Since the central theme of the project was “Memory”, I wondered whose memory did I want to play with for this project. I was looking for something uniquely localised, close to my heart and really, just a sincere piece of work.
“Lover’s Tears” is an oldies song that gave rise to my motivation of capturing a memory that was related to the lyrics of the song and befitting of that era. I decided that I would construct the sequence by which it will begin and end with the same song, giving a sense of continuity to the 10 images.
So I initially wanted to step into the shoes of my grandma, and walk down her memory lane of my Ah Gong.
As I explored the idea visually and planned some of the shots I wanted to take, I realised that there was a sense of detachment to this piece of memory. It was almost impossible to shoot and record the series through the eyes of my grandma. Hence, it prompted me to tweak the direction a little, of which it is the love story between my grandma and I.
I made use of my grandma’s 3-room flat and old Macpherson estate to portray the oldies vibes. I wanted to portray the character of my grandma through the things she used and the dialect she speaks. These became visual and audio cues that gave the viewer/listener an idea of the era where my grandma grew up in and also the kinship that me and my grandma shared.
It was a constant process of re-thinking and re-arranging of images, ensuring that the image and sound played complementary roles to each other. It was also slightly challenging for me to constantly question if the chosen image was crucial in portraying that part of the story while ensuring a match with the recorded sound.
The sounds I used were a mix of recorded and found sound tracks, either which contributed to the narrative of the sequence or simply as asynchronous sounds to reinforce the homely vibes I wanted to give off.
