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