Assignment 2: Memories and Goodbyes

Memories & Goodbyes

Done by: Jing Yi, Jia Ying and Jun Ming

Brief Description: A piece of memory shared between a boy and a girl.

Plot: A boy falls in love with a girl. Their relationship developed through various pieces of shared memories. However, at the peak of their relationship, the boy has to leave the girl as he travels overseas. Although the boy left the girl, the girl still anticipates for his return. As time passes, the girl eventually moved on with her life and forgot about the boy. One day, the girl received a post paid letter from the boy – a letter of memories and sadness.

Genre: Romance, Drama, Coming of Age

The Process:

Initially, we had a different idea to our story and had already completed Task 1 for this assignment. However,  while editing for Task 2 we discovered that we had a lot of missing visual parts for our story and our stories were not flowing well.

Images from Draft #1
Images from Draft #1
Images from Draft #1
Images from Draft #1

Some of the problems we faced initially were the undecided story plots and unclear story boards. Therefore, after our consultation, we re-plot our story and make sure we confirm all the camera shots and angles we are going to use in our story boards so that we will not face the same problems we had previously.

Storyboard #1
Storyboard #2
Storyboard #3

 

 

Added Missing Parts #1
Added Missing Parts #2
Added Missing Parts #3
Added Missing Parts #4

After adding in the missing parts, our story connects better.

Visuals:

Colour: Warm colours were used to represent the happy memories while dull colours were used to represent sad memories. The different colouring of the images can be seen in order as it follows the mood of the story plot. To show that some of the images are memories of the past, I purposely edited these images by adding vignette and highlights to show a dreamy setting/ memories.

Dreamy setting
Dreamy Setting

Story: Present –> Past –> Past –> Present

Mood: Neutral (Acceptance) –> Happy –> Sad –> Neutral (Acceptance/ Closure)

Colour: Neutral –> Warm –> Dull –> Neutral

Neutral
Warm (Happy)
Warm (Happy)
Dull (Sad)
Dull (Sad)
Neutral

Camera Shots Technique: 

Similar Shots – The use of similar shots help us to convey the idea of memories. By using similar shots with different costumes and actions it establishes the idea that time has pass which is one of the element of our story.

Similar Shots #1
Similar Shot #1
Similar Shots #2
Similar Shots #2

Wide angle to Closed up shots: Wide angle shots show spaces especially when only 1 or 2 characters are in the frame. The spaces can create the feeling of anticipation and loneliness. Anticipation can be seen scenes when they are meeting each other and loneliness can be seen when the girl is reading the letter the boy left for her after he left.

Anticipation
Loneliness

As mentioned previously we used a lot of closed up shots to create the intimacy between the audience and character. Closed up shots also allow the character to do the story telling which creates more emphasis in emotions.

Closed up
Closed up
Closed up

Black Screen – Black screens were used to help me convey the passing of time as they acted as gaps between certain time periods. By using black screens with sound, it creates a moments of suspense for the audiences.

 

References:

For this short photo-film, I am going to set it in a very melancholic and emotional style. Therefore, I decided to emulate the style of Spike Jonze in his film, Her (2013).

The film Her is a romantic movie that plays with memories and emotions. In the film, Spike Jonze uses a lot of closed up shots to express a sense of loneliness. Through the closed up shots, it allows us to feel really intimate to the character and allows us to feel what the character is going through. Besides, because most parts of the film is about the main character.

Sounds:

Mood music – As mentioned, I wanted to create an emotional and melancholic feel to the film. To create the mood, I used 2 different music pieces to help me. The first piece is played at the start and at the end. It is a neutral piece of music and helps me to connect time periods together. The second piece is more solemn and it is played when the girl received the letter before the boy left her. Although the both pieces are used for different occasions, n overall both pieces brings a very emotional and melancholic feel.

Sound effects – I tried to experiment with some non-diegetic sound effects to make it more creative in a sense. For instance the sound effect of wind chimes at 00:58 to create the feeling of peacefulness and pleasant memories, the sound effect of  increasing heartbeats at 02:01 to create the nervousness and anxiety of the Character when reading the letter and the sound effect of airplane flying across to further enforce the idea of the boy leaving and travelling overseas.

Voice Over/Narration – After editing everything, I discovered that the ending part to show what happened to the boy wasn’t made clear enough. Although there was a few shots of the letters, the idea was still not strong. Hence I decided to do a voice over, a narration of the letter. The narration of the letter is spans across the last part which provides a closure to the film. The narration begins at 03.32 of the film.

Silence Humans are not used to silence, silence can be used in an interesting way for instance to create certain tensions. In some of the scenes, I intentionally muted all the background sounds and only emphasized one sound to create the tension. For instance the scenes between 01:30 to 02:10, I did add in any environmental sound or any music. This is done so to create a tension and anticipation of the climax (Girl receiving the letters).

Reflection:

I was really excited to do this assignment because I get to experiment with a new way of making film. It was really rewarding for me personally as I love film as this assignment allows me to have a deeper understanding on how visual compositions and sounds can play such a huge emphasis on the whole story telling in a film. Most importantly I was really happy because this assignment was a good refresher for my video and sound editing skills as I get to practice them before it turns rusty.