Foundation 4D 1 – G9

20/11/201720/11/2017

Project 4: Poetics of Time (Process & Final)

Final Video

My final video, entitled ‘My Day in 60 seconds‘, is a project which shows 60 segments of 1-second scenes of what I do on a particular day.

Project Proposal

Project Title: My day in 60 seconds

Project Description

The project is a 60-second video sequence which showcases different activities happening throughout the day, from when I wake up to when I go to sleep. There will be a sound track of a ticking clock, each activity will only be shown for one second (the duration between each tick of the clock). Each tick will occur on an on-beat, the off-beat will include a single beat of sound of the particular activity happening, e.g. flicking of a switch, slamming a door close, pressing a lift button etc.

I was inspired by time lapse videos and other ‘my day in 60 seconds’ videos found online.

This project is a new concept and not a continuation of a previous project.

I intend to express measured along with edited time to the audience. Also, how sound can enhance the rhythm of the video.

One innovative aspect I would say is that I will approach it in a slightly different manner as described, having each scene only last one second, and according to the beat of the clock ticking. Unlike other similar videos that have each scene last a few seconds along with a music track, I want the audience to focus more on the beat of the soundtrack and the rhythmic vibe it creates.

Objectives and Activities of Project

I will be creating an estimated 60-second video.

It is a videography project utilizing an iPhone camera.

Dimensions are standard 16:9 aspect ratio resolutions of 1920 X 1080 pixels.

Equipment for Project

The project would require the use of a camera to capture each individual 1-second shots, in this case an iPhone camera, as well as Adobe Premiere Pro to produce the final video.

Installation of Art Project

The final video will be displayed on a laptop.

Process

Here is an example of something similar I will be doing,

However, one difference is that I plan to have mine more quickly paced (at 1-second intervals), with the underlying sound of a ticking clock. The reason why I decided on having my scenes as 1-second shots is because I wanted to incorporate sound and rhythm into my final video, instead of having a slow-paced video, I wanted a more fast-paced rhythmic video to express both measured and edited time.

Below is the initial list of scenes I planned out before I started filming. Along the way, there were a few changes and I had to add/ remove scenes.

alarm
toilet door open
brush teeth
toothpaste spit
toilet bowl up
shit sound
flush
shower on
hairdryer
hairdryer down
spray deo
gate open
throw shoes on floor
wood door close
key lock
gate close
lift button
tap bus
bus ding dong
tap out
traffic button
green man
gantry tap
train gate door open
train door close
guy snoring
door open
gantry tap
fd door open
put stuff down
set up easel
tear newsprint
put newsprint on easel
charcoal drawing strokes (start)
charcoal drawing (end finished)
put back easel
fd door open
gantry tap
train door open
train door close
gantry tap
tap bus
bus ding dong
tap out
traffic button
green man
lift button
gate open
key insert
wood door open
put shoes inside cupboard
close cupboard
toilet door open
brush teeth
toothpaste spit
clothes throw in basket
shower on
on aircon
lights OFF

After that, I simply filmed each scene, taking note of a few aspects such as what I was wearing and most importantly, the time of the day.

The scenes will be filmed from my POV and hence it does not allow for any shots taken from a tripod etc.

I had to download some sounds online which I could not record, example, the honking of the car when I was crossing the road, I didn’t really want to purposely have a car honk at me, I would have to piss the driver off if that was the case. Also, the pooping sound was taken online, it was surprisingly hard to get a good sound of poop splashing into the toiled bowl.

Consultation 1

For the first consultation, I had to show Wen Lei a short concept of my video, to show the transition of the scenes and how the sounds appear.

Consultation 2

One problem with an initial version was that there were some scenes with a slight pause at the start, which made it look awkward as I was waiting to execute the action, rather than film it ‘naturally’.

made at imgflip.com — Slight pause at the start, awkward

Secondly, I had to insert a couple more scenes between ‘ending class’ and ‘going home’ as it seemed too similar to ‘leaving home’ and ‘entering classroom’.

Challenges faced

One challenge was coming up with 60 scenes which produced a single or double beat which will fit with the rhythmic beat of a ticking clock. Once the filming was completed, stitching them together was relatively easy.

Conclusion

This project has taught me how to work with both aspects of time and sound, even though this project was time-based. The rhythm is important as it sets a pace for the audience for them to follow, in other words, creating causality via sound, that being said, if this rhythm is broken, the audience may get disoriented and lost.

29/10/201729/10/2017

Project 4 – Research

The End of Civilisation, by Douglas Gordon

The End of Civilisation by Douglas Gordon is a three-screen video installation with sound. It shows a piano burning at a remote landscape, a re-enactment of an ancient local tradition of igniting beacons as an admonition or communication.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sJ0CQb4vsTs

Another video of ‘The End of Civilisation’

One screen is devoted to a close recording of the burning piano, from when it is first set alight to when it has been reduced to ashes. Another presents a panning shot of the tranquil surrounding landscape. Occasionally, licks of flame or wisps of smoke invade the periphery of the screen, the only indication that the seemingly serene landscape is in close proximity to a raging fire.

I find this project interesting as there are three cameras at the same location, but they are recording different things at the same time, the artist makes use of space and the visibility of the piano to make the audience wonder if the videos are showing the same location. The artist also makes use of layered sound to further differentiate between the three events, making the audience feel that they are at three different locations when they are actually not.

Déjà-vu, by Douglas Gordon

Déjà-vu uses footage from D.O.A. 1949-50, a Hollywood thriller directed by Rudolph Mateé. The film has been transferred to video and is projected simultaneously on three parallel screens at 25, 24 and 23 frames per second (left to right).

All three identical videos start simultaneously but diverge increasingly overtime, this play on time induces the experience of déjà-vu in the audience, also, as the three videos are placed side by side, the artist also uses space to have the audience able to see all three videos at once, but diverge as time passes, making them feel as if they are suddenly watching three different videos. As each video is playing its own sound, it also diverges overtime, making the viewer hear the same thing repeated two more time, furhter inducing the experience of déjà-vu.

Comparison between the two artworks

Both artworks uses measured, linear time.

The End of Civilisation further uses linear-edited time, when the camera cuts back and forth to close-ups of the burning piano. However, it is still in linear, or chronological time.

Déjà-vu can also be seen as to have used edited time as the framerate for the other two videos are sped up and slowed down by one frame, making them faster and slower than the normal video respectively.

Extra

An interesting use of edited time to make the two people look as if they are solving the cube with their feet and blindfolded, when in actual fact they are scrambling the cube and the video we are seeing is played backwards.

To fool us further, there is a third person walking in the background, when in actuality, he is walking backwards.

This is an example of measured time, but also conveys edited time as it is played in reverse.

28/10/201730/10/2017

Project 3 : Impossibilities of Being

For this project, we were tasked to study how rhythm can be achieved through the use of exploring composition, transformation in a visual sequence, how sound and image can reinforce or contradict each other, and explore literal and metaphorical use of sound with image.

Serenity

This short video is about a ninja who has found himself in a secluded mountainous area, basking in the calmness and serenity of the environment until a crow disrupts the peace…

Task 1 & 2 – Visual Sequence & Soundscape

30 Places I’ve never been

Open Sea
Haunted house
Cruise
Mountains Area
Space
North Korea
Volcano
Desert
Girl’s Toilet
Dinosaur Era
Graveyard
Farm
Canyon
Disneyland
Warzone
Minefield
Whitehouse
Seabed
Observatory
Submarine
Power plant
Animal shelter
Castle
Hollywood
Bollywood
New York City
Circus
Villa
Beach house
Azkaban

30 Sounds I would hear at selected location (Mountainous area)

Wind howling
Waterfall
Birds
Trees swaying
Bees
Thunder
Avalanche
Bears
Leopards
Grass swaying
Hikers
Campfire
Crickets
Goats
Eagles
Wolves
Airplane flying by
Airplane crashing
Nearby village
Rain
Running water
Fishes in ponds
David Attenborough narrating for National Geographic
Volcanic eruptions
Man-made explosions
Trees burning
Trees falling
Someone shouting, echoes
Gun shots
Dragons

Step 1: Rough Storyboards

My first step of pre-production was to draft the rough storyboards, where I planned the camera angles, composition of elements, and sequence of events for the entire video.

Step 2: Soundscape

Based on my storyboards, I used the internet to find the sounds that would appear in each shot. I also recorded a few of my own sounds for use in my Hi-Fi storyboard and final video.

Sounds from free online sources:

SnapMousetrap CTE02_51.1

Call

BirdCrow 1006_15_1

HumanBreath TL04_41_2

Sounds recorded using the Zoom Recorder:

Underlying Piano Melody (Non-diegetic sounds)

I also created some simple piano melodies to help bring out the emotion of the character (Applied in Final Video, after Hi-Fi consultation).

__repetitive notes

__main melody

Step 3: Low Fidelity Animatics

I then converted my storyboards into an animatic, along with the soundscape. I also used this stage to plan out the duration for each shot.

Step 4: High Fidelity Storyboard

The final step of pre-production was adding the colours, reflecting the overall mood of the film. Sounds were also recorded and finalised to be added into the final video.

The initial walking scene was removed as I wanted the first shot to be more impactful, i.e. dropping the audience right into the establishing shot of the vast mountainous area.

Task 3 – Final Video

Once again, here is my final video entitled Serenity.

Breakdown

Mood graph for my video. Character is at a location, encounters a problem, solves the problem, and everything goes back to normal.

Visuals

A sunset theme of orange and purple was used to evoke a sense of serenity, it also signifies the peacefulness at the end of a hard day’s work, or in this case, maybe the ninja had just finished assassinating someone and is taking a break in the mountains.

Soundscape

There are three main parts for the soundscape in my final video: The ambience, the sounds created by the different elements in the video, and the underlying piano melody.

Ambience

The waterfall and howling wind are the two sounds which can be heard throughout the entire video. It immerses the audience into the location, as if they were there themselves. The intensity of the sound of the waterfall is manipulated according to the scene, i.e. the closer it is to the ‘camera’, the louder it will be.

Sounds of elements

Due to the constant sounds of the ambience, the sounds of the other elements in the video had to be loud enough to be heard, but not so loud as to make it unnatural.

Underlying piano melody

As mentioned earlier, the purpose of the piano melody is to bring out the character’s state of mind and change of emotion throughout the video. The main idea was to have a serene melody for when he is calm, and an off-key note when the crow disrupts the peace. A repetition of notes is used for the scene where he takes aim at the crow with his bow and arrow, which creates tension.

Research and References

I was heavily inspired by the short film ‘Palmipedarium’ by Jérémy Clapin. The film has great ambience and subtle sounds in a relatively quiet background which really immerses the audience into the film. It also has brief moments of an underlying melody which brings out the characters’ state of mind and emotions. There is no dialogue so all the attention is really on the characters’ performance and soundscape.

Lastly, the artworks of Pascal Campion has always been an inspiration for many of my illustration based projects. His use of colours and ability to tell a story through an image is breathtaking.

Conclusion

This project has been fun as I was able to incorporate what I’ve studied when pursuing my diploma in Animation, going through the pre-production process of storyboarding and animatics right down to the final video, although it was just until the animatics part. It has allowed me to think more deeply on how important sound is and how it affects visuals.

Classroom Exercise – Analysis on Rhythm, Movement, Causality and Duration

rhythm – regularity or irregularity? any repetition? movement – successional or oppositional or stillness? is there presence of attack, sustain and decay? causality – clear expectations or unexpected? easy to track or not easy to track? duration – too long or too short? length of time effective?

Rhythm – A regularised repeating of movement or sound

There is the continuous soundscape of the ambience, i.e. the sound of the waterfall and the howling wind, creating a sense of calmness. There is also a continuous use of a consistent colour scheme of orange of purple throughout the film.

Movement – A shift or variation in the location of an object, light or sound

There are a few moments of successional movement, where the audience is attention is focused to where the main character is looking and pointing the bow and arrow at.

An example of movement can also be seen in the difference between the smooth-moving clouds and the staggered movement of other elements (animatic animation).

Causality – The principle that everything has a cause and effect

The story is relatively straight forward to understand and predict, when the crow interrupts the character’s calm state of mind, and when he puts down his bow and arrow, the audience can predict that he is going to shoot the crow down, an expected outcome. There is a brief moment of anticipation or suspense when the character eyes the crow while pointing the bow and arrow at it for a few seconds, taking aim at his target.

There is also a causality of sound when the character pulls the bow string back, the audience will expect the sound of the bow string snapping back and the sound of the arrow whizzing through the air.

Duration – Whether the time allocated to the work is effective

The video lasts 1 minute 7 seconds, which is around the required duration of the video in the project brief. The duration is also effective as it manages to illustrate the story being told. The story has a start, middle and end.

16/10/201716/10/2017

Clock Time

For this exercise, we were supposed to create a 30-second video which expresses clock time.

Clock Time

A missed call and several messages sent to a phone through a short period of time shows the anxiety of the person calling and sending the texts.

Process

23/09/201723/09/2017

Project 2: The Subverted Object

For this project, we were assigned an object and we had to produce a series of images that captured the object’s denoted and connoted meaning.

Task 1 – Denotation

For Task 1, I captured the object’s physical attributes, where the object is commonly seen, and the practical function of the object. I paid more attention to the camera angle and composition of the fork, as well as keeping the background interesting, but not so much as to distract the audience from the object in focus.

This image focuses on the fork’s shape and form, mostly on the tines. The background of wood and plants is a contrast with the fork’s hard metallic structure.

The fork in its ‘natural habitat’. A portrait shot as opposed to a landscape shot in order to capture the entire length of the fork in the compartment. A touch of green in the background to add colour and balance out the dull greyish colours.

The basic functionality of a fork. In Asia, we tend to use chopsticks for noodles, while it is the Western culture that uses forks. I also wanted to portray a more classy dish, and therefore went for spaghetti.

Task 2 – Connotation

For Task 2, I subverted the object’s meaning, showing what it is not meant to be used for, and touching on the object’s cultural meaning.

You obviously don’t drink soup with a fork. I made the soup in the bowl too watery and had to dip the fork in another bowl of thicker soup to make the soup on the fork more thick and slimy. I took quite some time with this shot, as I was trying to recreate the camera angle I envisioned in my sketch.

The fork as a murder weapon. There were too many colours going on in the original image, and the background was predominantly orange, I had to convert the image to grayscale and blur the background, leaving the fork unblurred in the foreground and the red of the blood.

In order to create the burning fork, I had to wrap cotton wool around the tines, applied a little bit of thinner, and light it up. I had initially wanted to photoshop an image of a flame onto a fork but that would defeat the purpose of a photography project, and the blending of the flame and fork would probably not look as good.

Task 3 – Text and Image

For Task 3, we were to give one of the images from the above tasks a title, and have it serve to clarify or emphasize something in the image, or to expand or explain the significance of the image. I chose one of the pictures of the object’s subverted meaning as I wanted my title to be more engaging for the audience and not tell them what they already see.

The image I chose for my poster was a person scooping soup with a fork, accompanied by the title “Alzheimer’s, Prevention starts with you.” This poster aims to show us the intellectual and behavioural disabilities caused by Alzheimer’s, and tells the audience that it can be prevented and that they themselves have the ability to prevent it.

However, as Wen Lei pointed out, replacing ‘Prevention starts with you’ with for example, ‘This is what Mary sees everyday’ would have had a stronger impact as it engages the audience more emotionally.

Final Layout for Critique

The layout of my printed images on the wall for critique during class.

Key Concepts & Ideas

Below are the initial sketches I made before I started on the project. As shown, I managed to use four of my initial ideas for my final six images. I have also included some of the inspirations I have gotten for a couple of my images.

For this image, I was inspired by an IKEA breakfast menu, where they had the food on one side and the text on the other, against a simple background.

IKEA Breakfast –
http://www.ikea.com/ms/en_JO/ikea_food/ikea_restaurant.html

For this image, I was inspired by how angry mobs in the past would bring along torches and pitchforks, and hence I decided to combine the two, and have a hand holding the ‘pitchfork’ up high like an angry mob would. I shot it in a pitch black background to direct the audience’s focus solely on the burning fork, inspired by a poster image from Hell’s Kitchen.

The Simpsons –
https://incrediblevanishingpaperweight.wordpress.com/2017/01/04/the-future-of-angry-mobs-and-the-end-of-pitchforks/

Hell’s KItchen –
https://www.eater.com/2012/5/16/6586205/gordon-ramsays-hells-kitchen-casting-talent-donkeys

10/09/201710/09/2017

4D Exercise 1: Scale & Framing

For this exercise, we had 15 minutes to create 12 shots of our partner using a DSLR camera, experimenting with various shot scales and framing angles. After which, we were required to select three that best depicted our partner.

Medium Shot

This shot provides a view of the background, and it also shows the subject’s body language as well as his facial expression. It gives a general overview of how the subject and environment is interacting with one another.

High-angle Wide Shot

A high angle shot generally makes a subject seem vulnerable and powerless, however, in this case, as the high angle shot is accompanied by a wide shot, with the subject looking down the hill, it makes the subject more powerful and overwhelming, as if he is in control of the environment around him.

Close-up Shot

This shot captures the overall emotion of the subject, the blurred background gives the audience a sense of where the subject it, but does not distract the audience as it draws their attention on the subject’s facial expression instead.

01/09/201706/09/2017

4D Project 1: Picture Story – Curating Self

Our first project was to study how manipulative techniques such as framing, cropping, subject distance, and vantage point can affect the audience’s perception and interpretation of an image.

Task 1: Me

I wanted to show that I have a deep connection with the rainforest, from using the foliage as cover, getting comfortable taking a nap on the forest floor, and enjoying the long walks under the canopy.

Task 2: Object

The Swiss Army Knife which has been with me ever since I enlisted, I have used it mainly to dig out camouflage cream from my fingernails, and to carve walking sticks that have helped me greatly when I was trekking through the rainforests and climbing the mountains of Brunei. Unfortunately, it did not have a chance to slaughter any kind of animal.

Task 3: My World

My home for most of my cadet life, the rainforest brings back both fond and painful memories, from the good times I shared training and ‘camping out’ with my buddies, and the not-so-good times of tough training and mosquito bites. In order to capture a sense of how vast the forest is around me, I used mainly wide angle and long shots.

Final Presentation

Final layout of my shots for Class Critique.

I really enjoyed my time training in the rainforests when I was in the army, both in Singapore and during overseas training, doing this project made me reminisce those good old days.

The main concept around my project was to ‘Go Green’, to put on the uniform, apply camouflage cream on my face and head straight into the rainforest. The idea for my photo series was to make it look as if it was a documentation of a soldier trekking through a jungle.

As everything was mostly green, and so was I, I had to find a way to make the subject (me) stand out, which was why the rule of thirds was heavily emphasized in alot of my photos. I also used the idea of foreground, mid-ground, and background elements to give a better sense of depth of the foliage around me.

Research and References

I was inspired by the opening scene of Dawn of the Planet of the Apes for one of my shots, an extreme close up of the subject’s eyes. The mouth is excluded so the audience’s attention is focused solely on the eyes. This was the first shot that immediately came to mind when we were first briefed on the project.