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https://drive.google.com/open?id=1gawJs-3SHI_Lmw393m7tVNU5eTOSrbrk

Here we are.

I was really teetering back and forth between sticking to the old sound which was sourced from outside and going with my own sounds.

I eventually went with the latter because it was an opportunity to do so and also that way the work in it’s entirety would be of my own doing. (save for that one heartbeat sound)

Ultimately I think it was the better choice and additionally it also allowed for more control of the sound whereas with the sourced sounds, I’d be dictated by the rhythm and tempo already laid in, something I found really restrictive in the editing process.

Overall it was quite satisfying to have made something I’d consider quite indulgent while also having this level of flexibility and allowance of content.

Strong 9 outta 10

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https://drive.google.com/open?id=1eVDrrYp-fz7HeQjMD9U7Sv9Yr5dixv_9

VIDEO ONE

Sound was a good opportunity to experiment on the ideas floating around in my head.

I started with what I could find at hand, a broken guitar

Some of the results were better than I expected, but sometimes the same experimentation didn’t yield the same results as seen in the video.

However from that one thing alone, I could conjure up something along the lines of what I was looking for, which really started the subsequent treatment of audio.

I accidentally created a 2 hour long drone ambient sound from my timelapse video, and there were quite a few nuggets in there.

Birds sounded like whale song and any repetitive sound were like sirens echoing in the background.

Subsequently I also recorded my breathing, the fan (because whenever it hits a mic it’s always sounded like rocks tumbling)

LINK TO SOUNDS: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1gBlUsgO4nR6mxB6MPqOKB2LJLGkTLUTI

but what was really golden, was the recording I did of the temple chants. When slowed down, it instantly started sounding like throat singing, which is something I’m already big on.

and with that the basis for my introductory sound into my final video.

Sound was also a good opportunity for goofing around with mashups that occur in my head that I never make.

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1Uy2auvmif2EXXd4tf8NY1YhlmlWXN-Rc

VIDEO 2

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This video essay was given with the premise of making a video about something that you like.

I really wasn’t sure what to do, especially with the stipulation of using footage I had already shot.

Thus I was left with the footage I had recently shot either at Hong Kong or from Japan from when I had visited my grandparents.

I was quite hesitant to be honest dealing with quite a personal space. But I did it anyway.

I intended for it to be spoken word simultaneous to the footage mainly because it would save me having to listen to my own voice for hours.

But this came out with an unintended effect of having a lot of ambient sound on the video, something I really enjoyed when I watch the edit back.

It makes the video able to stand on it’s own without the words, while maybe even giving a sense of what I was trying to say with words. Although that might just be because I know what the words and mood I intended for was.

As such, I think it’d be better to leave the footage and words as separate entities. Thought I was thinking of perhaps translating or subtitling in the future, but I really feel that the text at the bottom detracts a little from the whole image by cutting out the lower portion visually while also commanding the strongest presence.

 

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1CxFbc8Z15JOOzc2A5sv8PKXKI8eUOGVz

 

Text below, Video Above

 

At the end of May last year, I went to Kagoshima, Japan to visit my Grandparents.

Kagoshima is in the south of Japan and to get to my Grandparents house, we had to take a long ride into the mountains where the average age seems to be in the late 60s

I generally thought of myself to be more of a city boy, but the two weeks I spent there seemed to say otherwise.

A lot of the places are in the middle of nowhere but seem like the typical anime tropes

Train crossing, grassy fields, typical Japanese houses, crows

But I digress

This was the same house my mother and her sisters grew up in

This is the same river that they played in as kids

And it brings to mind how peculiar the passage of time is

Something change while other things stay the same

There’s a strange disconnect between the two

My grandfather doesn’t remember much and doesn’t even recognize some of the people in the photos of family.

My Grandmother doesn’t remember much at all

As my two weeks drew to an end, I really didn’t want to leave

Because I worried that that would be the last time I have a reason to be there

I don’t know if that’s true or not

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The title is a pun, but the technique I’m really talking about is the act of directly applying a medium or technique onto the film stock itself.

Funnily enough, after doing the exercise in class, Rose Bond, a projection artist came to ADM for a talk.

Her previous work however, were animations done straight onto film.

While visually or topically not as experimental as the works show or done in class, I thought it was a funny coincidence.

Still though, I’d consider her works on some level, experimental.

A blend of sounds and visuals that all tie into one idea. Visuals ranging from patterns to swashes of color and lines ebbing and flowing, merging and melding and then taking on human or animal forms before ripping apart again and going back into the more abstract.

On the more experimental side of things, it was pretty cool to desecrate such a “up there” and physical medium.

Puncturing it and coloring over it lead to surprisingly great visuals.

but things don’t always turn out as planned, that’s probably some of the joys that people have in handling film this way.

i tried scratching the images on the film but the image got flipped and the visceral or more frantic jittering that i was hoping for didn’t happen.

Puncturing actually became a more interesting effect even tho it was kind of sketchy to load when the surface was warped.

The idea of pasting insect bits and twigs was also quite interesting purely in concept alone. Reminded me of those insect collections where they’re pinned in an array, except this time the layout was different.

Lastly, while unintended or even unwanted, the film burning produced a nice overlay of a decaying image over the slowly slipping film stock.

Overall a Fun/10 rating.

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A peculiar movie indeed, any movie that has an extended shitting scene is surely a stunner in its own right.

The first thing that struck me is how everyday they make the shoot feel. Even at the very start, there’s a shot of a corridor on the second floor, and before anything happens, we see a person run by a small portion of road momentarily. It really made me wonder how choreographed this movie could be or if in fact it was editing together a series of unplanned moment alongside their scripted and produced moments.

Blurring this line really made for an interesting series of thoughts through the viewing. I don’t know if it’s my constant overthought or something else, but the extended holding of a shot really lends itself for my mind to frantically scramble for a meaning or reason. What is he trying to do by holding it so long, what’s going on, where is this leading, can someone give me an answer (probably not). But the longer it goes on the more I think that there is a motive to induce discomfort within the viewer. Surely in the scene where one lady is cleaning an older ladies leg with some kind of ailment is intended to induce some level of grotesque discomfort, especially when a mouth starts to get involved.

Additionally I learnt that the song at the end is the only time a song or audio is heard that wasn’t present during/in the scene itself. It’s not something I particularly thought of till i was informed. Though that’s often my approach to a lot of things.

Lastly, it reminded my of another film wherein a family or something living in a rural/jungle house is inhabited or visited by spirits. It’s styling was similar to this movie and having seen more than just one of these kinds of shows really made me start to ponder about the intents involved in shooting in this manner. The people involved in these styles of film are doing so with very specific intents and I tend to lean onto the idea that nothing is left to chance. This harks back a little to wondering how choreographed even the most seemingly everyday background events are. And with nothing left to chance, perhaps part of the intent is to indeed induce this sort of dialogue and extended thought, active engaged thought in the themes and events portrayed in the film. Which I’d hazard a guess, that the directors find more effective than conventional methods of film narratives, and I personally, considering how much this show has made me seek for answers, I’d agree.

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The Links below are the slides for my FYP pitch and folders for files that were not integrated in the slides themselves. (Little India Soundscape + Japan Video of the atmosphere/vibe)

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1M6e2kK4xJGDSQBPJVKz12MSo2zUtwzpSqo50aeNAgdc

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1tX1vFl7cLFoygoWKDmk2dt8_w_GDFP4h

 

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It was funnily coincidental that Rose Bond started her presentation by showing us her reels of hand-painted animation clear lead film. Having done similar work just a few weeks prior in my Experimental Film class really helped me connect with the process of when viewing her work.

Sadly, that’s where the similarities between me and Rose Bond end.

Her repertoire of work is quite impressive. From execution to scale, layout and even the themes.

The work is made even more astounding to me, especially on a technical level purely because she’s been doing this from long before a lot of modern conveniences were around.

The imagery she displays on buildings often are tied to the history of the building itself

Broadsided!, Exeter, UK, 2012

Broadsided!, Exeter, UK, 2012

Which I feel leads to a greater connection between the projection, the site and the audience.

A nice refresher from the usual more abstract or “3D’ style projections we’ve come to see often at various events in the recent past.

Another thing that she noted was that she much prefers the audio on the street mixing in with the crowd and harks to that as the experience as opposed to just the clean sound design from the work itself.

Considering all this it makes me wonder about Singapore’s potential for projection mapping.

Not that it’s under utilized, but with the wealth of history in Singapore, old buildings gone or still here. The types of projections done so far, have been while still enjoyable and quite stunning, not quite tapping into the potential of the buildings themselves. That is to say, whatever visuals they project on to one building, could very well be transferred to another without much significance being lost.

Image result for singapore history buildings

Art Deco Buildings in Tiong Bahru

Especially with the recent push for the Arts, “real” or “not”, there is still support for it, and thus, opportunity for works of the aforementioned manner to emerge.

Tho, some would argue that it’s already begun, what with the recent projections on the old supreme court now turned National Gallery.

Image result for singapore history buildings

Lastly, I really enjoyed her Oregon Symphony collaboration work, Turangalila from 2017.

Both visually and aurally captivating, the visuals spilling forth from the walls, light bouncing around the symphonic swells.

It’s like Disney’s Fantasia /Fantasia 2000, both of which i enjoyed as a kid, but with Rose Bonds work, unconfined by the screen format.

It was just simply enjoyable.

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For this assignment I aimed to alter the way in which the user’s hands interact with the world.

It started off with the idea to remove the thumb. Opposable thumbs are such a key part of how we interact with day to day objects that is often not thought about until it’s gone.

Picking up a coin, grabbing a door knob, using smart phones etc, Animals without thumbs that work like ours often have a much harder time and require the integration of another limb/jaw or object to enact leverage and torque.

Additionally reducing the number of fingers on the hand also reduces the dexterity, especially when the first two fingers and the last two fingers are bound. This is compounded by the fact that moving the middle finger also requires the ring finger to follow to a certain extent.

And with all this, I decided to create a pair of gloves to re-create this configuration; of having no thumb and only two fingers.

I used a pair of rubber gloves restricted the thumb and combined the fingers using superglue.

Additionally I also tried a variation wherein I extended the fingers by using chopsticks.

An Interesting point to note is the pivot point at which I attach these chopsticks.

If connected at the first knuckle they serve quite well as a means of extended reach with only a marginally less ability to enact force.

However the further back the choice of knuckle goes, the less dexterous it becomes for the user, also chopsticks being so thin and the gloves not being so stable a base for the chopsticks led me to scrapping this idea entirely.

Although I do think it looked much better.

Finally, I set a task for the user wearing the gloves to do, stacking cups/small bowls. which proved, as expected, to be much harder without the use of the thumb (and further compounded by the glove’s lack of grip.

I also found usage of smartphones to be relegated to the use of two hands instead of being able to do a singular palm grip with thumb for navigation, even taking the phone out of the pocket was a bit of a challenge.

I also found it to feel much better to directly bind the fingers using cable ties, but that led to the worry of reduced circulation. But it was also much more aesthetically pleasing.

 

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Persian-language American vampire western film directed by Ana Lily Amirpour. Tagged as "The first Iranian vampire Western"

A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night (2014)

Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi

For my experimental film I want to create an atmosphere or mood of tension, mild foreboding like a loitering undertone of uneasiness.

I want to shoot black and white mainly because I think it’d allow me some leeway in cranking up the ISO making shooting at night a little easier on my dlsr+lens setup which isn’t ideal for shooting at night.

I was wondering if I should explore a narrative or depart from the convention. Perhaps a collage of visuals, exploring techniques such as overlays. I was also thinking of using still photography as it’d further allow me to shoot cleaner higher res imagery giving me more room to manipulate the image.

I was also wondering if I could explore a very audio-centric video, as I find that generally helps with the flow and mood of a piece.

Visuals that I have in mind include a tracking shot of a person from behind, montages of visuals and texture to help create a sense of an idea. I also want a sense of momentum and rhythm to the whole thing. I also toyed with the idea of erratic movements and distortion and glitch, but the more I think about it, the more I question it’s relevance in what I want to create.

FIN

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Even in 2007, 3D audio such as the virtual barber shop (linked above) has been around. It simulated a convincing replica of real world sounds, especially for it’s time. (1:15 into the video is eerily convincing)

Since then some musicians have delved into simulating the acoustics of audio in the room that it’s recorded in. Eg. Pogo with his binaural mix of his song Upular
Non – 3D : LINK

3D: LINK

However, despite having been around for a long time, I don’t feel like it’s been utilized so much nor explored as widely commercially speaking, as visual mediums.

My idea is to create an immersive experience utilizing binaural audio and transport the user to another location.

Binaural audio of the sort I am going for are generally recorded using a Left Right audio configuration and using molded ears to replicate the way sound is shaped before entering the ear canal.

Image result for binaural audio

I find the ability to disassociate from your current location to another in such a manner very calming.

Ironically, by not taking in their current environment and transporting them elsewhere, it can create a mental space to be in the moment.

I find this to be a very meditative experience and does provide respite from the mental stresses of life by dropping everything in that moment to take in the totality of the scene.

I intend to do this through a mix of both audio and visual means. With binaural audio as the focus, and the visuals as a complimentary choice.

I find the visuals to be immensely helpful as while some might find the audio experience with eyes closed to be stronger, with the visuals I intend to use, which are specific places as opposed to a situation like in the case of the virtual barber shop, the sounds are very much tied to the visuals that occur.

For example, if we hear the snap of a twig or the rustle of some bushes, being able to open your eyes and see the bush rustle or a branch bend will help actualize the place in the minds eye as opposed to being swung back to the users current location the moment they open their eyes.

We’ve seen 3D come and go, and now Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality being taking center stage.

Virtual reality has it’s entry level limit for both headset hardware and computing hardware to support the system while AR seems to be a good blend of accessibility with phones and integration with the existing environment, which i think makes it a strong contender as a medium of the future. Perhaps because the requirements of binaural audio requiring headphones to be effective limits the experience to the individual AND on top of that, the quality of their headphones. Whereas cinemas can make use of a singular screen and sound system for simultaneous usage.

This makes me wonder about subsequent exploration for perhaps mass binaural audio experiences, but for another time.