4D Project 3: Genre and Narrative

Cupid’s Chokehold

Synopsis

An average University student, Jason, struggles to recover his lost memories caused by a recent car accident. He falls in love, but a mystery girl from his forgotten past haunts his memories. He is unable to move on with his life, as he often finds himself in situations that make him question his beliefs. Eventually, he stumbles upon a secret that will alter his self perception forever.

Based on

The Story of Cupid in Yesteryear – God of desire, erotic love, attraction and affection, his iconography acquired the bow and arrow that represent his source of power: a person, or even a deity, who is shot by Cupid’s arrow is filled with uncontrollable desire.

Enjoy.

Project 2: Impossibilities of Being

The Concept

When I first read the project brief, my first thought was to go down the horror genre route. I wanted to use a sequence of images to do a horror sequence. But because much of classic horror sequences rely on building up of emotions, this was always gonna be a challenge, right from the beginning. So I started out by coming up with a basic structure, a story, which will help to hold this sequence together. My idea behind this sequence of images is a narrative where a man loses his girlfriend, and is driven to desperation. Hence, he decides to play a series of games to contact his dead girlfriend. His motivations are due to the fact that he proposed to his girlfriend shortly before her suicide, but he did not manage to get a response from her before she sadly passed away. Hence, he was haunted by the lack of a closure, which led him to play the games. However, his playing of the games invites the bad entities into his world, which causes the game not to work the way he wants it to (doesn’t manage to contact his girlfriend), and the narrative ends ambiguously.

These are the games.

“The Gambler’s Game”

– APackofPlayingCards(PreferablyNew) – Courage (In excess)

How To Play

1 Begin when you feel the need to.
2 Take your pack of playing cards and head to a quiet place, and take a seat/sit on the floor.
3 Shuffle the cards. Shuffle them throughly, and shuffle them well. DO NOT attempt to use marked cards, or any

cards that will allow you to cheat your way through to a win; it will not be tolerated.
4 Choose a game to play. (Blackjack, Poker, anything that allows for a quick and definite resolution/outcome.) 5 Deal the cards face down. Deal for your Gambler across the table as well.
6 After dealing your cards, light three candles. This is known as your guiding light, in the event that you lose. It

also acts as a signal to let the Gambler know you’re ready to play. Let it burn for roughly a minute before

extinguishing and disposing.
7 Check your cards, your opponent’s cards, and any other cards you need to check to determine a winner. Play to

conclusion, and do not stop halfway through.
8 If you win: Take the top card of the deck and draw its edge across the pointer finger of your right hand. If you

draw blood, that hand will henceforth have the power to win any gamble (loosely defined), whether it’s a throw of the dice or the luck of the draw. Use it wisely, and sparingly. It has been known to do more than you’ll ever expect. If you lose: He will claim his prize – and before you ask, no, there is nothing you can do to dissuade him from doing so.

Additional Information

Any game will do, although Blackjack is preferred. It should be noted that games whose outcomes rely solely on luck make poor choices, indeed.

If possible, use a new and previously unopened pack of cards; the Gambler is mistrustful, and he may not look kindly upon an old or well-worn deck.

Should the Gambler win, he will not be quick about claiming his prize; nor will it be clean. You have only yourself to blame, however. After all, you were the one who decided to tempt fate.

Don’t ask us what the guiding light is for; no one ever survived far enough to come back and let us know what it was for.

A Word of Advice
It is NOT recommended that you play this game. There’s a reason you don’t come across many people with lucky hands in this world.

What You Need

“Three Kings”

What You Need

• Two Mirrors
• Chair to use as a Throne • Brave/Foolish Soul

How To Play

1 Set your chair facing north.
2 Set up two mirrors in front of you, both should be a meter apart.
3 Leave your room, be seated in your throne at 3.33am.
4 While seated on your throne, light a candle.
5 Holding the flame and looking into the mirror, assign the mirrors one of the two roles by saying: “By Imperial

Edict, you are the Queen/Joker”. Do the same for the other mirror Do not assign two different mirrors with

the same roles, and try as much as possible not to look straight at your reflection. It is not advised.
6 Sit back on your throne and close your eyes.
7 Keep the question you have in your mind, and proceed to ask it without speech.
8 You should hear the answer to your question. Beware, as the Joker will always lie and the Queen will always tell

the truth. You should know which is which since you assigned them roles, so listen closely and follow the

direction which the sounds come from.
9 However, the Joker is sly, and usually takes a demonic form. It is usually more complicated than you think, so

do not take it lightly. Abort this when you feel uneasy, sprinkle salt and leave till first light hits the ground. Be alert and never drop your guard.

Additional Information

Nil, unfortunately.

A Word of Advice

Not much is known about this game, it is advised that players exercise extreme caution. After all, mirrors are known to be a portal to another realm.

“Telephone Booth”

What You Need

• A “Phone Booth” (A closet is a good choice) • Two Paper Cups
• Box of any kind
• A Bundle of Red Thread

• Power Object (Something with a link to the person you’re trying to contact) • Candle
• Lighter
• One Player

How To Play

The “Outbound” Call

  1. Begin right before you go to bed. The hour itself is inconsequential; all that matters is that your day isessentially over.
  2. Wait. You’ll know when the time is right to begin in earnest.
  3. When you feel the time is right, enter the room in which your phone booth is located.
  4. Construct your telephone, using your red thread and paper cups.
  5. Open your box, and place your telephone as well as your power object into the box. Close it.
  6. Light a candle, and say the following: “Abyssus abyssum invocat” – Hell calls hell; one misstep leads to another
  7. Leave your box in the phone booth
  8. Wait for your telephone to ring.

The “Inbound” Call

  1. The “ring” will come in the form of a dream of the person trying to call you. It might be that night; it might bea night shortly thereafter. You will wake up from the dream, likely in the middle of the night, and know that thetelephone is ready to be answered.
  2. Get up from your bed and go to your phone booth. Do not turn on the light. Do not speak.
  3. Do NOT proceed if any of the following occur: You find the shoebox open, or find the telephone tamperedwith.
  4. If the shoebox and paper cup are undisturbed, you may proceed. Get in the phone booth but DO NOT closethe door. It is the first sign when things go awry.
  5. Sit on the floor, press the telephone to your ear, and listen. Really listen. Keep movement to a minimum and trynot to make any noise. Do not speak, even if you are asked questions or are ordered to say something.
  6. When the call has finished—or if, at any time, you want to hang up—pull on the thread until it snaps.

Concerning Wrong Numbers

Dialing a “wrong number” (determined by your power object), will either result in connecting you to no one at all, or connecting you to the wrong person.

If connected to the wrong person, any of the following may occur:
• The wrong person could pretend to be the right person.
• The wrong person could feed you misinformation, either in the guise of the right person or as themselves. • The wrong person could otherwise give you a bad time.

DO NOT, under ANY circumstances, dial a wrong number.

Artist References

My artist reference consists of a large amounts of horror films, both current and classic.

 

Final Submission

Conclusion

Because of my own over ambitiousness, I felt that I undertook a task that was beyond my ability to complete in that time frame. However, that said, I am happy with the way it turned out, as well as the different technical skills that I’ve learnt in class which I am able to implement in this video.

Text and Image: Anchoring and Relaying

DSC_0177

Relaying: A Quiet Moment (Extreme Long Shot)

Because that’s all you can afford to take, before your guilt starts flooding.

Anchoring: A girl leans against a pillar outside NTU Art, Design and Media

 

 

DSC_0186

Relaying: Defrosting (Medium Close-Up)

Balancing the ice on the inside, and heat from the outside.

Anchoring: A stare as blank as the wall behind her 

 

 

 

DSC_0189

Relaying: The Happiest Journey (Long Shot)

…is the one away from school.

Anchoring: A girl walks in a direction away from NTU Art, Design and Media

Project 1B

For project 1B, our task was to interpret the poem, Robert Frost’s “Fire and Ice” and interpret it visually. When I first came across the poem, I was inspired by the imaginary post apocalyptic world, where majority of the world as we know loses the values and the integrity that keeps it running upright. Chaos decends, crime runs rampant as we suffer from the heightened effects of global warming, as if it was punishment from the gods for not being able to keep our own world in check. In order to illustrate that, I decided to utilise a series of double exposures in order to show the chaos that has descended upon our world.

For the first image, it is an image of the silhouette of a kissing couple with the flare of the sun in the background, overlaid with the image of fire and charcoal over a grill. This photo was composed to show that uncontrolled passion and the lack of restraint has corrupted our society through pornography and prostitution, which have far reaching effects that will eventually take a toll on family and other traditional value, leading to a downfall of our honest world.

Fire: https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1416848563085-8aba76f2ba00?q=80&fm=jpg&s=c1952c4c7037e623f676a5bfa8a9e9d2

Silhouette: https://images.unsplash.com/reserve/165aTVpzTXGMXu1azUdy_IMG_8468.JPG?q=80&fm=jpg&s=1da62ba09a863417a233c1c63005b07e

4-2

For the second image, it is an image of the silhouette of people scattered around a mountain, overlaid with the image of ice. My intention of this photo was to form a narrative of a group of people who recognise that the world is sinking into a pit of madness and chaos, and is trying to find a new land to build a new world, one from which we can be reborn. The visuals of the image, the mixture of ice and fire, is meant to show a dreamlike world that is unlike that of the world we know.

Mountain Silhouette: https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1414439265900-4d760860c8c9?q=80&fm=jpg&s=aacf409d30effec604b4a1ee2760ff91

Ice: https://www.flickr.com/photos/helenanormark/16105582378/

4-1

Lastly, for the third image, it is a triple exposure. The first image is a silhouette of a man standing with mountains in the distance, the second image is of a train window, and the third and last image is of the side of an iceberg. This photo was meant to show how the lack of values in the post apocalyptic world causes people to be isolated and lonely, as shown in the photo. The “ice” in this photo is meant to show the lack of genuine emotions that people have for each other in this post apocalyptic world, suffering from an emotional “death”.

Silhouette Man: https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1418848372148-629424a5ca04?q=80&fm=jpg&s=ddef629edc09a90176a9dee5ecbeb21b

Train: https://images.unsplash.com/uploads/14131528928453585b6dc/829d24cf?q=80&fm=jpg&s=185ea33e5d7925617f517930b36df4ef

Ice Wall: https://www.flickr.com/photos/126616561@N08/15560947925/

4-3

Project 1A

Our very first (4D) project 1A consisted of three portions:

  1. Me
  2. Object and Representation of Self
  3. My World

Before I began to tackle the project as a whole, I was intrigued by the notion of transience, of how our life is like a book, bound full of fleeting moments that come together to give a feeling of substantiality. As such, I began to look for different visual styles that could express such a feeling, and a few came to mind. While doing my research, I found myself being inspired by different photographer’s works such as Brandon Kidwell’s “Wisdom for my Children” and Marthe Sobczak’s “Projection”. It was then I decided that part one of my project would be a set of double exposures, and I wanted both pictures to interact with each other. The photos represent three parts of my life that I hold dear: the person who means the most to me, my medium and my family. The first image shows a photo of me, overlaid with a picture of the hands who brought me up my whole life, my grandma’s hands. The second image shows a picture of a man walking into the distance, overlaid with a picture of my camera, to show how my medium is what brings me on adventures that enrich my life. Lastly, the third image shows a picture of my parents and me, overlaid with a picture of a rainy day window. My intention was to show how despite the stormiest seas our family has been through, blood ties are not something that water has the ability to wash away.

http://www.brandonkidwell.com/wisdom-for-my-children/

http://www.marthesobczak.com/gallery-category/personal-work/

1-1

1-2

1-3

For part two, I decided to go for a more straightforward approach in my photography. The object I chose was a Mamiya RB67, which was given to me as a present by my mentor. It was a gift to chart my growth, as being able to use such a slow and clunky camera like that would require a certain skill level which I have not yet attained. As such, I decided to show the intimacy of the user experience with this camera through my photos, the intimate relationship between the photographer and the camera. My photos are shot with a very shallow depth of field, focusing on where the camera physically “meets” the camera.

2-1

2-2

2-3

Last but not least, for part three, I chose to shoot the bus as “My World”. For me, being someone who enjoys taking the bus and takes the bus with much regularity, I feel that it is a very special place to me. The bus is a transient space: people come in, they go out, and the process repeats itself day after day. But the experience of bus rides are usually something special. We get into our little bubbles of thought, we block out everything else, and thoughts that do not usually enter our heads are given the time and space for reflection. As such, I decided to show that by shooting regular people in buses reflected upon the glass windows, or any reflective/semi-reflective surface that I can find on the bus. In this series, I changed the aspect ratio to 16:9, as I felt that it gave it a greater cinematic feel, which was exactly what I was trying to go for. For this series of work I was inspired by Nguan’s “Singapore”, more specifically, how he is able to keep his work very consistent through his heavily desaturated colours, the time of the day in which he shoots which translate to very even lighting.

http://nguan.tv/singapore.htm

3-1

3-2

3-3

3-4

3-5

For my reflections from this project, I felt that the limitations of this project (3-5 images, set theme) made me push myself a little more in the creative aspect, in terms of how I conceptualised the images, to the execution of the images itself. I had to pay more attention to lighting and composition in order to make the ordinary stand out. As such, a task that seemed so simple in the beginning became a whole lot harder than I expected. Nevertheless, the experience of working under the constrains were actually a welcome as it took a lot of the decision-making out of my hands, while still allowing me creative freedom. Lastly, this is my final layout.

Photo 3-9-15 1 54 29 pm