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.