Practical Filmmaking Final Project – Home

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CAN YOU FEEL THE LOVE TONIGHT

 

Home – reminds me of a space confined within four walls.

I wanted to show the idea of a suspense of time over a long period within an enclosed space. The happy and sad memories captured and contained, resulting different emotions and decisions made by the owners living in it.

 

The introduction of the video shows a single long take. Here, I want to establish the struggle in his mind, between the love-hate emotions that he had for his wife. He wants a divorce with his wife, but he feels slightly reluctant. The V.O here helps to establish the background story.

The 2nd photo above shows the ending scene when the wife is at the door step, when the camera starts to pan away. I wanted the introduction and ending of the video to correspond to each other. This conveys unity from the start to the end.

 

The picture below shows how I divide a particular space into 3 parts to portray 3 different scenes. I instructed my actors to try and stay in their space during the shoot. Here, I create different scenarios for my actors.

Different fast cuts were used to show a period of time being compressed. The cloning of 3 scenes into one is also another way to show a period of time in a few seconds. The couple were seen at different parts of the house, with different interactions.

 

I questioned myself how I could transit from the past memories to the present (as seen below). Here I decided to play with 2 separate scenes that looked somewhat similar, but different.

When the female actress (wife) is taken away from the picture, and when the man is shot from a far distance, a sense of “lost” and “loneliness” occurs.

 

Reflection

This is my first short film, and I felt that there there are many rooms for improvements. There are many limiting factors before, in the process, and after filming. The Airbnb place that I booked was a small room in a 4 story building owned by the owner. There are other guests living in her building too, including herself. I had to sneak my actors and friends in to help me with the filming, and had to keep our volumes down. I also had to keep track of the time because I only had the place for 1 day. And because its an Airbnb place, I couldn’t check the location and finalise the shots before hand. Therefore slight changes were make between the initial script and the actual shoot itself. But I am really grateful and thankful for the people who help me make it possible. P.S, I have forgotten to take behind the scenes photos. The editing of cloning effect was torturing. Editing multiple shots in a single still frame is alright. However, the panning camera, makes it harder. The different movements and lighting changes in every sec the frame moves. I had to use the pen tool to mark out every single frame and it took ages. Even though I still couldn’t get it right at the end. 🙁 It might be the way I shot it, maybe i didn’t do it the right way, maybe there might be an easier way to execute it.

All in all, it was a really new and eye opening experience for me. Despite having hiccups here and there, I am determine to produce a better film after being inspired by my classmates work.

“There is no failure except in no longer trying.” ―Elbert Hubbard

7 Shots Assignments – Seen and Unseen

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” A bored kid decides to steal a 10 dollar note from a random stranger out of playfulness, only to find himself entering a horrific world of punishments suffered in hell. “
Seen and Unseen.

The seen and unseen world to me felt like something that i would have never imagine myself experiencing in; like in another dimension. I viewed this unseen world as something negative, something I would wish to un-see. 

This brought me back to my childhood days when I first visited the “10 courts of hell” located in Haw Par Villa. I was scared as hell. 

 

With this thought in mind, I came up with an idea where a kid will be the protagonist, as children are often portray as innocent and oblivious.

When I did my research on the meanings behind the “10 courts of hell”, I came upon this useful piece of information: So basically those who were evil doers in their past life will be taken to a subsequent Court of Hell to be punished. The different levels of hell caters to different types of offence. The shot that were taken in my film were from the Second Court of Hell. Crimes such as robbery and stealing will be punish in this court. 

With this information, I decided to use the stealing of the dollar note as the climax of my story.
1st Shot - Extreme close up shot of the main character. 

2nd Shot - close up shot of the kid’s hand playing with gum. 












3rd shot - Wide angle shot. Introducing a working adult, and leaving the scene; 
           transitioning to 4th shot.

4th shot - low angle shot; begins by establishing the $10 note, then gradually moving 
           upwards to the kid’s expression.











5th shot - top angle shot; camera moves downwards gradually with the kid’s hand. 
           This establish sight of the video through the kid’s eyes / perspective. 

6th shot - transition from the $10 note to the “10 courts of hell”. 
           Shot from first person perspective. 











7th shot - transition back to the the kid being fearful of the dollar note. 

 

4D foundation project 4: Poetics of Time

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When the brief for project 4 was released, I knew I wanted to do something that relates to our daily lives that revolves around the idea of time and space.

Original Idea

The original idea for the final project was to film a video; a depiction of how a short everyday act / situation seems like a long process; because of how the situation triggered and impacted on the individual. It will be a simple act, in video form, of a slow process of a person entering a toilet cubical. As he/she took off her/his pants, music starts to play, and a dance/ movement / body language is shown to depict the process of “struggling’ to take a dump. It revolves around the idea of “Expectation vs Reality”. How people perceive things in the back of their mind and how it actually look and feels when shown directly upfront.

In the video, I wanted to use projection as a background effect to enhance the long and painful thought process of taking a dump through the visuals and lightings from a projector. However, there are a few circumstances that made this idea a failed one. Firstly, to be able to film a person’s body movement in a cubical required a huge amount of distances from the projector to the toilet bowl. 

 

As experimented from the distance in my room, from the distance from the projector to myself is about 4 meters. Having say that, the screen is only able to project onto the top half of my body. Besides, it was hard to find a cubical with this amount of distance for projection.

^ About 4 meters from wall to projector

Next, due to technology advancement, the lights from the toilets are often operated through sensor lights. This will cause the projection to not be able to show well as projection only works well in a dark room. 

 

Changed Idea

Because of all the difficulties, I decided not to use the projector.  

At this point, I questioned myself what kind of plot do I want to show my audiences. What is it that I would like my audiences to take away after watching my video. I decided to think about my 1st thought process: In the daily life activities that I executed everyday such as eating, shitting, and bathing, I will always require some sort of entertainment to keep myself entertain. In a way as though I wouldn’t feel as if I was doing something boring in a confined space for a long time. From here, I know that I wanted to do comparison video that shows the difference in edited time and running time. From this video, I would like my audiences to appreciate time more, to know that they can actually do multiple things at a time in a confined space.

Final Execution

In this video, scenes were broken down into different cuts. The video placed in the middle is a depiction of how I spend my time in the toilet to take a dump. This video is shot in running time, where it shows my actual reactions while I took a 3-4 shit in the toilet with no edited scenes. 

The videos at the other 2 ends shows how I perceive time while I engaged in different activities in the toilet. These videos are shot in edited time, where the video is either fast forwarded, or slow downed. 

The 1st activity that I engaged in while in the toilet is a phone call. You will notice that when I am talking on the phone, the edited time on the left is being fast forwarded. This speed up process is an interpretation of how I felt in the toilet; time flies faster when I am chatting on the phone, in comparison to me taking a dump without doing anything. Here, the speed of the video is increased by 210% (when edited in premiere pro) , and the voices through the phone call is fast forwarded too ( high pitch voices can be heard). When the call was dropped, the video with edited time (left side) went back to its regular speed. (unedited) 

The next activity that I engaged in was playing mobile games on my phone (cut scene on the right). Just like the 1st activity, edited time was used where the video was fast forwarded by 300%. Here, I felt that flies even faster while playing mobile games in the toilet. 

In these 2 activités, some pauses were made between each edited time. For example, in the 1st video someone knocked onto the door; I (main actor) gets up from the toilet bowl to check the door, at the same time edited video t the left was bring to a pause. Or in the 2nd video, I almost dropped my phone while playing games on my mobile, here, edited time in the video on the right was brought to a pause too. These 2 examples shows that when the main character lose touch or interaction with the edited time, it was brought to a stop, while running time/ real time continues. 

The last activity shows myself putting down my phone and ready to take a dump. Here, a cut scene of edited time was shown.( at the left) It depicts a scene of me eating a chocolate bar in slow-motion. Chocolate or junk food in general are the types of food that made it hard for me to shit. Thus as I was struggling to take a dump, the cut scene of me eating a chocolate bar was shown. Time was edited to slow-mo as the process of taking a dump felt long and dreadful. 

Movement

The movement of my final work is quite stationary, where the actor is fitted down and confined with a space itself. only movements of hands and facial expressions were shown. However, different unexpected movements were shown; for example when someone knocks the toilet door or when the actor drops her phone. Here we see that the different situations around the actor changes her movements as she reacts to each unforeseen circumstances. 

Rhythm 

The overall rhythm in this video is imbalance due to the different situations or scenario involving the actor, however, it remains balances for some time in each situation ( for example playing on the phone for 30sec straight ) which makes the entire video seems longer than 4 mins. 

Duration 

The actual timing of this video is about 4mins. While acting in the video, engaging in the different scenario such as phone calls and playing mobile games, the 4 mins felt like it ended very quickly. However, as the audiences watches the entire 4 min video itself, they felt as though time pasts very slowly, as if the video was about more than 8mins. This is because audiences kept seeing repeated movements during each different scenarios, as they anticipated eagerly as to when the actor will finish taking a dump. This anticipated made the audiences felt like time passes slowly, which is what I wanted to achieve in this video. So that they would learn to make use of the given time wisely. 

Causality

this video is said to be unexpected, even though audiences have a clear knowledge of how the video is going to end as they all knew how taking a dump in a toilet was like; it was an expected ending. However was was  unexpected was the different events that took place in the video such as taking a phone call and playing mobile games. Even the reactions of the actor to the knocking of door and dropping of phone was uncalled for. This creates anticipation to the audiences in wanting to find out what other unexpected scenario were to take place in a space that everyone is so familiar with.  

2D Foundation project 3: Ego

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Research:

Primary Colors: Red, yellow and blue

In traditional color theory (used in paint and pigments), primary colors are the 3 pigment colors that cannot be mixed or formed by any combination of other colors. All other colors are derived from these 3 hues. 

Secondary Colors: Green, orange and purple. 

These are the colors formed by mixing the primary colors.

Tertiary Colors: Yellow-orange, red-orange, red-purple, blue-purple, blue-green & yellow-green. 

These are the colors formed by mixing a primary and a secondary color. That’s why the hue is a two word name, such as blue-green, red-violet, and yellow-orange.

 

Monochromes Harmony

 The colours of a monochromatic palette all share a single hue, but vary in brightness and saturation. White, black and grey are considered to be neutral.

Analogous Harmony 

Analogous colour palettes consist of different, but neighbouring hues. The constant property can be either the saturation or the brightness level or both.

Complementary hues 

Complementary colours are any two colours which are directly opposite each other, such as red and green and red -purple and yellow -green. These opposing colours create maximum contrast.

 

Split complementary 

The split -complementary colour scheme is a variation of the complementary colour scheme. In addition to the base colour, it uses the two colours adjacent to its complement.

 

Triadic colour scheme 

A triadic colour scheme uses colours that are evenly spaced around the colour wheel.

Colour Harmony

In visual experiences, harmony is something that is pleasing to the eye. It engages the viewer and it creates an inner sense of order, a balance in the visual experience. When something is not harmonious, it’s either boring or chaotic. 

In my concept, I use analogous colours to depict something that I love doing, and complementary colours to show a dislike in the setting and actions taken. 

 

Process and experimentation. 

I first began with experimenting simple 2D illustration and their interaction with objects that I have photograph. The 3D objects were photograph and then further enhance with the texture and lightning in photoshop, with the background removed. I fell in love with the contrast between the 2D illustration and 3D objects. And because the illustration had essence of white in it, it doesn’t overpower the object. 

I then started illustrating a depiction of myself in every one of my composition series. Notice that the woman figure that i illustrate has an essence of white and black in the face and limbs, and a strong black outline so that it doesn’t outshine or clash with the other colours. I pay much attention to every character’s expression so that it can convey my emotions well when placed in a different setting. ( all illustration is done in illustrator )

Next, I illustrate different symbols and shapes to determine different background settings. In each of my setting, I use photography of the objects and illustrations to show my viewers the different settings that i am trying to portrait. Different shapes and symbols in each scene represent different location. For example, the 1st image shows weird looking strokes that seems like alphabets ( this is where  i tried to depict a study environment setting) , or the blue and green brush strokes ( where it depicts a vanity setting where i glam myself up ).

Then i began playing with the different colour tones that we have learnt. I asked myself which colour combination suits the composition and story telling best. Here you can see that I played with the different Monochromes and Complementary colours. 

I then try to mix the 2D illustrations into the 3D objects. Because of the contrasting 2D and 3D effects, each combination is meant to look a little off, however, are able to relate to each other. Here, lots of back and forth editing in photoshop and Illustrator is done. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

FINAL

1st composition

Whenever I am hungry am always ready to go groceries shopping for food. However, when ever i am at the supermarket, I have to always make healthy food choices and end up not buying unhealthy snacks that I love because of health issues and that my mom will constantly nag at me for eating junk food. In this case, my setting shows a supermarket and my reaction to the setting is that I have to always purchase healthy fruits and veggies; its like a lifestyle. The colours used here consist of 2 sets of Analogous colours ( as shown in the 1st and 2nd image ) which shows that I love going getting ready to eat and shopping in the supermarket , however, I hate that I always have to end up buying only healthy food ( shown in the Complementary hues in the 3rd picture)

 

2nd composition

The second composition shows a series of analogous colours, where every one of the image shows something that I love doing. The 1st picture shows myself getting ready to workout, and the setting depict my exercising spot with all the equipments. Lastly, my reaction is a sense of satisfaction where I feel good about myself.

 

3rd composition 

The 3rd composition shows a series of complementary colours where I show my hatred for studying for test. The colour blue is determine as the main colour as it represented the night, which is the time where I would always do my work and assignments. The 1st image shows the boring and reluctant self, being place in a study area filled with books ( shown in the 2nd picture) . My reaction to all these is countless unpleasant emotions and expressions. 

 

4th composition

The last composition colour scheme is similar to the 1st composition, where the 1st picture shows the analogous colour (red orange as the main colour) to show my love for taking a shower after a long day. The 2nd picture also show analogous harmony ( blue green as the main colour) which depict that I love my vanity area at home as it is always filled with high end products that my mom bought for me , which makes me feel glam and girly. However, my reaction to putting on facial products and after I shower is always a hassle to me as I always find it troublesome and a waste of time. Especially when I am ready to head to bed or rushing out of the house. ( this is express through the complementary colours form the 1st and 2nd picture ) 

 

Reflection

At 1st, I had a hard time coming up with ideas, thinking how I could use colours and simple illustrations to depict my settings and reactions. Because I didn’t draw or take photo of an actual place or venue, I was afraid that the message that I would like to convey to my audiences would be hard for them to understand. However, after experimenting with the different colours, it gave me a head start in which I can use these selected colours to convey a stronger message to my viewers through each pictures. Using these colours that I have paired up, I am able to help my viewers understand each compositions better. 

 

3D project 4: City of voids – Individual Moodbox

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This is the sound analysis based on audacity from the sound that we had created.

 

Individual Moodbox

 

The Dominant

The dominant sound has a clear and elegant vibe which in this case, is represent by acrylic cubes in different shades of blue. 

The clear ringing sound of the resonating tone bars is depicted by the blue acrylic cubes scattered around the model and saturated at the bottom of it. 

The dominant sound can be heard at it loudest in its 1st beat and where it slowly fades and echoes away. This sound motion is represented by the placement the blue acrylic cubes in the model. 

 

The Subdominant

The subdominant sound feels like a subtle sharp, piercing background noise.

The raspy, scraping sound of the finger cymbals is shown through the sharp cones piercing throughout the center tube of the structure. 

It can be heard almost throughout the entire music, which is depicted through the placement of the sharp cones. However, the cones are small and tiny, suggesting that the subdominant sound is soft and subtle; almost not noticeable. 

 

The Subordinate

The subordinate sound is produced through two wood pieces, giving off a heavily dense sound that kind of depicts a temple chanting or nature.

the two blocky beats of the claves is represented by the pieces of wood and green plants that is placed into sections in the middle of the structure.

It can be hear clearly with pauses in between each beat, without the interruptions of the domination and subdominant sounds. This suggest the isolating placement of the subordinate in sections. 

4D Foundation Project 3: Impossibilities of Being

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The place that I have selected was my grandma’s working place. Even before I was born, she had been working as a Chinese opera actress for the past 30 years. Never once had I been there, and I was curious as to how here working environment was like, what made her stay for the past 30 years. She told me, “ It is isn’t a job, it was more like an interest, a hobby, its the friends there that made her stay.”

 

Lo-Fi storyboard

High-Fi storyboard

Scene 1: shows a scene of the main character; my grandma. | close up shot

Scene 2: grandma travelling to work by bus. | Wide angle shot; sound of bus arriving

Scene 3: alighted from the bus. ( butt leaves bus sit ) | Half body shot; sound of bus arriving to a stop

Scene 4: Arrived at workplace, ready to be sited and getting makeup done for her Chinese opera show. ( however workplace is still unknown) | Half body shot; sounds of using make up tools 

Scene 5: Putting on makeup Close up shot; sounds of using make up tools, opening and closing of make up kit.

Scene 6: Getting hair done; putting on wig. | close up half body shot

Scene 7: Wearing costume for show that is about to start. | close up half body shot

Scene 8: Preparing to enter the show. | leg shot; close up shot.

Scene 9: Show begins. | Wide angle shot, Chinese opera stage music sound

Scene 10: Performance and interaction between actors. | wide angle/ half body shot, Chinese convocation sound.

Scene 11: Cut scene to audiences. | wide angle shot, sound of audience interacting 

Scene 12: Grandma stares back at the camera, smile, as the show ended. | close up shot 

This was the initial idea for how the video was going to be shot and the sounds that comes with it. However, when I derived at the shooting venue, the environment and people there changed my perception of my initial idea. The people there ( friends of my grandma ) where a bunch of funny and loud older women. They are not your typical grandma who goes to the market everyday and lead a simple life. They love to dress up, making themselves look pretty, play card games and phones to kill time, smoke, and chit chat among themselves. I notice that they are always laughing snd joking around. And when its time to perform, they are back to a serious mood and execute a professional performance. 

With that, I decide to use “sound” to change the context of the video. 

Here are some of the sounds recorded at the filming venue. Background sound of people speaking in dialect, sound of vehicle passing by, sound of different tunes made by different instruments , sound of performers conversing and singing. Each recorded sound is similar to one another as background noises were always overlapping one another. Similarly, the sounds are often loud and piercing, which depicts the bold and expressive culture of Chinese opera. 

Onsite recorded sounds

 

Final Video

( The whole video shows a progression of how I grandma spends her time working at her work place. From the time they get ready, to the showcase of the performance ) The sounds used depicts the mood and environment of the people and place there, whether is it about having fun or just pure seriousness. 

At the start of the video, you hear the sound of the background sound of the Chinese opera before the performance started. 

Shots of people using their phones was shown. The context was changed when I placed clicking sounds ( created and recorded from my keyboard ) in conjunction to the scenes. The clicking sounds lead to the song: “wonder girls famous song – Nobody”, which suggested that the people using their phone were playing the same exact song. 

The song “Nobody” , depicts a fun and and lively song ( if you watch the music video of the song, you will notice the main singers dressing up in older fashion style, and performing a live performance. ) This modern pop song changed the context of the video as Chinese opera seems to be a very traditional place. It showcase a glamours and exciting behind the scenes of the performers preparing and getting ready for the show. 

As the song stops, it transits into fingers taping sounds as the video zoomed into the audiences. The finger tapping sounds leads to a soundless silent, which represented anticipation, as the performers are about to enter the stage. This creates tension, where people waited eagerly for the show to begin. 

As the performance began, sound intensified, loud music of Chinese opera music was heard. This depicts the professional and well brought up performance by actor and actress. 

The last scene ended off with a close up shot of my grandma looking into the camera happily in silent. Without the background sound, all there was to focus on was the expression of my grandma’s joyful face,  which is easier to relate. 

 

 

Classroom exercise Part 1 for Project 3.

Rhythm

There is irregularity in the overall movement of my video, however, there is a slight repetition in parts of the scenes. For example, when before the song “Nobody” was played, there is a constant shots of people pressing on their phone showed. When the Chinese opera song was played at the last few scenes of the video, similar shots of performers performing on stage was shown.

Movement 

Linear narrative is shown throughout my video, where causality can be easy to track. In my video, there is a direction; it shows the starting preparation before the performance began, to the execution of the performances. 

Causality

I felt that there is a clear expectation of the direction of the video as it was being played. The background music build up a sense of anticipation and tension, and the visuals shows the performers getting ready for the main performance which is able to lead the audiences’ mind into what will happen next. However, some people might feel that the expectation is unexpected as they are unaware or have no idea or context in regards to Chinese opera performance.

Duration

I felt that my final video is too short, like it needs a longer time duration to be able to showcase the behind-the scenes act and performance. Now it seems like a trailer. 

4D Foundation Project 4 – Research

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The first video is a documentation of a woman spending time alone in a context of 5 consecutive days. Each day, she challenged herself into spending time alone doing activities that are normally accompanied by others. Such activities include watching a scary movie alone, going to a erotic museum alone, and dinning alone in a cafe. All these places that are usually accompanied by friends and family now become a lonely place to her. Overwhelmed by the strangers around her, she began feeling self-conscious about being alone, with no one to talk to or to share her experiences with. However as time goes by, she began to understand herself better.  Despite being confined within time, it allowed her to pay more attention to herself. Food tasted better when she was alone; she was able to expand and widened her taste buds. She gets to know and understand herself better; where she is able to love herself more inside out. 

 

 

Video below from 3:05 onwards talks about Hsieh’s outdoor piece. 

Hsieh is an artist whose medium of expression is not words or sounds or paint, but his own life. For this second piece of work known informally as the Outdoor Piece, he plan to do a one year performance piece from September 26, 1981, to September 26, 1982, where he promise to live and stay outdoors for a year, and never go inside. He will not enter into any building, subway, train, car, airplane ship, cave, or tent. With that he will have a sleeping bag with him at all times. He live a lot the streets and doorsteps of manhattan. Here, Hsieh demonstrate how art becomes life through passing time. His work raises difficult questions about life and art and being, and about what it means to live in the world we live in. He relied on pay phones and chance meetings to keep in touch with his friends. Each day, he recorded his wanderings on a map, noting in particular the places where he ate and slept. 

This performance can be viewed as a space where he opened himself up, as fully as possible, to the outside. As time pass, the self can perish from exposure, as well as from confinement. Here, became a nomad. As time continue day by day, he tested his powers of survival in circumstances that were more than usually beyond his own control. 

Both pieces are presented through circular time where it talks about a repeating process, that creates continuous and infinite outcomes. However in the first piece, the host creates planned events and activities that triggers her emotions in the cause of time, while the artist in the second video let everything flow naturally in time; allowing whatever unpredicted situations happens at its own time. 

We can divide time up in different ways, and have different beliefs about how time affects us. We tend to think of time in terms of a three-part structure of past, present, and future, with time moving in one direction without repetition. Though events can repeat themselves, tomorrow is fundamentally different and separate from yesterday. However, I felt that these conceptualisations can also change over time. Who knows maybe in the future, there may be more than one way of looking at time.

2D Foundation Project 2: Forrest Gump

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Dadaism

Dada was an art movement formed during the First World War in 1914, in negative reaction to the horrors of the war. They were looking for ways to express anger towards the war. this is where art, poetry and performance produced by dada artists started surfacing and is often satirical and nonsensical in nature. Dada artists felt that the war questioned every aspect of a society’s capability. Their aim was to destroy traditional values in art and to create a new art to replace the old.  Some of the art works in this movement were dark and self-destructive. 

After the war, many of the artists who had participated in the Dada movement began to practice in a Surrealist

Surrealism

Surrealism is a cultural movement that began in the early 1920s. It was the aftermath; result of World War 1 when it destroyed the Western civilisation . It encompasses all forms such as art, sculpture, music, literature, film, and philosophy. The aim of this movement was to “resolve the previously contradictory conditions of dream and reality.” Artists painted illogical and occasionally disturbing images that allowed the unconscious to express itself. At its basic, the imagery is often strange and mysterious in an unsettling way to jolt the viewer out of their comforting assumptions.

Rene Magritte, The Son of Man 1964 https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/e/e5/Magritte_TheSonOfMan.jpg

One example of surrealism art is this painting, named: The Son of Man, by Rene Magritte. The painting is a self-portrait whereby an apple is placed in front, hiding his face / expression. Magritte wants his viewers to know that we humans always want to see what is hidden beneath the obvious. There is always an interest in the curious mind that is hidden in which the visible does not show us. 

Surrealism techniques includes Collage, Cubomania, Decalcomania, Eclaboussure, Frottage, Fumage.

Research on André Breton

André Breton was an original member of the Dada group and the founder of Surrealism in 1924. In early 1920s, Breton had changed his allegiance to another group of intellectuals who shared different opinions on art, not as nearly as dark and self-destructive as was the case with Dadaists. This is where he shifted to Surrealism. He was fascinated by the fine line between reason and irrationality, especially as manifested in dreams, erotica and mental disorders; all in which are reflections of Breton’s own interests. 

One of Breton’s fundamental beliefs was that he sees art as an anti-war protest. He presented the art scene with completely new concepts and ideas, such as the automatism – a principle in which writers and artists were encouraged to adopt a stream-of-conscious method, as well as spontaneous means of expression without any planning what so ever.

 

Working with halftone

Halftone is achieved by taking an existing image and reproducing it with a series of different sized dots. The closer and bigger the dots, the darker (and less detailed) the image; and the smaller and more spread out the dots are, the lighter (and more detailed) the image is. Halftones are often used for screen printing artwork. Screen printing involves breaking images down to simple colours. 

Working with Threshold

The Threshold command in Adobe Photoshop can create a neat one colour effect. A full colour photo can be turned into a black outline. The amount of black and white created by Threshold can also be adjusted through brightness and contrast when editing the original picture. 

 

Movie Quote: “We are all trapped here.” – 12 feet deep, 2017

 

   https://i.ytimg.com/vi/qWvEBk7aciQ/movieposter.jpg

 

Plot: This movie talks about Two sisters are unwittingly trapped under the fiber glass cover of an Olympic sized public pool and must brave the cold and each other to survive the harrowing night.

All 4 concept revolves around the same movie title. The final image of each concept are seen in a rectangular angled structure to suggest the ideal of being trapped. Concept 1 and 2 are slightly similar in style. Both uses threshold to create the final imagery. Concept 3 and 4 are more relatable to each other when it comes to ideation. Both revolves around the idea of teenagers and halftone used besides using threshold. 

Concept 1:  

The first image talks about how we; individuals, are always trapped within our own minds. (suggested by the not-so-obvious person portray in the negative space of the woman’s face.) There are so many things that we want to do, to explore, but are always reluctant to be daring, because often, the voices in our minds are telling us otherwise, and is holding us back. All these trapping revolves around time. ( suggested from the swinging pendulum ) However, all these thoughts in our minds are controlled by ourselves. (suggested from the hands that forms the shape of the mind ) We are in control of what we want to do, and how we want to lead our lives. 

 

Concept 2:

Concept 2 is inspired by concept 1. In this concept, the idea revolves around how in every disney fairytale books, the princess are always trapped and confined in the story ( suggested by the book text on the face ). As the story progress, they fight against time, WAITING ( suggested by the contrasting clock at the left side of the image; notice that the numbers on the clock is written in an old and vintage style, which suggested a long long time ago, as what every fairytales would called it ). They wait in their dreams, their minds, hoping that prince charming would save them in his knight and shining amour. ( suggested from the sword and shield ) .

 

Concept 3:

Concept 3 shows troubled teenagers and the negative influences by their peers that polluted their minds. Many teenagers nowadays are obsessed with all sorts of gaming on the different devices that advancement in technologies has created. ( suggested the gaming tools in the background ) Teenagers are also picking up smoking at a very young age ( suggested from the packet of cigarette.) Usually, a disturbing image is often shown on the front packaging of a cigarette box. In this case, I swap it for an illustration of a teenager diving into a pool filling with the other teenagers that are of the same age. This suggest a warning sign of how these young adults are diving into a trap; a trap that seems all fun and excitement on the outside, but will slowly develop into a negative impact on their future.

 

Concept 4:

Concept 4 talks about how students nowadays are trapped within education itself; or at least thats how I feel. ( suggested from the lines and strokes down the faces of the girl in the image. ) The lines / strokes formed into a barcode, which represents money; that education is a money draining system, despite it having a positive or negative impact on our future. Are we studying what is worth studying? or are we just wasting our parents money away as each day passes. This trapped feeling in the world of education at our age made me question myself what exactly are we studying for. 

 

 

Silkscreen Printing 

 

Silk print is a popular method for applying designs on tote bags. It works like a stencil, in which the artwork is burned unto a mesh and empty areas are covered with chemicals. After which, ink is applied and pushed through the mesh, onto the tote bag. As the silkscreen printing is done in a way that allows the ink to bond with the fibres of fabric, it is said that the print is durable and does not peel off. 

To me, the process does take up some time, therefore timing is key when executing silk printing. The pressure from our hands and the amount of black ink also plays an important part on the final result. However, after several practices, it gets better. Overall, it was not a hard process but rather, a fruitful one. 

 

Final Works

Reflection:

Through this project I learnt that ideation is a very important step that will affect the overall composition of the entire imagery. Sometimes, having too many ideas will create many different objects and items that will clutter the whole image. What works best is to have a focus idea on each different piece of work. That way, the final image can be understand and view easier without being too complicated for viewers.