Author: phoebehewertson

🍒 feeling seen through art 🩰

Overall, I think we were successful in creating a film that could make an audience uncomfortable. It is an awkward film to watch; it lingers on shots too long, it lacks audio, shifts colour gradients, follows no evident storyline, and Jaime’s performance enables the viewer to know something is off yet what that is is not evident in his delivery. The piece idles in providing the audience with much information; it takes the entire film to reach a sense of understanding within the viewer as to what might be causing Jaime’s altered reality. This lack of information creates viewer interest, as they struggle to grasp what is going on and why it is occurring. I think because there is no real answer to these questions, the viewer is able to let their mind fill in the blanks, ideally causing them to question what is coming next and piquing engagement. Additionally, there should be a degree of audience sympathy for Jaime in his loneliness, engaging the audience in hope of a resolution for his character. As the film is experimental, I feel it will elicit some sense of angst within the viewer. The film lacks conventional scenes and camera movement, Monika frequently looks straight through the camera and at times it’s cringey. This must have an effect, be it positive or negative, it’s uncomfortable. 

I feel that we missed an opportunity to get creative and further the discomfort in our film by not focusing on the affordances of editing. I like how our film turned out but at times it feels a bit categorical and resembles a montage. My favourite part of the film is at the end when it cuts between Monika and Jamie’s separate scenes, and I think we should have used more techniques like that throughout the film to create texture and create discontinuity. Taking this approach would require further pre-production planning to acquire ranging shot types, but I feel it would add length and quality to the piece.

Pointers from Andrei Tarkovsky on shot types and viewer immersion, (some) things we did too;

• Long takes build viewer immersion
• Sound design puts us in the mind of the character
• Embrace the abstract
• Build character through action
• Build “pressure” before cutting

A fun little video to finish the studio 🍾🥂

Thank you Kiralee! Yay

Bibliography

Studio Binder (2017) ‘Mastering Shot Lists: Andrei Tarkovsky’

, Studio Binder, YouTuber website, accessed 12 October 2023. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cjslwz0Yb2Q&t=5s

The School Of Life (2013) ‘Alain de Botton on Art as Therapy’

, The School Of Life, YouTube website, accessed 14 October 2023. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qFnNgTSkHPM

 

On Thursday last week, we finalised our second shoot. We shot all of the footage to form our intro and fill story gaps of scenes we missed shooting the night of the party. This shoot went smoother, given it was only Jaime acting and we had more leeway to play around with ideas and shot types. Additionally, if we had creative differences, we were able to shoot the scene twice and decide in post what looked better, so overall this shoot was simpler than our first shoot. Post the shoot, and into Week 11, I’ve been working on the editing of the film. My aim is to have a rough cut done by Tuesday week 12 to show Jaden and Joey, and we have booked an edit suite to finalise some elements of the film I was unsure about, and to generally get their feedback. I really like the editing process, it is something I have taken to prior to this degree. As this is my first studio I feel I am still adjusting to Premiere Pro as a program, and this larger task has really helped to advance my skills and knowledge. However, it has had gross effects on my laptop and I do not enjoy rendering 45 minutes of footage… I have found, being the sole one editing for the most part without any input, I’ve been able to make a lot of creative decisions, which I feel, for a collaborative film, should probably been made as a group. I don’t think the edit will be an issue, but this is why I want a rough cut done by Tuesday, so that Joey and Jaden’s ideas can be adapted too and the film can be altered, making the final cut inclusive of everyone’s ideas.

Short Film  

How Do Geese See God? has come to look reminds me of a short film my friend once made, as there’s similar content, visual styles, techniques and audio. I wonder if this has been a subconscious inspiration for me in the process of making Do Geese See God. He hadn’t uploaded it anywhere – I uploaded it as Unlisted for the purpose of this blog post – so it’s hard to reference, but for the purpose of credit:

‘Unnamed’ by Olivier Martin (2020).

Bibliography 

Adobe (n.d.) How to crop a video in Premiere Pro, Premiere Pro website, accessed 7 October 2023. https://www.adobe.com/creativecloud/video/discover/crop-video-in-premiere-pro.html 

Oliver Martin (4 September 2020) ‘Unnamed’, Personal Communications.

On Saturday of week 10 we shot the majority of our footage. This consisted mainly of scenes of Jaime, our main character, and Monika, his romantic interest, secluded from the party. As well as some general party scenes where Jaime is isolated. We’re now in the edit process and planning for our shoot with just Jaime on Thursday, where we will shoot the preliminary scenes of Jaime prior to the party. Maybe also some scenes to cut in with the footage that we didn’t get on Saturday, such as Jaime in the bathroom alone, and things that can be edited in to seem like it was shot at the party. This will be easy as we didn’t use the bathroom as a setting at the party and Jaime will be the sole character, so he can wear the same costume.

I was really quite happy with how the shoot went, I’ve never been to, or been a part of a proper shoot before and it was quite fun for me to play around with shots, settings and scenes. We didn’t plan out everything minute by minute, so we had a lot of creative freedom to work with. One thing I would do differently next time I work in a group to make a film, and with general group assignments, would be to define specific roles for each group member prior to the shoot. We had laid out an understanding that everyone would contribute to the scenes, and there were no real limitations to what we could each input, but I felt that it was hard to decide whose creative direction was what we would go with when everyone had input, and especially when there were extras/actors there needing to be directed. I think it caused a bit of delay in shooting, but we got there in the end and we all agreed upon the footage that was shot. It just would’ve been smoother and easier for our extras/guests to conceptualise the scenes if we had had a more clear cut direction.

Additionally, I think the Didos were not the right lighting for our setting, as there were tight spaces, minimal power points and we were mobile with the camera. I felt that it would’ve been easier to use LED light panels to create a more general and even light effect, rather than the direct light that the Didos provided. However, I did like the high contrasts that the Dido provided in some scenes, so maybe it would’ve been better to have both light sources. I’m not too sure about these things and lack experience with equipment, but I just feel that it would’ve been better to have consistent lighting set up around the house, and that would’ve been easier with more light sources.

No real qualms with the process, I had a lot of fun and feel like I learnt a lot. I’m looking forward to our shoot on Thursday, I will try to implement, or more so understand our roles going into the shoot. Although, I think because it’s just one actor it’ll be fine to all contribute, it was just hard/awkward in a setting with multiple others and a lack of direction.

LIVE, LAugh LOVE🍸🍸🍸🍸🍸🍸🍸🍸🍸🍸🍸🍸🍸🍸🍸🍸🍸

Visual Parallels

When choosing these frames, the cinematography of these scenes and even the performances, we followed our intuition and understanding of general human interactions, but in the edit I can see how synonymous these shots are of most coming-of-age romance films or even more generally student films. I feel it’s a big cliche but nonetheless I like how these shots came out, I think they feel sweet and authentic.

Bibliography

Anderson P (director) (2021) Licorice Pizza [motion picture], Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Focus Features, Bron Creative and Ghoulardi Film Company, United States.

Crowe C (director) (2000) Almost Famous [motion picture], Columbia Pictures and DreamWorks Pictures, United States.

Post Pitches

In week 10 we pitched! Yay!

Our pitch went well, with the absence of Joey, and helped me to understand the creative freedom we have with this project. I like the fact that alcoholism doesn’t have to be the tie holding the whole piece together, and rather it can be experimental in its content. It also assured me that our concept is credible and achievable, and hopefully it’ll turn out well!

Pre Party; Planning 🛀🏻

Equipment Borrowed for our shoot on Saturday:

1. Sony FS5 camera
2. Dedo Lights (terrified about the party setting lmao)
3. Boom Mic
4. Zoom Recorder
5. Reflector

Release form for all our guests/extras 🕺🪆

Do Geese See God Personal Release Form

Props to acquire

• drinks…
• ping pong balls
• red cups
• kiddy pool?
• pizza to provide for our guests if were rich & kind enough

Things to note for our guests

• Dido lights are very hot, please stay away from them and have no liquid around them
• Dress colourfully (for colour grading purposes)
• Try not to visually take away from the main character
• Don’t look into the camera

Ciao Bella ! 🪬

Week 9 has been a foundational week for the birth of our concept. We came up with this idea based on our first assignment together, in which we filmed a short where I was speaking backwards and we reversed the footage in an attempt to have what I was saying backwards come out normally. It did not work. We then wanted to create a short film where the ending was at the start, and the whole film played out to be a circle, which did not come to fruition unfortunately. So, we had been working with the backwards theme quite heavily leading up to this assignment, and we decided to develop a film that had the performance acted out backwards and the footage reversed, so that dialogue was not necessary, nor a hindrance.

A Proof of Concept to make this make sense:

We then had a look at some inspiration to see how the theme/content would come across or could be portrayed in a film format:

a. The Worst Person In The World 

• Shows how the main character is performing differently/on a different plane than the other characters but it is accepted as normal by that main character, i.e. she doesn’t pay much attention to it and it isn’t a genre thing (sci-fi, fiction, etc.)

b. Twin Peaks – Red Room

• A kind suggestion by Kiralee, the scene was acted out backwards and reversed. A bit more subtle than what we are going to be attempting but the concept is there and it does look odd in effect.

We then worked on assembling our pitch, conceptualising locations, characters and scenes. Which led us to picking my friend’s house in Brunswick to host a fake party at, given its accessibility and aesthetic. 

We then set a date for filming and sent out invitations for our filming party! Yay!

I found that, because the concept of this film is hard to understand, creating a Pitch and acquiring all the relevant documents made it easier for me to conceptualise the concept of the film and how it would function at its length, and ideally this will be the same for the class. As I’ve never pitched before, nor created a short film, I’ve found this process to be very helpful in adapting and fleshing out an idea, also as an outlet to receive feedback from others and to collate all of our information in one place. Pitching is definitely something I would like to continue to do during my degree, as well as for my own creative projects, as I found it easy to do and yet it yielded great rewards. 

Bibliography 

Greg The Egg (2022) ‘The Worst Person In The World | World At Still’, Greg The Egg, Youtube website, accessed September 20 2023. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NyT2jpyu3VY 

Neverifigor (2011) ‘Twin Peaks – Red Room’, Neverifigor, Youtube website, accessed 20 2023. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u3IrMM0jc9M