urban vérité: filming brisbane's northbank.

the semester two second year architectural design studio at qut asks students to propose an urban scheme on brisbane's northbank - a largely transitory area generally considered bleak, dangerous and lifeless to those unfamiliar with it. the studio is run in three phases - a short film [part one], urban scheme [part two] and film studio [part three]. during each phase, students are requested to observe the realist film ethos, while exploring the process of filmmaking as a tool for architectural design. 

through explorations of image, concept and site, part one called for students [in small groups] to produce a 3-5 minute film which captured a unique urban response to the specific northbank site given to them. the films predominantly focussed on movement image, sound image and time image. and image is usually considered to be an instantaneous section of a film, one which captures in its single surface effects from myriad sources: sensory, cinematic, corporeal, urban and political.  

students had had little to no filmmaking experience. few, in fact, had any connection with or understanding of film, except through hollywood. many still question the validity of such an approach to a design studio. however, there is a strong link between architecture and film, and the architecture of film.

the final films were narrowed down into a shortlist of 8. 'transit' is a film by a group in my tutorial. though the film is without a driving narrative, it addresses each of the image criteria in an intelligent and beautiful manner.

'one man's trash is another man's treasure' [from another tutorial group] is quite a different approach to 'transit', in that there is a strong narrative driving the film. it is articulate and clever in its composition. i also dig the soundtrack [or is that sound image?]. 

some of the other shortlisted films were not as convincing or evocative as the two above. the playlist of the 8 films can be found here.