4D Project 1: Alter Ego

We were tasked to create a 1 min video with a dialogue/monologue scene with a few words through a central issue which would characterised the person as to who he is.

Elaboration

I like to have order in my life and do things one step at a time.However, life doesn’t always go according to plan, and I will run into obstacles or unforeseen circumstances at some point in my life. These unforeseen circumstances can hinder or even stop me from reaching my goals. Therefore, it resorted me needing to think on my feet and do things out of my way to overcome these obstacles. I strive to be able to adapt to such changes accordingly. This is a quality trait I’m aspiring to work towards and get better at in the future.

With reference to the video, the Lego instruction booklet acts as a guide for me to build my life. Sometimes, there may be a more convenient way of working things around to overcome these obstacles. Just like in the video, I realised it was hard to find the correct piece that I wanted, so I had to think of how to combat this situation in order to make it easier for me. I sorted out the parts by colour, which succeeded in helping me find the pieces more efficiently in order to finish building the Lego set.

Research Phase

Before this, we were tasked to list the characters that resonate to us, describe their characteristics and arrange by order of importance.

Selection of characters

1)The Flash

Passionate about saving lives
Likeable character
Good relationship with friends and family
Runs fast
Thinks quick on his feet
Able to adapt to situations quickly

2) Carl Allen (Yes Man)

Spontaneous
Humorous
Unexpected adventure

3) Louis Cole

Traveller
Inspirational
Influential
Find adventure in everyday situations
Strives to go green

4) Casey Neistat

Filmmaker
Innovative
Creative
Not afraid to be politically incorrect
Works his way up from the bottom

List of other characters

Fiction

Daryl Dixon
Super Mario
Walter Mitty

Public Figures

Jimmy Fallon
Charles Trippy
Will Smith

Personal

Matin Fellani
Rohanah
Riduan
Yong Wei
Mohd Alif

Reflection

Overall, I had a good experience learning how to profile characters and adapt it to my own video. Hopefully, this will help me in creating more characters that resonate to me and improve on future videos. Even though there wasn’t a lot of dialogue in the video, I felt it was quite a feat coming up with lines and performing these lines in front of the camera.

2D Pre-project 1, Week 2 : Hello. My name is.

Brief

We were tasked to create 3 ‘Hello My Name Is’ name tags using subjects that represent ourselves or an aspect of our personality. The 3 categories are as folllow: Typography, Abstract Solution and Conceptual

Ideas

Typography

As a nature lover, I decided to incorporate this trait into my first piece. Using leaves to make out the letters of my name and using the log as a base to hold all the leaves together. I like being surrounded by nature and how its always surreal to see how beautiful it actually is.

Abstract Art

Tetris has always been a part of my childhood and I love how the game is so simple yet addictive. I incorporated a Tetris styled abstract for this piece. I’m an organised person and I love order in my life. Just like Tetris, I want my life to fall perfectly in place just like the pieces falling into the cracks seamlessly. However, sometimes setbacks can happen in life and it may not exactly go the way you want it to be but I will try to make the most out of it. The colourful Tetris blocks represents the different aspects of my life.

Conceptual

Mountains, lush greenery and the outdoors has always been a fascinating subject for me. I love going for hikes, being adventurous, and just living life to the fullest. It’s not always easy considering how we have to lead our daily lives, but this drawing of a mountain serves as a reminder for me to not be afraid and just go forth in conquering new terrains. It is also a reminder for me to always try to achieve greater heights.

2D Pre-project 1, Week 1: Typographic Portrait

The Dada Movement

Arrangement of words and images, mixing letterforms, ornaments and ready-images in order to shock.

Dadaism was an ‘anti art’ stance as it was intent on destroying the artistic values of the past. The aim of Dada was to create a climate in which art was alive to the moment and not paralysed by the corrupted traditions of the established order.

‘Tatlin at Home’, 1920 (collage)

Dada Seigt, 1920

Hannah Hoch

Photomontage became the preferred medium for her shrewd social and political critiques of the 1920s.

Hoch incorporated lace and handiwork patterns into her montages, thus combining the traditional language of women’s crafts with that of modern mass culture.

German, 1889–1978

Das schöne Mädchen (The Beautiful Girl), 1919–1920

photomontage and collage

35 x 29 cm (13 3/4 x 11 7/16 in.)

Hannah Höch with her Dada Dolls, 1920

Das schöne Mädchen [The Beautiful Girl], 1920

Comment: I really like how Hannah Hoch uses photo collages to create an entirely new photo with a different meaning. The use of photos from different places and piecing it together to form a whole new meaning is really intriguing.

Handmade Typography

I love the idea of incorporating literal objects and materials into the typography in order to bring out the meaning behind the word. The use of materials will have a great emphasis on the word and it speaks for itself as a whole. Here are some examples of typography that incorporates these elements into the word itself.

Kegs with legs

Maricor Maricar

Sometimes, a simple medium such as paper can create such a wonderful effect if done right. I love the use of folds on the paper with different lengths to create such a composition, added with a good spectrum of colours.

Lavanya Naidoo

Abelina by Six & Five Studio

I’m interested to explore in doing something similar to this. I want to use different materials to bring out my attribute and potentially make it 3D, if the space allows. I like how these type of typography brings out a 3D sense to it, allowing people to touch and feel and bringing out the sensory elements to the artwork. It also makes me want to experiment and try out different materials and seeing what works and what doesn’t because different materials evoke different sets of emotion towards the artwork.

List Of Attributes

Adventure Seeker
Nature-lover
Observant
Organised
Determined
Imaginative
Resourceful
Passionate
Curious
Easygoing

Project 3: Genre and Narrative (Piper)

Artistic statement

Jamie was only a regular reporter until his best friend Sam suddenly decides to go missing. No one knows where she went. Her friends have no idea, and the police don’t seem to care. Distraught and angry, he pours himself into a useless search, turning up nothing but empty trails. Just as he was about to give up, a mysterious source turns up with the information he is desperately seeking. Right upon his doorstep.

He follows the clues, taking him to the strangest, weirdest places. Fuelled by his obsessive need to find out the truth behind Sam’s disappearance, it finally leads him to the entity behind it all. The Piper.

But was it all worth it?

Original Story

Based on the folk tale, The Pied Piper of Hamlin.
Story talks about how the town of Hamlin is terrorized by a frightful plague of mice
In their desperation, they hire the Pied Piper
Using his pipe, he entices the rats to follow him to a watery death
However, was refused payment for his services
Decides to lure the children of the town away with his music, never to be seen again.

Pre-Production Phase

Crafting the script

Elements we wanted to bring from the original tale:

The Piper and his ‘Pipe’

Things we changed:

ORIGINAL	PIPER
VILLAIN: The Pied Piper	VILLAIN: Pip, our Celebrity
POV: Third Person – Narrator	POV: First Person – Jamie
VICTIMS: Rats, Children	VICTIMS: Sam, Pip’s Fans
MODUS OPERANDI: Pipe	MODUS OPERANDI: Snapchat
MOTIVE: Revenge	MOTIVE: Unexplained

Storyboarding in this case was not very effective.
More emphasis is put on the script itself.
The storyboard provided a guideline rather than being a production bible.

Production Phase

Location Scouting:

CRITERIA FOR OUR LOCATIONS:

elaborate, suitable backgrounds
chilling, mysterious atmosphere
fit the flow of the story
easy commute
accessible and quiet for filming

After much discussion and google searches, we decided upon five final locations.

Filming Process

Post-Production Phase

Project 3: Ego

1) Spirit Of Adventure + Observant = Me

Spirit Of Adventure

Split Complementary

Main Colours: Red, Blue, Green

Explanation: The idea of going to different places with an adventurous mindset has always been something I really love doing. Taking on a different approach into going to different places allows me to explore and gives me a fuller experience. This whole experience of getting into a design school is a form of adventure on its own as I develop and discover myself to do greater things. The volkswagen in the image represents my idea of a roadtrip adventure with a couple of friends driving through ridges and ridges of mountains.

Observant

Triad Harmony

Main Colours: Orange, Green, Purple

Explanation: Being observant has always been a trait of mine since I was young. I’ve always been aware of the things around me as well as the people around me. Like noticing what they wear, what they are doing and even some of the littlest details that is often overlooked by other people. I’m a quiet person by nature, so for me naturally, listening to people and taking in what they say is a common practice for me. The gift of sight is a wondrous thing and we often take it for granted. I used the binoculars as a symbol to being observant and it is more of an exaggerated form to show i’m looking around and people-watching.

Me

Tetrad Harmony

Main Colours: Red, Orange, Green, Blue

Explanation: Spirit of adventure and being observant combines to form the ‘Me’ equation. This picture shows me being in a tent, using my visual senses to embrace the sights and sounds around me without any form of technology. I used slightly warmer colours to emphasise on a more natural atmosphere.

2) Courage – Hesitation = A Better Me

Courage

Triad Harmony

Main Colours: Blue, Red, Yellow

Explanation: Being courageous is something I wish I was better at when it comes to deciding on life decisions. I’ve always wanted to try parachuting off a helicopter. It is one of my life goals to achieve such a feat. For this picture, I made an establishing shot where the helicopter is flying above the mountains, showing a sense of height and showing a breathtaking view. I used red for the helicopter to give a strong contrast from the icy blue mountains below and it will direct your eyes straight to the helicopter first.

Hesitation

Tetrad Harmony

Main Colours: Blue, Green, Orange, Red

Explanation: Hesitation is the restriction that stops me from being courageous. I always hesitate and think of the possible scenarios that could happen if I say yes or if I say no. I like to think of the benefits that it brings to making a certain decision or whether it is not advisable to do a particular thing. In the picture, I used 4 different colours, mainly green for most part of the things on my body and blue being the sky. It shows me hesitating whether to jump out of the helicopter.

A Better Me

Split Complementary

Main colours: Blue, Red, Green

Explanation: Courage minus hesitation to form ‘A Better Me’. This picture shows me jumping out of the helicopter with a parachute deployed. It symbolises me stopping my hesitation to do things and telling myself to just do it and embrace whatever comes by. I used red to show contrast of the parachute with the blue sky.

3) Travel x Film = An Ideal Me

Travel

Analogous (3)

Main colours: Light Blue, Medium Blue, Dark Blue, Yellow

Explanation: Travel has always been my passion. I love the idea of going to places and exploring the culture and experiencing something out of my own comfort zone. In addition, I like meeting people from different parts of the world and getting to know them in depth, learning about their stories and just realising that other people might not be as fortunate as we are. This picture shows my perspective of being in an airplane seat, looking out of the window. I used mainly blue hues to show the clouds and the blue sky bouncing off the wing of the plane.

Film

Tetrad Harmony

Main Colours: Red, Orange, Green, Blue

Explanation: Aside from travelling, film is my next passion. I like to document my adventures through different countries and places, putting it together and sharing it with people. Film allows me to look back at my documentation of a place in the future and remembering all the good times I had at that particular place. It is just something I enjoy doing, the whole process of capturing a priceless moment in time. The video camera I used in the picture is a Super8 film camera, a traditional format that is rarely used in today’s time. It shows me holding the camera in one hand and the red, orange, green and blue hues forms a spectrum out of the video camera.

An Ideal Me

Analogous (5)

Main Colours: Blue, Yellow Green, Green, Orange , Yellow

Travel x Film forms ‘An Ideal Me’. This has always been my ideal path in life in the future. Being able to travel and getting paid to do it in the form of doing videography is a dream that i’m working towards. The picture shows me taking a video of the statue of liberty. I used mainly blue and green hues to achieve the visuals that is more pleasing to the eyes.

4) Stable Job + ‘Me’ Time = Me In Five Years

Stable Job

Triad Harmony

Main Colours: Purple, Green, Orange

Explanation: A stable job is something that everyone yearns for. A stable job would mean a stable life, with lesser worries of income issues. I put myself as a director in this picture, with me shouting ‘CUT!’ to symbolise something I would want to pursue, being a director for a movie and pursuing my passion for film.

‘Me’ Time

Tetrad Harmony

Main Colours: Orange, Blue, Red, Green

Explanation: Apart from wanting a stable job, I also yearn for some ‘Me’ time, meaning to have time to do my own things without any form of commitments or boundaries. In the picture, I used mainly orange as a strong contrast to the blue waters to direct the attention towards the canoe. The whole picture symbolises me going through a carefree life, without anything to worry and drifting through life as it moves on, just like the canoe drifting with the water current.

Me In Five Years

Analogous (5)

Main Colours: Orange, Yellow, Yellow Green, Green, Blue

Explanation: Having a stable job plus having ‘me’ time forms ‘Me in five years’. I would want a mix of both having a dedicated job at the same time not be too bogged down by work and having my own free time to pursue my other passions. The picture symbolises me doing other passions apart from my job, like creating creative content to share with people.

Artists’ References

1) Andy Warhol

Illustrator Andy Warhol was one of the most prolific and popular artists of his time, using both avant-garde and highly commercial sensibilities. In the late 1950s, Warhol began devoting more attention to painting, and in 1961, he debuted the concept of “pop art”—paintings that focused on mass-produced commercial goods. In 1962, he exhibited the now-iconic paintings of Campbell’s soup cans. These small canvas works of everyday consumer products created a major stir in the art world, bringing both Warhol and pop art into the national spotlight for the first time.

2) Roy Lichtenstein

Roy Fox Lichtenstein was an American pop artist. During the 1960s, along with Andy Warhol, Jasper Johns, and James Rosenquist among others, he became a leading figure in the new art movement. His work defined the basic premise of pop art through parody. Favoring the comic strips, his main inspiration, Lichtenstein produced hard-edged, precise compositions that documented while it parodied often in a tongue-in-cheek manner.

Project 2: Nursery Rhymes

This project is inspired by the idea of surrealism being put into my representation of nursery rhymes. I’ve decided to do each line based off different nursery rhymes to give more variety to the work instead of telling a story. I’ve also chosen the lines to be less of an action but more of a statement because it gives me more room and ways to make it as surreal as it can be with that particular line.

The Final Pieces

1) Three men in a tub

2) The cat and the fiddle

3) Jack and Jill went up the hill

4) I’m a little teapot, short and stout

Artist References

1) Rene Magritte

René Magritte was a Belgian surrealist artist best known for his witty and thought-provoking images and his use of simple graphics and everyday imagery.

2) Salvador Dali

Dalí was a skilled draftsman, best known for the striking and bizarre images in his surrealist work. His painterly skills are often attributed to the influence of Renaissance masters. His best-known work, The Persistence of Memory, was completed in August 1931. Dalí’s expansive artistic repertoire included film, sculpture, and photography, in collaboration with a range of artists in a variety of media.

3) Jacek Yerka

Jacek Yerka (born. Jacek Kowalski in 1952) is a Polish surrealist painter from Toruń. Yerka’s work has been exhibited in Poland, Germany, Monaco, France, and the United States, and may be found in the museums of Poland.

4) Vladimir Kush

Vladimir Kush (born 1965) is a Russian born surrealist painter and sculptor. He studied at the Surikov Moscow Art Institute, and after several years working as an artist in Moscow, his native city, he emigrated to the United States, eventually establishing his own gallery on the island of Maui in Hawaii. His oil paintings are also sold as giclée prints which contributed to his popularity and led to the establishment of further galleries in Laguna Beach, California and Las Vegas, Nevada. In 2011 Kush won the First Prize in Painting at the Artistes du Monde international exhibition in Cannes.

These artists have inspired me to create a sense of illusion through everyday objects and making it into something that has a totally different meaning. Each artists has his own style and way of manipulating these images to make it realistic.

Development

1) Three men in a tub

2) The cat and the fiddle

3) Jack and Jill went up the hill

4) I’m a little teapot, short and stout

Impossibilities Of Being

The Concept

My photo series is built upon the idea of ‘Limitless Possibilities’. The main inspiration behind this photo series is the idea of giving life to inanimate objects and how it interacts with the real world.
My 3 key transformations are teleporting to different places, origami and finally lego.

For the first set, ‘Teleportation through different places’, I was inspired by how it is always a hassle having to travel from one place to another. In the Singapore context, I can imagine the frustration for someone to be travelling from the east to the west every single day just to get to school, especially if it involves early mornings. The process can be very tiring and time wasting. Therefore, I imagine myself having the ability to teleport to different places and giving me this superpower to manipulate space and be wherever I want to be with a blink of an eye.

Next, the introduction of origami in the next part of the series is inspired by how we can be manipulated to become anyone or anything for a day, just to have a little taste of what it’s like to be in someone else’s shoes. Basically, the idea of morphing and giving life to inanimate objects allows me to better understand this object and how it interacts with the world around us.

Lastly, the introduction of lego inspired me of how if we had the ability to create something, out of anything without any form of boundaries. As compared to the real world now, there is no cash involved and you have the free inventory of materials to create anything you want based off of your imagination.

The stop motion style helps me to animate inanimate objects to become real and alive and is seen to be moving on its own. I created the sequence in such a way that the whole 3 key transformation is interconnected in the same world and its not 3 separate ideas altogether.

Artist References

This video is by MICHAELHICKOXFilms.

I’m a really big fan and collector of Lego so I watch a lot of little Lego stop motion videos that inspired me to use it for my video. I love how smooth the movement of the characters in the video and how their shots have a sense of focus to the main character.

Another great example of the use of stop motion is by a Youtube User called PESfilm. He uses everyday objects that people tend to overlook and use it to his advantage by adding in to represent another object. I like how he is so creative in his work and how this video itself is enough to represent what stop-motion is really all about.

Final Photoset

In this photo series, I start out sleeping in my room as the camera zooms in my head to reveal my imagination. My imagination takes me on a journey of me teleporting from a public transport, to different places, where I end up at park. I revealed a bunch of scrunched up coloured paper from my pocket and it forms to become a origami butterflies. The butterflies fly away as I release them. One butterfly ends up sinking into a pond which then turned into a whale breaching above a bunch of Lego creatures doing a whale watch in a boat. The Lego boat docks on an island which reveals a house, which contains a guy lying on a wooden bed. The camera zooms in to the Lego head to reveal back to me sleeping on my own bed.

Reflections

Overall, I had a really interesting experience making this whole project come to life. At first glance, it may seem like a lot of work for me to do considering the amount of time given to complete this project. However, as I slowly touch on each individual part, the whole sequence became much clearer for me and I was able to piece out the whole sequence with ease. I’ve also learnt a few camera composition techniques and how each composition can achieve different effects for the audience.

Project 1: Lines

Lines as expressions

Final Product

Top 3 Picks

Systematic

A minimalist approach towards getting different thickness and ink with simple lines. Systematic don’t always have to be complicated, but the simplicity of it all is what makes it unique for me.

Turbulent

Turbulent reminds me of choppy waves, and how the sea can be a really rough place for people on ships. I replicated the idea of choppy waves in the sea, giving a sense of turbulent, like a ship in a storm.

Psychotic

The expression, psychotic, meant a disturbed state of mine characterized by restlessness, illusions and incoherence. I mixed black and white ink for this piece to give a sense of illusion, unable to determine what is right and what is wrong, and having lots of negativity and hatred towards something.

Experimentations and research

Anchoring and Relaying

Climb On, 27th September 2015 (Extreme Long Shot)
It’s never about reaching the destination, it’s about the experiences you go through to reach the destination.

The Salute, 27th September 2015 (Low Angle)
As he reach for greater heights, all he can see are the obstacles and challenges ahead of him.

The Gaze, 27th September 2015 (Extreme Closeup)
The things we see may not always reflect the true meaning of its identity

Project 1B

Fire and Ice by Robert Frost

Some say the world will end in fire,

Some say in ice.

From what I’ve tasted of desire

I hold with those who favor fire.

But if it had to perish twice,

I think I know enough of hate

To say that for destruction ice

Is also great

And would suffice

Fire

In my opinion, fire and ice in this poem represents human emotions. Firstly, fire represents the burning desire. Fire can cause destruction in many ways in an instant. The word ‘tasted’ in line 3, implies that the author has not felt the full brunt of the energy that fire can produce but has only gotten a little teaser of how powerful fire can be. The author suggests that we can control our desires. If conditions aroused that causes us to lose control of this ‘fire’, it can cause damage and affect the masses. In this photo, I display the different types of war (chemical warfare, military operations, nuclear warfare) that can happen if our desires are not controlled. Sexual desires and jealousy is also an important element in contributing to the end of the world through ‘fire’. The image of the lips, heart and a lacy bra represents these sexual desires.

Balance

For the second photo, the scale right smack in the middle with a line across dividing the 2 sides of fire and ice represents the balance between fire and ice. No matter which side we choose, at the end of the day, both will still bring destruction to this world, its just a matter of how it ends.

Ice

For the last photo, ice represents hatred. Icy actions require thinking and deliberation. It takes careful planning and a great deal of time. The slowness of ice takes a hold of things similar to hate, it takes a lot of time to get someone to actually hate someone and it is not instant, compared to fire. It is more of playing with the mind, and how it can torture someone with mind games. I displayed photos of stress, torture, the brain and poison to show that ice is somewhat like a venom, it will slowly have its side effects that will eventually kill the person with the venom.