Author: noahhodgson

What is Translating Observation about?

The premise of this studio is, in my opinion at least, a very promising one. It’s a bit hard to exactly put a finger on what I’m hoping or expecting to get out of this studio as I’m not sure it’s a fully tangible thing that is supposed to be being taught here. On the more practical and tangible side I’m hoping to refine my creative writing skills in a university context – which I’ve had little if any experience of doing as of yet. I really like the concept of writing creatively based on what we see around us, without necessarily dipping into documentary territory. I’ve been reading a book called ‘Kudos’ by Rachel Cusk (highly recommended) which walks this line in a really cool way in that the way it is written really transports you into the world of the story in such a way that you’re almost not sure what the author has observed and what she has imagined. I think that existing in the space between fiction and non-fiction could be really fun and I’m looking forward to trying to bring out the intrigue in the mundane settings around me throughout the semester.

On the more subjective side of things though, what I think the studio is aiming to teach, or at least what I’m hoping it will try to teach is to find a sort of connection to film material based on experience. It’s hard to describe exactly what I mean by this but one of my favourite cinematographers and a big inspiration for me, Bradford Young (Arrival, When They See Us, Solo) talks about this a lot in interviews (see embedded video for reference), but to summarise he basically speaks about how he chooses projects because he finds a way to bring his own meaning to the script based on his experiences. So essentially what I’m hoping to explore in this studio is motivating the things I film and the way I film them based on the things that I observe and experience in my everyday life in a much more purposeful way than I would otherwise.

Perhaps the strangest of places to be in our current timeline is the supermarket. Here is where you’ll find the full array of reactions to COVID. From outright fear to borderline denial – it’s all here. The majority of people seem resoundingly standoffish; like they’re afraid of everyone and everything, as if any person around them could be the one to infect them – and in fairness they’re probably right. But on the other end of the spectrum there’s the people who seem hellbent on making COVID-safety nearly impossible in one way or another. Whether it’s standing in the middle of a walkway too thin to pass outside of the 1.5m bubble on either side, picking products up only to decide they didn’t want it anyway or just treating their mask as more detrimental to their health than the virus itself – there’s never any shortage of these types of people. Funny how a place such as a supermarket, so taken for granted in pre-COVID times, has become one of very few remaining shared societal spaces at present.

The world seems darker now than it used to be. Days like today the sky washes out to greys and the colours of the world seem lessened. In the distance I see the onset of a storm, the clouds darkening as they stretch across the horizon. The wind bears down heavy on the outside of my car, rumbling as it passes, blowing trees and debris to and fro. Looking out the dirt speckled windshield of my car I see nothing but dreary suburbia, snaking on for kilometre after kilometre, looking as abandoned as the day it was built. The world seems darker now than it used to be.

I’m having trouble trying to sleep. As the night rolls on into morning still I lay here in the darkness, staring at the wall, making out the shape of my room through the darkness. It’s as if every subtle source of light shines like a floodlight; the orange off lights of my computer monitors pierce my eyelids like a knife through butter and the outline of the streetlights coming past the edges of my blinds force me to give up on the idea of getting to sleep at a reasonable time entirely. As I begin to stir the absolute silence is replaced by the sound of rain beginning to make contact with the roof, building from the soft pattering of small drops to a thunder of heavier impacts. I roll up the blinds of my window to appreciate the barrage of rain hitting the road outside, through the pristine illumination of a modern white LED street light. This is going to be a long night of solace.

The boredom of lockdown has well and truly set in as I sit in the front room of my house listening to yet another record – just the same as I did yesterday and the day before that. Today it’s The Strokes “Is This It” spinning at thirty three and a third rounds per minute, refracting the rays of sunlight shining through the window back onto the wall as it spins. I look out the window to the same patch of road I see every day as a local child fly’s past on his three wheeler, following the same path I’ve seen him on everyday since I moved into this house. To my left sits a mirror, still yet to find it’s new home in this house even despite me having nothing better to do than find it one. My dog enters the room and exits as quickly as he entered – I guess he’s just as stuck for things to do as I am. These lazy days playing vinyl used to be the best days I had in busier times, but now that they’re all I have, I feel just like that record, spinning around and around in circles.

The view out my bedroom window carries with it a certain feeling of impermanence. While what lies there now is a view out into an open and empty field, already the signs of development are there, with construction machinery and workers beginning to lay the groundwork for what will become yet more gentrified suburbia. An orange digger moves about shifting the ground for the road that will eventually reach over to my row of houses. The sky looms large and open, with strips of dark clouds with bright linings from the sun that’s rising into the middle morning behind them. Though it’s nothing flashy, I do like my simple view out the window. But simultaneously I realise it won’t and can’t last. The house I’ve just moved into has been here for mere months, and in the coming months and years more just like it will spring up in that empty field, vastly changing the view presented.

Empty spaces are strange. I’m in the process of moving houses and at the moment my old house, which I grew up in, now sits mostly empty. As I sit on the floor of my childhood bedroom, looking across at the dips and creases of carpet which mark out where furniture once was, I can’t help but think about all the fond memories I have of this place and how much I’ll miss it when it’s gone. I notice the remains of the old orange painted feature wall in the place where the wall meets the carpet where evidently the brushes and rollers couldn’t reach. I look up and see the splashes of the off-white paint on the rafters and recall that was the walls colour even before the orange, maybe fifteen years ago now. It’s a strange feeling being back here with no family around and no furniture left behind. When you enter a new house that’s yet to be lived in, it’s all potential, all ideas and hopes for what that space will become – it’s a blank canvas. But when you go into your old home, now abandoned awaiting its new tenant, it’s not the same vibe. Rather than a blank canvas it’s like one that used to display a beautiful and intricate artwork, but has since been painted over back to plain white, but when you move your finger across the surface you can still feel the bumps and imperfections of the old artwork beneath. As I take my last walk through the house I’ve called home for twenty out of my twenty two years I notice and appreciate all those imperfections that come with many years of living somewhere. The spot on the carpet that got burnt and subsequently covered when mum tried to put a log that was too big into the fireplace, the old hook on the wall in the hallway that used to hold a long since forgotten painting, the random side door I’ve used maybe twice that I had to chisel away at in order the close last time I used it. It’s these little oddities I think I’ll miss when I’m living in a newly built house.