CPS Wk 3 - Found Object The TodayToday Show

Found Object exercise "Toy shopping bag"
MAGI CPS Week 3

Theme

Found Object

Context

I was thinking about the behind-the-scenes of TV control rooms. I have experience doing this in kids TV and remember the ridiculous stuff we had to film a lot of the time. I went online for reference and found a real control room to help me script the audio for the control room 'comms'.

The TV station/website I used to make kids' content for:

http://www.abc.net.au/abc3/

Inside a control room:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bsj3DK-Lv8k

Method

Use live action and video 'projection' to 'interview' a toy shopping bag with 'identity issues'.

Response

I clearly went overboard here and this whole thing was too big to pull off in an hour.

Next time I think I'll focus on just a slice of my bigger idea when I have one, but anyway...

I was drawn to/driven insane by the overly happy and girly chit chat produced by this kids' toy shopping bag.

I decided she had identity issues. I also wanted to set fire to it because it had been quite annoying lately.

So... I tested out playing a video of a bonfire on my phone and I put it inside the bag and stuck it there with double-sided tape. This sort of worked but really not as well as I'd hoped. Projection would have worked better I think.

I then created a second character (the interviewer) out of a surgical glove. Next I needed a set/backdrop, so I made that out of cardboard and playdoh (because the backdrop was too similar in colour to the interviewer character, I added red playdoh dots to break it up and give it dimension).

I wanted the audio to drive the piece, so I booked an edit suite in the basement (as it was so quiet) and I recorded audio using a zoom: First the bag audio, then the scripted audio of the TV Director (my own voice just for a quicker turnaround and then the TV presenter).

Production tools were: 1x 5D MIII camera, 1x LED light and a zoom recoder from RMIT store.