My investigation into the uses of filmic techniques in establishing subjectivity and emotion in film culminated in the development and production of my capstone film, Under the Water. As writer, director and producer of the work, I was the driving force behind the project from its initial conception to its completion. This engagement allowed me to explore the potential of film to deeply interrogate subjective character representation through the intersections of directing and writing, performance, cinematography, production design, editing, sound and music, among other creative practices. As in many creative pursuits, there was no clear-cut pathway to the final product, each stage of development was an iterative process of complex problem-solving. Through collaboration with key creatives, Rebecca Thompson (co-writer), Roberto Manzini (production design), Meredith Williams (cinematographer), Caleb Graham (underwater cinematographer), Amy Dunn (editor), Hamish Francis (composer) and Samuel Turner (sound supervisor) this project was made possible. As within any collaborative art form, I found that the best work could occur when the team felt unified, where there was trust in one another and where there was space for failure and experimentation. From the beginning, we agreed to put Olivia at the heart of the story.
PROJECT AND PROCESS
Making the work was a process of development, editing and revision. In the initial stages of the concept development process, I was drawn to works that utilised non-linearity and ambiguity in their storytelling structure. In order to further interrogate the work that I liked, I created a detailed mind map which I have depicted below. Demonstrating the commonality of the themes across key reference films, it highlights the following: memory, fear and anxiety, dreams, magic and the uncanny, female perspectives, youth and childhood and the story-within-a-story format. The personified feelings expressed as hauntings in many of these works led me to explore my own interpretation of this idea.
PERSONIFIED FEELING
ORIGINS, DEVELOPMENT AND SCRIPT
With a background in production design, my process of writing the script involved both writing and collecting visual imagery. I made mood boards to explore the chronology of the story, and by combining inspirational images together began to draw new connections and associations.
In collaborating with Sarah Emery, script editor, and Rebecca Thompson, co-writer, we were able to flesh out the characters and give the dialogue more authenticity. Rebecca wrote the scene with Olivia and her father, a subtle scene where subtext was key. In earlier drafts of the script there was more magic, heightened weather, car doors locking, but we decided to move away from Magic Realism, and instead, rely on Subjective Realism.
Within my work, symbolism was integral to the development of the project. The ocean was used as a reflection of Olivia’s interiority. Her sense of grief, loss and anxiety leads her to find a connection with the ocean, and as a result, with the world of the sirens. Associated closely to memories of her mother, it is coded with a deep importance. In the words of academics, Graeme Harper and Jonathan Rayner, writing on cinema and landscape:
“Cinematic landscapes, drawing not on the literal, but also on the metonymic and metaphoric, can articulate the unconscious as well as the conscious. Cinematic landscapes can therefore be landscapes of the mind, offering displaced representations of desires and values, so that these can be expressed by the filmmakers and shared by audiences”
(Harper & Rayner, 2003, p. 21).
With reference to this idea, the storybook was used as a means for further representing Olivia’s inner world. With close associations to the ocean and the world of the sirens, the book came to act as the catalyst for Olivia’s coming-of-age. Tied in with Olivia’s feelings of isolation, sadness and grief, the book represents a step towards her expression of active emotion. While it’s not intended to evoke horror as in The Babadook, there are similarities in the sense that the book is a symbolic and uncanny object that acts as a catalyst for change.
Figure 12, Mind Map
When interviewed for Time Magazine, Callie Khouri, the writer of Thelma and Louise (1991), famously stated:
“As a female moviegoer, I just got fed up with the passive role of women. They were never driving the story because they were never driving the car”
(Waxman, 2016, para. 8).
As I have noted previously, I set out from the beginning to create a work that explored a female point of view, and as a result, to broaden the representation of young women in Australia. While there were numerous films situated within the subjective realist genre, I found very few to reflect a young, female perspective, in an Australian context, that were also directed by women. Through my research, I found that equality was so lacking within the broader film industry, that a number of tests had been created to analyse film data. The Peirce test, for example, used to explore the depth of female characters, specified a need for a female character to have her own story, to exist in an authentic way and to showcase and pursue her needs and desires (Hickey et. al, 2017). Under the Water passed this test.
Similarly, with a work that was so heavily focused on female perspectives, I wanted to ensure that women comprised an equal (or larger) percentage of the crew. We utilised the Uphold Test, which specified that 50% or more of the crew should identify as female in order to pass. Providing data on representation in the screen and media industries, The Geena Davis Institute on Gender and Media, suggested that “there is a causal relationship between positive female portrayals and female content creators involved in production. In fact, when even one woman writer works on a film, there is a 10.4% difference in screen time for female characters” (n.d.). Within Under the Water, Tahlia’s screen time comprised a total of 5’15”, more than half of the film. In this sense, by actively creating a story about the female experience and prioritising women in the crew, I was hoping to contribute to positive change in the industry.
APPROACH TO PRODUCTION
As a film with ambiguous meaning and a heavy reliance on visual storytelling, production design was very important. In approaching the design of the film, Roberto Manzini, production and costume designer, and I decided on a colour palette based in blues, greens and greys to suggest a sense of melancholy. We discussed how Olivia should feel in each space; in public spaces she should feel out of place; crowded by the boys, and on a lower plane than the man at the kiosk. In contrast, her bedroom would be her own ‘safe place’. Set dressing objects such as mermaid art, shells, plastic sea animal toys and a fish tank were used to suggest Olivia’s preoccupation with the water. Olivia’s absent mother was seen in photographs on Olivia’s wall and on her dressing table, and also embodied in the old, faded “Shoal Harbour Women’s Swimming Squad” t-shirt that Olivia wore throughout the story. These physical elements contributed to a representation of Olivia’s psyche, acting as a suggestion of her sadness and longing.
A further visual component was the representation of the sirens in the storybook Olivia reads. Linked to the recognisable depiction of mermaids from Medieval times, the sirens were shown with scaled tails and long, flowing hair. A key image in the book depicted a siren with red hair, intended to further evoke an uncanny recollection of Olivia’s mother. These design elements contributed to a sense of Olivia’s mental space and the suggestion of deep longing for her mother.
SYMBOLISM, EMOTION AND THE UNCANNY
PRODUCTION DESIGN
Figures 13 - 15, Stills from Under the Water
In the approach to cinematography, Meredith Williams, cinematographer and I, created mood boards, shared resonances, made storyboards and compiled detailed shot lists. As a film with a young protagonist, cinematography was used to position the audience at Olivia’s height, depicting the world through Olivia’s eyeline and viewpoint. We utilised a slow frame rate for certain shots, in order to suggest Olivia’s experience; heightening emotion in key moments such as the underwater sequence and lead up to the windscreen smash. By using this technique, we were able to align audiences with Olivia’s own sense of the world around her.
In exploring the position of Olivia to the world around her, we were able to suggest her psychic space. Just as Camille sees visions of Marian in Vallée’s, Sharp Objects (2018), Olivia sees a vision of her mother in the water. Placed at a distance, this furthers the sense of longing and loss that Olivia feels for her.
We also used an ‘embodied camera’ approach, whereby the camera was always motivated by Olivia’s movements. We used hand-held camera techniques to represent states of fear and unease. For example, in the final scene with the boys in the car, hand-held camera was used to create jolting and jarring impressions of the moment, aligned with Olivia’s growing anguish. In order to create this, Meredith was placed on a moving cart and pulled along as she filmed. As a contrast to this approach, we used slow motion, static shots for the windscreen smash moment, to suggest Olivia’s new sense of empowerment.
PSYCHOLOGICAL VIEWPOINTS
CINEMATOGRAPHY
Figure 16, Cinematography process: behind the scenes and resulting shot comparison
SAND CASTLES AND PIGGY IN THE MIDDLE
EMBODIED PERFORMANCE
After completing a masterclass with acting coach Miranda Harcourt, I understood the importance of the tangibility of space in relation to the acting experience. Influenced by Harcourt’s approaches to fostering authentic performance, I crafted a series of exercises to get the actors comfortable in the beach space; to connect with the outdoors, to get sandy, to hear the ocean. We held a rehearsal at Malabar Beach, with Tahlia Sturzaker (Olivia) 11-years-old, Noah Sturzaker (boy in car) 16-years-old, Michael Hawkins (boy in car) 16-years-old and Jonah Oschlack (boy on the beach), 14-years-old. As a way of engaging with the themes of the text and the landscape, we each crafted a sandcastle decorated with found objects from the beach. It was interesting that the three boys chose to craft enormous structures with tall towers, tunnels and moats. These were much larger in scale than those made by Tahlia, who opted for a small structure, detailed with shells and glass. Through this activity, we were able to use the location to establish a pathway to visceral character.
Informed by my screenplay analysis, I thought it was important to explore the power structures at play in the text. We played a number of games, including “Piggy in the Middle”, designed to explore power dynamics and to help Tahlia to connect with the emotions of the text in a safe way. Tahlia struggled to win any games against the boys. As a group, we discussed what made the game difficult; Tahlia was smaller and younger, which made her slower and less able to reach the targets. We drew comparisons between this and the way Olivia is treated in the script, where people overshadow her. These explorations carried into the shoot.
Figure 17, Rehearsal process
CREATIVE CHAOS
THE SHOOT
The shoot took place over five days. It was a time of creative chaos, rapid-fire decision-making, robust discussion, planning and problem solving. The first of our shoot days was spent at Frog Dive Scuba Centre in Willoughby in a small heated pool, filming our underwater scenes. We filmed Tahlia’s moments entering the water and collecting the rock. Following on from this, we had a day shooting at our interior location in Strathfield. I was focused on creating a flow between Tahlia (Olivia) and Ben (Olivia’s Dad). While they had met previously at the rehearsals, I wanted to make sure they felt comfortable on set. I encouraged reflections on the rehearsal process, and we ended up using an improvised moment from rehearsal, where Olivia opens the band-aid for her father.
We filmed our car scenes over one day at the fire trail on Cape Banks Road. Working with a vehicle safety officer, we first blocked out the scene with the actors on foot, and once they were comfortable, we did a rehearsal using the vehicle. Racing against the sun, we lost a few of our planned shots. Thankfully we had prioritised our windscreen smash shots.
We then filmed for two days at North Curl Curl Beach. Given some weather issues, we continued to be flexible. Initially, the scene with the two young boys was meant to be shot on the beach, and was much longer, but given the rainy weather moved it to an undercover area. This worked well for the scene, as the architecture of the space had a more insular and isolating feel, which in turn, added to the emotional climax of the scene. There was no reverse coverage on this moment. We committed to a long tracking shot, which was a creative risk that worked.
TEMPORALITY
THE EDITING PROCESS
Directing post production was a process of re-imagining the story, based on the footage we had available. Throughout the seven week editing phase, editor, Amy Dunn and I worked openly and creatively together, and many of our discoveries were entirely the product of experimentation. According to film scholar, Karen Pearlman:
“Editing creativity is the lateral association of images or sounds to solve the problem at hand, which is the shaping of the film and its rhythms. The editor’s reveries yield connections between images, sounds, and movements in the raw material, which will create new and coherent meanings. Practice, and trial and error, informs these reveries, of course, but also the editor’s acquired knowledge of the world, herself, and her sensitivity to movement and emotion give her the basis from which to make creative connections and associations”
(Pearlman, 2009, p. 5).
Pearlman’s discussion was true of our process. Amy and I explored the temporalities of the work, testing out ideas and making innovative discoveries. Given the limited footage from the shoot, we didn't have much coverage of Olivia entering the ocean. We had managed to film the moment as a wide shot but it felt detached from Olivia, as she was running away from the camera. In this scene, I wanted the audience to feel connected with her, and the wide shot was doing the opposite. Posed with a creative problem, we explored different options, looking to Caleb Graham's water footage for potential ‘solves’. We ended up using one of Caleb’s point-of-view shots which worked well to suggest Olivia's own experience as she enters the water. A new temporality was created, with the shot moving from the surface, down to the depths of the ocean (pictured below).
Amy and I were interested in the idea of ‘thought cuts’, a term used frequently to describe the work of director Jean-Marc Vallée. ‘Thought cuts’, in contrast to a flashback, came to represent a quick glimpse of a memory, a short moment cut into the continuity style narrative. There were a number of these moments scripted and filmed, depicting Olivia’s memories of being with her mother at the beach. While they fitted into the work conceptually, we found that they disrupted the flow of the story. Removing them entirely, we endeavoured to create this sense of subjectivity in more ambiguous ways. For example, in the kiosk scene, we chose to use a shot of the empty ocean as a representation of Olivia’s sadness and longing, rather than the footage of Olivia and her mother building a sandcastle. This was much more successful.
A key breakthrough in the process was the use of ocean footage in the final scene of the film, used as a parallel to Olivia’s building emotion. The windscreen smash moment was edited to draw parallels between Olivia and a large wave crashing, with the large wave cut in to complete her movement. As a symbolic link between the chaotic ocean and world of the sirens, as well as Olivia’s expression of rage, this discovery was key.
Figure 18, Editing process
A CACOPHONY OF VOICES
MUSIC
Described by us as ‘sound painting’, Hamish Francis’ approach to the musical composition gave prevalence to the texture of the music. Music was used to represent Olivia’s emotions, as well as to embody the otherworldly sirens.
Within the underwater moment, Hamish’s slow and tranquil score helped to suggest that Olivia was at ease in the water. Removing the diegetic sound to make space for the ethereal composition helped to code the space as ‘magical’. As Olivia picks up the rock, the chords shift up by a fifth on the musical scale, ascending with her as she swims toward the surface.
In evoking the community of the sirens leading to Olivia’s windscreen smash moment, Hamish and I experimented with different ideas. I wanted it to feel as though Olivia was drawing on the strength and resilience of the sirens; becoming part of their community. Hamish approached this idea by engaging vocalist Naomi Geste, to aggressively sing notes up the minor scale. He then layered them up to create a cluster; an atonal cacophony of rising of voices. The effect helped to convey Olivia’s experience in finally expressing herself.
Following on from this scene, we wanted to suggest that Olivia still felt fear, as the threat of the boys following hasn’t yet dissipated. She runs and runs, and eventually, feeling proud of herself, pauses and smiles. It’s a small step towards self-expression and empowerment. In order to create a composition for this moment, Hamish and I filled a whiteboard with information, drawing up a storyboard of the finale scene and annotating it with notes, ideas, key words, as well as a rough outline of the rise in tension of the music. We wrote down as many adjectives as we could think of, turning to this collective brainstorming as a means of problem solving (pictured below). Hamish’s final score was evocative of Olivia’s emotional journey; it began with a low kick that thickened out with the addition of voices. Leading to Olivia’s smile, there was a release in the music, moving into soaring major chords.
Figure 19, Music process
DISTORTION, NOISE AND SILENCE
AN EXPERIMENTAL APPROACH TO SOUND
In creating the enigmatic soundscape for the film, Samuel Turner, sound supervisor, experimented with layering and distortion; sounds were altered, passed through phase filters and affected temporally. A key breakthrough was the characterisation of the ‘siren song’ as a descending whale cry. By moving away from a human sound, we were able to create a sense of the ‘other’.
Throughout the work, Sam utilised a blurring of diegesis in sound effects, which in turn, helped to craft a sense of Olivia’s subjectivity. In the kiosk scene, the sounds of the boys melted away as the squawking of seabirds rose to a peak. In using the build up of ocean ‘noise’ in this way, we were able to suggest Olivia’s sense of fear, as her internal world became the focus.
In establishing the sound for the rock, we experimented with cracks and crunches. In creating the foley, Sam used a mortar and pestle and drew circles in sand, allowing for a heightened representation. Within the rock’s underwater depiction, reverb was used to imply a magical dimension to the space. Mimicking the experience of being underwater, lower frequencies were given prevalence. In the characterisation of the rock, a low-register, crumbling sound was utilised to imply a size larger than is visually depicted. This was to suggest the significance of the rock to Olivia.
In order to suggest the dominating presence of the car, Sam experimented with the sounds of plane engine trucks and cars to suggest the imposing power of the boys. A single low note was echoed, layering over itself to create a dark, buzzing undercurrent in the scene. In characterising the windscreen smash moment, sounds were selected for their textural qualities over realism. Sam experimented with layering sounds of breaking ice and snapping wood to heighten the symbolic impact of this moment.
We created a Dolby Atmos mix which heightened the experience of the aural space. Within the storybook scene, Olivia’s mother can be heard whispering the lines of the book as an undercurrent. Similarly, the siren voiceover at the beginning was sent upwards, to make it feel as though the voice was coming from the sky. Throughout the work, the sound of the waves moves in relation to Olivia. These subtle effects help to align audiences with Olivia’s subjective experience, triggering subliminal responses and emotional connection to the character.
