I undertook an individual assignment at UNSW to create a photo essay on a deeply personal subject. Using entirely my own photos, I created a video with a voiceover using Adobe Premiere Pro and Logic. I chose to narrate how a lifetime of visiting a winter resort displayed such startlingly obvious signs of climate change over more than 30 years.
This was one of my first films that ventured into such overt envronmental messaging, and it has given me further inspiration to pursue more documentary filmmaking.
Past Lives is a 2023 Korean/English film produced by A24. At UNSW, we were tasked in groups to recreate a scene shot-for-shot from a Korean film of our choice. After picking the "second goodbye" scene, we began to plan how to recreate the sets of Nora and Hae Sung's bedrooms. I was sound designer and post-production sound editor along with my DOP, and it was a treat to come out of lockdown filmmaking and work with a team again. I am so proud of the film we created.
This week introduced us to key concepts and equipment we will use for the rest of the course. It was daunting but also a fantastic opportunity. My partner Isha and I developed a short film centred around a flashback. The film was about failing an exam, and the flashback unfolded all of the reasons the main character achieved this result. It was fun and goofy and was all we needed to start our filmmaking journey after a short break.
This week, our brief was to create a short film revolving around a still image that would provide key narrative information. Always under time pressure - each week our classes only go for 2.5 hours - we used a new lighting set-up to create an interrogation room for some murder suspects, with the body as the still image.
Week 3 strengthened our knowledge of handheld camera techniques to create a "stalker" scene in the horror genre. It was longer than our previous two videos, and more challenging to edit when there was less ambient noise and no dialogue. The footage was also shot in low light, so this would need adjusting with lights were we to attempt this again. Overall, challenging but fun!
Using the Zoom F3 recorders, we took turns seeing how they worked and recording voices at different distances. I ended up being one of the sound recordists for this week, acquainting myself with the equipment. I ended up loving the role so much I volunteered as Sound Recordist for the Remake Assignment.
Coded by Sophie Rutzou using HTML, CSS and Javascript.
All images from personal archives.