PIM Project 4 Final Video and Report
This blog includes my final video for Project 4 with a brief reflection on this work. It also includes a link to the Project 4 final report
This video is my final video for project 4. It explores life working on Swanston Street in the busy heart of Melbourne.
My final report for Project 4 can be accessed at:
Brief reflection on this final video
This work is most definitely the result of the many sketches and explorations I have undertaken this semester. The affordance of portability fully informs this sketch and is a hallmark of the look and feel of the final work. The iPhone allowed me to film these workers in a relaxed and comfortable manner, often I would film with the phone held below my face so I could talk directly with the person and this shows in their relaxed conversational manner in the work. This shows through clearly in the ‘selfie’ of myself and fruiterer, Fabio. While I feature only a few of the workers I filmed, the video gives a strong sense of the range of work that goes on in the street and the sense of creativity and energy that flows from this work. As Luis describes it, his jewellery stall is ‘a gate’ that lets people into his life. I feel the work captures that sense of what it’s like to open the gate and enter for a moment the lives of these creative and resourceful people.
The strength of the iPhone is its unobtrusiveness. The weakness is clearly the sound. If I were to do this project without the constraint of it being a mobile phone project I would consider using a separate sound recorder, although then the issues with syncing raise their ugly heads. But clearly the sound is a weakness here as some voices are hard to hear.
An addition to this work that came out of discussion with Seth was to include myself visually in the work. I am clearly a presence aurally as I am in dialogue with the workers, but Seth felt it would be help both in terms of narrative and transparency to include myself. I shot the footage again with the iPhone but chose to shoot vertical to get the look and feel of a selfie and distinguish this shot from the rest of the video. I think this works well.
I also decided to remove the Japanese musician as I did need to show him play and he was playing Hotel California a very recognisable song. Doing this work really consolidated my knowledge of issues around rights and filming music content.
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