Last post

Don't worry no one died. Just felt like posting that up, after all its the last post. :D


One whole semester just flew past yet again. There's so much I wan't to say yet there's just so much I can say. Don't even know if that makes sense. Firstly, screenings.

I'm glad that I came in late for the screening under reasons that I shall not say. Two of my most favourite docos however was Kaleidoscopic Views and Niqabis.

Kaleidoscopic Views:

Visual : Visually enticing as they inserted graphics that help the viewers understand better about synaesthesia.
Sound : Great music original music.
Content : An interesting subject matter as many people would treat it as a disease instead of a gift/ a way of living.

Niqabis:

Visual : Loved the stamps and freeze frames when people looked. I love shots that require random interactions with people especially when in the streets.
Sound : Could have done better with the self reflection parts, otherwise entertaining sound effects!
Content : Definitely something to be discussing about as the misconception of the burqa and niqab is quite a huge issue. Loved the way the story was planned as it was rather participative especially with the audience. Makes us want to know what are people's reaction to their experiments.

It was then the FLOWERMAN's turn. Gosh..I don't.know.what.to.say. I really really really really really was confused when the sound went out of sync. These are mistakes that could have been corrected 100 years before we had even submitted our files. Goi and I just stared at the screen wanting to kill someone.

Tip : CHECK YOUR SEQUENCES/CLIPS/FILMS NO MATTER WHAT. CHECK BEFORE, DURING AND AFTER. BEFORE YOU HAND IT IN, MAKE SURE YOU CHECK!!

gahhhhhhhh! *facepalms*


On the brightside, the message that we tried to convey somewhat made sense through the audio. At one point I was rather relieved that the audience reacted to some of our subject's comments. I think we should come up with a check list before we actually hand in our assignments the next time.

Nevertheless, it was a great experience working with my group (especially having 2 group mates coming from 2 different backgrounds, understanding each other can a problem - those are the times when your patience and an open mind is needed the most).

Lessons from this subject?

There are things that we just don't notice, at times we need to slow down, look up, down, wherever; and you'll find things that you take for granted. That's when you get a good subject matter. Narrowing the subject matter is the next step/headache. But I'm pretty sure you'll be able to handle that. I know we did.

TV2 was not a matter of technicality, but more of self discovery - with the subject, and especially yourself.


Kudos to the crew and the staff of TV2.

Draft 1, Draft 2, Draft 3, Draft no more please

We're at a point of the editing when the footages just don't make sense any more. Up to 13minutes, I felt that we were getting to attached to some parts of the documentary. Music too was another issue as it was almost impossible to find a replacement of our current song that represents our subject. I was telling Ezra that he shouldn't have put that song in the rough cut in the first place, because we'll get too attached to the song; and as I predicted, there were no other songs that were suitable.

Having to finish compile all the scenes that we decided to put in, it was time to make the brutal cuts. We had the weekend off to recuperate and look back and what we had compiled, and there were just no possible way that we could cut the story down. Hours were wasted thinking what should we do next; and I decided to take a plunge by removing some of the scenes and deleting most parts that I thought were unnecessary.

Advice : don't spend too much time on your edits as you will get too attached to it. Take some time off and you'll have a clearer picture the next time you see it. At times, you'll realise that the whole sequence is a flop (better not be! ).

Edición

Summary of these two weeks :

Editing is always a pain in the butt. The problem I had with my group mates and the clips were that majority ideas and raw footages weren't in my mind. That's because I haven't been attending our shoots (which again, I really regret), and we had so much problems coordinating with each other.
Our designated editors were Ezra and me; as I wanted a taste of the editing myself, I thought I could make up for the lost time I had at the shoots; and boy that was a bad move. Having to have no prior knowledge of those clips shot, it was difficult for me to come up with a rough storyline.

That's when Goi came to the rescue. Weeks back, Christine made a suggestion to have a full transcript of our footages (which I thought was unnecessary at that time, but obviously proved useful), and she made everyone come up with a rough hard copy storyline. Despite that, it was quite difficult getting our point of views and ideas at the same channel, as we all had our own interpretation of the documentary. It was really difficult getting everyone's agreement as our group weren't at full force (as its submission week right now), hence missing members all the time.

We then decided to pick important parts off the transcript and began compiling those scenes/stories. I realised that we had wasted a lot of our time by just discussing and not actually doing something. We got on the computer and started compiling whatever we think was important. Now lets just see how long the sequence will end up to...

Eva evaluation

I've been neglecting this blog for quite awhile now. Many has happened and theres just so much I can say. This week's lecture was on audio correction - just what I needed. Compared to last semester, I ought to be more prepared when dealing with post production sound. Speaking of which, I reviewed some of the footages that were recorded at one of our shoots (which I regretfully did not attend due to work), and I wanted to slap myself real hard for not following them to the site.
It was the day that we had to follow our subject to his wholesale dealers and boy the clips were not a 'sound-full' sight. There were so many technical errors that could be avoided but because it was all in a rush, there's just so much they could do.

I was surprised about this sem's peer assessments. We didn't get to proclaim our own marks in front of our classmates for some reason - which I think should be an important step because then we'll know who's the one that has been hard working(aka big fat obnoxious liar). =D

I think the key factor that we all need to have is patience, as the editing weeks come ahead, be prepared for some swashbuckling amongst each other!

Tape-o

So the interview with the florist was today. Left my house thinking "hmmm there's something missing but I don't know what.."

As soon as I reached the site and helped my other mates unpack the gears, OMG I FORGOT TO BRING TAPES. Lucky/unlucky enough Ezra brought an empty tape. Not only that, Sheau wasn't informed about the shoot, double trouble!

The interview went rather draggy but it came to a point when things started to get interesting. In the middle of a good conversation we had, the taped ended. I really want to kick myself for not bringing any extra tape; so much for thinking "Oh hey, I'm not taking the equipments this time! yay! ".

*Facepalms*

Lesson for the day :

1. Be prepared for any circumstances, BRING YOUR TAPES! EVERYONE SHOULD MAKE AN EFFORT TO BRING ONE!

2. COMMUNICATION COMMUNICATION COMMUNICATION!

Observational Exercise

Heres out take on the observational video!

Ethics

The one word that always gets me going ‘ahh not again..”
We had a guest lecturer who came in today to talk about ethics in documentary. What got me thinking about the lecture was how truth is always contested. I liked how reality isn’t really reality because of various factors.

Presence
- The presence of the camera automatically alters reality when placed at a location that is noticeable.

Exclusion
- The view of a camera is always partial and not impartial. Once a camera is pointed somewhere, the frame has segregated the world that is outside the frame making everything outside insignificant.

Manipulation
- I love the world manipulation because editing is all about manipulation. Somewhat we play God when we edit on screen.

These were the three points that were playing around my head the whole time of lecture especially exclusion. The whole idea of documentary is documenting a story of something, but by doing so, you are choosing to document ‘some-thing’ not every-thing.

Flowersational

So Ezra hooked us up with a florist near his neighbourhood who sells his flowers from a van. Apparently he has been there for ages till the extent that he doesn't have much feelings about flowers(and in fact in disbelief that we're doing a documentary about flowers).

One thing I learnt the hard way from the shoot was that patience is the number one factor if you're going to shoot an observational film. Barely into 2hours and I got bored of filming! In the end we shot in just 1 tape and packed up. Interesting though how customers cringe when they see the camera and try to run away even though we're like far far away. Got me thinking about the ethics lecture somehow - playing with people's lives by filming things that they don't want to get into.

Observe Observe.

So we had the observational exercise today and somewhat I was nervous about it. One of the reasons why is that we had no focus whatsoever about our topic. As things were set up, all that was just running through my head was ‘we could do that? No that! This! ‘.

First we entered the RMIT gym thinking we could get the ‘hardships’ of people working out but ended in no good due to permissions and privacy.

We walked to the area in front of the state library and decided to shoot some traffic lights. What I found interesting was the reactions from people walking past cringing when they see a camera pointed at them. It was like a colony of ants running from gushing waters. Played a fool with handheld because I wanted to experiment my shots with handheld. Found that the pd-170 is rather light not really suitable for handhelds as compared to the Z7. Ezra was the boom, Sheau sound, Goi and me camera. It was interesting to experience working with Goi in the camera department because I think that we both have very different views when filming. Nevertheless I still had mixed feelings about the footages shot because somehow I felt that there was just not enough. I think that observational styles are one of my favourites but also my worst headaches.

Music is my wife

We were given short tutorial exercises to shoot a short interview about one of our group members. Somehow deep down I knew that I was the victim. Cut the chase, here's our video. Personally I think its more like a promo video of myself. Wouldn't you agree?

Brainstorm

So my group members were Goi and Ezra, and we met up to discuss about our treatment. Being a person who's not good with new ideas, I began to observe of how my group mates started to talk about the topics they would want to do. While they were talking about the topics, I was thinking more of its visual capabilities. We ended up with Goi's idea about dancing. Somehow I had a certain feeling of comfort because it was a topic that I was very familiar with. Back when I was working, drama was everywhere, from getting into trouble with the makeup artists, to the judges not liking one of the contestants for their personal reasons. Like in the week's lecture, theres definitely drama in dancing. It struck me then, am I taking this topic on a reality tv point of view? It got me questioning of the similarities between documentaries and reality tv shows. Can we call a reality tv show about dancing a documentary?

Ideas ideas ideas

So Christine talked about the components of drama and fiction films and if there are any differences between fiction or documentary. I say its a little of everything - and that's the issue.

One of the things I dislike the most is by coming up with fresh new ideas. I've realised as when it comes to idea giving I'm hopeless, however when it concerns idea enhancing; I'm your man. This is really a bad habit as I start to become more lazy. Despite that, at the end of the day, I'll still have to face it so heres mine;

"One of the most common quotes used when preparing for an interview would be “first impression counts”. Having said that, one would go through various preparations to look good for the interview - hair done, plenty of sleep and the list goes on. The question is, has anyone emphasized on the power of posture? To be specific; body posture.

This got me thinking of the art of body posture where different postures helps emphasize on specific ways of persuasion. I’m interested in finding out the psychological reasons behind an individual’s mind when meeting someone else with a bad/good body posture. The documentary would question on the first impressions made from an individual just by looking at them - slouching = lazy?"

TV Part 2

A new semester begins, new subjects, new goals, and not to mention new experiences. Attending today's lecture was rather refreshing as I saw some new faces and some familiar faces.The exhaustion from TV1 still lingers in me as it was a crazy period. Never the less, practice makes perfect. 

We watched a doco made by a student entitled "The Nest". It was quite an interesting one because the visual focus was more on the disabled kid, but I realised that the focus of the story was more to the brothers trying to cope their lives with their disabled brother. 

All these years I've been trying to convince myself that documentary is one of the things that I would make a career out of. Lets just see how its this sem goes now shall we?