For my What’s Hidden assignment, I interviewed my dad about when he completed a Marathon at 52 years of age. I wanted to lead on from his story by focusing on how age can impact fitness. The goal of the piece was to focus on the hidden struggle that middle aged people have with maintaining fitness.
The interview process with my dad went well. In my past assignment, the audio had been a little choppy. I still followed Sorbian’s recommendations to “pick a quiet and neutral spot”, but I tried to word my questions more effectively so that the answers would flow. I asked my Dad to repeat certain things if there was disturbing background noise or long pauses. This worked really effectively, and I was able to produce a much more seamless audio.
Sound was something I really wanted to use to tell the story. I remembered in the week 4 lecture, Editing and Layering Sound: the Alchemy of the Mix, a clip of the Pirates of the Caribbean was played. The clip was presented with alternating music playing in the background and it made a huge difference to the emotions portrayed in the clip.
In my piece, I decided to layer the sound of breathing, a heartbeat, and the ticking of the clock to build suspense. I then added a gunshot to signify the beginning of the race and then cut to silence to leave the audience guessing what happened. I kept the beginning of the audio general without revealing that Mark was running a marathon. This then supported the layering of audio to help it achieve a high level of suspense and wonder. I was planning to add music to the piece, but I couldn’t find any that suited. When I showed my draft in class, the general consensus was that it sounded fine without it.
The photography section of the assignment was probably the most difficult for me. After the week 7 lecture where Ben showed us some of his work, I knew that photography was a key aspect of telling the story. He said, “When I enter a space to begin taking photos, I instinctively analyse the possibilities in terms of light, lines, texture, reflections, framing and composition.” Taking this into account I tried different angles with my shots to try to create different light, framing and perspective. I read Journal Article, Observation as Photography: A Metaphor, where they stated “Photos do not just appear: they are made, and this matters” (Herve Laroche 2020 ). This really made me ponder how I wanted to create my photos rather than just taking them quickly. I had just bought a new camera so it was quite difficult for me to figure out how to take photos effectively. I took the camera outside and tried to capture different angles of my dad warming up and running, I even got on the ground to try capture him running past.
I interviewed personal trainer Brendan Tuck as my second source. I really wanted to incorporate some fitness knowledge into the piece, so it was credible and informative. It was really helpful viewing past students What’s Hidden projects to gain insight and inspiration into who to interview and how to format my work.
References
Laroche, H 2020, ‘Observation as photography: A metaphor’, M@n@gement, vol. 23, no. 3, pp. 79–99, viewed 15 November 2020, https://search-ebscohost-com.ezproxy.uow.edu.au/login.aspx?direct=true&db=bth&AN=146861168>.
McHugh, S (2020). Lecture, Week 4, ‘Editing and Layering sound: the alchemy of the mix’, 24 September 2020.
Ball, B (2020). Lecture, Week 7, ‘The Visual Toolkit’, 15 October 2020.
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