“I am the truck, my truck is me” – Jonathan Gold.

Courtesy of: http://www.latimes.com/food/jonathan-gold/la-fo-goldbot-20161221-story.html

Lauren Gabbert’s City Of Gold (2015) documentary on the Pulitzer Prize-winning food critic Jonathan Gold. Essentially, the documentary was a mix of Jonathan’s “love letter” to the city of Los Angeles and his colleagues, friends and family praising Gold as a person beyond a critic.

As someone who has visited L.A a couple of years ago, the film did change my perception of the city. From what I considered to be a complicated city, is what I perceive now as a postmodern city evolving from different centre points that expanded and eventually collided with the other centres.
The documentary was visually appealing in moments where Gold would experience writers block with s blank laptop screen, mid shots of navigating through L.A’s infamous traffic, and even capturing the melting pot aspect of the city; a wide shot of a Caucasian jogger next to an old Asian lady with her walker waiting for the light to turn green.

Before delving into food criticism, Gold was initially a music critic and was even present during Snoop Dogg’s recording of Doggystyle (1993). Besides being such an interesting dude, there were particular moment in the film that I found valuable in terms of being a writer. Gold constantly surrounds himself with books to read, he interacts with other writers and creatives, visits a restaurant at least 2-5 times before writing a review, and most importantly, never judges a book by its cover through an open mind (or palette) with everything; no matter how eccentric (or spicy) it may appear (or smell).

“I’m not actually sure—for me being a “critic” is a natural extension of being a viewer. There’s a fine line between watching movies and thinking about them— and writing criticism” – Adam Cook.
(https://www.cineaste.com/spring2013/film-criticism-the-next-generation/)

What is the difference between criticising and reviewing? At first glance it seems like they’re just interchangeable terms / synonyms of each other. However, with a Pete Mare’s panel featuring the colourful Adrian Martin, the award winning Gillian Armstrong, the eccentric Mel Campbell, and the cool-as-a-cat Fenella Kernebone; my definition of these terms have slightly changed in terms of discussing the role of a film critic.

A review can be as simple as an assertion of an opinion and superficial with no explanation of how a film is “good” or “bad.
Criticism is channelling your argument through providing evidence and the “how” explanation.

What was most interesting about the panel discussion is how there’s a hierarchy in film criticism where high-arts culture reviews are “snobby” and are stuck in the past that it doesn’t even appreciate the art of film. On the opposite spectrum are aggregated scored sites that lack the analytical aspect of criticism. Furthermore, issues like commercial liabilities that are often associated with media conglomerates limit a critic’s creative freedom and further jeopardises the role of a critic. On the other hand, the use of social media and the rise of bloggers further blurs this line of who or what is considered a legitimate critic.

Should it all just be determined by the individuals themselves to be socially responsible on what or who they trust? Do you think that the role of the critic is actually dead / dying?

Wednesday involved constructively criticising our peers’ 300-word review on anything they’d like to write about. A few things are important in providing feedback on a piece of writing:

• Remember that you’re criticising the piece of writing and not the writer themselves. Language matters!
• Give examples on what could improve the piece.
• Consider tone, use of examples, be aware of their target audience.
• Start with the positives and then gradual transition into how they could improve.

For our final class Louise decided to conduct a competition for whoever can come up with the best name for our website and social media forums. The rules? Come up with 4 awesome names. The prize? Lindt ASSORTED chocolates. Yes, Lindt and yes, assorted. Unfortunately, neither my competitive nor my imaginative side came out to play, and so I came up with just 2 potential titles: Captivity (merging capturing and creativity) and Vision in Motion (inspired by Moholy Nagy).

Quite a few also emerged such as Artwamp, Artzoo, and Artists’ in Captivity (courtesy of Louise), however nothing stuck like “Exhibit A” (courtesy of Ariani). The last class couldn’t come any quicker and at this stage it’s a matter of refining and editing the video portrait that not only satisfies me, but also Robert himself.

In the meantime, please check out our site and stay tuned for the video portraits we have in store for you!

During the last few weeks of editing, I struggled to find a way to introduce the video portrait smoothly, rather than in a jarring way. Initially, I tried to incorporate an introduction from Moholy Nagy’s Vision in Motion book that inspired Robert during his years at art school. However, the introduction was quite wordy that it wouldn’t translate well to the viewer. I decided to experiment by filming the words from the book and layering the words onto footage of Robert painting in his studio. But yet again, it became too wordy and unnecessary to the context of the video portrait itself.

This particular lesson we had Jenny O’Meara to check out our rough cuts and provide industry feedback. At this time, I only had my cuts of the interview and the audio synced onto the footage. Jenny was impressed by the content and progress I had thus far, but suggested that I would swap certain sections around to provide the “hook” for the viewer.

Robert Owen mentions certain jazz records throughout the interview that Jenny suggested that I added in some found footage. In particular, Blue Note records are favourable, however being under a copyright license, using it into my video portrait will be a risk so finding public domain footage of jazz bands from the 1950s or 60s will be ideal.

Jenny’s feedback was essential with keeping me on track and confident with the foundations of the interview before moving forward to adding overlays, background music and eventually refining.

All these images were captured on a Canon 70D. As part of the video portrait I wanted to film Robert Owen’s public commission collaboration on the Webb Bridge. In 2003, Robert Owen collaborated with Denton Corker Marshall to develop Webb Bridge and earned them the prestigious Joseph Reed Architectural award for urban design in 2005.

Luckily, filming at Webb Bridge didn’t require any filming permits, however, filming during the daytime was a bit hectic than expected. Many pedestrians and cyclists were around during the lunch time period and filming at such tight spots didn’t help either. On the contrary, the sun came through and provided these shadows from the reflection of the bridge’s structure. At night, the only thing that we were tackling while filming was the infamous Melbourne weather. But then serendipity did its work that when it stopped raining, the water provided that same reflective image of the structure through the puddles. For us, we had to tackle the typical wind and coolness of Docklands but I guess it was all worth it. Check out the images below:

Joyce Seitzinger visited our Wednesday class to provide us strategies for our social media website. She provided us with advice that we will definitely take on while we launch our website and promote it on our various social media sites:

Find and connect with your audience

• Start early
• Follow the competition
• Find the communities and their platforms
• Search for keyword/hashtag
• Begin connecting
• Connect with super nodes and communities
• Choose an identity and channels to work on

Deciding on a name

• Help the artist build their identity
• Where are you comfortable with?

Identify your existing channels

• Artist?
• Or new project identity?
• Gallery? Agents?
• Publishers?
• Artist collective or peers?
• Funding bodies?
• Who do you know?

Keep connecting/curating

• 80% connecting and 20% curating. This will still keep the interest of community and keep people updated

Location of Original Work

• What is the url?
• Will you use a shortener? Bit.ly? Tinyurl?
• Include in every shared artefact

So here’s a list of what I should and shouldn’t do before and during an interview, this may or may not have happened during the process:

• Check to see if the lapel microphone works and connects with the Zoom H4n microphone before conducting the interview with the subject.
• Make sure to have an extra SD card with you just in case the one in use runs out of memory and to avoid deleting any footage from that SD card.
• Send the interview questions at least a few days prior to the interview, in order to keep your subject comfortable and prepared too.
• Check that every setting was is set correctly on the Sony X-200 video camera, especially white balance, in order to avoid fixing it during post-production.
• Always have a back-up microphone such as shot gun microphone or even a mobile.
• Compile interview questions that have a particular focus and to shorten the interview time as well.

After the initial interview with Robert, I felt a sense of relief in knowing that this was a collaborative process. Despite his busy and hectic schedule, Robert was able to accommodate an entire day to interview and film him in his studio. Even when it came to filming at Webb Bridge, Craigieburn (urban) bypass and his exhibition, Robert was able to provide me with information to support the style/way I was going to film each of his completed work.

So far, I have technically finished production, and now it’s a matter of thoroughly going through all the images and footage and make sure that everything meets the standard (or beyond). Of course, there were hiccups that happened along the way but thankfully there were alternative solutions to each of the obstacles I encountered.

For instance, the radio wireless lapel microphone was unable to connect to the Zoom H4n, so instead, we used the Zoom on its own. This resulted to repositioning Robert to be close enough to the Zoom so that it would record his voice with as much clarity as possible and therefore re-frame the camera shots in order to conceal the Zoom. (Melbourne) weather was especially difficult to cooperate with when it came to filming his public commission works such as Webb Bridge and Craigieburn (urban) bypass where rain/wind would often be the reason to reschedule and delay the production stage. A major technical issue was from the Sony X-200, where I was unable to use it to film Webb Bridge due to the shutter being on a weird setting. It was that weird that the tech guys had no idea how to fix it that the camera was reset to its original settings. Another thing about the camera, is that its hefty weight combined with the durable tripod made the commute difficult, especially in unexpected weather conditions.

My focus for these next coming days is to decide on a focus for the video portrait before continuing post-production. Once I’ve found a focal point, I’ll then have to condense the interview as much as possible while referring to the rough script I’ve completed. With week 12 creeping in, I have only two weeks left to do any last minute re-filming while also juggling assignments from other subjects.

The other week, Louise showed us various video portraits that ranged from style and character. This particular video portrait was my personal favourite as it not only did the cinematography capture his artwork and the interview himself through a juxtaposition of long shots and close-ups, but captured Slinkachu’s character on a personal level through a conversational interview. His art works themselves also switch between close-ups and long shots to change the viewers’ perception and show how miniature they really are.

The staccato from the background music added an element of quirkiness that reflected his miniature street photography. It also provided the editor with more control to emit the background music whenever it would switch to interviewing Slinkachu. Furthermore, the 2 cameras used for the interview provided variation and kept me as the viewer visually intrigued and made me want to listen to what he was saying.

I’d like to incorporate some of these elements into my own video portrait myself. The 2 camera angles will allow to me transition through the interview and also cut out any ums or uhs he may say, I would hope to keep the interview informal and on a conversational level to engage a broader demographic audience, and use background that reflects his character and the tone of the interview.

World-renowned contemporary sculptor, painter, and photographer Robert Owen. No pressure, at all.

I knew his name sounded familiar as soon as I opened up the Google document of the artists we were randomly allocated.  Upon searching him, it clicked, he was the man behind Dockland’s Webb Bridge and has been in the industry for over 50 years. Not only that, but Arc One Gallery on Flinders Lane is well known amongst Melburnians and Australians alike that it added more pressure onto the pressure that was already boiling through me.

I guess panic started to set in once Louise showcased each of our artists’ during Monday’s class. Every single one of us were allocated artists who are established within the art world, both locally and internationally with over 20 years’ experience. However, to quote Louise, “Katrina, you probably have the most recognisable artist out of everyone”. The question of “how can I produce a high quality video portrait of Robert?” also turned into the question of “how can I uphold Robert’s reputation through a high quality video portrait?” I haven’t even contacted Robert, and I was already thinking way too far ahead into the whole production! Once Louise personally told me that Robert preferred to be contacted over the phone rather than email, I was even more overwhelmed with such a simple task. With further research, I find out he used to be the Head of the Sculptor department at RMIT so it did ease the nerves to an extent.

So the next day, I take a deep breath, promise myself to not be awkward, and ring Robert. As what Louise assured me the previous day, he is definitely a really nice guy who was genuinely excited for this collaboration, and simultaneously I was put at ease knowing that this collaboration is not just a learning experience for me, but for him as well.

Before I met up with Robert, I decided to do some research with the resources available on the internet and compile open ended questions and have some idea of the answers he would provide. In particular, the questions of “who or what inspires your work?” and “what are the concepts behind your work?” are what I hope to base the video portrait on, but of course, I wanted to keep an open mind on the outcome of the initial interview and the progress in the research.

Approximately, I had about 20 questions ready to ask, but as soon as I set up the Zoom H2n recorder, Robert started to talk about the progress of the paintings in his studio in Collingwood and then moved on to his time in Greece during the 1960s that the questions became irrelevant. While Robert went to the back to make coffee, I started to absorb my surroundings; his current works and the Jazz music in the background. The surroundings of where Robert’s prestigious work has been produced and conceptualised. So far, Robert has been working on a few paintings that are similar with his current exhibition at Arc One Gallery and have been a working progress since 2014. What fascinated me the most was how Robert explained how each of his works were part of a family, the same DNA but varied in certain ways. For example, his sculptures all contained the same characteristics of a cube but all varied in the length of each side and face.

When I asked Robert about the concept of each of his work, he found himself struggling to explain where to start. So he would often begin from his childhood and progress into his inspirations and collaborations, which enabled me to understand how it all progressed. All his works immerse the viewer to interact with this relationship of light, space and colour and therefore invites multiple interpretations of his creations.

At this point in the pre-production process, I find myself fixating on Robert’s concepts behind his work, but at the same time I am struggling to still find an absolute focal point since everything that Robert would say would branch off from one idea to another. I could either talk about this relationship of light, space and colour, or how each of his pieces would vary yet belong to the same family and then relate that back to his upbringing and his time in Greece. Thankfully, he has provided with catalogues of previous exhibitions for me to thoroughly look through and I was lucky enough to record the entire conversation. I plan to definitely film footage of his current exhibition, interview him at his studio, film him at work, and to most importantly keep him in the loop with suggestions and a filming schedule. In terms of gear, I plan to use the Sony X-200 camera and a lapel microphone for the interview and my DSLR camera to film and capture images of his work.

At the moment, it may seem overwhelming and not so definite, but what I am definitely sure about is that I am privileged and motivated to produce a video portrait that genuinely presents Robert as one Australia’s most respected artists’.