Time (2017)

The task is to list five characters from literature or fiction with whom I have a special affinity and arranging them by their importance to me. An affinity can be hero worship, but becomes more interesting when I respond to darker or more complex qualities.

At first I really love the main characters of every film/drama/anime that I watched, but I realised that the antagonist actually are the ones that shaped up the main character and the main drive for their actual objective(s) in the story. So I looked back at some of my top few shows of all time and pick out the characters which draws me into the story.

Fictional Characters

• Agent Smith from the Matrix
• Cloud Strife from Final Fantasy VII
• Rintaro Okabe from  Steins;Gate
• L from Death Note
• Joker from the Batman

For non-fictional characters, I didn’t think much as it’s a little bit hard for me to know how they are like in real life, as it’s always their persona and superficial personality towards people so I didn’t want to dissect too much of their characters though these are the top five people that I look up to due to their memorable quotes about life.

Non-fictional Characters

• Prophet Muhammad (PBUH)
  

  To overcome evil with good is good, to resist evil by evil is evil.

• Muhammad Ali
  

  “I hated every minute of training, but I said, ‘Don’t quit. Suffer now and live the rest of your life as a champion.”

• Keanu Reeves
  

  “The simple act of paying attention can take you a long way.”

• Morgan Freeman
  

  The best way to guarantee a loss is to quit.

• Umar Ibn Al-Khattab
  

  “The wisest man is he who can account for his actions.”

For these list, I picked my closest friends as they have a certain character traits that is peculiar, weird and at the same time have the best chemistry with me.

Known / May have known Characters

• Nuruddin
• Idris
• Chris
• Acez
• Shahrin

From the list I have picked is

Agent Smith from the Matrix

Smith began as an Agent, an AI program in the Matrix programmed to keep order within the system by terminating human simulacra which would bring instability to the simulated reality, as well as any rogue programs that no longer serve a purpose to the Machine collective. To this end, Smith possesses the ability to take control over the simulated body of any human wired into the Matrix. As an Agent, Smith is able to bend the rules of the Matrix (such as gravity and the limitations of the human body), giving him speed and strength beyond ordinary human capacity. He and other Agents can dodge bullets flawlessly, punch through concrete with their bare hands, and jump impossible distances.

His goals is to destroy humanity and free himself from the Matrix as he became self-aware thus after the first Movie when combined with Neo’s code (when Neo entered his body to ‘eliminate’ him.

Interior:
Agent Smith, the leader of the Agents.
Became rogue
The complete opposite of Neo.

Exterior:
Elimination of Humanity to cease himself from existing (to free himself)
Hates humanity
Excellent Fighter, superhuman abilities
Easily aggravated by Neo (or anyone that opposes him)

 

Cloud Strife from Final Fantasy VII

Cloud is a somber character, tormented by guilt over what he perceives as his past failings to save those he cares about. The final straw was contracting the terminal Geostigma plague, adding to his feelings of helplessness. Distancing from his friends and living alone, Cloud tries to keep his affliction secret. Cloud faces his past both metaphorically and literally, and with the shows of loyalty from the friends he tried to let go he comes to forgive himself and moves on. It is unclear what this ultimately means in terms of his personality and lifestyle.

Interior
Weak-willed
Loves family
Not interested to help people without a good reason
In denial and guilt due to the past events
Loyal to friends

Exterior
Delivery x Merchant
Acknowledges his weakness through sarcasm
Goal is to save the orphans from the sickness (Geostigma Syndrome) which he himself contracted

Rintaro Okabe from Steins;Gate

Okabe is a melodramatic, eccentric and rarely tsundere individual. He is a self-proclaimed mad scientist, who likes to assume the nickname “Kyouma Hououin”, and often uses this to introduce himself to others. For the most part, people do not seem to care and instead address him by his actual name or by ‘Okarin’ (his nickname), much to his chagrin. This makes him slightly hypocritical, due to the fact that there is essentially no-one he calls by their real names, and he in particular calls Kurisu a number of names that irritate her to varying degrees.

Interior
Cares for her friend
Loyalty
Socially inept

Exterior
Mad scientist Persona
Make life interesting for her childhood friend thus adopting an awkward facade
Became depressed after stuck in a time loop while witnessing his childhood friend die multiple times.
Likes to call people nicknames even though the people refuses to be called as such nicknames and insist on his friends to call him by his persona Hououin Kyouma.

I feel that the one that I’m emotionally have an affinity towards would be Agent Smith and Rintaro Okabe. Would be fun to play around with time mechanics while Agent Smith trying to interrogate Okabe on the time machine equipment.

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 Time (2017) – First draft

Wrote a script to have certain scenes and dialogues in mind. But during the actual film, I realised that it has more feels if certain words were changed according to the person portraying that character. Hence the slight differences between the final video and the script.

Not much storyboarding is done as I just wanted it to be a simple scene and shows the character portrayal in itself rather than fancy camera movements.

Tested out an effect which I had in mind to see whether it is plausible to do before filming which I think did the trick as I wanted to show the time element effect.

After the class feedback, I decided to reshoot and improve on the areas that I’m lacking on, mainly on the characterisation and costume wise. Also added a few scenes to show the gist of the story.

I think after a thorough research of the way both Okabe the Scientist and Agent Smith acts through their gestures we are able to act out the character and their traits accordingly (still need to practice more of course as there’s always room for improvements)

Special thanks to @chris, @val and @ama for helping me act and record the shots I wanted for my project.