password: project3
1. A detailed description of your Artist Statement/Concept (i.e. Why did you make this work, why did you pick your footage, what were you trying to show?)
Through this video, I was trying to capture the feelings of tension and suspense when we are about to open a door. This door can be physical or metaphorical, but the feelings are similar, as we can never be sure what is behind each door we open. Some doors bring us to happy and magical places, while others scare us or drop us in strange places. I felt that the image of a door and our hesitance towards it, represents our fear of the unknown, thus I chose not to show what was behind the door, even at the end of the video. I did not intend this video to be that of the horror genre, but wanted to focus more on the sense of mystery, tension and fear in the moment that we approach a door.
2. A detailed description of your technical decisions (i.e. Why did you choose to cut your video that way, why did you choose certain effects)
In the first part of the video, the screen flickers from an image of a person standing outside the door (something like a doorkeeper), to the door, to a close up of the ‘doorkeeper’. I set the top layer of the ‘doorkeeper’ to a lower opacity, so as to give the ‘doorkeeper’ a ghostly and mysterious feel. I was inspired from my experience during freshmen orientation, where our ogls would direct us to a room/ door, and wish us luck before we enter on our own, without telling us anything about it. Hence, I decided to make ‘doorkeeper’ flicker with the door, to create a sense of confusion from the start.
I then revealed the door in a mid-shot to introduce the main subject in the video, and added a glitch effect to it. The glitch effect made the door all the more mysterious and stranger. The perspective I adopted is the first-person perspective, to make the viewers experience the fear of the unopened door, the same way as the main character (me) does.
The next shot is a close-up of my feet moving forward slowly towards the door, since walking towards the door is our first reaction to it. I reversed the footage, every time my foot takes a step forward, and layered it over with duplicated footage of me taking a step forward by reducing its opacity. This gives the effect of slowing time down, and highlights my hesitance and uncertainty in approaching the door. The voice-over, which first appears here and a few more times, was edited to sound like a voice inside our heads when we are afraid. I did this by applying the ‘surround reverb’ effect, and layered it, making the voice sound like a dream-like echo.
This is followed by a close-up shot of me placing my hand on the door handle. I chose mostly close-up shots since when we are nervous, we tend to focus on more micro things, rather than see the overall picture. I duplicated parts of the footage, layered them at 53% opacity over the original footage, adjusted their position more to the right, and added a ‘gaussian blur’ effect to it. This created a shaky and blurry effect on the whole, showing how my hands are unsteady and my vision becomes unclear as I am too afraid to open the door.
The next shot is a mid-shot of the door which pans upwards, interspersed with footage of a close-up of the door handle, to create a dizzying effect as the video zooms in and out on the door. I placed footage of JiU (from Dreamcatcher’s ‘Chase Me’ MV) on top of that, and set the blending mode to ‘overlay’, so that both JiU and the door can be seen. As the camera continues to pan upwards, I also inserted footage of a doll (also from Dreamcatcher’s MV). As the original mv already had the effect of light flickering over the doll, I just repeated the footage a few times to increase the eery effect.
Both JiU and the doll represents our fears, as we look at the door since we are unsure of what is behind, and begin to imagine the worst. The overlay effect also makes JiU appear like an apparition and unreal, since she is only a figment of our imagination.
I then inserted a close-up shot of my hand opening the door. I added another glitch effect, but made it more intense and nauseating as compared to the previous glitch used. This is because the act of me opening the door is like the highest point of tension right before we find out what is behind it. The glitch shows the overwhelming feeling of dizziness with fear.
As the video build-ups, I mixed in the previous sounds together with the new sound, to show the build-up of action and tension. This is where all the sounds of fear are being combined together (heart beating, sweating, heavy breathing, robot sounds).
What comes next is a close-up of the door opening, to reveal more shadows behind it. But before it fully opens, the screen becomes black, showing how we will never know what is behind it.
The video then cuts to the ‘doorkeeper’ again, walking towards the viewer and blindfolding the viewer. I cut it up and layered it over a wide-shot of the door. This creates a disorientating and uneasy effect on the viewer. After witnessing me enter the door, the viewer is now cut off from me, and not allowed to follow me, heightening the sense of tension.
The final shot is of the door, which starts to glitch nearer the end of the video. The moments that the viewer has with the door, just looking at it straight on, allows the viewer to contemplate their relationship with the door, just after they have encountered mine. The glitch I added is the same glitch at the start of the video, indicating that it is now the viewer’s turn to approach and enter the door as mine has passed.
3. An in depth Before and After, visual and written process of your work (colour editing process)
As I wanted my video to evoke feelings of fear and tension, I chose to add more cyan and green tones in the mid-tones and a bit of blue in the shadows using the adjustment layer. This also made the yellow on the door turn a sickly-looking green colour, which matched the suspenseful mood I wanted.
I took the footage mostly at night and some in the late afternoon. Since the colours of the door at night and in the afternoon were not very different, I used the same adjustment layer, but adjusted the lighting of the footage using the ‘curves’ function.
The glitches that I used also happened to be red (I followed some tutorials online to do them), which led to my choice of making the video mostly green. As green is a complementary colour to red, this made the glitches even more glaring and disturbing.
4. At least 3 detailed artist/film references (What/who were you looking at and how did it contribute to your image making process?)
I was inspired by Dreamcatcher’s ‘Chase Me’ MV and how they portrayed a narrative of the ghosts of 7 girls haunting a man in a disturbing manner, through the editing style of the mv. I also wanted my work to have a similar mood to the mv. There were shots of the man and the girls shown alternatively in a really quick way, creating a flickering effect. At first, I thought it was an overlay effect, but when I slowed down the mv, I realised it was not, which surprised me a bit. I included both techniques in my work as I found them effective in unnerving the viewer. The mv also made use of CCTV, and glitch effects when introducing the ghosts, making them appear more mysterious and surreal, which I used in my work too.
In terms of colour, I was inspired by the colours used in the Korean drama, ‘Signal’, a crime-related drama. The drama made use of a colour scheme that was mostly cool, and had blue and green tones, to highlight the tense and mysterious atmosphere in the drama, as the characters were consistently fighting to solve various murder cases. The cool colours also created a sense of uncertainty and unease. Since my intent was to create suspense, I decided to adopt a similar colour palette.
For my choice of colour, I was also influenced by another Korean drama, “Save Me”, which is a thriller drama about a cult. Unlike ‘Signal’, the drama did not use cool colours as much, but reserved them for scenes where the protagonists were in the most danger or when the main antagonists were being featured. The use of blue and green were thus associated with fear for the protagonists, and the precarious situations the characters were placed in. As fear was also something I wanted to capture in my work, I thought that blue and green were apt colours to use.
5. A transcript of your original voice over.
0:00:10 “Does your heart beat faster? And louder? So loud it is the only sound you can hear.”
0:00:21 “Do your palms get sweaty? Fearful of what is behind the door.”
0:00:32 “What do you think is behind the door?”
6. A short descriptive text premise of your narrative. (Please refer to Jake Tuck (2017), Neighborhood Scenes Set To The Music Of Lana Del Rey for amusing examples)
A ‘doorkeeper’ welcomes me to open and enter a door. I enter the door and it closes. The ‘doorkeeper’ then shoos the viewer away, preventing them from following me. The viewer finally awaits their turn to enter.
7. A credits list of your footage sources should you have sampled any.
Happyface entertainment, Dreamcatcher(드림캐쳐) _ Chase Me MV, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zihoyz0u_cs
All Sounds, Robot Sound Effects All Sounds, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wSQxAbSGyaI
Debrup Travel & Films, 50+ FREE Glitch Sound Effects For Video Transitions | Royalty Free | No Copyright, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ahRPMRo5pL4
Justsoundfx, Heartbeat sound, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gJpT_wHZeF8
SoundEffectsFactory, Male Deep Breathing Sound Effect #2, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cb_DM4PEpPA
All Sounds, Water Drip Sound Effects All Sounds, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0fH48E-QKjM
Justsoundfx, Door Sound Effects | Door Open Sound Effects | Creaking Door Sound Effect, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JghggrIj3z0
Free Sound Stock – Free Download, Pin Drop Sound Effect, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hmtoY1aEEss
SFX and GFX, Ear Ringing Sound Effect, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rHTinEcgLn0