Field Study Assignment 3
The recordings should reflect a logic that connects the shots to the mode of engagement that you want the viewer to experience in relation to the persons in the film. Experiment with possible approaches for your own project when making the assignments described below. What style of recording and what kinds of transitions between shots do you envision for your own project?
For these assignments pay attention to recording sound. Use an external microphone (Sennheiser ME64) with either the Sony camera or your own equipment.
Parts A-C should be performed through editing-in-the-camera.
Parts D & E may use additional editing to achieve the final results.
Modifications made during the MiP week have been noted below in pink.
Part A – Establishing Shot (2 versions, max. 1 min each)
A shot that establishes the context of a film may reveal the landscape and/or environment and position of your subjects dwelling/place of action; revealing the character of the setting, the specific location, and its relation to the natural or built environment.
- Make one static establishing shot and one moving tracking shot of your field site.
- Explore different points of view and different frames and eventually choose one that you think communicates best what the place is about.
- In large inside-spaces (like a factory or a library or a big barn etc.), you may also make your establishing shot inside.
Part B – Process (3-5 min.)
A process film provides a sequence of activity that consists in unity of time place and activity, which could be as simple as doing the dishes, making coffee, gardening, a meditation session, etc.
- Record in ‘observational cinema style’, without obviously engaging with the person(s) you film.
- Show beginning, development, and end, then finally a transition to a next activity/pause.
- Apply ‘continuity-editing’ and time-compression in a way that we still experience a sense of the flow of the activity. Compress time by at least leaving out 2/3 of the real time the activity took. The real life activity should thus last at least 10 minutes.
- Prevent ‘jumpcuts’ and try to represent a sense of a rhythm and duration that cognitively reflects a comparable sense of time.
- Think beforehand about what aspects you want to convey of the activity that is performed by that person(s) and how you may achieve that.
Part C – Cultural Inventory (max. 3 min)
Material culture reveals a great deal about activities; the role, personality or the lifestyle of a person. The material culture of an aged person looks very different from that of a child, or the desk of a lawyer is different from that of a car-mechanic. What are the artefacts that characterise a person’s role or life. Here it is important to think in advance about what you want to tell about the person through the long take. For the MiP week, we modified this to take place in a non-personal site, which asks you to make an inventory that adds details about your site. But you are also permitted to submit a sequence that is personal, if you had the opportunity to do this.
- In one long take or through a series of shots, make a cultural inventory of the artefacts/material culture that is specific to the practice of your subject.
- Hold at least 6 seconds at the beginning and at the end of the shot, and think about how the opening and the end-frame connect to each other.
- Also situate the objects in space. There should be a narrative relation between your opening -shot and your closing-shot.
Part D – Poetic Composition (2 min.)
In a film we often encounter scenes that set the tone. It gives the atmosphere, the natural environment, the weather or reveals a certain aesthetic of a place. Form, rhythm, color lines, are here more important than content.
- Make a sensorial or poetic composition of shots in which you use as point of reference: a concept; a theme, a feeling or an atmosphere that you want to convey through the composition of shots and edited sound.
- Think about what specific stylistic choices may best suit the theme or feeling or experience you want to convey (short or long shots, movements or static, composition etc.)
- Pay good attention to rhythms, sounds as well as visual features like colors, lines, gestures, expressions of faces etc.
- Edit these shots in a way that the feeling or understanding that you want to convey comes across as convincing as possible.
Part E – Portrait (3-5 min.)
Portray your protagonist, by depicting his/her characteristics as a person and/or in his/her role/position/profession that you are interested in.
- There are no rules; be creative but experiment with breaking through the comfortable Medium-shot distance.
- Record in close-up using a wide-angle lens. Try to get as intimate as you can.
- You may combine it with an on camera conversation/voice over, but speech may not exceed one third of the length of the film.
- Try to clearly reveal your relation with him/her.
- Reflect on what motivated your approach and choice of moments/aspects in that person’s life/work, and how your own position also becomes apparent in the portrait.
Submission: Export A-E as one file with titles in between identifying the parts of the assignments Reflect on the execution of the assignment and explain your choices of form and content.
When exporting your video, adjust the bitrate in Media-encoder to between 50 -60.
