumiera: Posthuman Screen Poetics for the Anthropocene. ProQuest Dissertations & Theses. https://www.proquest.com/docview/2833588889/abstract/?pq-origsite=primo&accountid=13552

Video Link: https://youtu.be/DieVbu1yULc

This week, I have taken what I learnt about “staying with the trouble”, to emphasise the disturbances in our environment in order to ensure genuine change for the future, into my media practice. Haraway’s statement that “Our task is to make trouble, to stir up potent response to devastating events” outlines the need for media makers to produce work that disturbs viewers into action that simultaneously reflects the trouble in the environment.

As I visited the rocks near Tamarama Beach again, I focused on the ways in which I could highlight not only the natural erosion of the rocks from the ocean waves, but the human wear of them. I took several scenic shots of the sandstone and contrasted them with unusual subject matter such as the helicopter in the sky, symbolising a cry for help, and close-ups of the sandstone holes. Additionally, I edited the footage in an alternating way, just as Hannah Brasier did in her film, Surface Levels. With rapid cuts, I hope to stir up feelings of uneasiness in viewers. Lastly, I layered sound effects on top of the raw audio from the waves crashing on the rocks to resemble the overpowering sounds made by humans, such as electronic buzzing, carving and creaking ship floorboards, almost as if the vessel is sinking.

For works in a similar vein, I would like to use distorted camera techniques to frame the shots in an even more unsettling manner. To truly facilitate the message of human erosion, I would also like to take videos of the rocks being grinded away somehow, or perhaps even close-ups of the sand particles drifting through the water. 

References:

Brasier, H. (2023). Surface Levels [Film].

Haraway, D. J. (2016). Staying with the Trouble : Making Kin in the Chthulucene. Duke University Press. http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/rmit/detail.action?docID=4649739.

Media Resources:

All in U-Tubers. (2022). Wood Carving Sound Effects No Copyright Claims | All in U-Tubers [Video]. YouTube. https://youtu.be/TgoeiAX8jH8?si=-6qrGOdNwBTegeK3

BridgeSound. (2021). Flickering Light Sound Effect – Creative Commons Sound [Video]. YouTube. https://youtu.be/TOueemiIVYU?si=QSuC2gmQmge-C-Kr

Friendly Free Sounds. (2023). Creaking Wood Sound Effects (Ship / Floor) No Copyright [Video]. YouTube. https://youtu.be/XgETd7c4YxE?si=JwbjLgSbdDuh-raI