Desmond's obscure object, and Tara's desire.

A Phd has to have a 'sock' - a significant and original contribution to knowledge.  What kind of knowledge is this?  The research that is carried out needs an outcome, but when it comes to PhDs in the humanities, this outcome is going to be of a different kind to a PhD in the domain of science.

A PhD that concerns research that is based on or led by practice will have a different coloured sock to a PhD where the 'practice' is sitting in a dusty archive in a library or a laboratory of bubbling test tubes (or possibly blinking lazers).   A practice-based PhD in film will contain research that colours the sock in hues derived from the processes carried out whilst film making. These hues may be more concerned with understanding than with knowledge.  But it's more complicated than that.   It's about methodology.

Desmond Bell's article (cited below) is a useful discussion about this.  Also below, Tara Brabazon discusses the difference between empirical (science) methodologies and the more holistic, interpretive method involving meaning making strategies, typical of a humanities PhD.

Knowledge can be subjective*.

*This has been a topic of dispute throughout the history of philosophy.

'The researcher's experiences link to the research undertaken'.

Desmond Bell (2006) Creative film and media practice as research: In pursuit
of that obscure object of knowledge, Journal of Media Practice, 7:2, 85-100, DOI: 10.1386/
jmpr.7.2.85_1
To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1386/jmpr.7.2.85_1

Tara Brabazon, dean of postgraduate studies at Flinders University, Australia:

https://youtu.be/SWtPhvIXaOg

Lost in Space

It is important to keep writing, otherwise you tend to forget how to do it.  Even finding the letters on the keyboard can become a task.  Typing is actually a physical chore, as it is not done on all fingers in the Catullus Films office, just on the two index fingers.  This, coupled with a blindness for correct spelling that requires regular googling, makes generating 'product' rather slow and...onerous.

However, once a flow has begun, and the ball is rolling down a slight incline over wet grass and small pebbles left by the last glaciation, things become a little easier - the fingers begin to remember the location of the required letters for expression, and the brain can register how words are formed more easily.

So, to work - what are we writing about today?  This will be a 'meta-writing' session, (perhaps 'session' is too glorious a word), intended as a note-to-self about why I am struggling to bother writing anything at all in the present chapter of my life. 

I don't really need to write, so what's the problem?  I don't really need to live actually.  Nothing has any necessity, except maintaining satori - keeping panic at bay, dealing with the fear of depression, warding off the big black cloud that occasionally looms over the distant mountains.

There - motivation.

'Onsight' ascent at the cinema

It's interesting to reflect on the role of the review, as a bridge between the audience and the work.  There are different ways of 'seeing' a film - with no prior knowledge, or after reading and hearing about it.

It makes me think of two different modes of rock climbing (something I do from time to time).  You can climb a route with no prior knowledge ('beta') which is called an 'onsight', or you can 'redpoint' a climb, having gained lots of information beforehand (much easier of course).

'Onsight' is especially respected because it requires a higher level of mental agility (and it's more dangerous!).  Of course routes can be repeated (and films watched again) and the experience changes over time.  You can tackle (and enjoy safely) harder routes if you 'redpoint' them.  And you can avoid wasting time and money by reading reviews before you attend showings.

I used to buy long playing records (albums) based on the cover.  Sometimes I was lucky and discovered something new that had merit.  As I drove across the south island of new Zealand in 2000, I would stop at little shops and discover very obscure cassette tapes, often with a religious theme.  Playing these as I glided along deserted roads with distant views made for surreal solitude and lots of laughing.

Climbing 'Valkyrie' at The Roaches, 2010.

I've always been a 'browser', and there's nowhere better to browse than a library, once you've found the shelf with the topic you're wrestling with.  It is research 'embodied', and much more of an intellectual adventure than searching the catalogues online (though this might be the starting point to finding the right shelf).  There is always the likelihood that your eyes will stray to the shelf above or below, and a new train of thought will ensue.

FOR THE DURATION - Festival entries

The film has been entered into two film festivals:

Berwick Film and Media Arts Festival - Berwick  running from Thursday 10th September to Sunday 10th September 2020

Aesthetica Short Film Festival - Aesthetica (in York) running from Wednesday 4th November to Sunday 8th November 2020

Notification of whether the film has been accepted will be 1st August for Aesthetica and 25th August for Berwick.

The other festival under consideration is Rotterdam, which runs every January.

FOR THE DURATION - Aesthetica Film Festival

As part of the marketing plan for the film, I decided that some market research was a good idea.  I had identified the Aesthetica Film Festival in York as a suitable festival to submit my film to - it had a substantial 'experimental' film section.

After manufacturing some business cards to give out, I packed my sleeping bag and a large number of jam sandwiches, and set off for York.  After about 4 hours I arrived, and quickly located the spot just outside town where I would car-camp.  I then plodded off down the river bank to find the registration building.

Once registered, I picked up a copy of the programme to study, and began to get my bearings.  All the venues I needed to visit  were quite close together, except for the one at the university, which was about 25 minutes walk out of town.

I had already planned my visits, which would take in all six of the experimental film showings.  I had even fashioned an edited map of the town centre that would fold easily into an inside pocket, and which could be consulted without looking like I was lost.

All in all, I saw 24 films (in one day), ranging from three to 30 minutes.  Most were technically proficient, some had unconvincing acting, some relied on cliched effects, and many seemed to attach a higher value to technical quality than content.

I saw only one or two that I judged as superior to my own film.  I don't think this is because I am biased, as I am usually too critical of my own work.  I genuinely think that my film has a chance of being recognised as worthy of being shown.

FOR THE DURATION - Sound practicalities

The most popular serious journal for the cinema is called 'Sight and Sound'.  This serves as a reminder that films are not all about the visual, although historically speaking images came first.

The advent of sound brought music and dialogue into the art form, and also soundscapes, whether through wild track recordings or creation in post production through foley.  Thus, films became immersive worlds that the audience could be totally engrossed with, where not just the eyes, but the whole body experienced the film.

The technology of recorded sound leapt forward in the 50's with 'high Fidelity', and in the 60's with the introduction of Dolby, which reduced the hiss of earlier technologies.  The aural element of films became more important, as directors realised how much a good soundtrack could add to a film's appeal.  The advent of digital recording in the 80's has had a similar effect, with the ratio of noise to signal being reduced to zero.  This gives filmmakers the opportunity to create extremely subtle soundtracks to enhance the mood of a film.  Surround sound and very large bass speakers are now the norm in modern cinema complexes.

So, the soundtrack to a film is viewed by some as of equal importance to the images presented.  There is an opportunity here for the independent filmmaker to add considerable production value - just as digital image editing has become affordable to those on the periphery of the film industry,  so has digital sound editing.

The sound track for 'For the Duration' has been created using a freely available (open source) application called 'Audacity'.  This has all the functionality required for editing and producing.

The music for the film has been created using a Yamaha digital piano (DGX-650), which is a very versatile musical instrument.  I managed to acquire this piece of equipment for £300, half its list price, as it was listed on Amazon as 'slightly damaged'.  When it was delivered, the only damage was the internal polystyrene packaging.  It features many digitally sampled real instrument sounds, along with many synthesised ones too.  It also has pre-programmed rhythm tracks, which can be manipulated using buttons on a control panel.

Additional vocal tracks were recorded using Audacity, with a Rode NT 1A microphone plugged into a Focusrite Scarlet 2i2 pre amp.

These items cost about £100 each.

FOR THE DURATION - how limitations shape the narrative

Faced with making a 'festival ready' film on a very limited budget (relatively), the key is to find free ways to add 'production value'.  Living in an area of 'outstanding natural beauty' like Snowdonia, there is a wealth of interesting locations,  their only cost being the fuel necessary to find and use them.

This was the starting point for formulating my concept.  I love exploring 'off the beaten path', and combined with an eye for the surreal, I carefully selected the sites that the action in my film would take place.  This psycho-geographical approach was used to charge the film with a sense of the uncanny.  The industrial architecture of local infrastructure stands in stark contrast to the glaciated Precambrian and Ordovician geological sub-structure.

There is a long history of films whose action revolves around a journey across a landscape, from Ford's western epics, to more art house works (see Kiarostami).  This mirrors the classical theory of narrative, where a protagonist takes a psychological journey, to arrive as a changed person.  The seeds of my films narrative began to germinate when I assimilated this idea and combined it with the availability of a landscape, and an actor able to improvise the protagonist, given a sketched out scenario.

Lynne Ramsey's 'Morvern Callar' (2002) - more suitcase hauling.

Free actors that can act are hard to come by, but through my interest in philosophy I met a senior lecturer in the university's sociology department, with some previous experience, and the willingness to give up his spare time.

I had already sourced the central props for the film.  The suitcase was found in a second hand shop in Porthmadog that supports those with learning difficulties (Seren).  When bargaining over the price, I mentioned it was for a film, and was asked if I'd like to borrow it - apparently they regularly loaned props for films.  I took this as a sign that the universe was telling me that the case was going to play an important role in the film.

The other key prop for the film is the board game and its pieces.  The board was made during an occupational therapy class while I was undertaking full time group therapy in the 1980's, out of an old oak bed headboard.  It is actually a 'go' board ('go' is an ancient Japanese game).  

The game pieces came from a much more recent activity (but similar in intent).  In 2017 I was volunteering for the Welsh Highland Railway in Porthmadog, helping to make the tables and chairs for the carriages produced at their Boston Lodge engineering works.  One day I was left with a little pile of off cuts of 'utile', a mahogany substitute.  I was charmed by them, and took them home, with the feel that I would use them in some kind of art project.  Two years later I identified them as the pieces of a yet to be invented board game, and painted them with yellow acrylic left over from a painting class organised by Mind run at Parc Glynliffon near Caernarfon that I attended in the winter of 2018. 

Once I had secured access to the derelict Slate Finishing Factory in Dorothea quarry, and sourced a generator to power my projector, the narrative of my film was pretty much dictated to me from somewhere. 

The perceived limitations of the no/low budget filmmaker are in fact opportunities for creativity.  I think it can even be argued that the bigger the budget of a film, the greater the paucity of the creative concepts involved.  Car chases and explosions are expensive, but also entertaining.  The successful no/low budget film should aim to entertain at a cerebral level rather than a sensational one.  This is what I have attempted with 'For The Duration'.