Joseph Dunstan's RMIT Blog

All of the films shown last Thursday were fantastic. It was a nerve-wracking moment each time a new film started, as I wondered whether I’d hear Jack’s voice announce our film. And I was a little unsure/nervous and scared about the quality of our film, simply feeling like I’d love another couple of days to work on it.

But it was fine, and I was thoroughly entertained throughout all of the films. Not one went past where I was looking at my watch or wondering what I was doing here. It was particularly interesting to see some really personal stories being made into documentaries. I was quite impressed by the courage and open-ness demonstrated by some students who stepped in front of the camera to become central narrators, subjects and basically the reason the film was made. And I think all of those kinds of films really worked well.

Un-Profane Profanity

This film had a really great attitude. The opening was great as it used text (bolded words for emphasis etc) and delivery to drive home what it’s all going to be about. I was initially a bit unsure about using an academic, but he was quite engaging and was used more as a reference/context shaper than the actual subject. The comedian interview was great. I’d seen the ice experiment before in Stephen Fry:

Nevertheless, the way they filmed it looked great and it fit in with the aesthetic they were going for. I reckon it could’ve been edited together a bit more quickly and I can’t quite remember, but I recall thinking that they hadn’t fully explained that one was with swearing and one was without. All in all I really enjoyed it.

EDDIE

This was one of the personal ones listed above. I really enjoyed it: at first I was pretty worried it wouldn’t work out, but they had such a fantastic abundance of photos and stock footage of the…Ivory Coast was it? that it came together really, really well. The interviews setups looked really good in my opinion, the talent (wife and son and grandson) were all strong, and the narration was clear and simple without being overly sentimental. It was a really interesting life story told well.

four_images

Having been in this tute I’d seen it before. But the use of the four little dots to connect the four films into a whole was inspired and just perfect.

Scott’s blind film remained incredibly impressive. There was such great control over every sonic and visual element: if other documentaries are a series of photos of events happening, this feels much more like a deliberate, constructed piece of art. The shot of the child at the beach was so beautifully framed, it sticks in my mind along with the clean sound of waves and the ocean that accompanies it. It was great, but I remember feeling the ending was a little abrupt. Very much enjoyed the eyeball shot, reminding me of Un chien andalou as I guess it’s somewhat meant to (or at least it can’t help but remind you of it).

The typography film was also largely as I’d seen it. I still really enjoy it. I think it’s the great pace that doesn’t let you rest or get bored. It’s always moving onwards, onwards, onwards. And the clever use of types and font sizing, as well as the section on the anatomy of type keeps throughout little visual gags at you. I really enjoyed it. It just has a playful kind of vibe.

The next one on synesthesia was really enjoyable. The stop motion looked great, and I think the most memorable moment from that is the shot where the rose flower is removed from the stem and becomes a brain, which is then cut in half, and out of the halves jump strands of colour. It’s such a great way to visually represent synesthesia. The use of a poem to tie it all together worked really well, although I did feel that some of the lines had incredibly powerful visuals that were really evocative (the rain one) and others not quite as powerful. But the use of audio with the visuals was usually great, I remember the gold shimmery one, and the night catching on fire was great, with the crackling fireplace feel. I think that was my favourite bit.

I found the next one uncomfortable to watch at times, largely due to bleeding freshly done tattoos. But I still enjoyed it, it had a very controlled kind of aesthetic and mood. I loved the way the shots went in and out of colour and to varying degrees of saturation, often in time with the music (e.g. a beat after). Really effective. It felt like a film clip for the music, which was probably because the music was the only audio I think we heard. I enjoyed the point made about makeup and tattoos: in the first version we saw that wasn’t so clear and I thought she was one of the tattooists.

Tram 55

Another personal story, Lily did a great job tying this one together. The interviewees were all interesting, and even though the guy in the bar’s visuals weren’t the best and the audio was a little noisy, he was clear and it was a case of playing footage that wasn’t technically amazing but told an important part of the story. Sound was really well done in this one, and visuals. I loved the way they didn’t move much from the location, but had just stacks and stacks of beautiful shots of it to put together. It really made clear that what happened at this location was the subject of the film, above and beyond any one individual.

It was great.

Beneath the Lyrics

This was a really impressive film to me. I loved the doctor talent who was sceptical at first then convinced. The framing of him with nearly his whole body in shot was interesting and for some reason it kind of worked for me. Perhaps because it made it less personal than the story of the man who had cancer, and acted almost as a kind of ‘comic relief’ in the circumstances.

There was also this great moment where the subject was on the phone and said “yep, I’m at work bye” or words to that effect. It was put in at a place where that made clear his new lease on life and the way he was beholden to nobody else. I was reminded of a moment in Cunningham’s interview with Wexler where he explains that on the set of Salesman, the crew called the wife of one of the bible sellers and suggested they were having a good time. They could then film the bible seller on the phone to his wife explaining what he was actually doing. It may have been confected, I don’t know, but it worked really well and helped them tell that story.

The audio of them singing was beautiful, the subject and story was engaging, and it was shot really well. I found it moving and I really, really enjoyed it. Ace job.

Cubbies and Anywhere But Here

I just wanted to quickly comment (as I won’t have time to review every film and my memory isn’t quite the steel trap it should be) on these two films use of child talent. It was gold, and worked really well. Where in a fictional film working with children last Semester was time consuming and possibly not worth it for my group, these both showed how great children can be, especially in a documentary that deals with bleak and difficult subject matter. The voice of a child simply articulating their problem will always be move convincing and gripping than any expert or adult. It bypasses logic and grabs straight at your heart.

It reminds me of ABC journalist Sarah Ferguson’s 4 Corners report into children living in Claymore, a public housing estate in NSW. In the report, she speaks largely to the children in the area, about their hopes and ambitions and circumstances. It tells the story really simply and she lets them articulate the emotional reality, while she fills in with the money and politics behind it. It’s really inspired me to work harder when covering these kinds of stories to find a child’s voice, and be careful not to frame them in a glib, laugh-at-them kind of way, but give them the same treatment and voice that an adult would get.

http://www.abc.net.au/4corners/stories/2012/09/20/3594298.htm

Listen

This one was really great. I worked with Jenny last Semester on our fiction film and she was so energised, no idea was too ambitious or complex. So it was fantastic to see her work this Semester. They got some help with the sound and it was so effective in that opening sequence, it was really started to creep me out. The lighting for those artificially dramatised sequences was fantastic. The talent they found in Initially No and her partner were great, clear communicators and I really enjoyed the way they illustrated the point about representation, both with the very opening, the dramatised sections and more. It was really powerful, every shot was beautiful framed (including the 3 person conversation, I loved that), and impressive.

All in all, the films were all fantastic. I feel so lucky to have been a part of this course, it’s been great and I will miss this Media student community, but have drawn so much tangible experience and critical appreciation from it that I know it’ll continue to be a useful part of my professional working life for years to come.

Well, the sound on our film didn’t get the time and care it needed before screening night.

That’s not to say it was terrible or even poor: I was quite happy with it in the end. But due to a range of factors, in the end we didn’t have quite as much time as we needed to spend on finessing the levels. This meant that occasionally the balance between sounds is slightly out/not where we’d have it if we’d worked longer on it. Nevertheless, let’s take a quick look at each of the major components:

Voices

We’ve gone without a narrator, a decision that I’m really happy with. Instead, we locked in a final shoot with Jack where went over everything that we reckoned we would need, having the benefit of having reviewed all our footage in Final Cut and begun assembly. Then we got him to deliver concise responses on those themes, and used them as the narration.

Having been so used to the opening idea and execution, I was glad to hear that for some people listening it was actually quite effective: they were put emotionally offside by Jack’s ‘arrogant actor’ persona, and then consequently brought back onside by his humble little intro. So it was good to hear people enjoyed that.

The recording quality of most of the interviews was pretty good, so I wasn’t too stressed about that.

Music

Ned found some copyright free music that I reckon worked really well with the film. I think the first time we bring it in is when Jack’s friends can’t go and see his play. I was happy that this part worked for the audience, and helped them sympathise with Jack, something that Robin and Paul identified as a key part of the film to make work: as if nobody cares about the main subject, the film will be really, really boring. So I think we did a great job of teasing out Jack’s most interesting qualities: his modest self-deprecation, positive attitude and quiet determination to keep plugging away at the acting dream. The music helped with this, as it was very subtle and gentle and went along with our interview from the last shoot (at the table) where we did level with Jack and tell him to think about how he wanted it to be as a film, and try and make his responses punchy and honest accordingly. I feel like it came together really well with the music.

Another idea that Ned had for sound was to remove even the ambient noise from the overlay shots here, leaving the audio as just Jack’s voice and the music. I was pretty reluctant to do this, but once we applied it to most of the sequence it announced itself as an artistic choice, and highlighted the introspective feeling that the music was already cultivating. So cheers Ned, good choice.

Textures

I enjoyed also that there were lots of different sounds and locations in the film: we had play rehearsals in a quite small, confined place, as well as the sound of outdoor locations, inside/kitchen, etc. We did do a heap of shoots and I feel like it was worth it in the final film, not just because we had lots of footage but because we learnt more about what we were doing and what we were trying to achieve each time. So I’m really glad that I gave this subject a decent amount of time this Semester, as I’ve picked up some pretty handy skills.

I should really go back and fix up the sound. I really should.

There’s no time that’s more excruciating and when you second-guess your direction, decisions and basically everything about the way you’ve conducted yourself in the documentary process thus far than when or if your participant asks to come down to the editing booth and see what it’s looking like.

I didn’t feel it was ready to show him, but I don’t think I ever would have. Jack was quite comfortable giving feedback as we went, but I couldn’t watch it. This was a few days before it was due to be finished, and I just could not sit with Jack and watch footage of him going “yeah, it’ll happen” as his friends muttered reasons they couldn’t see his play. I just couldn’t. I suddenly felt like we’d manufactured a web of lies around him and he was going to scream and shout and use words like ‘disappointing’ and ‘deceit’.

So I hopped out of the edit booth.

Unsurprisingly in retrospect, there was no dramatic scene. Jack actually enjoyed the documentary, even if there were some parts that he didn’t like and thought had to go. Being the control freak that I am, I was hasty to correct another group member’s use of the phrase “yeah sure, we can definitely guarantee…” with “we’ll have a look at it, it’s great to get your feedback.” It’s interesting how desperate I was to make sure we didn’t constrain ourselves. It wasn’t that Jack was suggesting anything radical, and in fact I was already leaning towards making similar changes to those he suggested. But there is a crucial difference between us deciding to change something based on a range of factors of which Jack’s input is just one, and Jack dictating to us how it was going to be.

But overall I was glad to have gone through that process of showing Jack. It’s been said in this course several times but it is incredibly true, there is no time when you are more objective than when you have an audience watching it with you. I would add that the audience that makes you most intensely critical and aware of your decisions, choices and the way that this documentary tells a story is your participant.

So overall, it was a good move to let Jack into the edit suite.

It was after we had all the footage, over a couple of hours of footage of Jack in all kinds of activities: sharing emotional truths, acting, with friends, being glib and superficial, and showing strong insight into himself: that it really hit home how many competing narratives were contained within that footage.

This wasn’t particularly problematic, but we didn’t set out with any one singular story that we wanted to tell. We knew we wanted to look at acting, the challenges, and do that through one participant, but beyond that we didn’t have any strongly held assumptions about what the documentary would be about.

And so suddenly, depending which few minutes of footage we chose to include, and which hours we decided not to, and the order we gave them, and the prominence, and the overlay or absence of overlay…as the previous post mentions, there is an illusion that documentary making is objective: I’d say it’s not something many people my age, who are used to editing, representing, and creating media in all kinds of forums, believe in. Nevertheless, it’s incredible how many different stories were there.

There could have been a story about the terrible play Jack was in: the strange but intriguing Russian director, the poor script and some unconvincing co-actors Jack was working along. We could have tried to bring out the acting idea, including some other short interviews we had with actors at the shoots about acting and what it’s all like with different experiences. We could have cut together a family and friends portrayal, defining Jack by his relationships to those close around him. We could hold him up as hero, or satirise him mercilessly, holding him down as a subject worthy of pity and laughter.

This made me scared.

How could we find the best narrative amongst all of that? The one that made him human, easily relate-able and made his acting pursuit interesting? It was a difficult task. In the end, it was largely decided by watchability: the footage that was interesting/funny/weird was pulled into a sequence, leaving the rest behind. Earnest, lengthy, covering yawn-inducing ground? Didn’t look at it again.

And in the end there was much there that did offer a consistent and credible (I think) portrayal of Jack. It was sympathetic, it was not without moments of ‘naww’, perhaps his friends’ failure to attend his play being one.

It did mean lots of stuff we assumed we’d definitely be using got ditched, but I think it was all for the best.

Sometimes when I was behind the camera filming our documentary and running interviews with our main talent and other supporting people in his life, I am reminded of a scene from Harry Potter (bear with me).

Harry’s obnoxious cousin Dudley is celebrating his birthday at the zoo, and is watching a snake. But it’s just sitting there, sunbathing. Uncle Vernon taps the glass and goes “move”, after which Dudley hammers the enclosure with his fist screaming “MOVE!”

Essentially, they’re at a zoo where the animals are in artificial habitats intended to imitate nature, and so the animals behave as they naturally do, which is not to perform acrobatics or jump from trees or do handstands and the like. So too, when we were filming our participant and additional talent, we put them in ‘natural’ environments that we’d set up because we thought they’d look nice (or whatever). And sometimes I was frustrated when I felt they weren’t trying hard enough to be punchy, succinct, energised, exciting: I wanted a better performance out of them. Sometimes I’d push the envelope and rephrase the question, adding things like “so in a nutshell” “tell me about that again”. Sometimes I went further and would find myself saying “pretend you have two sentences to communicate to me that feeling and convince me I should care”. In doing this, I was basically reminding them that they are speaking to an audience, and that the documentary will only be as good as its content.

It’s an interesting line to toe when making a ‘non-fiction’ documentary. In film culture writer Megan Cunningham’s interviews with documentary makers, it is a point that comes up frequently. Film maker Haskell Wexler recalls a documentary on Keith Richards where, after they’d captured whatever Richards was doing anyway, he’d ask him to walk into doors etc. so they had material that would edit coherently. He defends his decision to organise filming this way, and says it’s not in conflict with making a cinema verite documentary, as the notion that objectivity is possible is just not true.

The interviewer (Cunningham, presumably) also brings in a quote that puts it quite succinctly: “it’s not shooting like a fly on the wall because a fly doesn’t have a brain.”

So I didn’t feel particularly uncomfortable about asking Jack to do things: it was helped by the fact that he’s an actor, has worked on films and so is very much used to and good at being directed. He understands the fact that any film is constructed and that there are ideas and things that will improve it. So doing the metaphorical glass banging and demanding he give us better content, while at first a little unusual, was something I got used to.

I had been a bit anxious about this project, to be honest. I’m going to say it.

Which is why it was great to have an overdue catchup with our main talent and lock in what should be some fantastic opportunities to collect lots of great footage. It was such an energising meeting, and just reaffirms for me the importance of face to face time: looking someone in the eye and verbally agreeing on what is going to happen. Nothing like it.

We had a meeting today with our talent Jack Walsh, and it was great. This Sunday we’re going to go along to filming for a Channel 31 pilot TV show he’s in. I’m looking forward to getting some footage of him acting, and I think, depending on the space, we could get some great shots of the camera and actor (and of course we’re filming all of that, which isn’t necessarily making some passionately profound statement on the nature of acting, layers and observation, but could just feel cool).

Other stuff we need to make sure we get:

- Movement and acting

- Variety of shots of the film crew doing their filming, collaboration

- Perhaps some discussions between Jack and the director/filmmakers

- Banter between cast on what he’s like to work with

- I/v, however brief, with filmmakers on working with Jack

- Stacks of footage of actors acting, to go with general interview content we have with Jack where he talks about what it’s like to act, etc. I think it will be good to have some non-Jack overlay for these kinds of things.

- Keep in mind the point Paul made in our tute this week: always be thinking about the different shots you’ll need to put together something in the edit suites: never use zoom etc. to get the shots. Just move the camera, crash zoom, focus, pull out to frame and hold. Will save time and give much better quality footage for editing.

Ultimately, we’re going to go along with a rough but clear plan in our minds, and take it as it comes. It’s the first of several locked in filming dates, and I can’t wait to get some real footage ‘in the can’, because I know it will:

a) clear my anxiety that I’ve had, feeling like this project was stagnating a little

b) give us more material on Jack that we can use, and review and consider, hopefully helping us to shape the focus of the next few bits we film

Good day!

I realise that this blog is becoming a bit like a space where I come and dump some fairly obvious thoughts and reflections on what we’re learning and approaches to filming and editing.

But I’m also becoming much less apologetic about that, because it’s writing and reinforcing these ideas that really helps cement what I need to do when I go to attack this project and why.

I mentioned in my last post that I’m thinking about lighting and positioning of interviewees more and more in the media I consume. Well, I’m now at a stage where I’m thinking more and more about framing.

Paul came into our journalism tute and talked about setting up piece-to-camera frames. And in Film TV 2, we were looking at a documentary on alcoholism which had some very thoughtfully constructed framing, as well as a variety of frames to cut between (where the main participant was filmed in three different frames/positions on the couch, which were used each time they cut back to her).

In fitting with my last post, simplicity is important, so I’m just going to go with the rule of thirds, think about depth and lines and where the eye should be drawn. Hopefully if I get some time I’ll even upload some practice shots on framing around my house this weekend. We’ll have to see how I go!

This is just something I’ve been thinking about and it’s coming from the lectures, but is also a statement of the approach I intend to take in this subject and all video work for the next little while.

1. Keep it simple

Looking at the Cape Spin documentary as well as general news, I’ve been taking note of the formulas Paul spoke about in the lectures. It’s quite comforting, especially with outdoor interviews, to see that the formula rings true:

Tonight I went to the Environmental Film Festival and saw “Cape Spin”. It’s a ‘balanced’ documentary about the political struggle for and against the building of a wind farm in Nantucket Sound, a body of water south of Cape Cod in the US.

Here’s the trailer: http://vimeo.com/7932720

I thought I’d just quickly dash off some observations and thoughts on the documentary that I noticed while watching.

No narration

The documentary did not have any narration. There was only a very small amount of narrative-style text at the end of the 90 minute documentary. Yet through careful collation of interviews it flowed coherently. This worked because the interviewer had asked the participants the right questions. Several times it was obvious they were answering the question “What are you doing now?” (“Well, there’s a public forum on and I’m just getting my debate points together…”). Many of the participants were media spokespeople as well, so they gave polished and complete performances. This meant they could be cut and chopped because they contextualised everything they said concisely.

The lack of narration also gave the documentary an interesting tone. It treated the dispute with a degree of detached humour, often choosing humorous juxtapositions of comments to create a ‘dialogue’ or call and response between the sides. This was also done with the inclusion of some unusual ‘other’ footage. Not quite archival but…an example is when the two lobby group heads (for and against) both debate each other on radio. As the two women argue their cases, this is cut with black and white footage of a women’s boxing scene, complete with “Round 1″, etc. cards on the flickering screen. There may be no narration, but we are being given a clear interpretation of the scene through the use of this otherwise unrelated footage.

This kind of cheeky tone continued throughout the film, including some vox pops that mercilessly let some people have their uninformed views given the same prominence as highly informed and involved actors in the dispute. In a way it struck me as a bit of a cheap laugh – good, but cheap – because the average person on the street is never claiming to have the degree of expertise as the people heavily invested in the issue, yet they have been placed on that level through editing. But anyway, still fun.

There was also some great camera work that was just funny: during an interview with a lawyer for the wind farm on his approach, the camera suddenly pans to his niece and nephew sitting next to him as they are mentioned in passing. The niece and nephew look suddenly alarmed, before the camera returns back to the lawyer in the space of a second. I’m sure they wouldn’t have included it if it weren’t for the reaction, but it was definitely worth getting.

Shots

The shots used in interviews largely followed the conventions we’ve been discussing in Film TV 2:

• Lots of shots from beside interviewer, with subject lit on the offside of their face (lots of outdoor ones, so no obvious fill light although I suspect there is a bounce board)
• I also noticed that they did get several differently framed shots in sit down interviews, so each time they cut to him it was either a close up, or back to mid shot, or something a little different again. This worked because they didn’t stay with any one person for a very long time, so it wasn’t noticeable that the shot had changed
• (While there was no audible interviewer, his/her presence was obvious from the directed speech of the talent)
• Some larger meetings (public forum with the Government body responsible for issuing permit), were filmed from a distance, and not with a clear, polished shot. While I reckon they might have liked to have a cleaner shot, it was particularly powerful in one speaker who is partly in profile, partly an angle as she moves (you can see a grab at 2:42 in the trailer). This was an emotional point in the film, and the close up + her emotion + something about that slightly awkward angle grabbed me when I watched it

Something that wasn’t nearly as stressful as recent scrapes with managing group reputations is green screening.

I really wanted to upload the videos we made, but unfortunately the featured group member has given an explicit NO to permission to upload, as the video was filmed under stress of sleep loss and, they feel, may not enhance their professional online presence.

But I was struck by how easy it was to do, and it turned out really well.

The other thing that has occurred to me while filming the audition is that I need to think about the kind of role I want to play in this group. I tend to end up leading groups, but this is my last Semester at uni, and I’m hunting for a job and attempting to brush up my journalism credentials, and so my motivation and available time for Film TV2 is unfortunately not the same as it was last Semester. But I’ve got the informal role of producer, and so I do need to make sure I’m driving and energising the group.

The other thing that struck me is that I like taking control. I wanted to know what was going on with the visual, and I was listening keenly to the questions being asked, and wondering where else it could go. And while I absolutely trust my group and am thrilled with the outcome of the audition, I think that in future I’d prefer to have a meeting before filming where we make a formalised list of things we’re going to get, e.g.

- shots of hands

- mid shot

- close up face

- ask about friends

etc. etc. So that’s definitely something I’ll raise with the group, once we start regular meetings. In fact, forget blog post, this is just briefly becoming a to do list:

1. Set up weekly face to face meetings, no less than 1 hour
2. At meeting prepare and timeline a plan with tasks