Research - Week 2

19/02/2019

We had to listen in the whole class of presentations. A lot of the presentations were told in a complex and very intelligent style, which was kind of hard for me to follow, so it's good that I have an audio recorder. An element of another project can be used as the project idea for this paper, but just as long as not a duplicate of something else or the same thing.

This module is one semester long and we are to have an exhibition at the end. The end result will demonstrate my skills and qualities as a filmmaker. Research will show I have some idea what I'm talking about, when it comes to the research subject or aspects.

Estelle clearly has passion for creativity and finds peace in her practice, which is visual art illustration. Estelle's project idea involves automation with drawing and Her influences are draw on from abstract expressionism, citing many practitioners that apply that style like Sy Twombly. She wants to experiment with many mediums to achieve a similar style e.g. felt pens.

Fabri's project idea is to use colour scripts for lighting and colouring in a short film. She had a lot of influence from Pixar because they use that method.

Liana is a visual art student and she will be utilising this module for her final project. She specialises in drawing / illustration and cites her artist models and connects the project to her cultural background.

Jacqui is a third year film student and wants her project idea to relevant with her big project. She wants to learn about project management in film and research about female producers in the field, as well as look at tactics and methods to be helpful and such to others. Foremost, she wants to find about how can she lead a successful team in producing a film. She needs to think about what the end product will be for the exhibition at the end of the year.

Oisin's project idea involves around defining characters with what you only see visually, not what you are told. He uses examples from movie posters e.g. Rear Window, Drive, and No Country for Old Men.

Corrie's project idea is a continuation from her project last year, which involved contrast and lighting. She will be further developing this idea with shapes, using drawing and illustration. She is looking for simplistic character designs, as wells character design that almost resembles shapes(s) e.g. Pixar's Monsters Inc, or does so subtly e.g. Luigi Lucarelli.

Someone wants to create a comic book franchise and wants learn how it can be done. By doing so, she wants to research about engaging characters and stories. She is also committed to developing and improving existing characters she had completed beforehand.

Chrys' project idea involve about how a character's appearance defines them. She establishes the creative process of concept artist, who take account, colour and shapes towards developing the appearance equals what defines them as characters. She is committed to submitting finalised character designs that is to be publicly surveyed because of that very concept.

Someone's project involve a natural disaster based on Herculaneum. Her idea is very ambitious for the module.

Natasha's project inspiration came from theater and have a background in that field and this chance for her to combine theater and film, which is set design. Her focus is to finds the elements concerning effective set design. Her research will involve whether the set will reflect the production's theme, aspects of the characters, and action in the story, enable ease for the transition between scenes and so on. It's very specific and broad questions she wants answered and seems a very large number of questions that needs answers. She could instead use her project idea towards a film student's project.

Teresa's project idea is to focus on story in black and white comics.


Project ideas: Is there a technical difference (e.g. compression) between a film or video exported from Davinici Resolve and Adobe Premiere.
Can I make an effective film without lighting onset?


Bo's project idea about making a short film that is about dreams, applying subjective filmmaking. He wants the audience to experience what the main character is experiencing in this cinematic story. He has considered and planned out the structure.

Kasey shows her research on how women are depicted in art from pre-modernist to modernist, as well as feminism in art. She will be using flowers for symbolism, which is a proven sexual metaphor. She showed us conventional examples of feminist art towards her artist models. Her end goal is to do an oil painting that rejects traditional ideology on female sexuality. It's a very contemporary concept. I encourage her to push the boundaries of her medium for this project.

Britney wants to change traditional visuals from the past on the female gender roles also known as a pinup. She plans to experiment with ink and pop art as part of the style for her project. A1 ink political artwork is the intended result at the end.

Rach's project idea applies mythology and animation. It's an attempt to teach about our culture and did some research into Polynesian culture. She plans to digitally paint her animations, resulting in animated images or GIFs.
She showed us Mythical Mondays. The animator behind this video is the driving influence behind her project.


We went to the campus library in the afternoon and we were talked by a librarian. She talked us through the research sources there are available to us through databases and such.

Notes from library talk

• Zotero and Endnote - APA referencing software
• WORLDCAT - World library catalogue
• SIT library go no further than Australia to inter-loan books for us. We email the SIT library to request for books from other libraries.
• Use keywords with apostrophes to see those words together and makes your search more relevant on Ebook Central
• Ebook Central is a free subscription
• Use the word search on a ebook in Ebook Central to find what you are looking for.
• SiteFast
• There is a citation tool in the ebooks to show us the correct way to reference ebooks from Ebook Central
• Film & Literature Index has a extra field in its search page, which will help narrow down what you're looking for.
• Plum X stats tells you if many people have used a term or subject.
• ProQuest (Business, Hospitality link) searches for you in everywhere just as long as you remember to include apostrophes in your search request.
• Another way to narrow down searches is doing it this way - e.g. If you are looking into Japanese cinema; Japanese AND (cinema or film).
• SIT Downtown campus have a big DVD library.
• You can generate research from using databases

22/02/2019

I walked into the SIT Library read through the film magazines and journals there for over an hour. It was stressful not finding anything that could be researched quickly, but in the end I had ideas from reading recent editions of film journals and magazines, but I'm uncertain whether the research for the project ideas will take long or not.

The ideas were influenced from reading Cinema Journal, Vol 57, No 4 (2018), particular in its 77th page, which talks about a 1939-1940 film that was later colourised, Twenty-Four Variations on an Original Theme. Their process at the time was to do duplicate the frames onto colour film stock, using an optical printer. Clearly, things are a lot easier these days with digital technology.

Powers, J. (2018). A DIY Come-on: A History of Optical Printing in Advant-Garde Cinema. Cinema Journal, 57(4), 77-78. 

I looked through Cinefix, Vol 161, but it focused itself on visual effects and I couldn't see how I could apply any aspects towards a screen arts product.

I looked through Sight & Sound film magazine, but nothing intrigue my interest and it focused itself into film narrative and themes from new releases.

Project ideas

• How does colour help improve a film's narrative?
• How does colour help a film to be more engaging than black and white?
• What are the benefits of using split screen in a film?
• What are the befits of colourising a film?
• How can colour effect a film?
• How can films in colour better at storytelling than films in black and white?
• How colour in film affects emotions from the audience?

It is my intention to film a short dramatic sequence to show the effectiveness of black and white and colour with two versions pf the sequence shown through split screen. I believe it will tell us how the pros and cons of each other. What worked and didn't work in the sequence with black and white? What worked and didn't work in the sequence with colour?

25/02/2019

Research question: What are the benefits of colourising film?

I only just found out I had to do a 5 minute presentation for tomorrow. I've had trouble with accessing Blackboard and SIT sites at home and I didn't how to log into Blackboard without MySIT. I also had personal problems with adjusting to the workload of the course and was overwhelmed. However, I was aware about my one-on-one happening. It looks like I will have to put something together quickly before my one-on-one tomorrow. 

I will try my best to get it done in time...