Concept

When I first received this project, I was pretty excited because typography. It always seemed cool and I’ve always wanted to try my hand at it. So I spent a long, long time on Pinterest looking at all the cool types of typography that I could possibly do. Everything was so neat, so smart, so beautiful, I was thrilled to represent my future jobs using the ideas I got. But then the first consultation came around and… Oh no. My compositions needed to have meanings behind them. 

Thankfully, I wasn’t left alone and helpless. Joy realised that all my jobs were linked to my dream of becoming a filmmaker and she suggested that my main theme could be ‘A Filmmaker’s Journey’ and that my message could be about how the journey is tiring, but I still do it.

So, on to the pieces!

 

1: Filmmaker – Writing

My first composition is about the writing portion of filmmaking. Before I was introduced to film, I enjoyed writing stories. But when I started learning about video production in my secondary school CCA, I realised that I could tell my stories in the form of film too. Writing (both my stories and scripts for films) was not always easy. Although the end product looked clean, well-crafted and well-edited, the process wasn’t as picture perfect. There lots and lots of drafts that are written. Some are scrapped, some are used in little portions, some are edited through multiple rounds or restructured. Then there’s the writer’s block or the times when I feel like I can’t write anything the way I picture it in my head at all. There’s hard work, frustration, anger, but also little victories along the way. And that’s what I tried to encapsulate in this composition, using the different layers of the image -the foreground and background.

 

2: Filmmaker – Filming

This is the portion of filmmaking filmmakers are identified by, I guess. I mean, filming. Filmmaking. Sounds pretty much like the same thing. So I wasn’t too surprised when Joy told me that this composition, along with the fourth one, were the strongest for the job of filmmaker. For this piece, I wanted to describe how physically tiring filming can be. Generally, at the start of a filming day, I’d be all pumped and ready to get all of them good shots. But as the day drags on and the number of retakes increases, I get significantly more tired. This is illustrated by the way the motion blur effect starts off strongly at the ‘C’ and decreases gradually until there is hardly any when it gets to the second ‘E’. To give the letters some context, I decided to position a camera and recording image behind my name in a sort of one point perspective formation, so that it’ll look as if the camera was filming my name.

 

3: Filmmaker – Editing

My favourite part of the filming process would probably be this part -editing. Most of the hard work has already been done by now and all that’s left to do is piece whatever I have according to plan. I tried to represent editing through the creation of the block letters of my name, using smaller, cut up pieces. Which is very similar to how an entire film is made up of many short clips that are trimmed to precise segments and put together. I left some pieces adrift and put a cursor over one of the floating pieces to simulate how I put the clips together -finding the right piece and putting it where it belongs. The letters end off with a blurry, double-vision effect because that’s what happens to my vision after a long time of staring at the screen. Since I used scanography for my first two compositions, a part of me wanted to continue this trend, and I did. I scanned my face, which was quite a difficult process, and added it to the background to imitate the way I can see my reflection on my computer screen when editing dark stuff. (This was inspired by a classmate from my Foundation 4D II class, Josiah, who created a short video and made use of the screen’s ability to reflect to end off his video.)

 

4: Filmmaker – Summary

My last composition is basically a summary of the entire filmmaking process. The paper and pen represents the writing, the camera represents the filming and the keyboard represents the editing. My name in chalk, congruent with the rest of my project, expresses how I tire during the process through the change in my handwriting for my name. It becomes messier and falls off the line. There are also little specks of white chalk scattered over the surface of my clapboard to give the image a sort of a messy feel. And yet there’s a part of me that’s utterly charmed by the little specks of chalk. In my mind, they look like the stars that light up the night sky. This happened completely by accident and I thought to myself, Ah, I guess that’s what I think of the entire filmmaking process. It’s messy, it’s tiring and it gets tough, but there’s beauty to it and I love it. 

 

Reflection

Okay, honestly, I expected the project to be a little difficult, but not this difficult. I thought it seemed simple enough. Take a picture, take your name and make it look good with the picture. Nope. It was difficult to integrate the text into the image nicely while trying to express a message and bring across a tone simultaneously. And creating the text itself was also very difficult??? I guess I sorta brought it upon myself for wanting to try out so many things with the letters that created my name. But hey, at least I learnt new Photoshop tricks, aye? And I also discovered scanography! (Thank you for introducing that to me, Joy. I really like it.) Oh, oh, I also learnt about the importance of test prints, especially for dark images. So, overall, I guess this project’s been really educational. And I’m quite satisfied with my final compositions, which is rare. Hopefully I’ll be able to keep up with the upcoming projects! 🙂