Author: noahhodgson

This town is deserted. The shorefront fairgrounds, once a hub of activity, is empty – returned to its status as an empty field of grass. On the community centre an Australian flag flies at half mast, for what reason I’m not sure, but it seems fitting all the same. A single car pulls into the carpark, no one gets out. They just sit there, presumably here doing the same thing I’m doing – filling time, looking out on the ocean. A single mask-laden runner jogs by, with only the seagulls to keep him company. Up the hill to my left sits the main drag of the town – as deserted as everywhere else. The shops which rely so heavily on travelling visitors lay dormant. COVID can’t end soon enough.

The bay ripples and heaves with the push and pull of strong winds. The once bright blue-green water has become dark and tainted through the overcast light of the late afternoon. Across the bay lies the faint blue shadows of Sorrento, the sun creeps through onto the edges of the clouds above it. To my right lies an open sky, split by thin white clouds. An indication of the far more pleasant weather from the weekend now past. To my left the sky is dark and heavy with the signposts of an oncoming storm. The wind batters the coast as the shoreline begins to rise.

The key turns in the ignition, spinning through to the starter position. As it reaches its apex, instead of the warm confident grumble of a 2010 corolla taking its first breath, I’m met only with the sputtering of an engine unwilling to start itself. I pop the bonnet with a sharp tug of a lever, exit the car and walk around to the front to assess the situation. Lifting the lid, I look down at the mass of cold, grease covered machinery. Expecting, hoping, for an obvious answer. I pull up the oil checker to find only the faint indication of an engine well supplied. The battery then maybe? Guess I’ll order take away.

Midnight rolls around, the dark creeps in. The wind hisses, shaking all it contacts, rattling doors and thundering upon windows. Out of sight a dog howls ceaselessly at the full moon. On the neighbours house burns an orange glow like that of fire, but still and unwavering. The wind topples something out in the unknown, making the dog become hysterical. The young man sits at his window, waiting once again for inspiration to reach him in the night. It never does.

The kitchen is dimly lit, only illuminated by a lamp in the next room and the incessant flickering of a television. “Whatcha makin’?” the boy’s mother asks from her screen-side perch. The pasta sauce begins to simmer, spitting its contents onto the wall behind the stove. “Bolognese again” he answers, taking another sip of his beer. “Hmm” she absent mindedly replies. They’re talking about COVID on the TV again, it’s as if the world stopped spinning the way they can’t stop talking about it – maybe it did. Regardless, the talk fades to white noise. Aren’t there still people starving in Yemen? A renewed civil rights movement in the USA? A fight for freedom in Hong Kong? Did we forget? The TV commentators continue. They’re asking the question “what comes after COVID?” again – as if anybody has a clue. The pasta begins to boil over. Shit.

The amber setting sun creeps through my bedroom window, dancing across the bed as it travels through to the opposite wall. The golden hour draws to its close as the sky fades from pale blue to deep orange and the day draws closer to night. Across the road the warm sun bounces blindingly from a neighbouring house, catching the glass pane of a window as it lowers. Today is perhaps one of the first signs of the breaking of winter and the onset of spring.

Observation 1

Translating Observation | Observation 1 | Noah Hodgson

 

Observation 2

Translating Observation | Observation 2 | Noah Hodgson

Reflection 1

Translating Observation | Reflection 1 | Noah Hodgson

 

Observation 3

Translating Observation | Observation 3 | Noah Hodgson

 

Exercise 1 Reflection

Translating Observation | Exercise 1 Reflection | Noah Hodgson

Observation 4

Translating Observation | Observation 4 | Noah Hodgson

Reflection 2

Translating Observation | Reflection 2 | Noah Hodgson

Observation 5

Translating Observation | Observation 5 | Noah Hodgson

Observation 6

Translating Observation | Observation 6 | Noah Hodgson

Reflection 3

Translating Observation | Reflection 3 | Noah Hodgson

My thoughts on observational writing

I’ve found the process of writing all these observations over the past 3 weeks to be honestly pretty difficult, especially given the reintroduction of stage 3 lockdown in my part of Victoria. Due to this I’ve been left with basically what I can see in the house, out the windows or from my car as the only things I could really observe, which has certainly been a challenge. Mostly I’ve just found it difficult to choose what to write about – once the decision was made or the inspiration found the actual writing component was at times tricky but certainly not impossible. My first couple of observations were described by Robin as a little too diary-like, so in the following weeks I really doubled down on trying to actively describe the spaces around me rather than just how they made me feel. This part of the process was probably the most difficult, but the most rewarding when I felt like I managed to do it. I actually ended up finding a lot of inspiration unintentionally in the book I’ve been reading (‘Kudos’ by Rachel Cusk – mentioned in the first reflection) and also in an album I’ve been listening to – ‘You Won’t Get What You Want’ by Daughters. Both of these things are really descriptive and bring out strong imagery in my imagination so I’ve really been focusing on trying to capture the same sort of vibe in my own writing.

I don’t know that I’ve really developed much of a uniform style or voice in my writing yet, but I think in intention at least they’re all quite similar. I’m mostly focusing on the spaces and environments around me (mostly out of necessity due to COVID isolation) and have been trying to merge how those environments look with how they make me feel. It’s hard to gauge exactly how successful I’ve been in doing this – as it’s sometimes hard to tell how well expressed my intention is just from reading it back to myself, but I’m looking forward to seeing Robin’s response once this first assignment is submitted.

Lumiere Films

I found it really interesting watching many of these Lumiere films this week and looking back on the early years of cinema. I’ve seen most of these films before in other classes, but I’ve found it interesting to revisit them given the context of the studio we are currently undertaking. These pieces are (or at least seem) very observational rather than fully staged in the way they are captured, which has been massively beneficial to look at as before this I wasn’t entirely sure what exactly the short film projects we’d be delivering at the end of the semester could or would consist of – whereas I feel that now I have a much better idea of what we could potentially do for that final assignment (and likely much of the other work we’ll undertake throughout the semester). I think what these short little films do so well (aside from providing an interesting window into the past) is bring out the intrigue in everyday mundane life. On one hand they seem very spontaneous and observational, but on the other they are obviously very well thought out and composed to draw the viewer exactly where they should be looking. This is something I think will prove to be really important in how successful our films are throughout this studio as it shows very plainly that even though you’re pointing the camera at something mundane – it doesn’t have to be, and shouldn’t be, boring to look at. I also think there’s a lot that we can learn from the Lumiere’s in terms of resourcefulness given our current COVID situation. We will likely need to just sort of use whatever is available and certainly be very resourceful in doing practical work both for this class and the rest of our classes this semester so I think it nice to put into perspective what filmmakers have been able to do with arguably far less resources than we have available to us even without being about to leave the home.

I feel pretty neutral on my work for this exercise. On one hand I achieved what I set out to and met the requirements of the prompt, but on the other the finished product really isn’t anything particularly special and certainly isn’t nearly as interesting as many of the 50 second films we watched in class. My intention was to basically create a 50 second video that would accompany my second observation piece about the temporarily undeveloped land that sits behind my new house. I was essentially just hoping to capture the landscape and was just hoping it would have enough going on to hold someone’s attention for 50 seconds. The first part of this I think was achieved but the second I’m not so sure as there’s really not a great deal happening in the frame. In the first version of the video I had the camera placed very low to the ground, which on review I found created a lot of dead space that really wasn’t doing anything for the videos ability to capture and hold attention for that 50 second period – even I was pretty bored of looking at it before long – I also found that filming it from that height drew the eye to the street signs immediately in front of the camera rather than the landscape itself as I has originally intended. To remedy this I raised the tripod and captured the video again from much higher up. I definitely prefer this version as it succeeds more so in showing the landscape I was trying to capture and I think is just compositionally a bit stronger. It also benefits from seeing a bit more of the road in the background as this introduced the potential for more movement within the frame. I do think however that I could have gone higher again on the tripod – perhaps even to the maximum height as this would have revealed even more of the landscape and the road in the distance. If I had a third chance to film it I think this is the main thing I would have changed, but I also think that had I gone back at a different time of day where the construction had more activity this could have made the frame much more interesting again.

Link to videos:

Version 1: https://drive.google.com/file/d/15FLMRaIA-Mg70DivFiwNlES69WAfTsTI/view?usp=sharing

Version 2: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1IBN4Y_yFvbCZ-XYK2JBZPdeH2C0tlHdP/view?usp=sharing

Folder: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1DEAirJ6hkeByT7ikmhjNSNtZUU-WhqKa?usp=sharing