The End

It's week 12. The finish line. The end of semester two 2018 - and the beginning of a few months of mental freedom. I should be excited, and I am, but there's also a hint of sadness. This is our last chance to create and learn in this studio. I'm guilty of experiencing nostalgia in all aspects of my life, even about experiences that were awful (high school, for example), so of course I can already feel it stirring. I'm sure I'll look back on my experiences and the friends I made this semester fondly.

So in an attempt to come to terms with the impending loss of Material Choreographies in my life, I present to you a summary of my journey so far.This is like the CliffsNotes of my blog, in case you haven't been reading so far but you still want all the key info on what's been happening this semester ;)

On the day of our first class, way back in July, I walked into the classroom late and flustered because my train had been delayed and I didn't know where my classroom was. I'm not new to RMIT, having completed the Associate Degree of Professional Writing and Editing in 2017, but Building 9 was still new to me. I had spent all my time in Building 94 during the previous two years and this was my first studio in BA Creative Writing (little did I know, it would soon feel like my safe space in the bustle of RMIT).

That first two-hour class was alien to me. We watched an array of obscure, artsy works of film and it had me wondering what I'd signed myself up for. Moving from an associate degree to a bachelor, I had expected my classes to be more theoretical than the practical based learning I had experienced before, but this exceeded my expectations. I shrugged it off, thinking that it would push me from my comfort zone and at the very least, my teacher seemed nice so it couldn't be that bad. 

This willingness to put my reservations on hold momentarily instead of jumping to thoughts of should I switch studio options? or is this really the right degree for me? is I think what allowed me to take something from the semester. 

Brief 1

I feel like I wrote my week one First Thoughts on Collaborating post many months ago, rather than just twelve weeks. I wrote that I was excited about working with film and that I wanted to improve my skills, which I did to some extent but I wasn't as involved in the editing processes as I expected. This improved over time though, and in brief four I was able to shoot and edit my own video, as part of a set of three, which left me delighted with the final outcome and the class reception of it. I wrote that I was nervous about leaving writing behind to try new types of narrative but throughout the semester this didn't trouble me at all, I actually completely forgot that I had once felt that way!

The section on past collaboration experiences reveals that I had some reservations about the upcoming collaborative process, even if I tried to conceal just how concerned about it I was at the time. I wrote that 'the number one thing that I find difficult about collaborative projects is the possible difference in commitment and intention for a project' and this was definitely true of my experience this semester. 

This was most apparent in brief two where I felt that I had little to no control over the work and that the other group member had different intentions for the brief than me. I felt really disconnected from the final product and I think this is apparent in the artist statement, where what is written just doesn't match up with the finished video.

Brief 2

My Brief 1 Part 2 blog post shows me reaching to find creativity even though I wasn't feeling very inspired at that time. I felt like brief one hadn't allowed me to display my full creative potential so I wanted to challenge myself to respond to other students' work creatively, rather than in a essayistic or analytical style, while still using my preferred non-fiction style. What I came up with is a piece of reflective personal essay style writing that I'm still really proud of. It got me thinking more about my limitations as a non-fiction writer and how I could push them, which you can read more about in my challenges post.

I think my frustration over not yet being able to push my limits can be seen in the post The Half Way Point. I wrote about not feeling challenged enough in the ways I wanted to be, how I didn't feel an attachment to my works so far, how I hadn't shown my full potential yet and how I didn't think working in pairs was really working for me. I decided to let go of all these thoughts once I had written them because I hoped that better things were to come (spoiler alert: I was right).

Brief 3

In briefs three and four I really found my groove and I think this was because I was working in groups of three or four people. There were more ideas and much less of the 'my idea or yours' issue that was mentioned in class in relation to working in pairs. I was able to offer ideas to the group and we worked them into something we were all interested in. I did filming and editing myself as well as sitting around a computer with my brief three group so that we all had a say in how our video was edited. I felt like these briefs were so much closer to what our collaborations experiences where meant to be.

My video from Brief 4, unedited

In my post Checking In I used words like 'refreshing' and 'creative freedom' which I think is a sign of how much my perception of the studio changed once I found collaborators that I really clicked with. I'm really happy that I came out of it all with a new appreciation for group work and how it can actually be beneficial. I also made friends, which I didn't expect considering I just jumped into Creative Writing half way though, and I'm hoping to see more of them in my future classes :)

So with that I bid goodbye to Material Choreographies, this little blog and to its readers (most of which were students in my class but some others from as far away as America!). 

Brief 4: Elisions text and image

Artist Statement

Through group discussion we established that we would like to create a work of slow cinema centred around a perspective other than that of a human. We chose the perspective of our pets. We all have a different type of pet:

Kayla - Lizard

Lucy - Cat 

Christie - Dog

As we’re all creative writers, we chose to all take on the role of filming and editing our own videos of our pets. We felt that this was the fairest way to distribute the workload. 

Our intention is to show how our pets spend their time. As humans, we’re driven by a need to achieve and make progress in our lives in whatever areas we deem important. For animals, life has a different pace and focus. Through observing how our pets spend their time on an average day, we had the idea that they generally like to sleep a lot and that they live in the present rather than being caught up in their thoughts the way humans are. 

We set up cameras and filmed our pets in their natural home environments - be that a glass tank or the backyard. By letting go of the need to film from a human perspective and allowing events to unfold on their own, we created a new type of work that wasn't influenced by our own human perspectives - at least as much as is possible. 

To further demonstrate that the films are from our animals’ perspective, we chose to edit our footage to show the colour schemes that our pets are able to see: showing how the work looks through their eyes. By doing this we hoped to world outside of our comfort zones - as three Creative Writing students, we wanted to do more than  the editing basics, and attempt new realms of post-production possibilities.

If this work were to be displayed to the public, we would have three separate screens in a gallery space, playing on repeat, allowing visitors to choose which slow film they wanted to watch. 

We ran into some challenges in our creative process. The main one was that we had trouble with how much our animals moved around and out of frame. It took several attempts to get the right clips and angles and some improvisation, such as using a rock as a tripod in Christie's case. We had to learn quickly to embrace the spontaneity of our pets.

The methods we had to undertake in order to pay proper homage to slow cinema also tested what we consider about narrative structure within film. Although we’ve done plenty of experimental works over the semester; the patience required to shoot a single frame for several minutes rather than testing multiple takes was easier said than done. The desire to stop recording and create something more contrived was overwhelming, particularly because our pets aren’t the most cooperative muses. However, all three of us managed to stick it out and are really proud of the end results.

Link to my video:

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1wtUSXhJFCyyPVpCilqslNjPquIezYYcs

Screenshots of my team members' videos:

Kayla's lizard Tyson

Checking In

I wanted to check back in after brief 3 because a few things I spoke about in my last update post have changed (yay for change!).

In brief 3 I worked in a group of four people, when I had worked in pairs for both briefs before this. I found this so refreshing! There were so many more ideas, more people to create video content and more voices when it came to both the editing process and writing the artist statement. I'm working in a group of three for brief 4 so I'm glad to have another opportunity to explore creating something with a group.

In my group of four I was able to take on different roles than I previously had. I got to film a lot of short nature clips in my local area which was really fun. I had some creative freedom to film myself (after coming up with the basic concepts as a group) which made me feel more connected to the final work. I could see how clips that I had initially filmed could be changed significantly by someone else's editing and guided group discussion.

I think the success of this collaboration was our communication. We had a group chat, there weren't any cases of someone disappearing for long periods and we were supportive of each other.

Group discussion of last minute edits

Brief 3 felt much more challenging (partially because of the short time frame) and for that reason, I enjoyed it a lot more. I enjoyed the dynamic of working with different people on different parts of of the process. I'm really looking forward to seeing what comes out of the final brief for the semester.

Brief 3 - Transpositions: Text to Image

by Qing, Kayla, Christie and Logan

Our Poems

Wind and Silver by Amy Lowell
Greatly shining,
The Autumn moon floats in the thin sky;
And the fish-ponds shake their backs and flash their dragon scales
As she passes over them.

Nothing Gold Can Stay by Robert Frost

Nature's first green is gold, 

Her hardest hue to hold. 

Her early leaf's a flower; 

But only so an hour. 

Then leaf subsides to leaf. 

So Eden sank to grief, 

So dawn goes down to day. 

Nothing gold can stay.

Artist Statement

Our approach:

We started off with four poems because we had a larger group, so we had to narrow our material down because it didn’t seem achievable to cover everything. After settling on two poems, we picked out some of the themes and ideas that they both had in common. These included: 

• Colours: gold and silver
• The natural world: water, wind, flora (leaves, flowers, etc.), Eden
• Light: ‘dawn’, ‘Autumn moon’
• Contrast 
• Iridescence
• Impermanence
• Touched-up reality

We decided to work with some of these themes and ideas to create a hybrid work. We created some mood boards with images of concepts we might like to try out. Unfortunately, we couldn’t pull off all of our ideas so they didn’t end up in the final product.

From there, we did a brainstorming activity where we played around with the two poems and how they could be blended together:

Wind. Silver. Gold. Nothing Can Stay 

Greatly shining ⚪️ Nature's first green is gold, 

The Autumn moon floats in the thin sky ⚫️ Her hardest hue to hold. 

And the fish-ponds shake their ⚪️ Eden sank grief,

As she passes over them ⚫️ dawn goes down to day. 

Dragon scales ⚪️ only so an hour. 

Nothing can stay 

🔘

Both of our selected poems have a transitory, eroding, wind like affect.

We decided then to translate poetry as experience—words arranged as fragments, or film edited in a montage. Play with film as a means to access the matrix of meaning we 

Moving image, sound and cinematic technique appear laden with symbols for a responder to interpret and live for themselves. We decided to use a contrast between focus and unfocus, filter and unfiltered, hard set frame and loose to highlight the ambiguity of experience. To create a place of relating for the viewer, without an obvious lead from us as collaborating creators.

Issues we encountered:

In the beginning, we were a bit stumped by having too many poems  to work with but this was easily solved. The main issue we encountered was not being able to create what we initially intended to. We initially wanted to demonstrate wind with something like gymnastic ribbon or fabric flapping in the wind. When we couldn’t find gymnastic ribbons at any stores on short notice and the weather wasn’t ideal (raining, rather than sunny and windy as we hoped it would be), we had to come up with other ideas. We had a go at filming short clips over the weekend, uploaded them all to Google Drive and then worked as a group to make selections and editing decisions.

Discoveries we made:

Working in a group of four was definitely a new experience for some of us. It was a different kind of work environment with more voices to be heard, unique style preferences and ideas bouncing around between us; however the fact that we all had an interest and engagement with the core ideas behind the poems and video, really sent us in a cohesive direction. There was still enough room within the creativity of the task for each group member to get involved and utilize their strengths while learning from each other.

Another discovery we made was that between the ambiguity of poetry and the ambiguity that can be found in subtle meanings drawn from a few seconds of film imagery, everyone can contrive different connections. For example, while one of us may look at a scene in our video and tie it to the poem as a result of its theme of nature, another one of us may see it relating to the imagery as a symbol of impermanence. This really emphasized the subjective nature of poetry in general.

The Final Product

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1zsTj1uAiOeTP5eY34X8758EQkgVmprFt

The Half Way Point

Photo by Stefano Zocca

The semester is already half over and I wanted to sum up my thoughts and feelings on the studio so far, because they will no doubt change again by the end of the semester.

Collaborating is a real challenge for me. I'm sure everyone in the studio is finding it difficult for different reasons, but I personally just love to work on my own. I like to set my own pace; powering ahead in some stages and then giving myself a break when I'm going through a phase of working a lot or just needing to give myself some rest.

I feel that so far I haven't been challenged too hard in the ways I was expecting (being pushed to try new skills and methods of working, for example).This is perhaps because I've been a bit more willing to let others take control. I feel that I haven't displayed my full potential in working with film yet but I'm really hoping for some magic in the next two briefs.

I haven't felt an attachment to any of the collaborative work that I've produced so far. I'd like this to change by the end of the semester. I'd like to have a work that reflects me in some ways, but that I also couldn't have created on my own. A "true" work of collaboration?

I've worked in pairs for both brief one and two. In class it was mentioned that a third member in a group can serve as a circuit breaker and I really like this idea. I agree that working in a pair can often feel like 'it's your idea or mine' and I think a third person could be really helpful. I haven't found much inspiration in the last two briefs I have completed so honestly I'd love to work in a group that has too many ideas and has to pick and choose between them.

Overall, I think there's more for me to gain from this studio. I haven't been able to show what I'm really capable of creating, it's just the tip of the iceberg. I've kind of just been bobbing along, keeping my head above water and completing everything I need to. In terms of collaboration, I feel that I haven't necessarily gotten into the meat of it yet. I'm curious to find out who I'll be working with for brief three. 

I'm also curious to hear from my future self about what I'll think of this post at the end of the semester!

Brief 2 - Figures Framing Images

by Terance and Christie
The Space

Link to pictures:

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1uDvw8SBvHPABj_BYqdPUe4PrqMysmvnw

Artist Statement

In brief two, we explored the idea of a fight being a dance: a fight that relies more on a rhythm and an interaction between two actors, rather than a duel that ends in injury. It was less about seeing who the best fighter is and more about how we can explore movement between two people.

From looking at existing media, we can see that fight scenes in action movies are generally cut heavily while Bruce Lee style films are very much single shot. So our vision was to create a hybrid of Bruce Lee and dance style work. In this regard, films like Claire Denis Beau Travail and Spear helped us to get some inspiration. 

We originally intended for there to be diegetic fight sounds and non-diegetic music playing over the work. We played with ideas of repetitive, rhythmic music and matching the beat to the actors as they moved around. In real life, there was no music, and so the actors were able to interact with each other in their own rhythm. We edited the clips in a quiet classroom so we had to have the computer on mute and after seeing them this way, we felt that it allowed the viewer to focus specifically on the movements of the figures on screen.This made a non-diegetic sound track irrelevant. A backing track would have been overwhelming and confusing for the viewer, which is an idea we originally played with, but decided to discard later in the creative process.    

The room can certainly accommodate a group of people but we would like viewers to visit in small numbers of one or two people so they can feel more intimate with the work. The use of multiple screens around the space was intended to make the viewing experience more immersive.

We intended this experience to be for an audience much like ourselves: university students. It is for a viewer who moves through a space and immediately tries to draw meaning from what they are seeing by analysing patterns, choices of angle and possible narrative choices etc.

We intend for them to notice the rhythm of 1,2 and 3. To look beyond the two figures fighting and notice the way they move in relation to the space and each other. Furthermore we want them to see why we chose to shoot in the late afternoon: to notice the elongated shadows created by the afternoon sun. We intend for the audience to see how even shadows can create a tempo.

We also want to stimulate curiosity in our audience. For this reason, we chose to include an interactive aspect on one of the screens to engage the viewer beyond just looking. A 360 video is a new piece of technology that our audience could engage with. We have one screen displaying a 360 viewpoint positioned between the figures, which can make the actors seem really close or really far away, challenging the eye to understand the environment in new ways. 

Link to videos:

https://vimeo.com/286148756

https://vimeo.com/286148402

From the Perspective of the Floor

During class writing exercises, I decided to think of a person walking around a gallery space from the perspective of the floor. I suppose the floor would be fairly objective, just observing without context or emotion. But what would the floor think about the way a person moves around the room?

Two feet step through the doorway.
They hover there.
Lost?
Uncomfortable?
A few more tentative steps forward and they're in the middle of the room.
They stand still.
Looking.
Thinking.
The feet move again.
They begin to drift around the room
from wall to wall.
Stopping occassionally
then moving on.

Photo by julian mora