October 2017

There were 2 posts published in October 2017 (this is page 1 of 1).

Project 2: The Bromise.

Groupmates: Clemens, Joy, Nick and me.

‘A “bromise” was made before a friend went off to try and pursue a career in music but everything started to go downhill from there. From failed auditions to a break in a relationship. At his lowest point, he seeks help from someone who has always been there for him even before his journey began. But did he keep his promise?’

(Bromise: Essentially a promise you make to a bro. One that you can never break. ever. Stronger than a promise. – Urban Dictionary)

The Process

The task was to create a photo story based on someone whom you have lost touch. So getting together with my groupmates, we thought of coming up with tragic drama, initially.

Storyboard

Our initial idea was actually to start off with a present time looking at a photograph, having flashbacks of an event that is related to the photograph, and bringing back to the present time again, so it will all seem linked together. But after that, we sort of thought to scrap the idea of present and past scene as it was sort of redundant to the whole storyline which the main idea was to feature this friend’s life.

Another idea that we scrapped was the ending where the character, Jon, decided to commit suicide at the end when Nick did not answer his phone. To think about it, that idea was somehow too much and would not makes sense. It is more like we were trying to fit in a story with a suicide ending.

There were quite a few other scenes and last minute shifting there was added on or removed just to fill in the plotholes and make more sense in the film.

Artist/Film Reference

One of the film references that we used was the film Suzhou River by Lou Ye. I was particularly inspired by the use of black screens with dialogues in the film because I think that with just the dialogue and no visuals, the audience would be more focused on what the dialogue is about and also they are free to create their own visuals in their head.

Elements in the Film

There were quite a few elements that came to mind when creating this film as even the smallest detail could convey a huge part of the whole story.

Visuals

For the photographs, I tried to edit it in a way that the scenes with the character Jon in it will slowly desaturate as you progress on through the film. I did this to show the sadness and the downfall of Jon as he tried to pursue his dreams but went downhill instead. The scenes with Nick, however, remains the same throughout, no desaturating.

I have also thought of using the black screens as a way to split the different scenes in the film and also create more of an impact on the different sections of his life ending. Scenes that if joined together would not make sense and would be more abrupt. It also creates a breathing space for the audience.

Sound

There are 3 different sounds used in the film – sound effects, dialogues and background music.

For the sound effects, I tried to closely insert all the relevant sounds into the different scenes, like a door slamming, footsteps and even ambient sounds. All of these sound effects will make the scenes more realistic and will play an important role in joining all the images together to create the film.

The dialogues in the film are mainly to create and summarise the different scenes. For example, at the beginning of the film, the short conversation between Jon and Nick helps to summarise the bond and “bro-ship” between the 2 characters, which would take quite a long scene if gone with another direction.

Lastly, is the background music. I would not consider it as ambient sounds as the background music actually plays throughout almost the entire film and also at the end. An acoustic guitar instrumental is chosen as a guitar is in a way symbolic of the main character, Jon. When the guitar music starts, it represents the start of Jon’s music journey, and when it stops, it shows how he feels like the end of his dreams. There is also no separate guitar sounds being played when in the scene he is playing one. This is because I would not want to create a clash in guitar music and also would not want it to be a determining factor in the story, like why he did not get the audition or did not receive good feedback when busking.

Conclusion

I was really really excited in creating this film as I have never actually created a film before but I have always had scenes play in my mind whenever I listen to music or look at images. This was a good assignment for me to try and express all those and really hoped it worked. Although i still feel like there’s so much i can improve on, like in terms of my concept and the missing plotholes, I still learned alot just using sounds and still frames to convey a story.

Mnemosyne’s Scent (Part 1 – Planes and Plastic)

For this assignment, we are tasked to create planar sculptures, out of plastic, based on a pleasant and unpleasant smell from our past and memory.

Paper sketch models

Before we start on the project, we were to create paper models exploring different planes using art cards, keeping in mind the dominant, subdominant and subordinate.

Sketch Model 1

Top View

  • Red – Dominant
  • Blue – Sub-dominant
  • Green – Subordinate

In this model, the dominant is a large curved plane that curves both sides with tapering at both ends. The subdominant is a broken plane in a form of an arc that goes over the lower part of the dominant. The subordinate is a small flat plane that is that is attached closer to the lower end of the dominant.

Sketch Model 2

  • Red – Dominant
  • Blue – Sub-dominant
  • Green – Subordinate

For this model, the dominant is a curved plane that tapers at both ends but goes horizontally instead of vertically. The subdominant is a narrower curved plane that goes into the dominant and spirals more towards one end. The subordinate t is a supposedly a straight plane that is attached to the subdominant near the spiralling end.

Scent and Memories

It is proven that smell can trigger memories, both bad or good memories when we encounter smells that we have smelled before. We can also be used to smells even before we are born. For example, babies or even during pregnancy who are exposed to cigarette smell will be used to the smell when they grow up.

Image from https://health.howstuffworks.com/mental-health/human-nature/perception/smell4.htm

Companies have also even used the power of smell to lure or trigger memories of the public. Like the smell of money or food, some scents can help lure customers into the shops or malls as it has triggered a good scent that would probably be linked to a good memory of the customers, or just scents that smells good for them.

In contrast to that, however, in warfare, some countries have even tried to counter their enemies by placing bad smells, or what they call stink bombs, so deter the enemies.

Visualising smell

Gif from https://www.pbs.org/newshour/science/what-a-smell-looks-like

Though most of us would visualise the smell to be this misty, smokey visual that we see a lot in the cartoons or movies, smell actually travels in a cloud when in the air.

Viscosity is something to take into account when visualising smell. Like how honey is more viscous than fruit juice. Water is more viscous than air. So it depends on what type of medium you would want to have smell be at.

The Scents

Since different smells trigger different memories, we were then to pick out two scents that trigger an unpleasant and a pleasant memory.

Pleasant scent

The pleasant memory that I have chosen is the smell of Tiger Balm ointment. I chose this scent because I like the smell of old traditional medicines and it reminds me of when I live with my grandparents and this would be the smell of their room and in turn reminds me of them.

Unpleasant scent

My chosen unpleasant smell is actually the smell of Febreeze. Ironically, I don’t find it a good smell. I do not like the smell of artificial fragrance. Another thing would be that it reminds me of during my National Service, when the guys used Febreeze to spray their sweaty uniform, thinking that it would make it smell better, but it actually just made it smell worst.

Plastic Sculpture

It is actually the first time as a class using plastic to create our models, and actually, the first time in my life doing it too. There are different tools that actually help form the delicate actually delicate plastic, like the heat gun and the soldering tool.

There are 3 main components to the sculpture – the center stick, the transparent spiral, and the green strip.

The center stick represents the memory and in the way the brain stem, which goes upwards. It also looks like a lingering strip of smoke.

The main feature, which is the spiralling transparent plane is the pleasant scent, which goes around the stick as if it is something that follows you in your memory.

The green strip represent the unpleasant scent. It has holes in it to create a sense of discomfort when you look at it or feel it.

The transparent spiral is bigger than the green strip because since it represents the pleasant scent it would be something that we would want to remember more.

Conclusion

Creating a sculpture from something you cannot see is actually very challenging. Theres no base form that you can refer to. Using plastic to create a sculpture is already hard enough as sometimes it instantly melts with the use of the heat gun. It can be very unpredictable even though you have something in mind or some other form you want to achieve.

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References