Well, its been a long time coming, but my Youtube channel is about to reach 5,000 views. http://www.youtube.com/user/rvirax And I tell you what, its been a real challenge to get it to that level.
Without a regular subscriber base because of the lack of a regular and themed content, getting views outside of friends is a difficult challenge.
Nevertheless, the channel has served as a medium to explore techniques and themes.
I hope that someday I can find a voice for this channel, something to stand for, something to give.
But in the mean time, it will continue to serve as my experimental base until such time.
So thank you to all that helped me along with some of these films.
I hope that some of you have at least enjoyed one or two of them.
The next 5,000 will be just as tough, but here's to progress and to learning.
And nothing bad has come from learning.
Earlier this month, I uploaded a new project that I had been working on during one weekend.
The aim of this project was to experiment with some new film techniques to learn how to best utilise them in film.
I wasn't expecting it to be anything spectacular or even entertaining, again, just like most of my recent projects, it was just to play around and see what would happen.
I apologise in advace to those who are thinking of watching it. There is quite a visual over-load in this film.
I, myself, found it quite over-stimulating at first.
Nevertheless, I was proud of what I had learnt rather than what I had achieved.
There were two techniques/effects that I wanted to experiment with in this project.
The first effect was film speed.
The second effect was layering.
The subject of this project was Melbourne's CBD (Central Business District).
Since I often find myself wandering the streets of the CBD on weekends, it was the most accessible subject.
While the speed technique is easy to understand and doesn't need explaining, I feel that I should explain what I was trying to achieve with the layering effects.
In this film, I used 3 layers (the most that I could use in the version of Adobe Premier that I am using).
1st Layer:
The first layer is the base of the film footage.
It is simply footage of the streets of Melbourne's CBD sped up.
2nd Layer:
The second layer consists of some textured footage.
I tried to capture shapes and lines from over-head fluorescent lights and flights of stairs to plans of wood from a boardwalk and tiles from the street, etc.
When I recorded the footage of the textured images, I made sure that the shapes would move across the screen in a way that defines their texture.
3rd Layer:
The third layer was made up of iconic images found within the Melbourne CBD.
I chose these images particularly because they were iconic. Just like the textured images, I would 'bounce' the image around the screen so that the views eyes would be drawn to move across the screen just like they would as if they were walking the street.
The result...
...well, I feel like I must admit the limitations of this piece. The performance of my failing laptop was put to the test as I edited this film. It took well over an hour just to render 3 layers in the programme.
Being a busy man, I wasn't really patient and I just wanted to finish the film as quickly as possible.
There are many scenes that I am not happy with. For example, some cut-scenes were not as fluid or well-blended as I would have liked. Also, some certain layers were too over-powering and created moments that were too confusing or too one-dimensional. At other times, some images were too weak and didn't come out at all.
Nevertheless, it is from these mistakes that I learnt a lot. I hope to someday use the techniques I learnt in another project.
Photography:
I found it interesting that I had not tried layering in photography yet.
I think I have found my latest photography project. :)
Earlier last month, my brother and I decided to visit Mt. Piper and climb up to its summit.
Mt. Piper is a 455 metre mountain located next to the smaller, rural town of Broadford, Victoria. Since the arrival of European explorers in the early 1830s, Mt. Piper has been an iconic landmark of the region.
The mountain was first discovered by the explorers Hume and Hovell and was name after Captain Piper, a naval officer of the colony of New South Wales.
Since then, the mountain has been the site of several mining expeditions for rare metals such as Gold and Antimony. Currently, Mt. Piper is the symbol of the township of Broadford and is designated a Nature Conservation Reserve for the endangered Golden Sun Month and the Blue Ant Butterfly.
I had not been to the abandoned mines but my brother (Jon) said that he used to often explore there with friends when he was in High School. he promised to take me there so I could take some footage with my camera. However, as was evident from the video, he had a hard time recollecting where the abandoned mines were exactly.
At the end of our adventure, we reached the summit of the mountain and was treated to some fine views of the region. I hope you all enjoy the video of our trip up the mountain.
Today, I thought I shall introduce one of my short-films. The title of the piece is Ryoko's Final Melbourne Tour.
It's a tribute film for Ryoko that I made in April this year. I have attached it to this blog for those that are interested in watching it. WARNING: there are moments where Japanese is spoken. Please ensure that you have the closed-captions icon selected to get the English translation.
Ryoko is a friend of mine that I have know since 2009. We met at La Trobe University when I was in my first year of my PhD and she was still undertaking her undergraduate course. we became close friends and would spend a lot of time together conversing and having lunch together on campus. I found her to be both somewhat eccentric yet at the same time intellectually stimulating to talk to. We would often go out to dinner and karaoke together with other friends.
In 2010, I went to Japan to conduct my fieldwork and during my time abroad she was to graduate and eventually find employment in Sydney. She had mixed feelings about her residence and work in Sydney and would, on occasion, come back to Melbourne to visit old friends in which I would feel obliged to help out my good friend by chauffeuring her around the town.
This time (April 2012), Ryoko announced that she had quit her job in Sydney and was returning to Japan. She decided to come back to Melbourne one last time before she would leave, to celebrate with her good friends and give thanks for the friendships that she had with them.
I decided to film this moment in honour of our friendship, however I wanted to give it a little twist to make the moment more memorable. The theme of my project was to create an illusion that Ryoko was some kind of major celebrity who was arriving for her final tour.
I did not tell Ryoko or any of her guests what I was intended to do with the project because I wanted to catch people in their natural state (albeit, some people like Allison caught on pretty quickly). Overall, I was grateful for everyone for cooperating with me on this project. Everyone had fun and kept the atmosphere lively. I had no problem collecting interesting footage for this tribute.
However, the battery on my camera did run out quickly (this was before I bought a larger battery for the camera) and I had to come back to the city at a later date to film extra b-roll footage.
But overall, I was happy with the end product, even though I am still quite new to the editing software. Ryoko seemed to be pleased (and surprised) with the final product. I hope that we can meet again soon and maybe a live in Japan version at the end of this month.
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