[4D] Week 6 Class Activity: Six-Word Story

Ideation

Broken heart, 45, WLTM (would like to meet) disabled man.

When I saw this sentence, I was pretty stunned. But we (Jocelyn, Zhen Qi, and myself) were definitely unfazed by it. Determined, we started brainstorming and these were the ideas that we had.

Idea 1:

This idea features a 45-year-old psychotic strong lady. In Chinese, we call them 女強人, which means a successful career woman who has her life under control. Her heart was recently broken by her ex-husband who left her. Determined to get back on her feet, she created a Tinder profile stating that she would like to meet a disabled man. The disability that the man will have is a broken leg. Her reason for wanting to meet a disabled man is so that he will not be able to leave her (physically) like her husband did. She will be a psychotic and obsessed lady who is crazy over the disabled man, hence driving him crazy. Her overbearing nature could be why her husband chose to leave her…

Idea 2:

Story is told from the perspective of one with mental disability. However, I find it would be difficult to execute since we don’t know how it’s like from their perspective and we wouldn’t want to make fun of them and make light of their situation as well. This is a sensitive topic to delve into.

Idea 3:

Once again, we looked at these six crucial words to guide us in our brainstorm session. The part that concerns us the most is ‘WLTM disabled man’. What compels our character to want to meet a disabled man? Ding! Suddenly, a light bulb went off. We were reminded of service dogs, whose job are to assist their humans.

This idea tells the story of a retired guide dog. As serving the disabled is his purpose, this poor dog suddenly feels lost and purposeless when it is no longer helping anyone. The photo series tell the story of a sad dog who is looking for a disabled person to help.

Execution

Shot were taken from a dog’s point-of-view. That’s why we held a tennis ball in front of the camera to represent the dog the holding the ball in its mouth. By right, we should be able to see the dog’s snout, but since we didn’t have a real dog… This would do…