Category Archives: Final Project

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.  

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.