Working on Individual Exercise 4 was a really pleasant experience.
We were tasked with two clips to recreate: ‘Love in the Afternoon’
and ‘Vicky And Cristina In Barcelona’.

Location:
Our group choose to use the classroom as our only location as logistically it worked really well for both videos. For example, in the first video we were attempting to recreate, the actors have a conversation in the eve of a door (which the classroom had). The second video was another conversation set at a table in a restaurant (the classroom also had a tables). Using the classroom was a no brainer. Another advantage we discussed in using this location was the extra time we would get by avoiding having to set up, pack up and transport the equipment. This factor was certainly a big plus as in past in-class exercise we ran out of time and struggled with some curve ball nature threw at us.
Additionally, we were happy with the soundscape, which seemed pretty clean and minimal, however in post I discovered this wasn’t the case, more on that later. Overall I was very please with the choice of location as I felt we had control over our environment.

Love in the Afternoon.

Our group spilt the workload equally, and organically fell into each of the roles required. For the first clip I was directing. I was a little surprised with how much I enjoyed this role. I implemented a few of the techniques we learnt in last weeks workshop, such as: standing as close to the camera as I could with out disturbing the camera operator, so I could see if I was happy with the shot. The shot itself that we were recreating was relatively straightforward. It was a single 50-second shot with no camera movement. Besides directing actor movement and eye line, I found that there wasn’t that much other direction to give. I was really happy with the actors Monaliza and Tim’s performances. They really conveyed the awkwardness of the relationship, as well as the unspoken feelings the characters each had for one another. This awkwardness was emphasised by the lack of score or backing tracks in the original so I decided to maintain that in post.

The edit was equally straightforward, I added French subtitles as a little salute to the original, and also used the lumetri colour panel in premier pro for colour correction and grading. I decided to add yellow tones with green highlights to recreate the period look of the original. I was pretty happy with the result. The overall video came to life and I felt really had character.

Vicky And Cristina In Barcelona

After finishing ‘Love In The Afternoon’ we moved right along to ‘Vicky And Cristina In Barcelona’. Our group rotated roles, and this time I was the audio mixer. This video had a few more moving parts. There were multiple shots and multiple camera pans. That aspect was the one I was most worried about, however it didn’t turn out to be that much of a challenge at all, which was a pleasant surprise. As audio mixer I made a few mistakes, for the first take I didn’t adjust the levels and consequently the audio was way too quite. Additionally, I discovered that there mic was picking up a lot of background noise, such as the traffic from three stories below, I wasn’t sure how to address this at all.

During the edit I added restaurant ambience to help create the effect that they were meant to be in a restaurants setting, not just a classroom. A small challenge I ran into was finding the background noise on the takes I wanted to use was actually pretty bad, and cutting between shots of good audio quality and bad audio quality for dialog sounded shocking. As a solution, I found a single take that had all the dialog I needed, and was also of good quality, and dubbed it over the intercutting takes. It worked reasonably well.

Overall I was very pleased with the results of both videos.

For exercise 3 we were required to go out in groups and film six x thirty-second shots. While our group was assembling the equipment I looked out the classroom window at the massive construction site across the way, seemingly omnipresent these days at uni. I was really drawn to capturing the workers in their element, and thought it would make a great theme to work off. While operating the camera with Tim we kept reverting back to extreme close ups of the men working on the site. It was almost otherworldly, nothing was recognisable, as nothing was in its final form. It was eerie and wonderful.
I was happy with the shot composition and exposure, but I felt like I didn’t achieve crisp focus.

I went back out a week later when I had a vision of I wanted my final product to look like. I wanted to vilify the construction workers and dub over ‘Nature Is Speaking’, a video by Conservation International, voiced by Julia Roberts. I didn’t use any other groups footage.

I hoped the juxtaposing of the industrial setting with the environmental message of the audio would be jarring and dramatic. I’m not sure If I achieved that though…

When I returned to film again, I shot additional construction workers, electing to use handheld to convey the imbalance of their environment: they exist with no nature, only man made things. They are the men who make the constructs that replace nature. Hopefully further vilifying these workers. I felt strongly in conveying this sentiment, however, in reviewing the footage I discovered I had made a mistake in electing to use hand held. Mostly because it was the only shot that was not on a tripod and in result looked sloppy and like the purposeful decision was itself a mistake.

This week I had a one on one meeting with Robin, it was really interesting. I almost felt like I was at a book club discussing my own book.

We talked about my observations and they’re potential to become short films.
I really struggled with this. When I wrote observations my goal was to write a good and hopefully interesting story, I was having a really tough time thinking of a way to translate it. It felt like to me I had two brains; one for writing observations and one for writing films. Trying to combine them seemed forced and all attempts seemed rubbish.

As I verbalised this I realised what a stupid predicament it sounded like, the studio is called Translating Observation, and I was having the hardest time with the translating aspect.

As we continued to talk I suggested the possibility of using found footage- it was a bit of a cop out on my part since I really couldn’t envision translating one of my observations conventionally.

Robin showed me a film called ‘Afraid So’, based on the poem by Jeanne Marie Beaumont. It was experimental yet still dramatic. The film utilized found footage and it was the furthest thing from a cop out. I got Goosebumps; it was chilling and wonderful at the same time. This example opened up the scope of possibilities of how to translate observations to film. I left feeling hopeful.

Yesterday I was fortunate enough to get some onset experience with an extremely large production. The location manager explained an average hour of Australian drama television costs approximately one million dollars to get to air; this production was going to drop six. The vibe was crazy and electric and very exciting. A thousand individual components crashed together in perfect synchrony to tell a story. I think a good example of this was when runners began handing out custom lunch orders to everyone – hundreds of people- yet when “rolling” was called out by the 2nd A.D and relayed to our earshot by one of the 3rd A.Ds it instantly became silent. And when “cut” was called the collective response a rolling wave of cracking cans of soft drink. So disciplined.

TRANSLATION:

Like ‘Singin In The Rain’ (1952) or ‘Hail Caesa’ (2016) I imagine a film within a film type deal. Following an hour on set of a runner whom is solely in charge of delivering lunch to the cast and crew. The runner has to navigate food allergies and hangry boom swingers who want their gluten free risotto half an hour ago. I would implement constant movement of both actor and camera to convey the frenetic energy of this job. While also including a comedic undertone expressed through the runner’s foolish mistakes, maybe a little slap stick?

I’m not sure if this counts as an true observation post as the content of it is not my own. I read my favourite poem again today. It’s called: Having a Coke with You. By Frank O’Hara.
You can read the poem or you can watch Frank read it to you. I recommend watching, Franks reads it as it should be heard: with the twang of his New Yorker accent, from his New York apartment, with New York traffic honking in the background, and with a cigarette left burning in this hand.

is even more fun than going to San Sebastian, Irún, Hendaye, Biarritz, Bayonne
or being sick to my stomach on the Travesera de Gracia in Barcelona
partly because in your orange shirt you look like a better happier St. Sebastian
partly because of my love for you, partly because of your love for yoghurt
partly because of the fluorescent orange tulips around the birches
partly because of the secrecy our smiles take on before people and statuary
it is hard to believe when I’m with you that there can be anything as still
as solemn as unpleasantly definitive as statuary when right in front of it
in the warm New York 4 o’clock light we are drifting back and forth
between each other like a tree breathing through its spectacles

and the portrait show seems to have no faces in it at all, just paint
you suddenly wonder why in the world anyone ever did them

I look
at you and I would rather look at you than all the portraits in the world
except possibly for the Polish Rider occasionally and anyway it’s in the Frick
which thank heavens you haven’t gone to yet so we can go together the first time
and the fact that you move so beautifully more or less takes care of Futurism
just as at home I never think of the Nude Descending a Staircase or
at a rehearsal a single drawing of Leonardo or Michelangelo that used to wow me
and what good does all the research of the Impressionists do them
when they never got the right person to stand near the tree when the sun sank
or for that matter Marino Marini when he didn’t pick the rider as carefully
as the horse

it seems they were all cheated of some marvelous experience
which is not going to go wasted on me which is why I am telling you about it

TRANSLATION TO FILM:
This poem could easily be transformed into an epic feature length romance, a powerful relationship at its core. I think a project of this calibre is not on my horizon anytime soon.

And there she was. I knew it was her. It had been thirteen years since I was in her classroom but I was certain that was Mrs Brown. Yet, I still hesitated. She looked different, of course, but more than just weathering, the ceaseless beating of years marching on. Mrs Brown didn’t look well. Her face was frail looking; the left side was sagging lower than the right and a walking-frame rested on the train seat beside her. Had she suffered a stroke? I wanted to know what ailed her so I could fix it. A strong wave of sadness washed over me and I wasn’t entirely sure why. She was a talisman of sorts. One that brought memories of childhood and simpler times, and now my talisman was sick.

I want to be 6 years old again, I want my bunk beds back, I want my big sister to still live in the room across the hallway, I want my dog Gus back, I want mum to wake me, up and kiss me goodnight again, I want my bedtime back, I want to read my favourite book for the first time.
I want, I want, I want.

I felt my friends hand on the small of my back, “this is our stop.”

I didn’t want to get off the train; I wanted to keep going forever, till the end of the line, I wasn’t ready to leave.

“Yeah.” I said.

I shuffled towards the doors, trying to catch Mrs Brown eye, doors hissed open and we stepped out, walking away, letting the train march on with out us.

Good-bye for now talisman.

TRANSLATION TO FILM:
I would stay quite truthful to this observation, using voiceover to externalise the antagonist’s inner monolog and nostalgia while on the train.
I imagine a slow zoom beginning with a long shot at the back of a semi busy train carriage, that gets closer and closer to the antagonist until it settles on a extreme close up on her face. All a while the voice over is playing. However, Instead of ending with the antagonist getting off the train, a harsh cut to black once the voice over stops is the ending.

In a world of liars, are the tellers of half-truths kings?

Lets catch up soon

School was ok

I’ll be home by 6

I love you

TRANSLATION TO FILM:
I imagine this taking form as an experimental piece. I envision the entire film-taking place on a smartphone and, like the observation, being very short. An unknown person types out a reply to a message of one of the listed half-truths of the observation. Writing out an honest response then deleting it and replacing it with a less honest one, doing this again and again until the final reply is also a lie. The film ends with pressing the send button.

Could our observations be translated into a film? This question was raised in class on Wednesday. Up until now my observations have been pretty free-form, sometimes minute, sometimes abstract, and defiantly not instantly translatable to film. I was reminded back to our very first lesson when Robin described what an observation could be, and that it didn’t necessarily have to be actuate to reality. This realisation can be noted from observation #5 – 8. I began writing with the intention of translating it into a film. Sometimes this meant my observations were only loosely based on something I observed.

The Sad-looking Bar owner.

Fluffy looked distantly across at his bar. Probably imagining how his original vision was so different from what it had become. Since being forced into early retirement from a notorious career as a founding member of one of the city’s most dangerous bikie gangs, due to a motorbike accident, fluffy had opened a bar in pursuit of a quieter life. He had dreamed of free spirited people of all ages who would rush in everyday, the darts that would fly haphazardly past heads, and of the bar brawls he would be able to tear apart one handed. Instead his beloved bar of hopeful chaos had become a favourite spot for office workers. Morons in “monkey suits” had invaded fluffy’s dream and it seemed like they where there to stay.

The couple sitting by a window.

He had lost it and it was entirely his fault.
The two sat opposite each other at a window-side table in a 24-hour donut shop. She cradled a steaming cup of coffee that tasted like dishwater to her chin. He hadn’t ordered anything. Neither had donuts.
His hands where in his lap under the table, leaning forward on his seat. His knee was bouncing at such speed and ferocity it was shaking the whole table.

She sighed. “How do we find a needle in a haystack?”

His eyes darted across the shop and out the window into the darkness outside.
“We set the haystack on fire.”

There was a long pause, she took a forced sip, he bounced his knee some more.

“They are going to pay for this.” he spat.

Like dandelion seeds, casting blame in every direction but his own.