Alter Ego

Password: alterego

Character: Emily Prentiss from Criminal Minds

Storyline

The main message of the video is the existence of duality in terms of personality in me and how I want to embrace the two separate beings as one individual. The story starts off with two very different people. One character (Person 1) shows the personality of me when I’m at home or with very comfortable people. Another character (Person 2) shows the personality of me when I’m out and show to most of the people. Different habits, different environment, different tone and manner of speech characterizes these individuals. The crisis strikes when Person 1 accidentally knocks off the water bottle while multi-tasking (not paying attention). Person 2 quickly acts on the instinct and saves the computers from being doomed. Person 1 with quick reflex grabs the water bottle just as it fell flat on the table. This is the moment when the two individuals space/world exist in the same time. I tried to show that even though there exist two personalities that functions differently, they are still an individual and are capable of solving the crisis as a person.

Process

I started this project by profiling the two personalities. This is the first table that I came up with.

Person	2	1
Objects	Laptop Outer clothes Tumbler	Mug with character Headband Inner wear
Actions/Habits	Alert Sits upright Hands – not much movement Focused on the screen	Fidgets with her hands Comfortable posture Rougher language
Expressions	Straight faced Talks to the person while not looking at the face	Cannot keep still Holds more expressions

Then I focused on the artistic settings. I tried to show the characters’ personality clearly and vividly through the screen.

The left shows Person 1 and the setting on the right shows Person 2. I stacked a lot of objects as possible while I kept crisp clean on the other side.

Person	2	1
Personality	OCD Apathetic Task-oriented	Smiles a lot Thick Skin Multi-Tasks
Items	Laptop Sketchbook Pens Formal clothes Neat hair	Gaming mouse Gaming keyboard Earphones Pajamas Cat Headband
Environment	Clean desk Neatly arranged objects Clean background	Messy desks Trashes Food Stacked up stuff all over
Actions	Concentrated on the screen Rigid posture Straight face Crushing the paper Spinning the pen	Babbling Comfortable posture Expresses emotions more freely Picks on toe nails

This is the final story board that I came up with with bits and pieces of adjustments after.

At first, I was not sure how to include two characters in the same frame as both are acted by me but I realised that I could crop the screen.

I filmed different characters with fixed camera position and cropped each half of the footage and stacked them together.

The rest of the camera angles, I decided to keep them simple and constant with each portrayals of habits, talking, etc. to contrast one another,

Research

I looked at two footages from the start. I had a idea in mind to start off the video with two people playing a game and conversing at the same time.