Reflection

In this subject I have developed and improved skills in using the editing software, Final Cut Pro. By using the program, we were able to collate film and photography and edit them in the way we wanted. I have also learnt different types of film techniques and the formal name for them as well as being able to use these techniques. Something I didn’t think I would learn in this subject was knot tying, which became helpful in our final video where we had to secure a number of strings to different spaces. When we had an idea of what we wanted to do, we came up with the question “What does it mean to suspend in space?”, we thought about different ways to suspend string and how to tie them. We all practiced half hitch knots across one arm of a chair to another, creating various string suspending in air across each other.

An interesting part of this project was location scouting where we went to areas such as rooftops and edges of carparks. Being able to do this while dangling, tying, unknotting string while by-passes perked their curiosity was amusing as they would stop and look at what we are doing. Being able to create something and on-lookers actually paying attention made it an interesting experience, to feel like you are creating for a purpose where people pay attention to an empty, unfilled gap was meaningful as we had the power to attract attention to something that had no significance.

Moving image production taught me that rather than picturing the final product of a video, we had to trust in the process and focus on it to create something meaningful yet abstract. Being able to work well in a group was due to constant communication and collaboration which played a large role on our team as a whole. We all had similar visions, met at suitable times and worked well together which I think is important as in the end we created something together. Although in the last week we had a problem to overcome where we had to decide whether or not we should remake our film to meet a higher standard. As a group we decided it was something we should do which made me think that we had to challenge and push ourselves as creatives to be able to achieve something we are more than satisfactory in.

Reflection

 

Reflection text posted to your word press, assessing the efficacy of your project contextualised by what else you have learnt in the course.

On the whole I was really surprised and happy with how well our group worked together. Each group member pulled their own weight evenly and had equal ideas and skills to contribute to the project. We all planned our individual tasks early on and were efficient in combining together to complete the assignment. Each week we researched necessary components of the task such as materials to consider, location scouting, artists who had engaged with suspension works before us. It was important to consider works, which had previously been done to determine appropriate scale, location, materiality and subject matter of our work, which we proposed to do.

Our next phase was experimenting; we tested string, locations, filming and logistics of how we were actually going to go about completing the task. We ended up shifting our focus after the initial screening of our work, to a more artistic montage inspired by the earlier film we watched in class La Jetee. We received constructive feedback from our peers, which suggested altering the colour of the string, using a script and a microphone, which wouldn’t muffle the voice, tying the string in different locations and perhaps mixing up film techniques.

Our group decided as a whole that it would be best to draw out our concept and develop it further using brighter colored string, strung in different locations. We came up with a stop motion montage of strings suspended between fences, old train lights, wired windows and railings (otherwise boring and overlooked objects) to bring light and meaning to what would otherwise be an empty space devoid of life and meaning. We were taken by the shadows and patterns a milk crate created when suspended and spun in space as well as the intricate overlapping patterns its reflection created, which we layered over our montage to explore our research question, “What does it mean to suspend in space?” Our film answers with footage of every day items- string and a milk crate suspended in everyday locations. In doing so, emphasis and purpose is given to the materials to creating an artistic instillation in the space so that it is no longer empty and devoid of life.

Throughout the course I have learnt how to take negative feedback and collaborate with my group members and turn it into something constructive for an overall improved outcome. We also learnt to edit what was important and cull unnecessary clips. I learnt basic final cut pro editing and watched the process of how to undertake projection mapping.

 

#WK11

Reflection

Choosing this subject I think I had very different expectations. It was really different having the subject in redfern, it made it fell like we were there purely for creating something cool rather than trying to hand in whatever we needed to pass or achieve higher. I was really keen to learn some hand on film techniques, how to use and a camera and different styles of film. These things were not later or in front of us. Instead we were encouraged to think differently, explore bizarre ideas and to have an appreciation for creativity. All the mundane things or skills i listed before we learnt along nicely the process of filmin and presenting our own ideas, these things really do need to be learnt in process rather than taught I a classroom. I think this task was a big learning experience. Our group set out with a few very different ideas, having no idea it would lead us to create two very different films. As a whole, we all really started this task not knowing what we would create or how we would do it. We then found an idea quite early which was both good and bad. Our question “what does it feel like to suspend in space” really lead our practice. We could explore this idea to its fullest potential and really consider every aspect of the things involved. I think we did this pretty well. Being realistic I knew around the 10th week that the documentary style film we were going with could have had more content and installations in different areas but we had been focusing on the class activities and had other work loads that we knew we were settling with this one location. After over coming a few sound quality issues and finding some better quality instruments to record our sound we were all pretty content with our outcome. Feedback from our teachers was mixed. We all knew that if we had heaps of time and could film little installations all over Sydney, montage it together with a really good quality sound that it would be a really brilliant film, we had was really the beginning research and experiments in our documentary. We decided to do some really small scale installations around a few areas integrating a crate with string attached and layering these images over each other, montaged together with a rhythmic beat behind it. Our group worked so well together. We all had different skills and ideas that we could contribute and everybody picked up the slack where needed. I think our ideas explored quite well, as I said above we were quick to jump on one of our initial ideas but to our advantage we were able to really delve deep into this. On the down side we could have missed other ideas which also could have worked. I do think this idea was really unique and it resonated with us towards the end. We were excited to do more Installations and quite proud of our work. I personally was actually still impressed that we were able to suspend the first string over the goods line walkway. I think that the quality of our final presentation was less than our documentary style film simply because of the fact that it was produced in less time. However they are both extremely different styles of film so I think that our final montage presentation works better with less time than say the documentary where we had to record and overlay sound etc. Again I’m just really impressed how well our group worked together and that we were able to produce two very different style films in the time given.

Reflection

For lab b, I choose in search of the lacuna. In this class I have learnt image research and production of film. Our class is in Redfern which is a creative space. Every Wednesday, we can see different project present in 107 projects. In the class, we have a lot of time to discover things and do experiment with group members in surround areas. The experiments include kinetic sculpture, spatial design, projection mapping, interaction, text, sound and human movement. Each practice provides a good opportunity for us building better teamwork.

After learning some editing techniques and design method. We start designing our own project. At the beginning of project b. We have an interesting exercise, everyone getting a pepper and pencil, using single words to make a story. In the end, everyone has different story. So for the film, we have a lot of ideas too. After the discussion, we all interesting and agree to work on suspended in space. When things to be connected by a string, the gap will be closed. We do a lot of relative research about artists and their artwork and design methods which give us a lot of inspirations.

The first experiment is in the class, we try the different material, and find the best way to tie a knot. After that, we find the location for our film. We suspend the strings on high rise building. And take the video for every movement. We keep a record of the working process because we put in huge manpower with an earnest heart to shoot this documentary. Although editing is new things for us, we accept it and sit down together and make it together. I think good teamwork is the most important things for a group work. In the group, I am good at photograph, so I take filming work. Everyone has her own strong and weak points. For me learn new things from each other which give us pleasant learning experience. One week before final film, we have some suggestions and feedbacks from class. We redo the whole film, because we want produce better result. My experience of this projects leads me to believe we cannot rest on the past achievements. Nothing is hard in this world if you dare to the height.

An update for Project 2 (B)

In the class we show the draft video, we have some feedbacks and suggestions. Although it is a good draft, there are lots of things we need to improve. The film style looks too informal. So we decided to redo it in more location and use different colour strings. Everyone takes the strings in different material and colour. Before the meeting, I used acrylic paint to provide the colour on the string. I think colour mixing could give more opportunity with colour. When the strings suspend in the space, the multicolour can impact a scene – creating interesting patterns, dimensions and textures.

 

We did experiments in different locations. In these experiments, we used colour strings. We want montage them together, so we took photographs of each string tie on the object and suspend in the space.

When we drawing materials for our film. We found this red crate is on the side. One of us ties the string on it. At the first time, we just want to suspend strings on the crate. But if a crate suspending by a string will be interesting. Also, there is a  beautiful shadow on the floor was quite distinct.

Above all, is the new material for our film. After that, we edited film in programme. We used photographs playing out as a photomontage of varying rhythm. The idea is from La Jetée. And we also use the beat sound as background music.

PROJECT 2 (B) : Suspend in space

Sequence Exegesis: Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

This film is talking about a Joel and Clementine’s love story. Although they have different personalities, Joel and Clementine spent two years together. After a fight, both of them went to Lacuna, Inc. to erase their memories of their relationship. This 30 seconds sequence takes place in Joel’s mind. Upon seeing happier times of love with Clementine from earlier in their relationship, he struggles to preserve at least some memory of her and his love for her.

In this sequence, the colour is so dark which is full of unknown. During a particularly harsh memory, the set around Joel and Clementine literally starts crumbling away, slowly disappearing into a stark black background. The framing becomes slightly off,  enough to make the audience feel uncomfortable but not enough to draw obvious attention to the technique. The whole picture getting dark. It gives the feeling of perspective and depth. Also, it gives in to despair. The background sound is dialogue and original theme music and also mixed some nature sound like birds sing. It helps the director create a mood. Creating a mood can introduce important elements of the plot.

There is a different point of views.  It makes the film more aesthetically pleasing and keeps the audience focus on the movie.The camera techniques change depending on the characters’ plight.  Moreover, We can see the wide shot, medium shots and close-ups. The sequence starts with a long shot to orient the audience, and continue with the medium shot to reveal the action. And with close-ups, actors emotion can be better shown. The camera movement adds interest and excitement to shots. The whole movie used montage to show how Joel’s mind against with his unconscious mind. There are many small intricacies in the film, surely picked up on more thoroughly on repeat viewings, and the entire construction of the movie is completely enthralling and intelligent.

Overall, with unique visual framing, I think this sequence as the best part in this movie. Because the colour expresses moods and emotions. Also, the actor goes through memories they had, happy ones, sad ones, which is the one more part that completes the success of the film. The visuals perfectly impact and accentuate important points in the plot, as well as creating some extremely heartfelt and poignant moments.

Noise and Sound

‘Lowlands’ by Susan Phillipz (2010)

Lowlands is a sound instillation work by a sculpture artist Susan Phillipz. She is a Glasgow born artist originally trained in the field of sculpture. She studied sculpture at Duncan of Jordanstone Collage of Art in Dundee which she continually draws influence from to inform her work today which she references as “Sound Sculptures”. Susan’s works involve recordings of herself singing folk songs as the primary medium. She projects her voice over a public speaker system to interact with the natural surroundings.

The work ‘Lowlands’ was initially performed in a walkway space underneath the bridges on top of the Ricer Clyde in Glasgow. Susan is not musically trained thus on entry level, the instillation can sound rather ordinary. As you move around the space, three large black speakers infiltrate the surrounding air with Susan’s voice performing a cover of a 16th century Scottish ballad known as ‘Lowlands’. It is installed under the bridges so that the viewer experiences echoing and the refraction of sound bouncing off the water which resonates noise and tone around the viewer thus making the audience experience the same work in multiple different ways by hearing sounds differently as they move around the work.

A critically important fact to note is that the artist cannot read nor does she write any of her own music. She even admits that her own voice is distinctly average. She has quoted that she even hates the sound of her own voice, “I partially hate my speaking voice”. (Corner, 2010)Yet she uses her untrained and unaccompanied singing voice as her sole medium, which interacts with the cityscape and nature surrounding her, which changes the viewers perspective. She quotes, “It’s all about how the emotive and psychological effects of sound can heighten your awareness of the space you are in,” she says. “It felt like a very natural progression to go from sculpture to sound.” (Corner, 2010) It is also interesting to note that this work is quite controversial. Some viewers believe that due to the lack of musical training it is quite uncomfortable to listen to Susan’s work and that they cant appreciate its value, especially when it was nominated and won the Turner Prize worth 25,000 euros. Some speculate that because she is an untrained musician and also the first sound artist ever to be shortlisted for the most prestigious prize in British art, that she isn’t worthy of such a prestigious nomination let alone wonning the award.

 

#WK7

References

Corner, L. 2010, ‘The art of noise: ‘sculptor in sound’ Susan Philipsz’, The guardian, 14 November, pp.5-6

Planning for project 2 (B) UPDATE

An update on research, images and planning for project 2 (B) including changes, surprises, challenges and explicit steps you will make to reach your completion of this task.

We have stuck with the film making style of a documentation where there will be video footage as well as a voice over explaining the process we went though, thoughts and onlookers reactions to our work. We filmed from different angles and perspectives to show various angles of the creating process and how we got to the final step. Changes we made include a variety of different shots, camera angles (e.g panning, aerial shot, long shot, slow-motion), a better microphone as the one we previously recorded on using a phone picked up too many background noises. We also added a weighted object to weigh down the string as it was getting tangled and blowing away with the wind as Madi tried to guide the string down to ground level. Surprises included the reaction from onlookers who slow down to take in what was happening during the hoisting of the string which were being pulled up and suspending into the air. People were looking up while walking and were curious to why a string was being suspended between two buildings.

After the viewing the draft video in class, we got feedback and this pushed us to re-iterate our current draft.

Feedback and what to do for our next step:

• Write out our script to make it more formal
• Include a conclusion to make a close as we are filming in a documentary style
• More experimentations
• Use film editing techniques – overlapping, montage, fast – slow – fast motion
• Level of audio – lower volume
• Background music/ one continuous song playing the whole time- environmental sounds

Re-iterate video and create a montaged documentary:

• Script of voice over during documentary
• Use research of artists and material research in our documentary.
• Use different colour strings across buildings or lower to the ground out a house window to an object (tree etc) and collect a series of images in 5-10 locations. Get 50+ photographs and montage them together.

After we got feedback as written above – we were suggested to make a montage like La Jetée. We had a discussion and thought over if we could pull it off and after much thought we decided to meet up again to document a new process. In the end we decided to bring in different coloured strings to tie and make a suspension between low/medium level structures such as trees, poles, windows and staircase and take photographs to create a documented montage of it filling a void between two spaces.

Research question: What does it mean to suspend it space?

By suspending a string between two points which cuts through open space in a public area, we give that unfilled space a meaning and an artistic purpose.

Draft video:

An update on research and planning for project 2B

​An update on research and planning for project 2 (B) including changes, surprises, challenges and explicit steps you will make to reach your completion of this task

 

After our initial experimentation of dropping string out of the housing building and the opposing car park we found it difficult to hold foot traffic back with just one of us on the ground whilst we tied the string together. Moving forward we plan to have as many people as possible on ground level so that two people can halt the foot traffic whilst the third attaches the two strings. The final person will pull the string from the housing side as quick as possible so that the foot traffic on ground level can continue to pass through the space- hopefully observing and engaging in our work.

After the initial experiment we also noticed that wind plays a huge part in how successfully we can lower the string without it getting caught on the building walls or different car park levels. Having a weight of some sort to lower the string down will be beneficial moving forward so that the string doesn’t get caught on every level of the car park which was challenging in our initial experiment. We also need to take into consideration a narration script for our documentary so that the language isn’t too colloquial (um’s and yeahs). The use of a good microphone is also imperative so that the voice isn’t muffled and scratchy. We found that most of our favorite footage was artistic shots of the smaller details like the string pooling on the ground when dropped off the building and the cutting of the string which made the string flurry in the breeze. These were all beautiful shots placing emphasis on the process as well as the finished product.

WHAT WE NEED TO DO NEXT

• Film the final ordeal
• Document the entire process
• Write a narrative script
• Voice recording of narration
• Editing!!

 

#WK10

Planing for Project 2B

A post planning project 2 (B), make explicit which aspect you are in charge of, what your methods are, and how you will mesh these with the tasks and methods undertaken by your other group members.

For project 2B we are planning of making a documentary style film to capture ‘what is means to suspend in space’. For us, this means drawing connections between two structures and filling an empty and boring void of air with purpose and art.

We plan to do this by dropping two strings off two buildings facing each other about 25m away from each other. We then plan to tie the strings in the middle of the void at ground level before pulling the string tight to hoist the string into the air thus making a connection between the two structures. My job will be to go into the student housing building and take care of tying the string to the building and dropping the excess over the edge to the girls on the ground. Madi will do the same from the car park and then Monica will tie them together whilst Lynn captures and documents the process from ground level. Once the string is joined I will pull the excess slack of the string as fast as I can to make the string taut across the void. Once our individual tasks are completed and in any spare moment we get we will each film the process to document the event from our respective locations to get varying point of views. We then need to edit all of our footage together. Monica is a wiz on the editing program however we will all edit the footage together so that it is a cohesive and polished documentary.

Location shot of the carpark from UTS Housing

#WK8

A Sequence Exegesis: Oldboy

Oldboy, a South Korean mystery thriller directed by Park Chan-Wook is loosely adapted from the Japanese manga written by Garon Tsuchiya and illustrated by Nobuaki Minegishi.

The film embodies an emotional and psychological depth imbued with vengeance where the main character, Oh Dae-Su wakes up in a hotel styled prison. He has been trapped there for 15 years without knowing his captors motives nor identity. By watching television in the room, he learns that he is a prime suspect for his wife’s murder. When released, he seeks his captor to get revenge on his imprisonment.

In this particular scene, Lee Woo-Jin (Oh Dae-Su’s captor) recalls his sisters suicide. The editing technique used is cross cutting where it is divided by alternate jumps in time to establish continuity whilst creating one line of narrative. The flashback shows a moment in time where he struggles to hang on to his sister’s hand, who is hanging off a bridge.

 

The use of colour saturations and intentional grain contrast the bright colours between the two scenes represent the nature their life was and is in that period of time. Park finds the balance between method and story,  instilling purely emotional responses in his viewers through intense and compelling storylines.

It is framed from both perspectives, looking down at his sister where the background is a body of water surrounded by air, and a perspective from her where her brother is barricaded by the bridge wall leaning as much as he can to hold her up. By using the camera Lee Woo-Jin has around his neck, his sister grabs onto it, says her last few words and takes a photo of herself smiling. By viewing the scene through the viewfinder of the camera where she directly looks at the lens to take a photo, it frames a personal moment symbolising a moment in time captured forever.

The sounds of this scene include an melodic orchestra playing in a bitterly melancholic way to accompany the scene of heart breaking cries and a weak dialogue.

Although the scenes of the past show blue skies and white clouds on a sunny day, the mood makes the audience feel empathetic. When he let goes, the camera shows his arm where again it shows cross cutting. His hand turns into the shape of a gun where he motions to pull a trigger. It suddenly goes back into a gloomy dark present where an elevator door opens as a gun shot is heard, the sound of the orchestra is null and there is silence. All you can hear now is the metal banging from where he hit his head and a fall to the ground. The camera then slowly creeps out to show the body of the elevator, this camera technique makes the character grow smaller compared to the world around them, as if the camera is abandoning them, backing away and protecting ourselves from their pain. It then cuts to a slow push-in on a blood dripping sorrow face with a bullet hole to the head.

I think this excerpt is an important part of the film as it shows an intense emotional scene which changes the audiences view of a certain character that you had no remorse for initially. Park challenges explicit violence and creates symbolism in support of these narratives by using different film and sound techniques, such as the gun hand gesturing and the cutting of silence to emphasise a section of the scene. Instead of using depth, he uses modern aesthetics that foreground flat space, symmetric shot compositions and unmotivated camera movements (Sultan, 2014). By using these methods to tell a story, Park presents a poetic purpose not only through narrative but also by cinematography.

References

• Sultan, M. 2014, The Art Cinema of Takeshi Kitano and Park Chan-wook, The Asian Cinema Blog. viewed 26 May 2017, <http://theasiancinemablog.com/cinema-of-japan/the-art-cinema-of-takeshi-kitano-and-park-chan-wook/&gt;.
• Oldboy. 2003, [film] Park Chan-Wook, South Korea.