sarah-indie-blog

[sarah-indie-blog]

You Keep Me Hanging On (2017) by Sarah Indie

“You Keep Me Hanging On” is a short single-location film about a guilty and desperate older brother who seeks reprimand for abandoning his younger brother. David, the older one, has come back home to LA to get his younger brother Anthony out of the psychiatric hospital where he has been admitted for mental illness. We witness David, frustrated, trying to get through to Anthony who has taken a vow of silence to spite him. David has even obtained visa papers for his younger brother to come back home with him to Australia but this doesn’t work -- tension heat up over the course of the visit.

This story is written based off David’s point of view but he isn’t the ‘protagonist’ in the story. Both characters need each others’ reaction and expression to drive the story, just the way a dance works. And so you can see two really alpha male characters beefing each other up, struggling to reserve their ego. David’s really trying to be the “good older brother” that he has recently felt the ‘overburdening’ guilt to be. Anthony can see through that and he holds onto his resentment and bitterness, spitefully ignoring his brother. So you may ask - what is Anthony’s motive then? Simply, to undermine David’s chance at forgiveness and peace.

This scene is part of a whole script. It is occurs halfway and is a pivotal moment in the story. The story really starts at this point and goes into full speed thereafter, collateral damage and all. I wanted to channel as much emotion into this scene since I could relate to it based on personal experiences. It was important that, as the film’s director, I translated all that energy into screen, and as an editor, the images into a concise and impactful short film.

Ben (the cinematographer) and I instantly had the same vision in terms of its’ cinematic direction. We were drawn to the unconventional screen dynamic of the TV show Mr. Robot: the jarring framing, the tension between the characters through the compositions, the lack of sound, the open airiness, and the lingering silences. We wanted to translate that same awkward tension and unconventional framing into our short because that’s essentially what it would feel like to be right there in that moment.

With that being said, the pre-production process took a lot longer because we had a very specific look and style. We only had three hours to work with for the shoot, so it was time under tension all the way. Should we have had more time, we would’ve tightened the shots and added more variety. For example, we felt like it could do more with close up of Anthony, or even wider shots to bring up the awkward tension - and wider space with more empty chairs and tables would have worked well, too. 

-

Credits:

Written and directed by Sarah Indie

Director of Photography by Benjamin Ling

Sound by Roger Chen

Edited by Sarah Indie

David played by Charlie Jones

Anthony played by William Rogan-Johnstone 

BTS/Special Thanks to Jose Marcelino

[sarah-indie-blog]

“You Keep Me Hanging On” by Sarah Indraputri / Edited by Josh Hauville, 2017. 

[sarah-indie-blog]

A short melodrama skit for ARTS3061 class.  We had to focus in on a specific part of the original story and add our own twist to it. In our version, Theseus is the OG ‘F Boy’ who breaks up with Ariadne because he can’t commit to her, pulling the “It’s not you, it’s me” line. A heartbroken Ariadne pleas for him to stay: “I gave you my thread!”   Honestly, Theseus is just a player; don’t worry Ariadne, he’s gonna get karma, anyway. A rough cut edited on Premiere Pro, shot on iPhone 6s and recorded using RODE microphone and Zoom Audio Recorder. 

[sarah-indie-blog]

AIRY - CLOSED 

A photoshop design.

[sarah-indie-blog]

When The World Zigs, Zag: An interactive game design walk-through

Created using Unreal Engine 4.

Sound:

“Computer error alert” by Mike Koenig, available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial license from http://soundbible.com/1540-Computer-Error-Alert.html

“Elevator ding” by Corsica, available under a Creative Commons Attribution Noncommercial license from http://soundbible.com/1441-Elevator-Ding.html

“Engine rev inside car” by Mike Koenig, available under a Creative Commons Attribution Noncommercial license from http://soundbible.com/785-Engine-Inside-Car.html

All other sound effects and background sounds taken from royalty free sound effects within Sound Bank.

[sarah-indie-blog]

Poly: The Circus Strongwoman 

A stop-motion animation I did in first semester this year. Polly is a clay figurine. Shot with a Canon DSLR on Dragon Frame.  

[sarah-indie-blog]

DIRT GIRL

Play it on loop. 

[sarah-indie-blog]

The Godfather – Hospital Scene Film Adaptation

Blood and Loyalty Prevail: An Exegesis on The Godfather Adaptation

 When you start out as a filmmaker, you do parodies, because you can’t really compete on a studio level.

- Bill Paxton

 The hospital scene in The Godfather is a turning-point of the film in which Michael Corleone finally stands up and becomes the son that his father Don Vito (“The Godfather”) wanted him to be – and it couldn’t have come at a better (or worse) time. As his father lay there, on the last breaths of his life, Michael holds his hands and gently whispers to him, “I’ll take care of you. I’m with you now.” Don smiles up at him, a tear running down his face. It is an intimate moment between father and son. It is shortly after when Michael stands outside with Enzo, ‘the baker’s son’, that we witness the transformation of Corleone’s youngest. Michael and Enzo stand there, hands in pockets “like they’ve got a gun”, vigilantly watching the front of the hospital.

 We decided to only focus on the second half of the scene as we believed that this half was the climax of the turning point of the film. That moment uncovers Michael’s unavoidable loyalty to his father and sensibility to the ‘family business’. Even though Michael has spent most of his life rebelling against his father, joining the army, and avoiding the mafia life, it is this moment that we come to see Michael’s transitioning: a war hero turned family gang criminal. It is also a character-to-character/relationship development between him and his father. Michael essentially steps up and accepts the power and responsibility in this dire moment.

 Naturally, adapting such a classic scene at our level had to be purposefully exaggerated – so it would be made into a parody. But it was also a personal tribute to the film, so it is a dedication to my love for American gangster films.

 As the director of photography, my job was to extricate that specific scene into shots, analysing its’ quality in terms of composition, framing, camera angle, and shot type. This had to be done during the pre-production stage – everything had to be carefully and thoroughly organised for perfect execution. The post-production stage of the filming process also played a crucial role. The remake also had to have the original score and emphasis on similar sound effects because this particular scene in the film has a very somber soundtrack – it was not to be overlooked. The music, along with the shots, tied the overall ethos of the film, and it drew the right feel and atmosphere to the remake, and it added that element of authenticity to the parody.

 It was not important to keep the character appearances/age and props the same: the ‘modern’ look of the film would uphold the ‘timeless’ value of that scene, and all that really mattered for us was to keep the dialogue, continuity and shots the same.  If only we had more time we would have been able to get the lighting and editing right and improve on the performances.

[sarah-indie-blog]

Stalking the Stalker: A Folly Exercise

In this class exercise we were made to document the life of a folly artist who is designated to record bits of sound for a stalker scene. We set up a list of sounds and recorded them using a ZOOM mic, with BTS documentation (as above). The sounds had to be exaggerated to give it depth of quality. I followed this up by editing the clips with a camcorder filter and cool tone overlay.

[sarah-indie-blog]

Emily Doe (2016): A script by by Sarah Indraputri and Sophie Hackett 

The context and stylistic interpretations of ‘Emily Doe’ (2016): An exegesis by Sarah Indraputri

 This brief commentary aims to explore the making of ‘Emily Doe’ in terms of the story’s context and consideration of such stylistic elements like cinematography and sound design. In the former, I explain the context of the script and in the latter, I explain the process of conceptualisation through which my team and I used to adapt the source of material – the victim’s impact letter in the People vs. Turner (2015) case.

Rape cases are becoming more prominent in media, yet attention is often given to the defendants, leaving the victim’s voice powerless and unnoticed. In 2015, a young female student was sexually assaulted while unconscious during a campus party on Stanford University by an acquainted male student who was stopped after he was discovered by two passing cyclists. A year later, the victim presented her impact statement in the court hearing, and in a shocking letter which described the grueling experience through her own account, the victim details the events as it were in frayed snapshots of memories and anecdotes. Our team decided to adapt the script based on this letter, taking details of the events (before, during and after) and projecting the series of events in non-chronological order through flashbacks while grounded in the ‘present’ (occur during the court hearing). This was inspired by nonlinear narrative films like Michel Gondry’s Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004) and Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction (1994) and Kill Bill series (2003 and 2004).  

 We decided to use a first-person/subjective point-of-view perspective to recount these raw experiences. In the making of the script, our team intended for its cinematographic style to be entirely considered from the victim’s point of view – also in line with the purpose of telling a story that gives ‘voice’ to victims of sexual assault cases.  

Why we chose this mode of story-telling and cinematography forethought can be exemplified by the points made by Quendler in regards to ‘camera-eye vision’ cinema and the theories of embodiment in film: ‘camera-eye metaphors’ reflect “conditions of human perception and meaning” and aims to construct “alternate and abstract modes of reality” (2014, p. 74). The camera-eye metaphor in our narrative, through the use of a subjective point-of-view, aims to parallel the feeling of helplessness and vulnerability felt by sexual assault victims – especially as we force the audience to witness the events unfolding as the victim’s senses are gradually becoming more inhibited. This concept of being ‘locked up in a camera’ (2014, p. 78) is a central theme to our script and was used to bring the position of the viewer in the space of the character’s mind and senses; the audience is to feel like they are trapped in her body. Apart from the theoretical framework from which this form of storytelling was inspired by, it was also influenced by contemporary modes of narrative cinema, such as 3D virtual reality and point-of-view storytelling in games.

Moreover, in moments where the character cannot ‘see’ (i.e., the state of semi-unconsciousness and paralysis), we extend the aural perspective by accompanying it with what the character would hear. It is intended to be raw, visceral and completely immersive.            

To conclude, the making of ‘Emily Doe’ mainly draws upon real events and conceptualizes a ‘personalised’ account through the metaphorical film styles of subjective point-of-view camera work and sound design, which aims to drive the reader/viewer through a narrative as seen and heard from the victim’s perspective.

  Bibliography/References

 Baker, K. J. M. 2016. ‘Here is the powerful letter the Stanford victim read aloud to her attacker’, Buzzfeed News, accessed 11/9/16, < https://www.buzzfeed.com/katiejmbaker/heres-the-powerful-letter-the-stanford-victim-read-to-her-ra?utm_term=.ybv5qv1Xo#.anN5jw3zl>

 Quendler, C. 2014. ‘Subjective cameras locked-in and out-of body’, Image & narrative, vol. 15(1), p. 71-88

[sarah-indie-blog]

#ARTS2065 lighting exercise workshop 

In this tutorial exercise we played around with different light sources. In the final draw I picked two of the most intriguing photographs, which were set with only one main light source. It was positioned from behind and was obstructed by objects, which refracted and lit the subject in interesting ways.

In the second photo, we experimented with transferring artificial light sources. The only light source used was the one coming off the computer screen. 

LED through objects (first photo) to computer screen light (second photo).  

[sarah-indie-blog]

A stoned hero.

Scriptwriting Exercise: The Millenial’s Unlikely Hero

My partner and I were to create a story outline about a protagonist who wants to get food in the middle of the night while in a state of weed-induced haze. He has several difficulties - as imposed in five types of obstructions - but is so determined that he bears through it; he goes through each one until he gets his reward. 

[sarah-indie-blog]

Revenge, Take A Seat

#ARTS2065 Week 4 Class Project. Exploring camera and sound work (using ZOOM microphone). Edited on Final Cut Pro.  A short film of a man who seeks revenge after the door was slammed in his face, literally.  In this class we explored linear storytelling and experimented with the ZOOM recorder for the first time. The guidelines for the project was to make a very short story based on the moment in which the protagonist seeks revenge. We were to leave out dialogue so much of what is driving the narrative is action-focused. 

[sarah-indie-blog]

#ARTS2065 Week 3 Class Project - A Woman Walks Down A Slope

In this class we explored different camera angles. The video shows a short 26-second scene of a woman walking down the hill before stopping momentarily to look around. We used high angles and low angles, as well as using jump cuts to show close-ups (i.e. her shoes as she walks). While it was not filmed chronologically on-set, in post-production the film clips were edited to make sure it flowed (in terms of the narrative). The post-production consisted of using a linear type of editing where each action has to match before and at the start of the frame. There is no sound (sound quality was too bad). 

[sarah-indie-blog]

DIGITALE: LIFE IN INDONESIA – AN EXEGESIS

 "The old pond was still

A frog jumped in the water

And a splash was heard." (Tarkovsky 1986, p. 106)

  "Life in Indonesia" is an audio-visual narrative combining old and new photographs to tell a story of my memories of Indonesia.

 This film is comprised of both personal photographs that I took while on holiday in Indonesia using a 35mm DSLR and archival photographs that were taken of me when I was young. Voice-over narration is blended with field-recorded sounds and music.

 The story begins with a description of my recollections of Indonesia, eventually breaking into the second half where I reflect in first-person about my detachment from a place that I was born and grew up in for the first five years.

 STORY OUTLINE

The first half is a poetic journey is pieced in fragments drawing upon sight, smell, taste, touch and aural senses to recreate an environment. The story uses specific cultural observations like sounds of prayers over mosques in the mornings, brands of cigarettes and food, as well as experiences of places, people, and the environment. After a brief pause, the narration changes to a first-person perspective. The second half is my reflection upon identity and place. It is about my struggle to find solace in a place I have a deep longing for. I moved to Australia after five years of living in Jakarta. The reflection is somber and contemplative and ends open-endedly.

RATIONALE/INSPIRATION

In his essay "The Film Image," Tarkovsky stated that "the image is an impression of the truth, a glimpse of the truth permitted to us in our blindness" (1987, p. 106). The notion that images are dependent on human perception, where 'truth' is then enacted upon, is a central theme to my project. Images, for one thing, bears a physical quality on its own, but when met with interpretation, a quest for truth begins. Blending new and old photographs in the story act to do this. Since I do not own any archival photos of my experiences of Indonesia, new photographs are used to actively seek out to concrete the subjectivities of my past experiences. Old, archival photos allow me to peer into the past that I struggle to meet those experiences, but as expressed, “it does not feel the same…”. It becomes, then, a matter of disillusion. The surface of the image is penetrated with the subjective, and signs are 'resurrected' to create a representation that lies beyond the frame (Barthes 1977, p. 32). The image holds inherent qualities, but a story also lives beyond the frame, and, so, the narration is used to retell the story.

 Rhythm lies in the composition of the film, in the succession of the images, and the framing/reframing of the images, and ultimately, moves the story from one direction to the next. The movement was created by joining similar photographs to accompany the poetic structure of the story (like a time-lapse). Photographs were reframed to zoom in on human expressions, then followed by another reframing (as well as zooming out), and this was to create a sense of 'emotion within a space'. As Tarkovsky states, "assembly, editing, disturbs the passage of time, interrupts it and simultaneously gives it something new" (1987, p. 121). An image can be stripped of its layers -- the explicit and implicit -- and each time, a new meaning is given. I was directly inspired by the 'museum' scene in La Jetee (1962) where images are progressively edited after one another to mark a sense of movement. The visual structure of this scene added a sense of ‘liveliness’ to the narration. 

REFERENCES

 Tarkovsky, A. (1986), ‘The film image’, Sculpting in time, London: The Bodley Head, p. 104-134

Barthes, B. (1977), ‘Rhetoric of the image’, Image, Music-Text, p. 32-51

La Jetee (1962) dir. by Chris Marker

 Sounds:

 ‘Call to prayer in Jakarta’ by Djbacon (2004), accessed 23/8/2016 on <https://archive.org/details/CallToPrayerInJakarta> ‘Vision – ambient gamelan’ by thatjeffcarter (2014), accessed 23/8/2016 on <https://www.freesound.org/people/thatjeffcarter/sounds/244972/>