4D Assignment 4 – Find Me Trailer

https://vimeo.com/145094274

 

Synopsis:

“When everything falls apart and the light goes dark, love comes.”

“And truth is not the same as what it seems.”

Elijah is an aspiring photographer who is preparing for an exhibition. Unfortunately, he experiences a car crash and his parents passed away. His eyesight starts to deteriorate, believed to be caused by a severe form of depression: hysterical blindness. His conditions worsens as his world falls apart.

As a photographer, Elijah suffers even more. His photography skills are affected by his impaired vision, his exhibition is at stake. Janet, his assistant, noticed Elijah’s sufferings and is willing to help him through thick and thin. He develops a liking for Janet.

However, Janet starts to find out that something is not right regarding Elijah. His parents did not die due to a car accident. Elijah starts to remember something buried deep in his memory, a dark past that he has forgotten from that tragic day.

Who is Elijah?

 

 

Reflections

From this project of shooting a trailer, our group learnt the ups and downs of actually taking the time and filming one. Even with pre-preparation through watching trailers made by the professionals, going heads into the project and really doing it with our hands was a great experience that we feel could only be taught through this.

First and foremost, we changed our original plot due to the fact that the main character was not as relatable, nor strong. This created a sense of distance for the audience and changing it helped the story to flow better with better dynamics. We also thought that incorporating a mystery also adds a very interesting twist, making the trailer more compelling.

While filming for “Find Me”, there were definitely setbacks that held us with instances like how to plan our shots, how to tweak the story to make the character/story more appealing, deal with inconsistency with our story, or even locations that were not suitable and had to be changed at the last minute.

Overall, it was definitely a wonderful experience that was fulfilling and also very fun, mainly due to the ability for us to work so well as a team. Everyone was very co-operative and extremely supportive of each other, we are very thankful for having each other as teammates 🙂

 

 

Process – Story

The story is a combination of Find Me by Alfred and Clandestine by Gladys. By taking almost equal amount of elements from both stories, we crafted an interesting twist in the final story: Find Me.

Original Find Me by Alfred is about a young man who lost his family in a car crash. He was depressed because of the deaths of his parents and eventually developed hysterical blindness. Love seemingly rescued him from his depression and also his disabilities of losing his eyesight. In conclusion, the story is about his struggle and how he fought his hopelessness. (Genre: Tragedy, Drama)

In the other hand, Clandestine by Gladys is about corporate warfare in the modern setting. The story is about the wife of a businessman who is caught in a moral dilemma: to support her husband’s evil schemes or to expose him. (Genre: Psychological Thriller, Drama)

As a result, the final Find Me took the idea about a young man who lost his parents from the original Find Me and a woman who faces moral dilemma from Clandestine. To create a better flow of the story, we added the idea that the death of the parents are not because of an accident, but potentially a murder which is a mystery to unveil.

 

 

Process – Editing

https://vimeo.com/145136976

An early trial edit of the first few footages taken.

The result felt more like a short film, we ought to make it more trailer-like by jumbling some of the sequence and changing the music.

 

 

Roles

We did most of the work together, planning the story sequence and art direction as a team.  

  • Gladys: Main editor and cameraman, actor
  • Alfred: Main actor and story writer, editor
  • Feli: Main Animator/effects and story writer, cameraman

 

 

Music

  • Trailer: “I Started A Joke” by Becky Hanson
  • Process: “The Last of Us” by Gustavo Santaolalla

 

 

Locations

  • Kranji memorial park
  • Shaw Tower
  • Gladys’ house
  • NTU’s Hive, ADM, Hall
  • Singapore Zoo
  • Bugis area
  • SAM

 

Bloopers

https://vimeo.com/145132508

 

HAVE FUN LAUGHING!

The Parang of Camelot (Research and thought process)

The story of The Parang of Camelot is parallel to the story of King Arthur The Sword in The Stone. Arthur was nurtured by Merlyn to be the king of Camelot and he eventually became the only who was able to pull the sword from the stone.

For more detailed story of King Arthur: Hero of Camelot 

Below is the story structure/stages of The Parang of Camelot:

Camelot Story Stages

Hence, the first main difference between my story and the legend of King Arthur is that my story would focus slightly more on the character who is parallel to King Arthur’s stepbrother, Sir Kay. The Parang of Camelot would also focus more on the relationship between the ‘King Arthur’ and ‘Sir Kay’,  and not to focus on the love betrayal of ‘Guinevere’ with ‘Lancelot’, a famous part of King Arthur story.

The parallel between The Parang of Camelot and the legend of King Arthur:

Parallel 1 Parallel 2

The idea of infusing King Arthur legend elements into a Singapore secret society setting is come from the Singapore’s 1960-1980 setting, where the streets were still unsafe for people to have a walk at night and the crime rate was still high.

The name of the rival gang Sah Lak is not just chosen because of its similarity with ‘Saxon’, but is also because of the existence of the real Singapore secret society called “Salakau“. This gang is still exist until now and it is one of the most formidable and violent gang in Singapore. Some incidents of murders or fights in this 21st century are suspected to be done by this gang. One of the murder that also inspired The Parang of Camelot is Downtown Street Murder in 2010. I was imagining what if a brother lost his brother in such a gangster fight. And this murder left me wondering what was the reason of the murderer gang to do such killing?

Then, the parang is a direct substitute for swords, and eventually the magical parang will be a substitute for Excalibur.

 

This assignment becomes much more interesting as it helps me to know more about the country i live in, Singapore. I only came to Singapore in 2011. Digging the news from 2010 made me feel that now, I am a little more Singaporean now, as I hardly bother to dig Indonesian past news.

It is very interesting to know that gang and gangsters do exist in Singapore as well, since Singapore is now a first-world country.

 


For the movie poster, both are inspired by some of real movie posters below:

41I9XGrG88L 170px-CamelotPoster Creative-Movie-Posters-9 p3532071_p_v7_af

I didn’t follow 100% any of the poster, but the rough idea of it comes from these posters.

The black background and dark atmosphere is not because the story is a horror or/and thriller, but more of because the story is, hopefully, heartfelt and of tragedy. The red color of the title and the parang is to foretell the bloodshed that will happen because of all the gang fights and the use of parang itself. The power given by the parang leads to the lost of loved ones and instability in the society.

 

The Parang of Camelot

The Parang of Camelot Final 1  The Parang of Camelot Final 2

The Parang of Camelot (Action, Romance)

Set in Singapore, 1970s, The Parang of Camelot is inspired by the British legend of King Arthur, Singapore’s dark past: the time when the gangsters reigned the streets of the Little Red Dot, and the 2010 Downtown Street Murder.

Kai and Arthur Lim are stepbrothers who come from a rich family. Sadly, the family is absent of a mother figure, and their father is cold and career-oriented. For 17 years, Kai and Arthur only have each other.

One day, Arthur meets a teenager named Melvyn, sitting on the ground bleeding. He helps Melvyn, and eventually befriend him. Unknowingly, Arthur befriends a member of the biggest gangster in Singapore, Camelot. Being always at home with only Kai, Arthur finds gangster’s way of living thrilling and he wants to try. At first, Arthur is hesitant to join Camelot because gangster lives a dangerous life. However, with the promise of ‘finding a home’ in Camelot – something that Arthur has been longing all this time – Melvyn successfully recruits Arthur as the new member of Camelot.

Hearing the news, Kai becomes worried. For the sake of taking care his stepbrother, Kai decides to join Camelot. Their father does not have any idea about their sons becoming gangsters as he is too focused on his work.

However, their new lives are like boats which are sailing during the storm.

 

At first, everything seems fine, everything seems fun. The two brothers are accepted by the members of Camelot. They are taught how to fight with parangs, secretly do drugs and heroin transaction, and lures girls/prostitutes. However, both of them are already satisfied with fighting. Morally strong, Kai and Arthur do not sell and consume drugs, and they are not involved in the prostitution business.

Unexpectedly, the more introvert Arthur becomes more popular among the gangsters compared to Kai, despite of his extroversion and physically-stronger look. Kai felt a little bit jealous at first, but he becomes proud of his stepbrother instead as Arthur is now one of the strongest and most formidable fighter in Camelot.

One day, one of the veteran member of Camelot introduce a new member, which is his own daughter named Jen (Jennifer). Kai and Arthur fall in love with her at the first sight, and Kai told Arthur immediately that he likes Jen. Arthur decides to stop liking Jen for the sake of Kai.

Jen is attracted to Kai at first due to his physical appearance, but all of her feelings for Kai change the moment Arthur is chosen as the new leader of Camelot – and the youngest leader of the gang in history. Kai is devastated. Kai cannot accept the fact that his most trusted brother somehow ‘steal’ his lover. Kai and Arthur start to grow apart.

At the same time, Arthur’s throne does not just attract love and admiration, but also hatred and jealousy. Morgan, another youngster in Camelot, is so jealous of Arthur as Morgan has been longing to be a gang leader.

One day, Arthur sees a girl, who is actually a prostitute, being harassed publicly by a man. Arthur saves her, and eventually bring her out of the brothel to Camelot’s headquarter. Unknowingly, Arthur actually saved a prostitute from Camelot’s ultimate enemy: Sah Lak, and the man who harassed the girl is Sah Lak member. Arthur’s kindness causes an impending doom to himself and Camelot.

Sah Lak wants to kill the leader of Camelot and the man who ‘stole’ their prostitute. Morgan sees the opportunity to topple Arthur from his throne. Morgan decides to arrange the right time for Sah Lak to murder Arthur and those who support him. Morgan becomes the Judas for Jesus.

Sah Lak arrives at a playground of an ulu HDB, the place where Arthur, Kai, Jen, and some other members are spending their leisure time that day. One of Sah Lak members approach them, holding a parang, and asks, “who is the leader here? Who is the head of Camelot?”

Kai senses something dangerous, since he knows that Arthur will be chased by Sah Lak for beating up their member and ‘stealing’ their prostitute. At first, Kai wanted to care nothing about Arthur and did not mind if Arthur is killed. However, Kai still loves Arthur as his brother and best friend deep inside his heart. Kai stands up and tell Sah Lak that Kai is the leader of Camelot and the one who stole Sah Lak prostitute. Arthur is flabbergasted, and too late to save Kai from being slashed by parang right in front of him.

Arthur and the rest then fight Sah Lak for a while but they eventually run for their lives as they are not prepared with any parang.

After the incident, Arthur can only mourn for his stepbrother’s death. Not wanting to lose anymore brother or sister from Camelot, Arthur decides to educate the members of Camelot and then disband the gang after all of the members are prepared well to lead an ordinary life.