My cousins are fraternal twins and they swear they have a supernatural connection. They do this thing where one will silently lift a their pointer finger and wait. Then, the other twin, through their unexplainable spooky twin powers, and without seeing the other, will also lift their pointer finger. They search for each other, and upon see that the weird pointer-finger twin magic call has been answered, jump around and hi-five.

Growing up with these girls, they flaunted their powers at least once every time we were together, which was a lot.

I saw one of the twins yesterday; it was a little strange because we were at a family lunch and she wasn’t particularly engaged with any of the several conversations going on around her. She was detached and it was strange because it was these circumstances that she would raise her pointer finger and wait for her twin Emily.

Emily died from brain cancer in July 2013. She was 24.

Translation:
Didn’t particularly write this observation with a translation to film in mind, I was just feeling sad and reflective. If I did however, I think it would take form in the writing of a post card. From one twin to another, reflecting on their supernatural powers and the adventures they went on together to prove it. It would be very minimalistic, no voice over, no score, just silence. The film would comprise of a single shot: a overhead shot of a hand writing the postcard. The audience would have to try to discern the scrawling handwriting. It would be easy for the audience to disengage, as understanding the story written on the postcard isn’t easy, but there is something about that I find beautiful.

Student elections are on right now. I’ve been accosted by campaigners three times already. Begrudgingly, however, I feel like I have to give them a little respect. Their resilience is unperturbed. They are sharks. And like sharks, they have to keep moving or they will die, stalking from one student victim to another. Earphones in? Doesn’t matter, must attack. Head down, walking fast? Doesn’t matter, must attack. “Fuck off, I’m not voting.” Doesn’t matter must attack. Remarkable.

TRANSLATON:

I envision an educational documentary with this observation. The combining use of extreme long shots and long shots creates distance between the audience and these student campaigners, creating a detachment from relating to them as fellow students, and encourages the audience to view them as subjects of scientific study.
A David Attenborough type is commentating on the campaigner’s motivation and movements, as the audience observe these strange and vicious creatures in their natural habitat.

The Pitch:

While pursing my observations trying to decide which had the most potential to translate into film, I was struck by how one-dimensional they all were.
They weren’t necessarily bad, or didn’t have the potential to become good shorts, I just realised my process was. For all my observation posts I saw something, and then I, with out knowledge or background to who these people were, wrote an observation about them.

This realisation inspired me to make a film focusing on giving depth to these hijacked strangers stories and peeling off the layers to (what I thought) were their true character. Exploring the notion: does anyone really know anyone?
A real focus on the cracks behind the veneer people present to the world, and each other, because after all, a life lived accrues in the cracks.

The observation I am basing this on is the one I wrote when we went for the 30min walk in class a couple of weeks ago. I saw a couple sitting in a donut shop drinking coffee. From this, the basic premise of the film is as follows:

A mother and her son meet on Sunday morning for coffee.

During this encounter and subsequent monolog, the veneer each person presents to the other is far from the truth. I would like to demonstrate this by utilising split screen as we follow their journey to the coffee shop, and in the process reveal the extent of their illusion of normalcy.
Angela and her son Mike are each deeply troubled and sad individuals, and it is through these flaws that they are most alike.

Synopsis/Treatment:

Film opens with the young haze of a Sunday morning sunrise over city.
Over head shot of Angela lying in the middle of a empty bed, wide awake, she stares emptily at her bedside clock waiting for the numbers to read a 8:00am so she can get up, they read 7:59. The clock clicks over to 9:00am and she is released.

SLIPT SCREEN
On one side of screen: Angela robotically begins to get up.
On the other side of screen: Mike walks down the front steps of a police station

Full screen Mike.
Mike looks awful. His white tee shirt is dishevelled and bloodied on the collar, under his eye is the beginning of a black eye, his knuckles are grazed. He wears it well, he is a tough guy.
Mike walks across the empty street to a loitering car, the engine is running.
He slides into the passenger seat, kicking aside empty beer cans.

The driver, male, same age as mike, hands him a bottle of water.

“Whens you’re hearing?” the driver asks. They are familiar with one another.
Mike leans over and kisses him on the lips, a quick peck, an unspoken greeting and thanks for picking him up, all in one.
The diver returns the kiss.

“Next Thursday.” Mike says.

The driver pulls out and begins driving away.
Silent pause.
“Wanna get breakfast?” The diver asks.

Mike pulls his bloodied tee over his head and twists back to reach into the back seat of the car, “Can’t. I’m meant to be getting coffee with mum.”

He returns with a cleaner looking shirt and begins putting it on.

“When am I going to meet her anyway? We’ve been together almost a year, you know.”

Mike, still buttoning his shirt, glances over at the driver flashing a smile.
“I know. And soon, real soon. She can’t wait to meet you, she actually keeps buggering me about it every time I see her, just not today.”
“Okay?” Mike tries to pat down his messy hair.

“Yeah” the driver replies, eyes on the road.

SPLIT SCREEN
On one side of screen: Mike leans forward onto the dash, folded arms watching the road.
On the other side of screen: Angela is standing in the kitchen, in her pajamas.

Full screen Angela.
She is pouring a half empty bottle of vodka into a coffee mug. Divorce papers are on the counter. She takes a sip and places the mug down, picking up a cylindrical container of prescription drugs. She takes four.

Cut to full dressed Angela, she looks smart.
She crosses the lounge room on her way out the door, grabbing her car keys as she goes.

Cut to Mike.
Mike gets out of car and begins walking down street

SPLIT SCREEN
On one side of screen: Mike continues to walk down the street.
On the other side of screen: Angela is already in the coffee/donut shop. She has already ordered a coffee. Angela pours vodka from a flask into the coffee.

Both Mike Angela and unwrap crewing gum and start crewing.

Full screen Mike
He enters the Donut/coffee shop
Mike catches his mum’s eye; raises a hand in greeting, and walks over to her.

He slides into the window side booth.

“Hey mum.” Mike flashes his smile.

“Michel, honey, how are you?”

“I’m doing pretty great.”

“Of course you are” Angela smiles proudly. She notices Mikes eye, “Oh what happened to you face?”

“Oh this?” Mike waves in his eyes general direction, “It’s nothing, just rough and tumble at footy yesterday.”

“You’ve got to be more careful.”

“I will.”

Awkward pause

“This is my second coffee already today.” Angela informs him.

“Oh yeah?”

“Mm hmm, went for a walk around the river with the girls, and stopped at Franks.”

“That sounds lovely.”

Angela nods.

Awkward pause.

“And how’s Jessica?” Angela asks.

“Mummm” mike whines, making a face.

“When I am going to meet this girl? Michel, its like you’re hiding me from her.” Angela scolds.

“Mum I would never.”

“Well it feels like it.” She retorts, a little snappy. “I want to meet the mother of my grandkids.”

“Mum no ones having kids around here” Mike mumbles grumpily.

“Well no one here is getting any younger either” She looks out the window.

“Mum..” Mike begins

Angela interrupts: “Be sure to propose first, there’s nothing tackier then a man who fears commitment.”

Mike takes a deep breaths and concedes
“Okay mum.”

“Very important how a man proposes” Angela continues

“Yes mum.”

Awkward pause

“How’s dad?” Mike asks gingerly.

Surprised by the question, “Oh he’s good, still snoring like a hog, hardly got a wink of sleep because of it last night.”

Pause

“And you? Are you good?”

Pause

“Yes. I’m good too.” She answers.

“That’s good.”

Slow zoom out. Showing the busy coffee shop. Other people talking easily amongst each other, they now sit in silence.

Cut to night time at Mikes house.

SPLIT SCREEN.
On one side of screen: Mike stands out the back of his house lighting a cigarette. He looks sad.
On other side of screen: Angela is outside her house, lighting a cigarette too. She also looks sad.

End

Estimated time: 4.5- 5 minutes
Locations: Police station, Mike’s boyfriend’s car, coffee shop, Angela’s house, Mikes house.

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.