Project 03: Ego – Final Artworks

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1 ) Lack of time + Returning to reality = Reluctance

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As we grow older, we are caught up with many issues. There are so many things that we want to accomplish but yet so little time to work with. Snapping out of the worries about not having enough time, we return to reality, realising that work still have to be done. The time spent thinking about non-productive issues are just time wasted. Yet again, part of us are still dwelling in the mindset of having the lack of time. Hence, reluctance to return to reality.


2 ) Composed + Traffic Jam = Rage

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Undergone months of vigorous training of Officership, the best takeaway is that we learned to be composed in difficult situations, to be able to plan ahead and being responsible for the roles that we hold. However, old habits die hard. In times of traffic jam, I tend to be impatient and often lose my temper.


3 ) Materialism + Questioning Existence = Overthinking

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As we grow older, we feel inclined to buy things that look good and branding that speaks for statuses. We become vain and materialistic. On the spiritual side, we wonder, why are we brought to this world, what are we supposed to accomplish in this lifetime, what happens when we die, do we go to heaven or wander on earth, what good does all these mortal measurements do to us? These questions made me overthink of being true to oneself, on being productive and working towards a goal that I have always dreamed of achieving.


4 ) Drowning in assignments + Wanderlust = Tranquility

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In this semester, we were introduced to multiple assignments and were overwhelmed by it. Personally, I feel that time management is the answer to it. In a new environment (University), to balance Work, Social and Sleep is difficult, thus I chose to sacrifice sleep and a bit of social. In the midst of working on assignments, I often drift away reminiscing the times when I travel around SE Asia. Those days were worries-free, able to talk about life and explore new places, gaining new experiences in activities that I have never tried before. These thoughts calmed me down, giving me peace and the motivation to succeed in life, in order to retire early and travel again.


Referenced artists

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This is a screenshot that I took during my process, working on the second version of the final artwork. The images on the sides are referenced photos.

I particularly fancy the low poly art and Andy Worhol’s painting. I took the images from Pinterest, thus, not being able to find out most of the artists’ names.

andy-worhol

Andy Worhol’s Self Portrait. I like how he used the highlights of his face as a negative space and using colours to portray the mood. This work reminds me of our second project – Forrest Gump, using threshold images for silkscreen printing.

cubism

Rene Magritte’s cubism painting. I tried to explore different art styles, tracing back through the different periods of art movement. In this painting, he used very minimal details, shapes and colours to push the character out from the background, yet, seems like he is one with the background.

low-poly

Here’s a tutorial on Low Poly Portrait. It took painstaking long hours to create a low poly art portrait with great details. In my opinion, you should understand the structure of the head or face in Figure Drawing and head topology in 3D Modelling, as it will help you to see where are the contours, highlights and reference points of the head. I have always liked low poly art, it looks 3D but is made of flat planes using Illustrator. It is clean yet rigid.

surreal-portrait

I could not find the artist’s name for this image. I like how the face is interlaced with the same image, disfiguring the face itself. It gives a feeling of being lost in time or loss of identity. Hence, I referenced this in one of my works.

portrait-1

I like how the artist removed her face from the body, but has a painting of herself hanging on the wall (inferred from the white shirt). I gives a feeling of one being there, yet not being there. The play of presence inspired me to use this technique in one of my works.

Project 03: Genre and Narrative – Little Red

Concept

Our film is based on “Little Red Riding Hood”. We were tasked to adapt on a fairy tale or folklore and add a modern twist to it. Thus, we made our main character, Red, both the Little Red Riding Hood and the Wolf.

Storyboard

The film starts off with Red cooking a meal for her mother and herself. Red’s mother is worried about Red’s safety whenever Red visits her, as she will always take the shortcut. Red had to leave after the meal.
As Red passed by the shortcut, she felt someone following her. She turns around but there was no sight of anyone. The stalker ambushed Red, demanding for her valuables. She composed herself after the shock and shot the stalker in the head with a pistol, which was in her purse. Red dragged the stalker away and begins to chop him into pieces which reveals that the meals that she had prepared were of human meat. The film ends with Red giving a smirk after eating her prey.

storyboard_01

storyboard_02

Research/Inspiration/References

We were inspired by the look of Hannibal series, where he prepares his meals in a neat and delicate manner. It was smooth and slow paced, thus, we filmed our shots in 50fps in order to attain smooth footages when slowed down.
In order to achieve the cinematic look, we rented lighting equipment and covered them with blue gels for the cool lighting. We colour-graded the footages in Premiere Pro, the cool lighting enhanced the blue shadows to achieve the cinematic look.
We also researched the title fonts of horror/thriller films so that the choice of the title font could fit the film. We took reference from The Conjuring and Sinister. We wanted a contemporary feel but also grotesque as it progresses. Thus, we chose a Serif font and add a bleeding effect as it fades off.

Inspiration

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ERf2QUejG0c

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vrFMEAWRSZ0

Cinematic Colour Grading

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qusedyZfvkE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_mSh2Bhtcy0

Title Card

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fCcBCoeSFK0
Challenges

We initially faced disagreements as we discussed about our storyboard. Due to differences in photography, it took a while before all of us finally reach a consensus on how the scenes should flow. We eventually resolved the issue as everyone merely wanted the best for our project despite the differing opinions.

Lighting the scene exactly the way we wanted was a challenge as our experience with lights was quite low. Shooting scenes in the corridor with a strong backlight was also a challenge. We managed to overcome these with teamwork, as everyone understood how the entire film was supposed to look so we worked to achieve that. The corridor scene was overcome by making use of cable extensions.

Sound was also an issue as we did not have boom mics and there were scenes where the mic we were using had run out of battery. We overcame the issue of no boom mics by placing the ZOOM audio recorder closer to the actress. For the scenes which did not have audio, we had to replicate the sounds back in school and edit them together in post. This was an extra step and could have been avoided but we managed to overcome it.

Video Link

https://vimeo.com/190680091

Done by:
Wong King Lam, Chua Jia Jun Gerald, Lee Ying Hui Candy