Man of Guilt

Reflection:

I hoped for the key engagement of the film to be a representation of not only the difficulty of crafting a fictional western story in the modern day but the complications and challenges that come with the added constraints on top. Our short film ‘Man of guilt’ received a lot of recognition from the studio exhibition held in the screening and i presume it was for the reason of unintentional comedic elements. We originally wanted to evoke emotion and engage the audience in a inspirational way. But i predict that due to our concentration to attempt to make the film emotional heavy, we created a inadvertent comedy. At least that is what i gathered based on the audiences reaction and laughter during the films screening. There were parts where i believe audience members were taken out of the film, maybe due to performances or lack of western elements for viewers to fully invest themselves within the western genre and world. As stated in ‘western film – definition & detailed explanation’ [2024] “Common motifs in Western films include gunfights, horseback chases, saloon brawls, and showdowns at high noon.” Our film didn’t include a lot of these elements which is why i believe it made the film hard to invest as a western. What worked for our film, or at least what was the most successful and well received feedback. Was our film’s cinematography, I believe Helya did such a fantastic job in storyboarding and envisioning a certain style for the film and it shows throughout the final cut. ‘Directors like John Ford used sprawling deserts, wide-open skies, and rugged mountains to craft visually stunning films that emphasized isolation, freedom, and danger.’ I can tell Helya put thought into this quote found in the article  ‘The Legacy of Western Movies in Shaping American Cinema’ in how she could continue to evoke western symbolism within her shots. We all knew that using wide open plains, mountains and forrest’s would capture the feeling of a western. The scenes were shot beautifully and captures the emotional aspects of the film we were looking to detain. I continue to praise Helyas work because of the fact that i believe it upholds our work in terms of cinematography to a good level. There were a lot of masterful angles and compositions that helped carry the film to its completion. On the other hand, in terms of problematic elements. It became increasingly evident that our film lacked efficiency. A good amount of our shooting days ran with smaller groups that disregarded our ability to properly perform and adhere to our shooting schedule.  In co-occurrence, that also paved the way for others to fill in as extras and stand-ins for characters that audience members could tell were played by the same person. In this regard, it took away from the viewers ability to take the film seriously and i believe our scheduling conflicts and difficulties were a result of that. If i were to keep on producing the film, the main thing i would work on is the shooting itself. spending more time on certain scenes so that the film could fit in more of a story that served the characters and plots purpose. aspects such as having a full crew or casting more extras would also help to tell the story more engagingly. Alternatively, i would spend more time in the editing room, working around different ways we could edit the film to fit a more narratively coherent structure. For example. i would include the scenes we saw as a flash back as the introduction to story so that we start with a level of action that could captivate the viewers attention quicker. But that is more of a personal creative choice. One key aspect i can take away from this studio experience is how certain limitations can be used as a focal point for sources of creativity within my film-making process. In a way limitations can pave the way for limitless possibilities for creative narrative or production choices. Using our constraint ‘One glance’ we saw this as a opportunity to tell a story about guilt, about a man who is afraid to come to terms of who he is. Using shots that would hide his face emphasised that element of guilt within the character up until his death where we finally see who he is because (poetically) he sees who he is, through his built connection with Shane. On the other hand using natural lighting served as a a great way to use our environment to our advantage, especially with sunset and sunrise shots piercing through the trees. The natural lighting helped to elevate the tone of a western that we were after. Within a collaborative efforts, one key take away i can say is that communication is the most important collaborative task. Ensuring everyone is up to date with where you are at individually warrants for others to continue their tasks at hand. i always say that communication is the key to any success within a business or team because not only does it allow for a timeline of work to be scheduled but it allows for a team to connect and build a relationship with one another. As stated by Trent Peek in Effective Communication on Set: The Director’s Role in Collaboration; “Effective communication is the lifeblood of any successful film production. It serves as the cornerstone of cohesion, efficiency, and teamwork among the cast and crew.”

Citation:

admin-chaplinfilmfestival (2024). Western film – Definition & Detailed Explanation – Film Genres Glossary Terms – chaplinfilmfestival.com. [online] chaplinfilmfestival.com. Available at: https://chaplinfilmfestival.com/film-genres-glossary/western-film/ [Accessed 8 Jun. 2025].

McCarthy, R. (2024). The Legacy of Western Movies in Shaping American Cinema – Electron Magazine. [online] Electron Magazine. Available at: https://electronmagazine.com/the-legacy-of-western-movies-in-shaping-american-cinema [Accessed 07 Jun. 2025].

GROUP 3 – Man of Guilt

Reflection: Pre production

I don’t usually work on the “non-creative” side of production. What i mean by that is having a job the focuses primarily on the documented and paperwork/ legal work side of a production. For me, this was great experience for me to learn how to take charge in how i can properly organise a shoot and a team to prepare for a film within all its guidelines. I took this as a great learning experience to understand the lengths one goes through in preparing for production of a film, filling in the necessary paperworks was a great learning curve into managing how the days should be run as well as how the safety and time elements should be organised. The most difficult part of the pre-production process was the casting call, we had a lot of difficulty in finding actors to star in our film. it made it extremely more difficult having a kid in our film and trying to work around the legal elements of hiring a child actor. To work around the legal side of working with a kid, it was a convenient choice to get my brother to play ‘Shane’. For the rest, it became easier once we gathered all the connections we collectively had and discussed who would fit each role. This helped save our casting call and audition process a lot of time. However, the pre production stage worked well for us, we were well organised before our shoot and had everything ready including a fully drawn storyboard to help visualise our shots, all documents were printed out, making our production process as smooth as can be.

Reflection: Production

The most difficult part about being a production manager is attempting to align everyones schedules together, we all have conflicted times that made it nearly impossible to organise shooting, meetings and editing shifts. Our initial shooting days worked out perfectly with our team as it was something we had to plan months in advance. The only problem was, that we couldn’t get all shots to be finished within the shooting days we set. Despite attempting to stick to schedule, some shots made were hard to move from, meaning more time spent to create the directors vision. It became difficult after the following days to organise a day where everyone was free to continue shooting. Which meant others had to fill in for certain production roles as well as fill in for acting roles. However this taught me how to adapt within certain situations that deprived us of being fully functional, delegating certain tasks and ensuring we had the opportunity to continue filming allowed us to get the filming done with the constraints that were inevitably pushed upon us. In the end i am proud of how we as team worked around scheduling conflicts and while i wish our outcome was better, i understand that we did the absolute best regarding the situation we were in and am happy that we can walk away at the end of the day with a finalised project that represents the original vision of the film.

Reflection: Post production

With our shots filmed we could finally take them to the editing suite to put together, this was the slower process of our production just because we had a lot to fix up within the edit of our film. What made it even more difficult however was that while our editor Karl was editing the start of our film, we had to shoot what was left. this made it difficult to prepare a proper draft with all our scenes in time for our reflective screenings for feedback. Despite this, we made sure that we would all assist within the editing suites so that we could speed up the process as fast as possible, this meant some of us would edit different sections or scenes and put them together. Ultimately i’m happy with how the final film turned out, there were a lot of complications to deal with. and it didn’t help that mid edit there was an evacuation a day before submission only further delaying our progress. But what mattered was that we pushed through these instances and still managed to deliver a film that we could be proud of on time. I had a lot of fun on top of the load of stress this project brought, but i’m happy with how we as a team handled complications and how dedicated we were within our roles to deliver what we could.

Research Statement: 

Upon reading Chapter 9 of Boardwell, david, tompson and kristins film art- Film genres, page 338 talks about genre mixing and how film-makers can use genre mixing to be innovative in creating compelling and interesting narratives. such as how and i quote “Guardians of the Galaxy found success by treating save-the-
universe space opera as a comic premise”. i want to be able to blend my genres in a unique and captivating way and i think that having comedy as one of my genres opens up that possibility more so. But how can i create a unique narrative with ‘coming of age’ as my sub genre if there are plenty of coming of age dark comedies. i want to be innovative and i thought that the readings example of drama and comedy with ‘ barbershop helped to create that understanding that it could be possible by combining comedy and coming of age with an action flick, a bit of a wild choice, but one that i thought could be interesting to develop and interpret. In the example given in 9.8 the reading states how a dramatic scene incorporates sight gags, inventive insults and scabrous monologues. These elements help to not only solidify but incorporate comedy into a dramatic scene. Upon preparing my script, these comedic elements will help to establish my film as its respective comedy and is something that i will keep in mind to add into my script to ensure comedic tones, while also writing it into a dramatic or serious scene. David leitch is a director i admire in this retrospect because of his ability to make action funny as well as the moments in between the action. But one thing i enjoyed about a certain interview with David leitch in relation to the readings was that genre can often be seen as a social reflection where film-makers will address their films to certain or current modern concerns. I bring this up because in an interview with peter gray, Leitch states that “Part of my conversations with Brad (brad pitt) early on where that we were in the middle of a pandemic and people want to laugh.” and i found that as a interesting way to incorporate a genre into an action movie, the fact that society circumstances positioned Leitch to mix genres helped to bring me a better understanding of not only the readings but genres as a whole. 

Reflection:

Being Given a genre allowed for a strong foundation to build ideas from, ultimately making it an easy task to create an idea. Being given dark comedy and coming of age made it a little bit difficult because I’m not confined to any specific story settings such as how westerns are set in deserts or how period pieces are set in their respected timelines. I had a pretty broad genre to work with where I can incorporate any idea as long as it provoked dark comedy and coming of age feelings, which can be done in almost any setting. My initial thought was to focus on the dark comedy aspects first and prioritise that as my genre. I looked into my favourite films with crude humour. Deadpool, bullet train and super bad came to mind almost immediately, the idea would be how I can use these films to capture my story, themes and of course embody the genres. The idea of a dark comedy allowed for an unhinged amount of creative opportunities to dive into comedy that almost doesn’t have a limit, and it was fun to tap into how far I could go with the comedy. Ofcourse, I didn’t want my film to be offensive so I opted to more visual comedy in the light of violence, and a moment of realisation kicked in where i found that violence seemed to be a running trope in dark comedies, where there would be exaggerated or almost cartoonist violence depicted in a lighthearted or absurd way. And so I thought I would run with that idea. A lot of dark comedy action movies, use violence as almost a punch line (no pun intended) where jokes will be cracked or hits will be thrown in ludicrous ways. Tropes of dark comedies that i found as well were its quick cut aways and fast pacing, similar to Edgar wrights movies. That is the style that i want and found myself wanting to evoke within my script.

Link to script:

Ronin Donnelly – High Steaks draft 2.pdf

Citation:

Bordwell, David, (2023) et al. Film Art : An Introduction, McGraw-Hill US Higher Ed ISE, 2023, p.g 1 – 37, Accessed 4th april. http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/rmit/detail.action?docID=30787546.

Peter gray, (august 4, 2022) Interview: Director David Leitch on fusing the action and broad comedy of Bullet Train; “Bigger doesn’t always mean bad. Accessed 4th april. https://www.theaureview.com/watch/interview-director-david-leitch/

I am eager to be apart of this class looking into how we can use a variety of ‘constraints as creative fuel’. This class draws my attention through how we can use limitations not as roadblocks but rather opportunities to develop something strong. I feel that not only can i apply this into the film-making industry but, that i could also apply this to a range of different fields i have interest in both in a professional and a personal sense. overall, i took this class with the expectation that i can learn a thing or two about film-making but also how i as a person can work around problems or possible limitations in general. Another reason i took this class was to get back into the film-making groove, i had a long period of time where i set aside my aspirations within film to focus on other aspects and priorities in my life. Im wanting to gain my love and passion for film-making back with this class and use this a means to showcase and develop my skills. I’m currently drawn to the role of the director. I have a lot of experience with editing and would confidently say thats my strong suit. But i want to be able to get the chance to show what i can do as a director and helm some projects. i have directed before but its been a while since i have done so within a proper team and with proper equipment. With this class, i want to learn and grow as a director as well as get the chance to showcase and tune what i do know and can do already. Other than that, i do have interest in cinematographer roles, i have a lot of passion for capturing film and setting up shots to portray a scene in the most effective, unique and best looking way.

Workshop Activities:

The first workshop activity i want to talk about was our shooting exercise, within our group of 3 we had a list of certain things that we had to capture. in a way we were already playing with the constraint of what we are meant to film. This meant that we had to think outside the box to try and capture a certain amount of what was required and to add to that we wanted to see how creative we could get. Observing our area allowed us to take in what we could use that would stand out to us when filming, we mostly captured generic shapes that we could find just to get a hang of filming and lining up our shots on the camera. We then got to the exercise of filming someone walking into a space, sitting down and leaving and this is where we wanted to try something a little different. We came to the realisation of instead of having a still camera, we would experiment with tracking shots that could almost evoke the tracking shots used in the tv show, ‘severance’ this allowed for us to take some creative control and see what we could come up with. We were stoked by how good the shot came up was. If we were given a little more time however, we would’ve allowed for proper coordination in where the camera was from the actor but aside from that we were really happy with how it turned out, and we were happy that we got to try something a little different.

C0007.MP4

One of our first homework exercises was to think of 5 different creative constraints that we would have personally implemented in our own previous projects. i thought that this was a fantastic exercise that made me come to the realisation of thinking how i have already implemented constraints as a creative fuel in the past. Below i have a list of some examples where this is the case. some creative self-imposed constraints i have made for myself in the past were to create a minute documentary that was under two minutes, have a one shot take film and only shoot on one location. This exercise allowed me to really think and analyse times where i have had to work through these constraints, the challenges that had occurred and the creative ways in which i could work around certain issues or limitations that had risen. Ultimately this gave me a rough idea on how theclass would run and what sortof things i can expect from this class.

(The initiative post)

https://thecreativeindependent.com/people/filmmakers-joe-denardo-and-paul-felten-on-how-limitations-can-be-inspiring

I recently discovered an article on directors/film-makers Joe Denardo and Paul Felton who directed a low budget thriller called ‘Slow Machine’ they discussed in the article above how working with smaller budgets fosters intimacy and creative problem solving. i love this article because they talk about ways in which financial constraints can inspire or move film-makers to focus on creative ways to work around a budget catering for resourcefulness and heavy collaboration. To me when i read this article i can almost relate the entire conversation to the university experience and therefore this isn’t just relative to the course but to the entire chunk of uni life. University is all about resourcefulness and collaboration, we are not given huge budget to work with, we are only given the resources to creatively pursue avenues that can result in compelling and distinctive cinematic works. The article and conversation on creative constraints also made me think back to writer and director Sam Rami, when he started on his first film ‘Evil dead’ as a university project. He was given a budget of 300,000 but that wasn’t nearly anything to work with, considering the film he managed to produce. With financial constraints, film-makers have the opportunity to think outside of the box in order to maximise the level of budget they have for the film. This was the perfect article to read because it allowed for a sense of relatability. With our future projects there will be little to no money that is put or given towards the budget of our film. we are completely relying on our creative prospect to action out our film similarly to film-makers Sam Rami, Joe Denardo and Paul Felton. In this course i can imagine its about resourcefulness, how we can use what we have around ourselves to create something special. Im looking forward to how i can use constraints to power my film-making process even further to create something special without a matter of financial constraints or other constraints that may come my way.  Im excited to apply these notions forward and get down into the creative process with these possible limitations in mind.

Studio Reflection 

Weird feelings helped us develop critical awareness and a relationship with how we consume and relate to our own and other people’s work/art. I was thrilled and honored to be a part of this exhibition, where I could not only make but also see and experience other people’s unique and creative projects that they were deeply invested in. I always felt immersed in older technology and wanted to integrate that love into my various projects developed throughout the semester. Being able to produce my work centered around what I love helped to make this a fun and enjoyable assignment, but also one I knew I could create and engage with effectively. In terms of engagement, my project looked to help develop a relationship between the sounds I’ve recorded with the audience. When choosing what sounds I wanted to layer onto my cassette, I specifically chose sounds and songs that would appear recognizable to different generations. For example, I included an early 2000’s ringtone. Or arcade sounds from the 80s. Glitching sounds from multiple decades is what I wanted to convey to show that sense of fragility and limitations or restrictions of not only digital but analog technology. In a way this also helped to convey the new aesthetic, observing the connection between how old analog technology connects with newer digital technology and how our relationship with both terms has changed dramatically over time. My project looked to integrate both time periods and ideas of the two types of technology and how distant we have grown from analog technology, and I showed this through the interconnectedness of both technology and its decades of sounds over time. I wanted to somewhat capitalize on the distant feeling we get from digital media nowadays and how we compare that feeling with the analog media we used to consume and connect with in our past. Conveying this feeling through glitching and the new aesthetic helped me develop a better understanding into the time and relationship with had with our older technology and how the new digital era has in a sense taken away a lot of the feelings we used to get from analog, such DVDs compared to streaming. One of the biggest experiments I could take away from before the main project, was experiment 2 ‘take it apart’. Evidently it was also my favorite. Taking apart the Sony Walkman helped me to develop an understanding of the inner workings of older technology and is what gave me the idea to create and experiment with the recordings of digital sounds onto analog technology. That relationship between new and old technology made me feel lost in a way, distant. But being able to get the chance to work on this assignment/project, allowed me to develop a stronger connection with older technology as well as an appreciation of the difference in technology over the years. Because without the development of this technology, my project wouldn’t even exist. I appreciated being able to experience everyone else’s projects and seeing unique ideas being developed over the weeks. While there was little “Collaboration” in the sense where we work on projects together. I felt there were great opportunities to connect with others over their own projects. Sharing advice and criticism that helped to structure our projects. Without these collaborations I wouldn’t have cut out certain parts of my project that could have impacted the final result. In saying that, if I were to continue my media artifact, I would then incorporate the idea that I cut out originally. While my project relied on sound, I originally had an idea to incorporate a video aspect that saw me listening to the sounds I recorded and using AI to visualize those sounds. For the exhibition, I and others felt it would have been too much and i agree. I’m happy with the idea I decided to follow as it focused on more on the audio aspect rather than delegating towards audio and visual. Having a solely audio-based project helped to centralize my idea stronger. I appreciated how much the studio dove into the strangeness of digital media or at least how our relationship with it can be viewed as somewhat strange. Technology has had such a large impact on our lives it can be hard to see what life what be like without these advancements. However, realizing how dependent we actually are with technology is weird and honestly scary sometimes. This course helped to dive deeper into that connection we all have with digital technology and using ways in which we can visualize or fabricate a tangible creation to further convey our understanding or even confusion around this relationship. Moving forward, i think what I’ve learnt, is that it is important for us to have this connection and understanding towards what kind of feelings and relationships we have with technology as whole. Because sometimes, WEIRD FEELINGS can be both hard and interesting to understand.  

Link to Final project: 

https://www.mediafactory.org.au/ronin-donnelly/2024/10/28/what-the-hell-am-i-listening-to/ 

Citation: 

Bridle, James. “The New Aesthetic.” British Journal of Photography, vol. 159, no. 7804, 2012, pp. 66–71 Accessed 27th October 2024 https://jamesbridle.com/works/the-new-aesthetic 

Cameron, A. 2017. 19. Facing the Glitch: Abstraction, Abjection and the Digital Image. Indefinite Visions: Cinema and the Attractions of Uncertainty. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, pp. 334-352. Accessed 27th October 2024 

 https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/9781474407137-022/html#Harvard 

Freer, Scott. “MAGRITTE: THE UNCANNY SUBLIME.” Literature & Theology, vol. 27, no. 3, 2013, pp. 330–44, Accessed October 27th, 2024  https://doi.org/10.1093/litthe/frs056 

Ronin Donnelly

What the hell am I listening to,

(2024)

28:13

I am uploading my Assignment here because there were errors with the file size previously, in other places

Major project

WEEK 8 – Exhibiting media art

Week 9 – Pitch week and progress

Week 10 – Development blog

What the hell am i listening to?

Ronin Donnelly

What the hell am I listening to,

(2024)

42 seconds

By Ronin Donnelly  (2005)

This piece is delicately titled “What the hell am I listening to” because in hindsight, I don’t even know what I’m listening to.  

What the hell is it? My piece dives into an inception of sounds digitally and physically layered on top of physical media. My process included an old cassette tape in its raw condition worn out to the point where the recording almost glitches or sounds deformed. I would take apart the cassette and modify/damage the belt intricately to experiment with certain unknown sounds. Bare with me, but I also intended to layer digital sounds and music on top of the broken cassette. I would then grab that new, unhinged cassette and run that through my computer to modify the recording and then transfer that recording back to the cassette to see what sounds I’ve produced.  

Why the hell am I doing this?  

I love old technology. And based on past readings through my assignments within the semester, I’ve come across loving the idea of blending and comparing how we interact with physical and digital media and the story and passing of time that comparison tells with that. Through experimenting with glitches in both forms of media I hope to tell a story the delves into the past while embracing the present in a WEIRD way

  (Because Stephanie wanted to see my music collection  

The uncanny sublime blends elicit feelings of awe and unease or discomfort. With relation and analysis of the uncanny sublime, i’ve thought about ways in which i can make my project more strange when listening but also evoke that feeling of exhilaration. My thoughts are to include strange noises and sounds/ songs layered within the distorted music. For instance, i found this creepy Ai horror amusement park ad from the 1950s that i want to layer within some of the music on the cassette (i will include the link below). Other ideas i have for the moment will include mixing strange commercial sounds, and mixing the audio in distorted ways. I had originally planned to include a short film segment that integrated ai technology to visualise the sounds that i create. With feedback from Stephane, i’ve decided not to follow through that that part of my project. She was right, including a short film on top of  what i’m already doing would be too much. its better if i focus on the audio part of my assignment since that is the main subject. focusing on too much might take away from my idea and theme i wan to convey. In Maggrite the uncanny sublime Max Ernist points out ‘reproducing only dreams in painting is restrictive and the artist should ‘move freely, boldly and confidently at the borderline between the inner and outer world’. I like the idea of moving freely between two worlds, within my own project i want to highlight the importance of connections within my personal experiences by adding some of my favourite songs and the external reality by telling the passing of time through sounds used in leading decades.

Citation:

Freer, Scott. “MAGRITTE: THE UNCANNY SUBLIME.” Literature & Theology, vol. 27, no. 3, 2013, pp. 330–44, Accessed October 4th 2024  https://doi.org/10.1093/litthe/frs056

When finalising my idea for my final project, i was happy to come to a statement that showcased the intention for ‘the fragility of sound’. After the pitch, i felt confident in my idea and how to execute it properly, despite it being a little confusing as i described it as an inception of sound. I managed to take a look at some of the recommendations  given to me from the pitch and one stood out to me the most. Christian Marclay’s photograms of cassette tapes from the early 1970s and 80s caught my eye with the visual representation she managed to capture. A lot of the photos she took, showed the intricacy and design of the inside of a cassette. Im in awe of the representatio

n she managed to capture with her art and while it’s far from the concept of my own art, i still feel as if i can use her images as a reference for taking apart my own cassette. In saying that i did take apart my own cassette tape to see what iwas working with in terms of my own project. At this current stage i’m looking at ways to record onto the cassette itself as well as roughly what audio choices i want to glitch/integrate into the sounds of the cassette. I found this old ‘little Richard’ cassette that played as if it was already worn out and so i though that would make as a good base sound for my project. Recording over already pre-recorded cassettes is a hassle, companies used to make sure that it wouldn’t be possible by installing a blockage unable for recording equipment to access. This can easily be fixed by putting a piece of tape over where the sound is transferred to.

Citation:

Marclay C. fraenkelgallery|Homepage, Christian Marclay: Cyanotypes. Accessed 25th Septemeber 2024 https://fraenkelgallery.com/portfolios/christian-marclay-cyanotypes