Process : Picture Sequencing – The Passing Of

THE PASSING OF

Project Phases – Photo Story

  • Understanding The Brief
  • Research
  • Ideation
  • Prototyping / Realisation
  • Feedback & Consultation
  • Finalisation & Production
1st Group Meetup Session (Misunderstood the brief, started the project towards the wrong direction)
– Create Storyline
– Brief Research
– Arrange photoshoot next week – It was a mistake as we did not do our research yet and just dive straight into ideation. As such we started the project on the wrong foot and thus wasted a lot of time and effort. But it was a good lesson learnt. 

Storyline : Due to a fatal incident where Danny pit against Lucas, his Best Friend, in the MMA World Championship. Unfortunately, he landed a headshot which later caused his friend to be half vegetable. After this incident, it was a turning point in his life. Danny quit his job as a fighter, which meant the world to him. In addition, he also lost his friendship that really matters to him. Danny gave up his life and left everyone around him.

(Initially we didn’t shoot a story, but rather we simply just want to shoot what the person we lost touch with is going through in his life at the current moment. My mistake as I didn’t attend lesson and didn’t know we have to craft a story out of a the 3 act structure. So ours at that point in time is just 2 act structure, as there are no resolution/ending.)

So we proceed on to shoot for the first session. ( 267 Photos)

SHOT OUTCOME

Consultation 1

Our character is too much of an archetype/stereotypical – We have to capture his inner world and we require to have a character profile, as if he is someone real, and we him personally  and that he exist. Can reference Citizen Kane and Wong Kah Wai movie

Our story needs a resolution – Due to the misunderstanding of the project that we only have a 2 act structure.

Needs more exploration and experimentation such as POV shots.

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NEXT STEP

Research on how to make our character less stereotypical
Need to discuss with the group on forming a resolution
Need to research more on composition for movie research

Movie Research Melancholia

To make the character feel real, it has to show the inner world. In the few pictures that I just put on, shows the dynamic range of just a single emotion the character portray, which is bliss and happiness, has so many variations, each reacts to different scenario. A character is dynamic because its complex, and it is like knowing someone new, where you will get to know the person deeper and more intimate part of a person overtime. For example, the interaction with the husband such as the love she expresses for her husband, is very different in every scenario, such as the jokes her husband makes, the conversation they have, the intimacy, the bad/funny situation they go through, all evoke different variation of reaction from the character.

Chaos as a way to show the dynamic characteristics of a character, as humans have multiple reactions towards different things that happens in life. It also shows the character strength, weakness, their reality, behaviour and attitude.

Everything connects and affects everything. Her depression causes the people around her to have conflict, causes her to lose her job, creates a certain conversation style, etc. All these makes the character more dynamic, valid and interesting.

Character profiling is exceptionally important t show a multiple faceted side of a character and for a charter to be truly dynamic, it has to show many variation of the character side

As the story unfolds, more and more about her life, attitude, family relationships, the triggers of her depression began to show through.

Research Photo Composition

Close Shot : Emphasise on showing the emotion

Extreme Far Shot : To make the character looks small, lonely, and in this case, emphasises the depression of the main character.

Full Body Shot : Shows the character activity as well as the space, conveys the atmosphere, mood and emotion.


Mid Body Shot : Shows the activity the character is having

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2nd Group Meetup Session

Storyline

3 Phases In The Story:

Phase 1 : Depression to Severe Depression – Live a monotonous life, struggle with his depression. He has a pet cockroach

Phase 2 : The conflict with his mom worsen his depressive symptom that it became psychotic. The conflict was the mom kill his cockroach. He began hallucinating where he tries to dies but couldn’t, he basically resurrect everytime he kills himself.

Phase 3 : This is actually an ad, and it zoom out and feature the film crew, and that he is showing that it is his life story.

Character Profiling

Getting to know this person personally in a deeper and intimate way. Getting to know all his dirty little secrets!! XD

Composition Research

Research For Phase1 & 2 Story :  Emotional Build Up – Composition & Acting

The insight I get out of this is that the character becomes out of control. She is basically going crazy with what she wants. Breaking it down frame by frame, we can see that the character might be angry to start off with. Slowly with time, the character becomes slightly confrontational, as if agitated. Then later on, it becomes a volcanic eruption that she just couldn’t take it anymore.

So to shoot/capture a shot of the character in a more dynamic manner in terms of  holding a basketful of emotion in the composition and picture sequencing, the photographer and videographer has to document  the process of getting angry, breaking it down her attitude, mannerism, behaviour patterns, from the moment of before her trigger till the climax. By showing the details and subtle motion of a more ‘individual’ person, rather than a stereotype that has no depth in his/her action. In addition, doing in such a elaborate manner,  allow the audience to feel the build up of a negative emotion.

So by capturing small details that of a person, rather than just the surface of it,  helps us avoid in building an archetype, and this also allow me to reference on how to shoot a scene that require a build up in tension.

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Research For Phase 1 Story :  Composition & Acting

This is just a study of how depress people might look like and we can reference it for acting out the body language and facial expression

SHOT OUTCOME

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Consultation 2

Our short film is too ambitious

The ads wasn’t a good idea.

Our character didn’t live up to their expectation to take on a role of acting

The film student in the story should be based on a true person to make it more impactful.

The character in our picture lacks a goal in the story, or maybe it is just not showing through. This makes the story monotonous and as if the story wants going anywhere. It needs a goal that is interesting enough that audience want to watch.

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NEXT STEP

Change our storyline & build a new character profile. Character must have a goal that he needs to overcome to make it interesting. Follow the 3 act structure.

Storyline
Danny lost his mom and that resulted him suffering from artist block. He tries to paint, but no matter how hard he tries, he couldn’t make a painting. Ever since then, he stopped painting, and he led a monotonous life without any purpose nor direction, which is killing him inside. Eventually one day, he decided to rid all of his art materials as he felt so hopeless and helpless about his current situation. In addition, he lost his artist ‘touch’, as well as his dearest mom. On the same day as he was clearing his art materials out,, he found a present given by his mom for his birthday, and it includes a letter that tells him not to give up on what he wants in life, that was his mother last words. With that, he broke down into tears, and he frantically rushes back to get back the art materials that he throws.
Certain keyword to research on : Lost of a dear person(fault in our stars funeral shot), an attitude of pushing on towards ones goal (whiplash, prozac nation) how one gain back inspiration, giving up, defeat, aggravation, anxiousness, (whiplash), etc.
Composition Research
Research For The Passing Of Someone Precious : Gaining Inspiration & Insight On Composition, Acting, Framing, Picture Sequencing
(The Fault In Our Stars)
I can also use the acting as a reference for my character just in case Zhen Yu needs reference.

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Research For Giving Up Ones Dream : Gaining Inspiration & Insight On Composition, Acting, Framing, Picture Sequencing
(Whiplash)
Composition wise, there is alot of close up shot to show the character emotions. It also capture  the interaction the character has with the object. It also shoot the actual text to place emphasis on him being cut away from school.  Occasionally, there is mid range shoot to show the activity the character is engage in.
Framing wise, it shows a chronological order of the flow of things, but the close up composition makes the shot really interesting.
It can also be use a reference for our Zhen Yu to act out.
Research For Gaining Inspiration : Gaining Inspiration & Insight On Composition, Acting, Framing, Picture Sequencing
(Whiplash)

Composition wise it is quite interesting, it shoot the interaction between the drum and the drummer, as if they have intimate relationship. It uses close up shot to show character emotion. It also shows full body shot to showcase the atmosphere and character is having.

 

    Research For Build Up Frustration : Gaining Inspiration & Insight On Composition, Acting, Framing, Picture Sequencing
(Whiplash)

]The insight I got out from the how the director sequence the build up of the character, that it starts from a sort of nervous situation. Slowly, as the character could get it, he starts to become more and more desperate that the scene became sort of gory. The way he/she shoot make sense, and it deliver the intended mood and feel.

Composition wise, I can see that there are experimentation in terms of capture the character emotion. Example this :

This are some of the composition that I can take note of, and use its as a form of inspiration to shoot my work.

SHOT OUTCOME

& THIS IS MY FAVOURITE SHOT!

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THE PASSING OF

Project Phases – Photo Story With Sound

  • Understanding The Brief
  • Research
  • Ideation
  • Prototyping / Realisation
  • Feedback & Consultation
  • Finalisation & Production

RESEARCH

Beautiful Lies Of Sound Design | TED X ATHENS

Insights From Video

  • Our brain cannot tell the difference between similar sounds. As such sound can be manipulated and ell beautiful untrue things.
  • Reverb : Make a sound into reality. Little to no reverb is like someone speaking inside our ears. A lot of reverb creates a feeling of space and flashback, voice of god or even a illusion of sound.
  • Silence is a powerful tool to create loudness in a movie. However too much silence constantly will not be silence anymore, it has to be a nice balance with quietness and loudness. Silence need loudness and loudness need silence. There is also no such thing as silence, you can hear your own heartbeat at a really quiet room. Therefore, sound design uses ambient to create a real world effect. Best you manipulated what happen
  • Ambient create a sense of the real world effect, such as a room. A room also have alot of facade that you can authorise the to get Malaysia PR
  • Offscreen sound : Create a sense of mystery, tension. sound is a beautiful language. It can be used to capture scenes that is not there through sound

Wong Kah Wai – In The Mood For Love

  • The film at the very minimum uses static background ambient sound – Kept at a very low volume that is almost inaudible. Ambient sound such as wind, industrial sound, thunder, static sound are used
  • Unseen sound such as chattering of other people, clashing of majong tiles. Sometimes when there is someone approach the character yet they have not appear on the screen.
  • Realism is key, dont overlay too much or else there wiill be too much clutter and the sound will become inaudible.
  • Use quietness to show contrast and subtle impact on the change environment, such as a busy office suddenly switch to less busy ones.
  • “Future’ sound can also be use to give the audience an element of surprise, or allow them to anticipate for the outcome.

A Man Escaped

“Robert Bresson uses sound as his main subject as well as his expressive tool. He say sound as an parallel image, so when sound was too powerful to replace the image, the attention must be centred on the spot.

  • This film uses alot of external sound and the character interacted and respond to the sound throughout the whole film
  • Sound can be used as a symbol. Just like in this film, the whistle means that the character has to go down and wash their faces.
  • Sound can be used to check, investigate and even just responding to it. In this case of the film, the character uses sound to check the guard footstep, as he is desperate tries to crave out the door which produces alot of noise as well. So he can only crave or scrap the door when the guard is not around. Sometimes if the prison is too quiet, the character might also feel fearful, as sound that occur but not a for the jail he live in to be that quiet in normal days. Another good example is that whenever I am secretly playing computer games without my dad approval, I would play when he is out of house. So whenever I hear a loud noise of a door slamming shut, I know my dad is back home, this is sort of like a symbolic sound, yet also a sign of danger & stress)
  • It gave me insight that in order to use sound efficiently, I would rather imaging that my main character is blind, and he can only use sound to navigate in life. This shows that sound can be played in creative manner for the character to guide himself to the right destination without looking.
  • An unknown sound can be added into the film to motivate audience to be curious and later then introduce the source of the sound to create a sort of more dynamic story.
  • The frequency of the sound sounding also creates another sort of tension . The rising or decreasing volume also evoke different experience through the picture
  • Using the lack of sound during climax create tension

The Conversations 

  • Weird unseen sound are use to introduce to the audience repeatedly, to make the audience curious. So afterward, the movie shows the audience the object or activity that created the sound. Eventually, that became a symbol in this movie and the director can simply just need to use this sound to show a scenario without any visual
  • To create a dramatic effect, I can use loud sound and suddenly stop the sound. As such silence was introduce, and that created a dynamic experience in using sound that manner
  • An echoic air can create tension in general. Weird dissonance is introduce to create even more tension, especially during the murder scene
  • Dark bass creates alot of tension without having the volume to sound too loud, yet a deep unexplainable heavy experience is created by such a bassy sound.
  • In order to showcase a voice that is stuck inside the character head, is to simply just repeat the voice with slight reverb and let it repeated on the loop

Applications

I am really inspired by the movie The Man Escaped, on how the director played with sound so well without the use of much visual images to tell the story! Plus I really do agree that sound is a parallel world to visual itself. We also understand the world through sound, and sometimes through sound purely. As such I want to capture this within my audio and for the first one minute or so, I want to bring the audience into an imaginative world without visual, where they can try to figure out what is happening with sound itself. In addition, I was close to suffering from burnout for all the submission, so I wanted to relit that passion within me by being more experimental in this assignment, which means also taking risk that might spell good or bad results.

But anyway, this part 2 assignment is about sound, as such I have done :
/ A mixdown on laying out the audio heirachy, to create dynamism in terms of sound. For example, the ambient will usually be very subtle, unless a dramatic scenerio calls for a louder ambient sound. Ambient sound usually is to be used as a filler, to create a sense of realism and also to contruct the environment in the right setting, to make the images alive and more realistic.
/ Used sythethic build up sound that created for my music production last time, where I side chain in to create this whompy effect building up to something big, then breaks down into silence.
/ Cut out unwanted frequencies to make the audio more audible to the audience and clearer in terms of my layering of sound.
/ Add on reverb, fx to the original sound clip to create a sense of space in the room, as well as to make the sound more realistic and that it comes together as a whole.
/ Using simple bass heavy sound to create movement and tension in the video.

I can only explain a few general ideas on how I use it on my video as it is difficult to explain in through words. So the best is to view the video itself to gain an understanding of how I create the picture sequence with sound the way it is.

  • Since sound is parallel to sight, I took out certain scene out and use offscreen sound to capture the activity without showing any pictures. I also purely use sound without visual and tries to construct a world out of it.
  • I also create build ups and sudden transition to quietness to create this dynamic transition to silence, then later on a soft melodic piano came in to soothes out abrupt experience.
  • I filter/edit//compress/use reverb, use bass, all to create a more realistic sound, and also to play with the hierarchy of sound in the film, to create space and a more dramatic viewing experience
  • Using ambience to fill the air
  • Using the right type of sound to convey mood and emotion – dissonance to create an eerie and creepy experience, etc.
  • I could also do branding on the sound, by repeated use to engrave into the memories of the people who watch.

– THE END –

 

4D Picture Sequencing : The Passing Of

THE PASSING OF

 

Storyline :

Danny lost his mom, which resulted him suffering from artist block. He tries to paint, but no matter how hard he tries, he couldn’t make a painting.  He stopped painting, and began to lead a monotonous life that he has no purpose nor direction in life, which is killing him internally. That deep anger that still reside within him, ever since that day where he destroyed his art material. He now decided to rid his love of painting out of his life. On the same day as he was clearing his art materials out, he found a present given by his mom for his birthday, and it includes a letter that writes to not give up on what he wants in life, no matter how tough it is. That was his mother last words. He broke down into tears, and that ignite his passion for painting once again. As a result, he frantically rushes back to get back the art materials that he throws, and decided to continue down the path of a painter in his life.