Foundation 4D 2 – G2

There are 5 posts filed in Foundation 4D 2 – G2 (this is page 1 of 1).

MEMBRAIN INDUSTRIES EXPERIENCE

I knew I wanted to transcend a different form of medium for story telling beyond the usual film and photography and the brief of using a site specific area to do it made me go a bit wild. To the point that nobody in my class would want to join me.

I guess it was kind of a blessing in disguise because I knew the expertise of my friends outside of the class and through the first collaboration between students of different classes and different lecturers, we were able to combine to brief to suit everybody’s project.

With Shadow’s game expertise and environmental brief and Yen’s prop making skill, and my narrative and interactivity, I was able to mastermind a plan that was too farfetched for my team to handle. To be honest, I felt I pushed my team a little too far and was over ambitious even though I knew we did not have enough time.

If I could have done everything over again, I’d have planned a better system of working or at least make it less stressing and taxing on my team members. But not a day goes by that I regret my decision to risk my expertise in film making and dabble into managing a team to create an interactive space for a game. 

The risk(and the countless nights) was definitely worth it.

to us

to us

‘To Us’, our take at an audio project because we found that there could be multiple instances where sounds can be used. ‘To Us’, originally ‘Projections’, was written by me about a year ago because I was fascinated by how museum pieces would utilise light in their art. By using light to pierce through fog, projectors that projected from the top down, and how film used projectors as a common medium in the past.

This idea kind of evolved and how we would film projector footages and how that’d look. We did primary testing because of the nature that projectors technically was just moving lights; exposure would be hard to handle and after primary testing, we found out that the footage would appear best within the camera under 2 conditions: darkness and cropped film.

Darkness.

Darkness is an essential key to getting proper exposure as we’d only have to compensate for the projection’s light. However, certain scenes had to be filmed in the day, so we had to find ways to bump the projector’s exposure up and the camera’s one down.

Cropped.

Cropping the film was also important because we wanted to show life scaled projections but because of space constrain and of the nature of how projectors are, the projector had to back up until we find the perfect distance. And at 1 point, I was outside the window of our location, 4 storeys high, holding the projector.

Sounds I’ve used is based off planes and the concept of a never ending journey.

A relationship is a cycle, and through this film we are able to see the ending of a cycle. How a person copes with a departure, how the journey ends and how it restarts.

Sounds used were recordings mostly from planes. Midflight announcement, taking off, seatbelt fastening jingle, turbulence.

Sound descriptions

Microwave Ding – Used as an alarm at the start, can be used to link the start and the end. More to be explained below.

Mid-flight Announcement – Usually, the captain would announce the temperature outside the aircraft, the altitude, to thank passengers for choosing this airline and most importantly, how long more a flight will take. This shows that the flight is about to land and its about to end.

Seatbelt fastening sign – Normally associated with lights coming on and off within the aircraft, is most importantly about safety. The first seatbelt fastening sound can be interpreted as safety is on, or safety is off based on how you think the main actor feels at this point of time. If audiences feel it’s seatbelts on, then it shows that this is how she’d cope in a safe way, but the environment of her memories are dangerous. However if audiences feel it’s seatbelts off, it’d show that she’s unconstrained in her thinking and free to roam around the memories. And at the end, it’ll be the opposite and a completely different meaning to the ending. So a vague use of sound can give different meaning to different people.

Many other non-diegetic sounds such as the projector fan that transits into the harmonic bass to set the tone that I wanted. Also, a transition of how a passenger would put on earphones after the plane as taken off for awhile.

 

L cut was used to transition to show that even though her consciousness is asleep, the reality is still ongoing.

The night forested sounds transitions to turbulence sounds as we show her sanity getting shaky. The turbulence was made with a hair dryer sound and how I’d move the recorder nearer and further in repetitions.

Projector white noise was also used to depict the sound you’d hear on a plane. The same same but different feeling.

The microwave sound was hard to replicate so I just used an actual microwave sound and stood there and recorded it for 2 minutes. The microwave sound mixed very nicely with the projector fan sounds. The microwave sound plays behind everything to show her state of mind, absent minded, unable to adapt, move on and change. Just stuck.

The ding to indicate that the food is cooked from the microwave returns to show that something is done and you can’t really turn back the time you lost. Paradoxically, it is used at

I played with reverb and volume changes over time to emphasis different acts and how each climax and each resolution is marked and denoted by the volume and how large a room becomes(from reverb).

Below is the video of each individual track at each point of time and how the volume and reverb affects the storytelling.

ARTCURSION DAY

NASA

I was pretty excited about the NASA exhibition as I’m very interested in space travel. (hint hint to assignment 2 of 4d i) but was quite neutral afterwards maybe because there was a little too much information rather than visuals.(or rather the visuals depended way too much on information that required reading)

NASA, however, did give insight and inspiration of how we could handle assignment 2 and 3. By making audience go up close and having certain activities, audiences are able to have a more in-depth view and really understand what they are trying to show, which is to raise awareness about Space Travel and how it is important for the future.

I especially liked the interactive ride(not the price) to show the entire rocketing to space and descending to earth feeling. Could definitely include something like that in assignment 3.

Future World

This was by far, the more enjoyable experience. The interactivity, the ability to send your art works up to let everyone see was just truly amazing. The lighting, the props(balls, hopscotch) were also on point. I especially liked that they used technology not commonly seen for the animal part right at the front.(might contact the company, teamLab, for camp stuff hehe)

I thoroughly enjoyed the entire experience as it brought out the inner kids hidden within us.

Into The Wild

I’d say it’s a very unique experience but loses steam very quickly. VR is not rare and the fact that we had to hold a device made the experience not totally authentic as wearing a VR oculus device.(i understand that its about safety though)

Stakes were not high enough and the animals weren’t fully developed for me to be immersed and feel as though I’m part of the story. It’s an interesting concept nonetheless.

Genius Of The Crowd

More of a exhibition than an interactive showcase but was worth the walk! I especially liked the photography and videography and how they used projectors to show one of the videos. The meaning behind the exhibit was subtle but when we found out what it was about it was quite mind blowing.

Avengers Exhibition

Here’s a bonus one because it was interactive and it was kind of similar. The entire exhibition used the interactivity behind a phone application and incorporated heavy use of it for agent cards, photo ops(opportunities), quizzes and a final boss fight that required the team work of everyone and their phones.

It suffered the same fate as NASA but not as bad. Just that, there were too many damn kids. 

兄 Blood

(www.vimeo.com/blxck/xiong)

PREMISE

Long and Kai, sworn brothers from young, are now conflicted on each other’s betrayal.

THEME

To what extent will you go to get what they want?

THOUGHT PROCESS

I think it is rather important for me to discuss about the thought process behind Xiong//Blood before delving into any other aspects of the film. I was very much inspired by Hong Kong mafia films, specifically a 2012 film called Triad directed by Daniel Yee Heng Chan, that heavily emphasised on Brotherhood, which was the case for most of these films. And of course the inspiration to why I picked mafia films was because of the Godfather that was screened in class.

I had many restrictions to work with for this ambitious film but essentially, I wanted show 2 sworn brothers, seemingly very different but swore an oath of eternal trust and how everything went to hell.

I first came up with the characters I wanted to portray, both of which are inspired by the emotional side of me(Long) and the logical side of me(Kai). So you can think of this abstract of a film as an internal struggle when I’m debating with myself.

The story had to be clear, and so did the characters. I always have a problem of wanting to create a complete universe before embarking on anything else. I penned the entire story of what was happening before the entire conflict, but conveniently left what was going to happen next out. (partially because it is supposed to be ambiguous and partially because I don’t know how I want it to end)

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CHARACTERISATION 

My thought process for characterisation was very much based off the two sides of me but there were influences from external people as well.

Public Figures/Fictional Characters
Loki Son of Odin
Iron Man, Tony Stark
Captain America, Steve Rogers
Dr Strange, Steven Strange

People Close To Me
Myself
My Sisters
My Best Friends
Past Friends
My Parents

The characters listed are influencers of who I am and have become. A mischievous, snarky, responsible and strange person. The people who know me well know that I’m systematic and logical, but also creative and wild. An accurate representation of the two characters within my film.

I drew reference of the relationship between Long and Kai through the people close to me. My younger sisters been through thick and thin with me and we have our fair share of trust and betrayal of who gets the toy. My best friends, as well, have our moments of unjust and times where we think it wouldn’t be possible to mend back this friendship. And for those relationships that can’t be mended, those people play a huge part in my life as well. Their existence is a clear cut reminder that not everything is meant to be perfect. My parents bickers but never to the extent of betrayal, their trust gives me hope.

I know this isn’t what you wanted from characterisation but the two characters I have crafted are a part of me and all I can describe is the characters that have molded me and the relationship I want my characters to have.

 

STORYBOARD & SCRIPT

After I had my characters set and penned down, I decided to focus on the script and the cinematography behind the story. 
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Wrote a rough script down of how I wanted my story to flow then refined it thoroughly in Celtx. And this point of time I was still hesitant on whether it would be a night or day scene or would it be a outdoor or indoor carpark.

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After deciding it would be an indoor carpark, the time of the day was decided by my cast because of the hectic pre-chinesenewyear period. I had contingency plans and proper equipment if it were to change to the night. I even had an idea for a rain scene or to completely shoot in the rain due to the crazy rain we were getting on the earlier parts of the week but fortunately(unfortunately) it didn’t rain during our shoot day.

I tried to keep the script within 1 page because of the 1 page: 1 minute rule for writers but unfortunately, the film spilled a little out of 1 minute.

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The storyboarding process was quite tough because I had to examine multiple films to understand the cinema behind an asian mafia genre as it did not follow traditional norms. Most of the scenes were shot on handheld and had a very raw personal feel to them. They were also not afraid to intentionally shake the camera during movement shots like panning and I had to take special note of those.

Because of the cast restrictions, I had to act and that would mean my girlfriend would be behind the camera so I had to take extra notes on shot sizes and proper framing as to avoid conti errors, to keep with the 180 degree rule and clashing of similiar frame sizes.

ABSTRACTION

The internal struggle between the emotional side and logical side of a person as the emotions are trying to find where the logic has hidden creativity.