A5 Pt2 Studio Review

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Sienna Macalister’s work and contributions to studio discussions have stood out to me throughout the course of the semester on account of the fact that she not only has industry knowledge, but also a clear desire to participate in this studio to her fullest capabilities and leave the studio with a professional product that she would be able to take into a professional production realm following the conclusion of the semester. 

With regard to Sienna’s contribution to the studio website, an aspect of her contextual writing that stood out to me was her choice to focus on a singular, pivotal moment in her short film script. This idea, as a cinematic approach, is intriguing to me for not only does it some-what break from conventional narrative approaches, which seek to achieve a didactic or emotional effect by the accumulation of several moments, but it gives rise to the possibility of a particular production approach. If a film’s focal point is a singular moment, then the majority of production resources could and should be devoted to that moment of the film. While it is difficult to certainly assert this without having first put this technique into practice, one may assume that this approach would enhance the production efficiency as well as the economic efficiency of a film, for the lesser-significant moments would justifiably be given less attention/resources and would be able to be produced at a lesser expense.

 

In addition to this aspect of Sienna’s work, Boyu made an interesting point about the inspiration for his script that provided new insight into production possibilities. He noted that he looked to everyday moments and books in seeking out subject matter that would be appropriate for a micro-budget production. This step in Boyu’s process led to my realising the potential qualities which may come from a literary approach to production and how these qualities would be suitable for a micro-budget. Particularly, literature typically has a strong attention to detail and a tendency to ruminate on the beauty of small moments without needing to give these moments significance within a larger narrative. This approach could be reflected in a short-film production by providing opportunities for reflection on the beauty of life-like moments (as may be achieved through longer, stagnant shots focusing on a particular subject) and exploiting these moments for the engagement of the viewer. Within the context of producing a film, this could help to achieve engagement without having to go to great expense in producing a film with voyeuristic features, such as special effects, for everyday simplicity could be justifiably prioritised. Essentially, this led to me realising that aestheticism is a useful approach to micro-budget film-making. 

 

In looking through the work of other studios, I came across the work of Dillon McGuinnes and his short essay film, ‘Butcher Bird’. I was absolutely mesmerised by the work and how effectively it was able to engage me, particularly given that the piece was created around a personal essay – something I don’t usually have a strong affinity towards.

 

This piece, and that of the other studio participants, reveals how multi-sensory experiences can enhance pedagogical interactions with work. By relating intellectual pieces to visual and aural qualities, I found myself able to be fully immersed not only in the beauty of the works, but the content. I was therefore better able to engage with the student’s pieces on a conceptual basis.

Further to this, the incorporation of a variety of senses for the purpose of communication allowed for the connotative qualities of those techniques used to further enhance the meanings made by each piece. The language could be dry and academic, however the use of music and visual aesthetics could create a particular mood that would lend the spoken word an emotive quality, thereby allowing said spoken word to achieve a greater depth of meaning.

Ultimately, the key concern that I found to be communicated by this studio was the importance of effective multi-sensory stimulus to enhance the engagement achieved and the meanings made by a text.

Production on a Shoestring – Short Film Report

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EBBS: A MICROBUDGET PRODUCTION

link to script and scene breakdown documents

BUDGET ANALYSIS

This script has been purposefully written so that it may be produced with resources to which I am guaranteed to have cost-free access and be feasibly produced on a micro-budget. In the following budget analysis, I will identify those aspects of the production which I am able to achieve/access cost-free, before breaking down the expenses and the budget estimate for those factors which can not be guaranteed. 

The first major resource to which I have guaranteed access is the set. As it is written, the script is designed to be set in a family-owned house in suburban Western Australia. This mid-century home and its interiors accommodate the comfortable atmosphere which I aim to convey in this short film, has three separate bedrooms (sleeping a total of 6 people), kitchen facilities, toilet facilities, ample parking and furnishings which are appropriate to the atmosphere and environment. As I have family access, this location comes at no cost and allows use of on-site set dressings and props without need for sourcing externally. Additionally, in being a private residence it negates the necessity of public liability insurance. 

The second major means by which the cost of this film will be minimised is through the choice of actors. The script has been written to two friends of mine who are fellow creative arts students on the basis that these friends would be brought on board of the project under time-for-reel arrangements. Thus, with ample catering and reimbursements, actors may be brought on board at no per-hour cost. 

Post-production costs would be similarly minimised. As RMIT provides industry-level post-production softwares, I am able to personally execute colour-grading and basic editing processes without outsourcing. The film is also dependent upon diegetic audio and has no further copywriting, licensing or compositional costs for music/atmos tracks.

The audio is, however, to be one of the larger sources of expense in producing the film as ensuring the quality of the audio track is essential. On the basis of the assumption that a sound technician is to be employed for a 40 hour work week, which includes production and post-production, the employment cost is estimated to be approximately $972 per week. 

Another major cost involved with production of this script is equipment hire. While it is feasible that this film could be produced over 2-3 days, renting an appropriate lighting set, camera equipment, filters and sound equipment comes at a minimum cost of $320 per day. Some equipment may be sourced personally, for example I would be providing my own tripod, however the majority will be rented from an independent company.

Assuming a team of seven people (director/producer, two camera operators, two actors, sound technician and potentially an assistant) and home-prepared meals, a food budget of approximately $280 per day should be provided for. The MEA also recommends fuel reimbursements for staff, the cumulative cost of which as advised being $146 in total. In addition to this, while it is possible to source wardrobe free of charge (purchase and return) or at minimal expense (thrifted clothing/self-sourced), a costume budget of $200 should be accounted for in case of the event of damage to returnable items or other unforeseen costuming expenses. 

 

For further budget specifications , please see the table below. 

*note: Make-up application quoted from industry practitioner. See references for further.

 

CREATIVE INTENTION

The simplicity of the script which I have written initially was born from stylistic and thematic preferences as opposed to budget considerations. I tend towards a life-like realism in cinema, as in the likes of Kelly Reichardt’s Certain Women, Louis Malle’s My Dinner with Andre and the work of Woody Allen. I am interested in the delicate ways in which understated realism engages in social contexts. 

 

The short, rhythmic drama film, Ebbs, involves the conversation between two young female students relating to their favourite musician, Ebbs. Their conversation lacks clear direction,  presents as jocular chat between two intimate friends and leads to the realisation of their relationship to their practise as musicians. Creative decisions behind the film are targeted at supporting a warm atmosphere and creating an intimate environment, while also supporting a sense of anticipation so that a progressive quality is sustained. This is achieved by two principle avenues; visual choices and aural choices.

The majority of the film will consist of the same technical set-up. This involves the camera being set up directly across from the two characters, warm tungsten lamps as part of the mise-en-scene and the use of a tungsten 3-piece light set. This technical approach leads to a compositional consistency and simplicity, which draws upon the likes of Wes Anderson, whose rigid-feeling cinematography and tendency for visual repetition has an innately nostalgic tone and sense of warmth. This cinematographic technique also serves to benefit the efficiency of film production. The lighting and camera set up is able to remain unchanged for the majority of shooting. Similarly, montage sequences will include the same types of shots on various occasions throughout the film, allowing for similar shots to be taken successively and reducing the amount of time spent setting up technical equipment. This allows the majority of the film to be shot in adjacent takes without having to spend time rearranging equipment and therefore may significantly reduce the production schedule. 

While this visual approach is intended to create comfort, the aural approach targets discomfort and tension. Consisting entirely of diegetic audio, the audio-scape will be designed to lend the film a musical quality through the rhythm of the on-site audio effects. Extending the approaches of films such as Edgar Wright’s Baby Driver and Damien Chazelle’s Whiplash, these aural rhythms are designed to mimic song, create tension throughout the course of the film and, through the psychological implications of rhythmic variations, support the engagement of the audience by building and releasing tension. Furthermore, as noted in my budget analysis, this minimises the costs of music production/licensing for the film.

The casting of the film similarly involves an intention to support the ease and invitational qualities which are being sought. Into the script I have written two friends with whom I am close. This choice initially was born from the want to base my characters on real people so that I would have a strong creative resource for writing authentic dialogue; I was drawing upon their personalities and their speech patterns in creating their characters. It was then later realised that the inclusion of these people themselves could assist in supporting that delicate relationship to historical contexts previously mentioned, as their modern young women within a mid-century environment opens the film up for some political discourses, but because the two are friends in life would convey a genuine sense of comfort and relatability between the two as characters within the film.

Finally, the film is set in a mid-century Australian house. This choice was made so as to support the relationship between a historical musician and the young women, who each come from vastly different historical periods, and the social commentaries which extend in their relevance beyond the period in which the film is set. This choice is also, as detailed in my budget analysis, a major point of economic efficiency.

 

REFLECTION

The fundamental concern of the studio Production on a Shoestring was the investigation of how one might go about producing a short film piece on the smallest feasible budget. Particularly, students were prompted to write a screenplay and production plan which would be achievable within a budget of $5k. 

My final work was designed largely around maximising production efficiencies and thereby minimising production costs. I hope that what is evidenced in my final work is an awareness of the importance of a highly efficient production schedule for the reduction of the overall expenses of production. The piece, which I have designed and planned to be produced over three days, minimises the load of per-day expenses involved in film production, such equipment hire and staff employment rates, so as to ensure that it would fit well within a $5k budget.

 

One of the core things that I would like to improve about this film is the mise-en-scene. Within the studio considerations, I chose to keep the mise-en-scene as minimal as possible, using only on-site furnishings, so as to ensure that an analysis/breakdown of the budget would have sufficient room for other miscellaneous buffers. However, in order to sell the film and have it be more believable, it would be my preference to spare greater expense on the set dressings and aesthetic considerations.  While I acknowledge that this is not necessary to the film, nor is it necessarily a source of great expense, the budget accommodations which would be required in order to achieve such would not only need to be flexible, but would also demand a considerable portion of the 5k budget. Moving into the production of this script, I would assume a slightly larger budget and therefore be able to allocate more funds to art department expenses and set expenses.

 

One of the key challenges which I overcame in this studio was the simplification of my ideas. This is a general challenge which I have been facing in my creative endeavours and media-making practise, as I tend to extend my ideas beyond the resources and affordances available to me, however I have come to appreciate the value of minimalism. The process of producing a script for this studio was the most extreme example of minimalism which I have attempted and I believe that it is also my most successful.

 

REFERENCES

Baby Driver (2017). [film] USA: Edgar Wright

Certain Women (2016). [film] USA: Kelly Reichardt

(2021). Equity Minimums 2020 [pdf]. Available at: meaa.org/download/mppa-summary-2022/ [Accessed: 25 Apr 2022]

(2022). Location Equipment Cinematography Services. [online] locationequipment.com. [Accessed: 25 Apr 2022]

(2022). Motion Picture Production Agreement (MPPA) Full Summary 2022 [pdf]. Available at: meaa.org/download/mppa-summary-2022/ [Accessed: 25 Apr 2022]

My Dinner with Andre (1982). [film] USA: Louis Malle

Whiplash (2014). [film] USA: Damien Chazelle

 

Analysis and Breakdown of a Micro-budget Short Film Script

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‘Anyone There?’ – A Micro-budget Production

 

Budget Analysis

The script as is written poses some significant challenges to budget. In order to make the film more viable for a micro-budget, there are some key changes required. 

The first challenge is the location, the difficulties of which are detailed by P. Hardy in Filming on a Micro-budget. As per the script, the shoot would take place on a desert road without public interference and a large manor. Bearing in mind Hardy’s suggestions, some the of the difficulties in finding an appropriate location may include that the site itself would likely be expensive to rent, may entail costs related to permissions and permits, would need to be a considerable distance from the city in order to meet the requisite visual qualities thereby entailing travel and accommodation expenses, and/or safety officer requirement for shooting beside a public road. Shooting across multiple locations and therefore days may be required in order to achieve both roadside and manor scenes, therefore multiplying fees associated with extending the production timeline (hire costs, staff costs, accommodation costs, etc.). In order to mediate these expenses, the shooting location could instead be a South-West coast Australian house. These houses are within 1-2 hours of Perth city, are not open to public access nor near main roads, are inexpensive to rent per night, serve as accommodation and often have long private driveways. While these houses reside within lush bush locations, and therefore would not match the aesthetics of the script, it would allow for shooting to take place entirely on one location, minimising many of the aforementioned costs and increasing production efficiency.

The second challenge imposed by this script is related to the impact of sound requirements upon both production and post-production, the expense of which was discussed extensively during classes. The script involves a considerable amount of audio which would need to be recorded either on site or by a foley artist; the sounds of the fuel tank, ticking watches and bike bells. Further to this, quality effects such as footsteps, doors opening and closing, clothing rustling, breath and buzz track will be required in order to sell the remoteness of the location and support the suspense of the film. By removing those aspects of the script which require particular sound effects, particularly the bike bell, watch and doors opening, the amount of time and thus cost associated with sound production could be reduced.

Lighting considerations may be another means by which this film’s budget can be minimised. Should one use natural light sources in tandem with reflectors and diffusers as opposed to artificial light then this film could be produced to a high visual and stylistic standard without needing to hire lighting equipment. A lighting assistant would be required, however the total cost of lighting would be significantly reduced.

There are some other measures which may be taken to further minimise costs; lack of music would nullify licensing/commissioning expenses, an actor could be employed under a performance for reel footage agreement, blocking out windows for interior scenes would allow them to be produced at any time of day thereby shortening the production schedule, set dressings may be able to be sourced for free from verge-side collections and costume duplicates could be sourced from inexpensive stores such as Best&Less.

 

 

Creative Statement

Anyone There? is an emotionally complex and intensely suspenseful thriller that examines the interplay between memory warping, guilt and the experience of emotional trauma. I propose some key adaptations that will both reduce the cost of production processes and support the emotional complexities of the film.

Michel  J. Duthin’s original script calls for a middle-aged, overweight man. While this is a reasonable choice within the film thematics, as it allows for the piece to explore the experience of fatherhood in terms of retrospection and emotional turbulence, the specificity of the script limits the casting choices significantly. Instead, this character could be cast as a 20-something individual. This would come with some considerable changes to the implications of the script; where the man visits what one is led to assume is his child’s former bedroom, engage with outdated relics of his own family and reminisce on his experience of fatherhood, the protagonist would instead be visiting their childhood bedroom. As opposed to reminiscing on an outdated family life from the perspective of a maturing father the lead would instead be doing so from the perspective of an adult who has outgrown their childhood. This would allow the film to consider the experience of familial estrangement that comes with growing into adulthood. Although not reflecting those ideas which arise from the representation of fatherhood, such still aligns with the core of the film’s themes and allows for the film to express and utilise psychologies of memory warping and emotional trauma with respect to familial life, however does so through the lens of an experience which is more universal and therefore appeals to a greater audience diversity.

The production of this film, instead of being a manor down an abandoned country road, would take place on the common mid-century Australian houses of South-Western Australia. These houses, seen in the likes of Breathe (2018), are typically outdated and somewhat decrepit in appearance. In these houses being architecturally outdated, the use of these kinds of locations further supports the idea that the protagonist is revisiting a previous time. Where the character is cast as a youthful individual, the dissonance in the age of the protagonist and that of their environment creates a sense of temporal displacement that makes ideas of revisitation and memory blatant, thereby supporting the examination of memory warping within the film. 

The film is to be produced so as to be dependent upon natural light and use of reflectors/diffusers to create a surreal yet authentic visual appearance. The use of predominantly natural light sources (ie. outdoor lighting, candles, etc.) borrows from photographic techniques seen in the works of artists such as Petra F. Collins; by using natural light and several reflectors, subjects are made to appear luminous and with an almost unrealistic clarity that distinguishes them clearly from a purely naturally lit background. This lends images produced in this way a dream-like appearance. Where the film’s concerns are trauma, re-memory and memory warping, the use of this lighting technique and the surreal visual qualities it produces would emphasise further enhance the presentation of a partial reality being experienced largely through memory and, in being visually unusual and therefore unsettling, would support atmospheric tension. 

(Petra F. Collins: reflector use)

 

 

Reflection

While it has been easy to consider budgets in a very vague and hypothetical sense during tutorials and class discussions, having to apply these discussions was a valuable learning exercise for it revealed to me that there are particular aspects of production costs which are more interrelated than I had realised, and how these interrelated costs drive the expense of production up rapidly. I came to realise this when considering the location requirements of the film and how such may extended the production schedule, initially in isolation (ie. hiring out locations and location permits), however quickly found myself also considering the immediate secondary costs of location such (eg. transport and/or accommodation), then soon thereafter tertiary costs (eg. equipment hire and staff costs). This process involved me combining the class discussions on the costs of individual aspects of production in a pragmatic sense which, ultimately, revealed to me that one of the most effective ways to economise film production is to minimise the amount of time a film spends in production. 

In a more general sense, applying vague and hypothetical knowledge was a considerable challenge when completing this assessment as I found that it was difficult to evaluate the potential production costs and feasibility of a micro-budget for this film. While I realise that production costs vary to the extent that it is not reasonable to discuss them in specific terms, I was unable to quantify and therefore decisively analyse production economics. While I worked around this for this assignment by approaching my discussion in the same way as our class discussions, I wasn’t able to fill this gap in my knowledge during my completion of this assignment.

Working with Anyone There? has made me aware of the importance of simplicity when composing a film piece for a micro-budget; the more simple a script it, the fewer the production variables and the less likely costs are to accumulate beyond an affordable budget. Moving forward, simplicity will be a cornerstone consideration.

 

REFERENCES

Breathe. (2018). [film] Australia.

Hardy, P. (2012). Filming on a Microbudget. Harpenden: Oldcastle Books. pp. 36-70

Production on a Shoestring – First Reflection

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STUDIO GOALS, AIMS, DESIRES

My choice to participate in this studio relates to the fulfilment of the goals and aims which I hope to achieve through the completion of the Bachelor of Communications (Media) at RMIT. The degree, which I selected for the option to participate in a Cinema Studies minor, I hoped would provide me with an opportunity to develop my theoretical skills in cinematic analysis while also gaining some experience in film and media production. Upon the completion of my degree, I hope to be comfortable enough in my skill set that I could comfortably apply for work opportunities involving film and television production.

To date, however, while I have had some experience with production, various limitations have led to the vast majority of my experience involving remote production techniques. Where in previous years similar units and courses would have provided the opportunity to gain practical skills with equipment in hands-on environments, my experience of these units has involved me using iPhones and lesser quality recording equipment in hope of achieving similar professional outcomes. 

While the remote production experience has allowed me to develop other technical skills, particularly post-production skills, in order to achieve my portfolio aims I now feel the need to pursue projects independently of the university course offering. To gain practical and genuinely professional short film-like content for my portfolio, I will need to endeavour to achieve such in my own time. The experience which I have acquired, however, has not allowed me to become familiar with the pragmatic aspects of production. I do not have an understanding of pre-production and production processes adequate enough to be able to execute portfolio tasks in my own time.

I hope that my participation in this studio will fill that gap. Through this studio and its focus on the pragmatic elements of film and media production, I am seeking some insight into the processes required of me in order to be able to effectively plan and pursue future projects, particularly where these projects will most likely be self-funded and therefore have considerable financial constraints. Further to this, I hope that through workshopping a hypothetical project I will be able to complete the studio with a near industry level script that I can continue to develop in my own time and, eventually, put into production as a project for addition to my portfolio.

 

RECENT LEARNING

I had a very limited view of what micro-budget film production would present itself as prior to engaging with the exercises of the studio. My expectations were such that the professional quality and overall standard of micro-budget productions would be considerably lesser than that of the cinema that I was familiar with. These preconceptions were developed as a consequence of my interactions with the exploitation cinema of the 1960’s, which was generally of a very minimal budget with which I struggled to engage with or have an affinity to.

 

As part of our tutorial exercises, the participants were invited to watch micro-budget films and consider what the production processes of these films might have entailed. It wasn’t until we watched and unpacked Chloe Zhao’s film, The Rider (2017), that I came to realise the extent to which my preconceptions of the micro-budget film were misinformed. Prior to viewing the film, I had assumed that micro-budget productions would always bear an amateur-like quality. Not only did this film not have said quality, but I found myself deeply engaged with the film as a viewer, to the extent that I forgot I was supposed to be watching with an awareness of the fact that I was watching a micro-budget film. In addition to this I had not prior to our tutorial committed myself to any further research into the budget and financial constraints of the film, nor the measures taken by Zhao in order to minimise the production expenses of the piece. 

Upon my realisation of the budget of the piece, my expectations of micro-budget cinema were drastically reshuffled. It was revealed that the ideas I had pertaining to the micro-budget had me holding onto the belief that the produced films would possess an amateur quality which would inevitably make the film appear unprofessional and therefore would not be able to sustain an audience’s engagement as a serious cinematic and/or artistic piece. Thus, I realised in watching and inspecting the production of the film that a small budget is not synonymous with an unprofessional film. There is a point at which a budget may be small enough that the technical aspects of a film may need to be subject to some sacrifice, however there are many available affordances which allow one to maintain the professional integrity of a film without the budget that is provided to larger productions. 

 

Further to this, I hadn’t anticipated that single-location films may still afford a wide array of creative liberties and opportunities. Another film we were invited to watch as part of the studio was Rodrigo Cortes’ film, Buried (2010), however in viewing this film we were also asked to consider the ways in which the film could have been produced within a micro-budget. While the actual production budget ended up being two million dollars, the initial production models saw the film costing roughly five thousand. 

Similarly to how I approached my viewing of Zhao’s film, upon reading the premise of the film I hadn’t anticipated that I would be able to feel a sense of sustained engagement with the plot on account of the fact that I’d imagined the cinematography, plot and other cinematic techniques to be repetitive and uninteresting. My expectations were low but far exceeded. Despite the spacial confinements of the film, it undergoes a progression in the filming techniques used that replicates a change in setting – stating with predominantly extreme close-up and point of view shots, before moving into some panning and zooms within the box and eventually even a pan away from the box so that it recedes into field of blackness, each change in the filming technique refreshing the viewer’s perspective and understanding of the space.

This has revealed to me that, while I had assumed single-location films and shoots would come with unavoidable cinematographic hindrances, the diversity of the cinematography that is available to the film-maker is not actually subject to limitation, but can still be both creative and interesting should one have some flexibility in their creative thinking. This realisation was furthered by later viewing of the short film Krista by Danny Madden, in which the film features a bathroom scene where a character speaks to themselves in the mirror, shot with the camera slightly canted, close-up and at a low angle. The shot is unusual for the film conventions, particularly of that kind of location, and reveals in a less extreme environment the potential for visual diversity in locations that may seem to be difficult to create sustained visual interest within. 

 

RESEARCH – RELEVANT FILM THEORY

I began my research seeking out further information on production, however eventually found myself reading on film theory and critical understandings of what it means to make an amateur film, the line which distinguishes an amateur film from a professional film and how an audience’s engagement is affected by a film’s perceived professional quality or lack-there-of. My learnings in this process I think have prompted me to consider theoretical questions which will later guide my thinking in pre-production considerations as we move forward in the studio. 

The majority of my reading related to the film theory of Andre Bazin and a philosophical discussion of what it is that a film seeks to achieve. For the purpose of the essay which I focused on, Andre Bazin of the Ambiguity of Reality, writer Pierre Solin focuses his analysis of Bazin’s critical work on the notion of realism on account of the fact that Bazin’s cinematic philosophy was such that he believed photography and film to be the only means by which reality could be adequately captured and translated. Consequently, Bazin often determined the value of a film on the basis of the degree to which the film met the standards of realism. This notion however is difficult to consider in a black-letter sense due to the fact that it assumes that there is a definitive and definable ‘reality’ and rejects ideas of subjective experiences of reality. 

While this discussion is largely anachronistic, as Andre Bazin wrote predominantly on French cinema during the mid-century and the modern cinematic landscape, common themes/genres, and technical practices produce cinema that does not necessarily perform mimesis, it brings to light questions of how one can achieve a film that feels realistic, and explicates the importance of a sense of cinematic reality in creating a film. For the purpose of this blog post, I am going to focus primarily on film which is designed to feel as though it is taking place in our real world as opposed to a fantasy world. People who produce films for the purpose of creating a realistic environment have the ability to “modify the real” (Solin, 113) and therefore have the responsibility of determining what is required in order to replicate a reality effectively. 

Where later philosophies of reality and film theory relating to the cinematic experience acknowledge the subjectivity of the experience of reality, one is left wondering how best to recreate a biassed representation of reality so that it not only feels genuine but also is able to be appreciated by the masses. Low-budget film may be at a particularly high risk of falling into representations of reality that are not quite adequate enough to create a believable cinematic environment, due to the fact that limited financial resources may lead to sacrifices and shortcomings in production. Those shortcomings lie in sets, actors employed, audio quality or any other aspect of production and may ultimately impact the overall quality of the film, the ability of the film to create a sense of real and therefore audience engagement. 

While this particular vein of my research didn’t provide me with any practical knowledge that I can apply to upcoming projects or script writing throughout the course of this unit, it has led to my being more acutely aware of just how important it is to be aware of the fact that, as a film-maker, I act as a modifier of a reality, whether that be mimetic or not, and it is important to make considered choices in this modification process in order to create a sense of reality that is engaging and believable.

 

REFERENCES

Buried. (2010). [Film]. USA. Rodrigo Cortes.

Krista. (2020). [Film]. Danny Madden.

Solin, P. (2016). Andre Bazin, or the Ambiguity of Reality, In: The Major Realist Film Theorists: A Critical Anthology [online]. Edinburgh University Press, pp 110-122. Available at: http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.3366/j.ctt1bh2k1w.

The Rider. (2017). [Film]. USA. Chloe Zhao.

ASSIGNMENT #4

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OBSERVATIONS

women stepping outside

time to go home

reid library

spring snow

sunday morning

the skeleton statue

Les at dinner

 

REFLECTIONS

 

reflection one

reflection two

reflection three

reflection four

reflection five

 

PRODUCTION – LINKS AND REFLECTIONS

reflections on presentations

reflecting on the finished piece

reflecting on the finished piece

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1ebFEH0OHwqBFTWV6EZVyGrghx3Z7mPkg?usp=sharing

reflecting on the finished piece

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Finished project may be found at the following link:

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1ebFEH0OHwqBFTWV6EZVyGrghx3Z7mPkg?usp=sharing

 

Now, having finished my final production piece for this unit, I find it important to address how my process and learning as I undertook this process was defined by two principle elements; the means by which I sought to achieve my conceptual aims and how adapting production plans impacted the final product.

In beginning the production of this piece, there were a few considerations which were forefront in my mind and I wished to explore; temporal relations, habitual ways of thinking and context. Within my short piece, I attempted to address these to the best of my ability. While I believe that these ideas may have been explored to a greater extent, there were some elements in which I believe I was successful in my exploration. Particular to this is how sound relates to the visual image throughout the course of the film piece and those effects which arose as a consequence of the soundscape. Not only did I choose to employ a non-diegetic sound, but non-diegetic sound that was pertinent to the on-screen events without being a product of or synchronous to such. I feel that this was an important element. Where the speed of the visual image varies drastically throughout the course of the piece, the use of a consistently and realistically paced audio accompaniment assisted in grounding the visual image to a linear progression and therefore gave rise to a sense of real-time. In this, I feel also that the exploration of assumptions and habitual ways of thinking was made to be more effective, for the image, in being bound to a linear timeline, was made to appear as a natural progression as opposed to a discordant series of shots and appeared to reflect the fluidity of thought processes to a greater extent. Thus, where the shots are faster-paced, they present themselves as more fleeting thoughts whereas shots at a slower pace are those which are subject to greater consideration or experience. Where my goal was to explore habitual ways of thinking and assumptions, I believe this enabled the establishment of an experience and an after-thought which facilitated the representation of the process of thought and of making assumptions.

However, the audience is not invited to project/employ their own habitual ways of thinking throughout the course of the film to a great extent. Assumptions pertaining to the behaviour and potential intentions of the subject are made explicit and the audience is left little room to assume events. That said, the audience is still encouraged to assume the context of the events with which they are presented; it was a choice to encourage the act of assuming by removing sources of context such as dialogue, even when the subject is speaking, and promote the assumptions including assumed communications by having the subject seen to be on their phone. In alluding to another present individual/character, I believe the audience is effectively able to consider some of their own assumptions and how these assumptions relate to the visual image. 

That said, while I sought the address of these key areas of contemplation of the role of film, I feel that the product suffered somewhat from the lack of clear direction when engaging in the first stages of planning and producing the piece. As mentioned in my previously reflections, this derived largely from the necessity for abrupt and drastic change to production plans and difficulty in finding an avenue by which my observational writing process could be meaningfully related to my film-making processes. I feel that this is reflected in the quality of my film, particularly the visual images, which although organic appear somewhat random and careless. While I enjoy the organic character, I feel that if I had a greater sense of direction from the outset when it came to early production phases I may have been able to acquire more compositionally interesting and/or competent images.

reflections on presentations

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During class 2 of week 9, each student was assigned the task of presenting their experimental film piece as it was at that time to the tutorial group. That of Sufeeya was particularly striking and noteworthy to me. Sufeeya’s presentation itself was effortless, organic and unpretentious and due to this was a generally pleasant experience; she excelled in being authentic and not excessively pampering to what may have been perceived as enhancing the measurable value of her presentation against a marking key. 

While this enabled Sufeeya’s presentation to be fundamentally engaging, it is the exploration of what was presented that allowed it to be striking. Sufeeya’s film piece to that date was magnificent and incredibly well-formed, yet refreshingly simple. Similarly to the presentation itself, her single-shot film piece appeared to have been an effortless attempt at capturing her world. Yet, despite the perceived effortlessness, her piece exhibited a craftsmanship in even the most simple of its aspects; the composition of the still shot was beautiful and from a purely photographic perspective was technically excellent for both the purpose of aesthetic qualities and audience appeal. Her audio reflected the production conditions and had a home-made quality, yet it was exactly this that enabled such to be of interest. Sounds flowed freely in a largely undivided soundscape which emulated the auditory experience of being a few rooms over from a household activity in a realistic and immersive fashion that was an excellent compliment to the image.

Sufeeya’s choice to inform the class of the intentions of her film piece after the presentation was an interesting choice with respect to the reveal of the context of the piece but also exhibited a great and inspiring depth in the degree of her consideration for what may be thought of as minor details and technicalities. Her discussion exposed how these features may have a much greater cumulative effect than one might anticipate. Of particular note in this discussion was the clear intention of emotional implications which were associated with her composition of the shots and how these implications then informed decision making in post production, such as colour grading. In this, Sufeeya’s presentation also revealed how the timing of the introduction of context may bear considerable weight with respect to the engagement of the audience and their ability to effectively comprehend the piece. I found that it was due to the fact that the context and intended effects of the piece were presented to me after viewing the piece itself that I was able to engage in her video piece in an entirely uninhibited fashion, while the later context deepened my appreciation for her work.

Sufeeya’s observational style differs considerably from my own and has developed in an alternative fashion to that of mine throughout the course of the semester (or at least such appears to be the case in what I have seen of her writing). Her work displays a thoughtfulness and self-assurance in her decision making in the creative outlets which she has explored as part of the Translating Observation unit. Within the context of her practise, her cinematic style and simplicity seems to correlate well with the perspectives and perceptions of her environment that are reflected in her observational writing. At this stage, I feel that our style’s differ too considerably for me to be able to effectively appropriate and adapt those qualities of Sufeeya’s practise in my own as they are currently not immediately applicable to my style and methodology, or otherwise applicable in a way that I feel would be genuine or true.

That said, I do take considerable inspiration from how Sufeeya contextualised her video piece and hope to be able to apply this realisation of the importance of the timing of context to my own work.

reflection at midway

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As of current, the footage from my practical work has begun to unfold and evolve so as to become its own piece and adopt its own characteristics. I have been attempting to be as malleable and as open to working with the footage sourced as opposed to the idealistic product which was in mind in order to produce a piece that feels organic and true to the talent filmed.

In the first stages of the editing process, the necessity for a dynamic relationship between goals and products had been revealed. Such has been revealed principally by the fact that the circumstances of production, particularly sourcing footage, differed considerably from what I had anticipated they were to be. In my project, I had three avenues by which I had intended to potentially engage in the exploration of the potential of film and divergence from ‘conventional’ methodology; temporal relations between events, habitual ways of thinking and context (these are detailed further in a presentation script found here) and sought to do such through the construction of the audience’s response independently of explicit narrative or narrative structure. Such was to take the form of the filming of a young woman holding flowers wandering the streets, as was inspired by the following image.

In light of these ideas and my strong visual inclination to the aesthetics of this image, I had hoped to recreate the overall aesthetic in a fashion that would be as true to my inspiration as possible, then allow the course of the progression of the piece to evolve around a theoretical observation which was written in response to this visual inspiration. Talent was selected accordingly, just as were aims of shooting set out and thoughts as to how best to approach shooting so as to allow such to produce footage that would be as true and organic for the talent as was possible. However, not only did I found myself faced by the challenge of important self-imposed deadlines for production, but I also was put into a position of having to work with a different talent whose persona, demeanour and general character felt to me as though it was discordant with the initial goals of footage and shooting. Such was an important factor on account of the fact that, in order to maximise engagement and perceived authenticity, I had hoped that the behaviours and the manner of the character would be reflected in the events as truly as was possible and sought to then manipulate these events for these goals. In light of this, a fair amount of the footage which was acquired lacked this sense of authenticity as I had insufficient time to adapt my plans for shooting so as to be more appropriate for my talent. Those shots in which the talent is directed to a greater extent towards my initial aims appear falsified and are therefore not effectively engaging. 

In response to this, I have been invited to slightly alter the trajectory of the project and abandon some of those plans which I had initially made for myself in order to better reflect the tone which emerged in response to the alternative circumstances of production. The aim of this change is to be able to complement and expand upon this tone in a way that is ultimately more meaningful and may serve as a better facilitator for the exploration of the previously mentioned points of interest.  

reflection five

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In recent classes we were invited to more actively consider the importance of sound and how such may be a powerful tool in creating meaningful cinema, particularly when our expectations of what sound ‘should’ present itself as are disrupted. While our discussion of such in class pertained more explicitly to the inclusion of sound, since said discussion I have been considering the possibility of the exclusion of sound and how silence may be employed in an engaging fashion. I feel as though such may not be done without some degree of sound, for example at the beginning and end of a piece, due to the fact that an expectation for sound is so deeply ingrained that it is essential in order to establish audience engagement; even in early cinema, music was quickly incorporated as ambient sound for the purpose of enhancing the viewer’s investment in the image. However, the exclusion of sound may be used to emphasise certain moments and invite the audience to question their acceptance of the image with which they are presented. This has been demonstrated by the film Only God Forgives (2013), in which director Nicholas Winding Refn has allowed silence to prevail on two occasions during the film. Such was to the effect of emphasising barriers to communication between characters, inconsistencies between perspectives and the emotional qualities of the image presented. Ultimately, the viewer is invited to reflect upon their own understanding of the characters and plot at the moment of silence as they search for the reason for the silence. While these moments within the film are ineffectual in isolation, within the context of the film as a whole they are powerful and exploitative of their disruptive effect with respect to the audience’s expectations. I feel that noting the power of silence within this film is worthwhile in the context of the use of sound, particularly where said use is contrary to expectations, as it highlights the importance of the careful employment of sound and draws into light that sound does not need to create meaning in visual images but is a powerful tool when used to enhance the meaning of images.

reflection four

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Further to my previous reflection relating to the impacts and success or lack there of observational writing as an experiment, I find myself now at a point of uncertainty regarding how to make some aspect of my approach to observational writing applicable to my approach to film-making both for the purpose of the experimental film task and for the purpose of my wider film-making practise. I find it necessary in this to consider the processes which define my methodology, particularly the sources of inspiration, for each, as well as how each has been subject to growth/change over the course of this semester.

Initially, in seeking content and inspiration for observational writing, I found myself noticing potential sources of inspiration only when I felt that as though there was a strong element of visual beauty attached to the observation or the moment at which the observation was experienced. This visual beauty did not necessarily need to be an important part of the event itself, but was a key point of attraction and attachment to the event. Those experiences and observations which were lacking in the visual component by which I was compelled were entirely disregarded as subjects for my writing. In light of this, many (but not all) of my initial observations were driven by this visual element of experience and my own perceived quality of my observations was defined by the degree to which I considered the event to be photographic. While this visual emphasis has remained an important quality throughout and my observations are still often realised by their photographic potential, the photographic potential of an event is no longer integral to the realisation of an observation. It is instead my own retrospective obsession with an event that has become of importance in realising inspiration. Should I continue to turn an event over in my mind following its being experienced, I consider it a significant experience and this a worthwhile observation to write about. This shift in the process of sourcing content has also facilitated growth and change in my writing process. Due to the fact that I find myself thinking about an observation for a considerable period of time prior to writing about the observation, I am able to consider in depth the most important aspects of that observation, the tone, the context and how best to recreate an experience on the basis of such. This is not a process in which I find myself feeling well-accomplished, however this process of refinement of inspiration is a path which I hope to address in an immediate sense in the future for the purpose of exploring its relationship to and impact upon the work produced.

What inspires me to make a film or a video-format piece of media is embedded in aesthetics to a much lesser extent. The aesthetics are a secondary consideration that are built in support of the subject/content of the film piece. It is the representation of human behaviour and the exploration of such that is typically central to my decision of whether content is worthwhile and thus what is inspirational. Particularly in film/video, I am fascinated by people, peoples’ obsession with people, and people’s obsession with other people’s ways of thinking, all of which relates to representation and interpretation. I find myself captivated by quirks and seeking to emphasise things that break from normality so as to engage in a subsequent reflection of preconceptions of ‘normal’. This process is typically grounded in capturing a literal reality to a much lesser extent than is the case of my observational writing processes thus far. In pursuing these counter-normative aspect of people and behaviour, I find myself investing in the subjective as opposed to the objective, and building a subjective representation of a subject and/or a reality accordingly, thus prioritising the task of representing reality over the replication of reality whereas in observational writing I am more concerned with the replication of reality. This approach often involves the use of various forms of media and/or styles within the selected mediums (ie. collage and non-literal visual accompaniment to dialogue). Within the context of this unit, however, I feel that my stylistic approach to film-making has become increasingly concerned with a literal reflection of reality, particularly in recreating observations, in response to the process of observational writing as being a process embedded in said reality to a significantly greater extent.