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.