Project 4 – Poetics of Time // Cooking with Fizah

FILM

Link: https://vimeo.com/244330517

ABOUT

A slow-motion film showing the process of cooking fried rice, a local dish common throughout every race in Singapore.

I hope to highlight the effort put into cooking our home-cooked meals by our unsung heroes; our mothers, fathers, grandparents, siblings or maid. By capturing the process of cooking an everyday meal in a mesmerizing way, I hope that the audience has a better appreciation of what usually would be a mundane daily cooking.

I wanted to create content that almost everybody can relate to. I am aware that it is impossible to, there will be exceptions. Initially, I wanted it to be about a mother’s cooking, however, after consideration, I realised that everybody has different predicaments thus may not be able to relate to mother’s cooking. To be completely honest, even for me, I am not able to relate.

Thus, I changed the idea to a home-cooked meal which I hope more people can relate to.

The idea was generated during my brainstorming process when I thought of some things that everybody loves. Hence, I decided to go with the topic of food because who doesn’t like food?

After which, I reflected on my own life where food comes along and thus thought of the meals my father prepared. Seeing him come home from work, despite being tired, he prepares dinner for the family to the best of his ability. Unfortunately, with my own circumstances, it has been difficult to thank and show my appreciation towards him.  Hence, I created this film in dedication to the unsung hero that is my father.

NEW CONCEPT

Initially, I wanted to recreate the idea of heaven from Project 3 through space. However, after setting out my objective of being relatable to my audience, I decided to think of new ideas instead. Especially for my idea of heaven, I believe the idea is heavily influenced by my idea of what heaven should be and thus this may not be relatable to my audience.

COMMUNICATE

My goal for this project is to remind the audience to appreciate the love and thought put into making our home-cooked meals. I feel that we tend to overlook the effort that our mother, father, grandparents, maid or even siblings put into cooking our meals. I hope after watching the film, my audience will go home and remember to show their appreciation or just a say a simple thank you to their loved ones for their effort.

EDITED TIME

I’ve chosen to do the film in slow motion to capture the process in a captivating and mesmerizing way. Also, the film follows a sequential step by step process of cooking fried rice. Thus, creating a linear edited time.

RHYTHM, MOVEMENT, CAUSATION, DURATION

I wanted to create a rhythm in my film by having a change in the shots every few seconds rather than showcasing the entire process which you would normally see on a cooking show.

In the first part of the film, the transition between each shot is a cut, whereas the second part, the transition turns into a fade. I wanted to highlight the change in the meaning between this two parts, thus I used different movements.

I wanted people to view the film at first as a mesmerizing cooking show, after which the film would unexpectedly change to something with a deeper meaning. Hence, in the front part of the film, there is the expectation for the viewers to watch the sequential process of cooking fried rice and I break this expectation by adding the message about coming home to a home-cooked meal.

I could not really decide on the duration of the film before filming because I wasn’t sure how long I should time each scene. The rough estimation I had was about 3-5 minutes. After filming and editing, I decided that 5 minutes was enough to captivate the audience and at the same time show the mesmerizing process of cooking a home cooked meal.

PROCESS

Before starting my filming, I had to do some research on how to make fried rice.

From the research, I extracted the ingredients that are required and also the step by step process of cooking fried rice.

Ingredients

Sequence

The step by step process of cooking fried rice is crucial to creating the sequence of the film. The sequence of the film follows the process diligently. Hence, from the research I derived the sequence below:

Scene No. Step
1 Cooking rice
2 Chopping onions
3 Chopping chicken meat
4 Pouring out mixed vegetables
5 Starting fire
6 Pouring onion into pot
7 Stir-frying chicken
8 Pouring in onions
9 Stir-frying onions
10 Adding mixed vegetables
11 Stir-frying altogether
12 Drop in cooked chicken meat
13 Mixing together
14 Drop an egg into pot
15 Mixing everything
16 Add in cooked rice
17 Stirring all the ingredients
18 Drizzle in some soy sauce
19 Topping it off with spring onions
20 Table setting shots

 

Filming

Initially, I wanted to do the filming and cooking on my own but I realised that that is a difficult feat to perform. Hence, I got the help of my sister to assist me in cooking it while I film the process.

For the filming, I used my iPhone 6s configured to 1080p at 60fps on normal video mode to capture the process with the help of a tripod.

Here is a short behind the scenes footage of the process:

Editing

To edit the videos taken and create the slow motion effect, I used Adobe Premiere Pro CS6. This was my first time using Premiere Pro, as I usually work with Adobe After Effects. Fortunately, my experience with After Effects and other video editing tools helped with learning how to use Premiere Pro much easier.

All the videos taken were recorded at 60fps and imported to a 25fps sequence which allowed for the slow motion effect. However, I realised that the slow-motion effect was not obvious enough, thus I decided to speed some parts of the video by 2 times, mimicking what it would look like normally.

To create this edgier and cinematic look to the first part of the film, I added a cool tone on top of it whereas, for the second part, I opted for a warmer tone to illustrate the idea of home.

I added in music to help add to this contrast between this two parts, the front part being a slow immersive music and the second part being a cheerful, homely song.

Part 1

Part 2

Music credits: bensound.com

CHALLENGES

Finding the right camera

I decided to borrow a DSLR camera from my friend to do the filming. The main reason why I wanted a DSLR was that I wanted high-quality shots and manual focus. However, I forgot to take into consideration that not all cameras are able to capture videos at 60fps. Unfortunately, the camera could only capture up to 24fps. I checked with the camera provided by the school and it could only capture up to 25fps. As suggested by Lei, I had to resort to using my iPhone 6S which offers the option of filming at 1080p with 60fps. However, the camera did not provide with best quality videos up to my expectation.

Exporting video

After I was done with editing, it was time to export my video and choosing the appropriate exporting setting. However, the estimated time it would take to export was about 5-8 hours. I have heard the horror stories of the time needed for exporting videos on Premiere Pro, but I completely forgot about it at that time. I did not expect it to be that long and I didn’t accommodate 5-8 hours for exporting. Hence, I had to resort to reducing the quality and size of the video export which helped in reducing the exporting time to 3 hours instead. I believe this could have been due to the slow processor of my laptop so I believe if I intend on using Premiere Pro in the future, I should invest in a newer and better laptop.

 

CONCLUSION

It is sad to say goodbye to 4D. It has been an amazing journey learning many new things such as photography and videography. Being new to the Arts scene, I haven’t developed my own style in many areas including 4D. Getting an opportunity to view my classmate’s own style coming to life has motivated me to discover my own style.

–THE END —

Ego in Different Settings // Final

 

Title: Societal Expectations
Style: Pop Art
Theme: Stereotypes of various demographics that I belong to.

1)      Female in her 20s

2)      Art Student

3)      Broken Family

4)      Muslim Female

 

Concept

 

I believe there are certain stereotypes that people expect of me as a certain demographics. These stereotypes may be true for some, but are not applicable to me. Hence, I chose to display these society stereotypes and also how I don’t conform to these ideas.

Me

In the “Me” panels, I would like to highlight the stereotypical outer imagery of what the society expects me to look like as that specific demographic.

I used Ben-day dots as the skin of the characters, inspired by Roy Lichtenstein’s artworks.

Consistent throughout all 4 “Me” panels, I used complimentary colour scheme.

Setting

For the “Setting” panels, objects or symbols, that are stereotypically associated with that demographics, are displayed in a repetitive patterned like a background. I was inspired by Andy Warhol’s use of repetitive imagery of popular objects and media stars respectively in ‘Campbell’s Soup Cans’ and ‘Marilyn Diptych’. Similar to Andy Warhol’s intention, I wanted to repeat this motif to illustrate the omnipresence of these objects in each demographics.

I’ve also added a twist to each panel, signifying that I am not someone who fits into these moulds that the society has created for me.

Instead of using a single colour background, I decided to create a Ben-day dot patterned background which I felt helped the objects stand out.

In the ‘Settings’ panel, I primarily used monochromatic for the repeated patterns, as for the twist, I used a complementary colour. The objects that are commonly associated with the demographics are all in a monochromatic colour scheme to illustrate the single stereotype that society expects. The complementary colour in the twist creates a contrast and thus attracts the attention of viewers.

Me in Setting

In these panels, my intention was to illustrate my “anti-stereotype” in the setting of the stereotypical image. Hence, I represented myself in a way that I’m breaking this mould. I used triadic colours in all 4 four of these panels.

Female in her 20s

Me

An outward imagery stereotype that is common for females in their 20s is that they care a lot about their image and obsession with beauty. There is this expectation that you should look good and dress well, I see this often in my own life with my mother and grandmother who would tell me that I should wear some makeup or wear nicer clothes or even wear some jewellery. Hence, I created this image of someone who uses a lot of makeup and has some highlights in her hair. I also included this beauty mark just below her eyes because this spot symbolises beauty.

Using complementary colours; red and green.

Progress

1st Draft: Colours did not reflect any colour scheme, change skin colour to follow colour scheme, add highlights to hair.

2nd Draft: Need to add more makeup to the character.

Setting

A common stereotype is that the society believes females in her 20s are vain, and obsessive about their looks. Thus, I displayed lipsticks, mirror and heels as objects that people would associate with this stereotype.

For the twist, I placed a crack on one of the mirrors to symbolise how I don’t conform to this stereotype.

Using monochromatic colour; red; and complementary colour; green.

Progress

1st Draft: The blue mirror was a little too distracting, could be changed to a lighter shade of red.

2nd Draft: Crack on mirror not obvious enough. Strokes should be consistent throughout entire panel. Add some background texture.

Me in Setting

To show the rebel against this stereotype, I created the illustration of a broken mirror, a broken heel, and a melted lipstick. This represents how as a person, I don’t follow this expectation of the society and that I am not someone who cares about my outer image.

Using triadic primary colours; red, yellow and blue.

Progress

1st Draft: Change to a darker shade of blue

2nd Draft: Strokes should be consistent throughout entire panel.

Art Student

Me

Before I came to ADM, as I spoke to my friends who aren’t Art students, I found that a lot of them had the impression that Art students are those that dress well and in a millennial term “hipsters”. I created this illustration which non-Art students would picture Art students to look like. Thus, I had the character have a paintbrush behind her ear (a typical image often found on media), paint on her face, big bushy hair and wearing “hipster” glasses.

Using complementary colours; red-orange and blue-green.

 

 

Setting

When I tell someone that I am an art student, they make an assumption that I can draw, colour and paint well. To illustrate this assumption of art students being able to do traditional art, I use objects such as easels, paintbrushes, pencils and palettes.

For the twist, I added a cursor to represent my rebel against traditional art.

Using monochromatic colour; red-orange and complementary colour; blue-green.

Me in Setting

The idea is to display the irony in using both traditional and digital objects. The easel and canvas are used in traditional art for painting and drawing, thus I created this “painting” of a cursor filled with cursors inside it. On the easel which you would normally find traditional art tools like pencils, brushes, palettes, have been replaced with digital tools such as the pen tool, knife tool, clone stamp tool, zoom tool and eyedropper tool.

Using triadic colours; red-orange, blue-purple and yellow-green.

 

Broken Family

Me

A very common remark I get from my relatives were how they were glad that I turn out well despite my family background. From this remark, it is obvious that they have an expectation that people who come from broken families are wayward and troublemakers. Hence, I created an image of a “troublemaker” with tattoos, piercings and a huge ear hole.

Use of complementary colours; yellow and violet

Progress

1st Draft: Use complementary colours instead. Change skin colour to a yellow tinge. Add shadows to her hair.

2nd Draft: Tattoo not obvious. Change polka dot background so that it does disrupt the attention.

Setting

I illustrated this idea of wayward by displaying cigarettes, beer, and a disco ball representing smoking, drinking and clubbing which are not viewed positively. The twist I included in this composition is a watermelon in replacement of a disco ball.

Use of monochromatic colour; yellow and complementary colour; violet.

Progress

1st Draft: Disco balls are not obvious enough, change colour of watermelon to a complementary colour

2nd Draft: Disco Ball is more recognisable. My concern was changing the colour of the watermelon would result in the inability to identify it as a watermelon.

Me in Setting

To illustrate how society forces these wayward expectations on me but ultimately, I do not conform to their expectations and as illustrated, I remain an innocent watermelon.

Use of triadic tertiary colours; yellow-orange, blue-green and red-violet.

Progress

1st Draft: There is no distinct colour scheme.

2nd Draft: Wrong use of triadic colours, should be changed to red-violet, yellow-orange and blue-green instead.

Muslim Female

Me

One of the most common question I get from people I just met is “Why don’t you wear a tudung?” This question alone showcases how people expect to see all Muslim female to wear a hijab. Hence, the character is seen with a hijab on.

Use of complementary colours; blue and orange.

Progress

1st Draft: The Ben-day dots on the skin can be slightly bigger. I found that the dots in the background is a little distracting.

Setting

Islam in itself means peace. Hence, especially in the Muslim community, there is an expectation that as a Muslim, you should be a peace loving person. The twist I have included is an inverted peace sign to signify that I am “anti-peace”.

Use of monochromatic colour; blue; and complementary colour; orange.

Progress

1st Draft: I felt that the composition appeared too flat. A suggestion was to use more symbols of peace similar to my other compositions.

Me in Setting

To show my “anti-peace” notion by having a face covered by inverted peace signs which represent how I am the opposite of peaceful. Also, I have a hostile resting face, which is reflected by the idea of “face full of anti-peace”.

Use of triadic colours; red, blue and yellow.

 

 

 

 

Progress

1st Draft: Wrong use of triadic colour scheme; should change to red, blue and yellow. The ben-day dots in the inverted peace sign not obvious.

Overall colour schemes

Complementary colours used in all 4 compositions
Monochromatic colours used in all 4 compositions
Triadic colours used in all 4 compositions

 

Reflection

I enjoyed the freedom that we were allowed in the use of mediums in this project. A lot of the classmates reflected their own style into their compositions and that reminded me that it is time for me to find my own style of illustration.

Link to previous post

Colour Theory & Research: https://oss.adm.ntu.edu.sg/nora0020/ego-colour-theory-and-artist-reference/

Ego: Colour Theory and Artist Reference

In this post, I’ll be sharing my research on 2 parts; Colour Theory & Artist Reference

Part I: Colour Theory

We now begin our journey working with colours.

All this while, our works were in black and white. The idea of using colours excites me but at the same time terrifies me. Hopefully, the following research will put me in ease.

Let’s begin.

Colour Wheel

Primary Colours:

Red, Blue and Yellow

Secondary Colours:

Orange, Green and purple.

This colours are created by mixing the primary colours together.

Orange – Red + Yellow

Green – Blue + Yellow

Purple – Red + Blue

Tertiary Colours:

This colours are form by combining a primary and secondary colour next to each other.

Colour Harmony

Monochromatic

One colour in varying intensity is used in this scheme.

Artist: Chuck Groenink, Image from: http://chuckgroenink.tumblr.com/post/53645683109/its-summer-who-else-wants-a-cabin-on-a-snowy
Artist: Jessica Hoffman,
Image from: https://jessicahoffmanportfolio.weebly.com/monochromatic-painting.html

 

Image from: https://www.behance.net/gallery/44278055/Illustration-2016-(part-2)

Analogous

Uses colours that are next to each other.

 

Image from: https://i.pinimg.com/originals/fb/32/0e/fb320e3bf36e31e163eb54cf864be884.jpg
Image from: https://i.pinimg.com/originals/61/d0/05/61d005424eec19a368a44dd275b95a79.jpg

 

Complementary

Colours that are opposite each other on the colour wheel.

Image from: http://zevendesign.com/color-harmony-hulk-wears-purple-pants/
Image from: https://www.houzz.com/complimentary-color-scheme-ideas

Split Complementary

Use of 1 base colour and 2 colours adjacent.

Image from: http://www.aridglamor.com/2014/03/spinning-the-color-wheel-mixing-colors-part-2/
Image from: https://creativecolor.files.wordpress.com/2012/08/two-eggplants-ink-watercolor-color-scheme-game-chris-carter-artist-analogous-split-complements-082712-web.jpeg

Triad

Use 3 colours that are evenly spaced between each other.

Image from: https://kayfriday.deviantart.com/art/X-Men-Cyclops-Triadic-Color-Scheme-348941414
Image from: https://www.homedit.com/triadic-color-scheme/

Part II: Artist Reference

Pop Art Research

For this project, I decided to use the pop art style in my illustrations.

The use of popular, mass culture objects and media stars are a common theme in Pop Art. This movement follows the return to a more objective, universally accepted form of art after Abstract Expressionism. It rejects the idea of ‘high art’ and pretensions of other contemporary Avant grade art.

Andy Warhol

An artist that perfectly exemplifies Pop Art is Andy Warhol. His artworks were heavily influenced by imagery of mass-culture: advertising, comics, newspapers, TV and the movies. His works mainly consisted of literal paintings and silk-screen prints of popular objects and media stars.

‘Marilyn Diptych’ (1962)

Image from: http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/warhol-marilyn-diptych-t03093

This artwork features 20 silkscreen painting of Marilyn Monroe who died in 1962 from overdosed. The photograph used in this painting was from a publicity photograph from the 1953 film Niagara. He fused 2 themes: death and the popularity of a celebrity. The repetition of the image was to show her omnipresence in the media. The contrast between the vivid colours on the left and the black and white painting on the right, also the fading effect on the right was to highlight Monroe’s mortality.

‘Campbell’s Soup Cans’ (1962)

Image from: https://www.moma.org/learn/moma_learning/andy-warhol-campbells-soup-cans-1962

This work features 32 different varieties of Campbell’s soup. It appears to resemble the mass produced, printed advertisements, however, it was entirely hand-painted, with the exception of the fleur de lys pattern ringing each can’s bottom edge is hand-stamped. He ensured that each can was replicated accurately without any discrepancies and the only difference is the labels of the cans to distinguish them by variety.

Roy Lichtenstein

Roy Lichtenstein, another prominent figure in the Pop Art movement was influenced by the imagery on comic strips. Hence, in many of his works, Ben-Day dots, black outlines and bold colours were prevalent. He wanted to stress the artificiality of his images by painting them as though it were commercially printed; using single-colour Ben-Day dots that newspaper used.

‘Whaam!’ (1963)

Image from: http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/lichtenstein-whaam-t00897

This acrylic and oil painting is based on an image from All American Men of War published by DC comics in 1962. He displayed this powerfully charged scene from the comic in an impersonal manner, leaving viewers to decipher the meanings for themselves. The use of bold colours; red and white; and black outlines are obvious in this artwork.

‘Drowning Girl’ (1963)

Image from: https://www.moma.org/learn/moma_learning/lichtenstein-drowning-girl-1963

This artwork is based on “Run for Love!,” the melodramatic lead story in DC Comics’ Secret Love #83, from 1962. In the initial comic strip, the drowning girl’s boyfriend appears in the background, clinging on to a capsized boat. Lichtenstein decided to remove him from his painting and solely display the drowning girl instead. Similar to his other works, he wanted to make it look like it was commercially printed by drawing black outlines and painting them in primary colours and Ben-day dots.

MA’s Obscure City of Voids // Individual Moodbox

Click here for full pdf: MA’s Obscure City of Void – Individual Moodbox

With the other members of Group B, we created 2 soundscapes:

Sound A 

Sound B

I’ve selected Sound A as the basis for my individual moodbox.

Here is a video of us playing Sound A and the instruments involved:

 

 

Project 3: Impossibilities of Being

A place I have never been before.

I envision heaven as a sort of a paradise for each individual. Only those who have done good deeds throughout their life are deserving to enter heaven. Hence they are rewarded with every possibility, making the impossible on earth, possible. In my video, I’ve depicted how MY heaven would look like.

Final Video

Link: https://vimeo.com/241365627

Research

As recommended by Lei, I embarked on a research on the movie “Avatar”, sound composed by James Horner. I chose this movie because it depicted a different dimension from Earth, and thus the sounds used throughout the movie would be unearthly. In a lot of the environmental sounds, there were the sound of birds chirping and a melody playing in the background. There was also a sound of a female’s melodic singing which added to the ambience of the unearthly world.

 

 

Plot

Follows the story of a lady’s death and her entrance to heaven.

Low-Fi Storyboard

Hi-Fi Storyboard

 

Medium of Video

Since I am creating an entirely new world, I decided to create moving graphics to illustrate heaven. I chose moving graphics rather than still graphics because a lot of the sounds come from movement, thus I wanted to display these movements to accompany with the sounds. Also, throughout the entire video, we are seeing it from the perspective of the character. The graphics in the video was created in Illustrator and then imported to After Effects.

Scene Analysis

Scene 1

Visuals

The story begins with the perspective of the character lying down in a grave.

Sounds

As she is being buried, there are sounds of a male and a female mourning in the background. This is accompanied by the sounds of digging soil. As she gets buried, the background sound of people mourning and digging is muffled.

Scene 2

Visuals

She gets completely buried, and the entire scene turns black. Her life flashes before her eyes which we don’t see on screen but we hear.

Sounds

We first hear the sounds of a baby crying followed by a car crash. The baby crying is supposed to represent the first thing she hears when she was born whereas the car crash represents the last thing she hears before dying.

Initially, I wanted to create a sound sequence about some of her important life moments, e.g. wedding bells, applause after her performance. However, due to limited time, I cut down short to the first and last sounds in her life.

Scene 3

Visuals

She slowly opens her eyes to see stairs and a door at the top. She climbs the stairs and arrives in front of the door. She proceeds to open the door.

Sounds

In the background, there are sounds of angels and bells. As she climbs up the stairs, she hears a heartbeat, which is ironic because she is dead. This represents the beginning of a new life. When she reaches the top and opens the door, we hear the sound of a door opening.

Scene 4

Visuals

She opens the door to find that she is completely surrounded by the ocean. As mentioned in Project 1, one of my favourite places is the beach. Hence, I created a space to illustrate this.

In this space, it is raining, my favourite weather. The sky is a sunset tinge which depicts my favourite time of the day.

We see from a distance what appears to be someone playing the piano.

Sounds

In the background we hear environmental sounds of waves crashing, rain and birds chirping.

We can also hear a faint piano melody which gets louder as she gets closer.

Scene 5

Visuals

Naturally, the sea should get deeper and deeper. However, we found that she is able to walk on water. This idea stems from my fear of the deep ocean. Even though I love the beach and sea, I get terrified at the idea of being out in the open, deep waters. Hence, I wanted to eliminate this fear by giving the character the ability to walk on water.

Sounds

Initially, I wanted the walking to be accompanied by the sound of splashing water. As suggested by Lei, I replaced this with a sparkling sound to create a more surreal soundscape.

In the background, the environmental sounds from Scene 4 remain.

Scene 6

Visuals

She realises who it is, and moves faster. The “camera” moves closer to the man and the piano.

Sounds

Background environmental sounds continue.

Scene 7

Visuals

It cuts to a scene of her embracing the man who she had missed. She has finally been reunited with the love of her life who passed away before her. In this scene, it is no longer a perspective shot and we can finally see our main character.

Sounds

The piano melody stops, followed by the sound of him getting out from his chair and then, the sound of their clothes brushing against each other.

Sound Analysis

Scene No.

Sound Origins

1

Male mourning From the net – Link: http://soundbible.com/2014-Sad-Male.html

1

Female mourning Own recording by mimicking the sound of a female mourning

1

Digging soil Own recording by using a small shovel to dig through a bucket of rice and lowering the pitch on Audacity to make it sound more earthy than grainy.

2

A new-born baby crying

 

From the net – Link: https://freesound.org/people/the_yura/sounds/211528/

2

Car crash From the net – Link: https://freesound.org/people/Pertti.Orn/sounds/250965/

3

Angels From the net – Link: https://freesound.org/people/pycckuu20032003/sounds/85245/

3

Bells From the net – Link: https://freesound.org/people/Robinhood76/sounds/62967/

3

Heartbeat From the net – Link: https://freesound.org/people/thenudo/sounds/146765/

3

Door opening Own recording of a door opening

4 – 7

Waves crashing From the net – Link: https://freesound.org/people/haldigital97/sounds/241824/

4 – 7

Rain From the net – Link: https://freesound.org/people/InspectorJ/sounds/401277/

4 – 7

Birds chirping. From the net – Link: http://soundbible.com/1818-Rainforest-Ambience.html

4 – 7

Piano melody From the net – Link: https://www.bensound.com

5

Sparkling sound From the net – Link: https://freesound.org/people/Soughtaftersounds/sounds/145459/

7

Chair dragging Own recording of chair being dragged

7

Clothes brushing against each other Own recording of rubbing clothes together

Classroom Exercise Part 1

Rhythm Irregular, progression of a narrative
Movement In most of the scenes, there is only one subject which is the primary focus of that particular scene. There isn’t any other subjects that distract our focus.

Scene 1:

The falling of soil, starts as a single group, and eventually, more and more groups of soil begin to fall until it completely turns pitch black.

Scene 4 – 6:

Gradually moving closer to the man on the piano. This movement gets faster in Scene 6.

Causality For example, we see someone playing the piano, and I believe there is an expectation that that person has a connection with the main character of the story and it is expected to meet this person.
Duration As given, the entire length of the video is about 1 minute. Throughout the duration of 1 minute, it follows a narrative. I think it felt quite short because the story was highly condensed in order to fit into the 1 minute requirement, so the story moved pretty fast.

 

Project 4 – Research

The start of Project 4 //

To help us with brainstorming ideas for our project, I embarked on a research into some artworks that were related to time.

One of the initial ideas I had was to expand on my interpretation of heaven from Project 3. Thus, I researched on an installation; Citizen “Light is Time”; that I felt could help in brainstorming and developing this idea.

Another initial idea I had was to create a time lapse video in an environmental setting to capture the changes in the environment throughout a day. While searching up on the web, I found a local artist, Keith Loutit, who has done several time lapses project around Singapore.

Citizen “Light is Time” Milano Salone / Milan Design Week 2014

Video Link: https://vimeo.com/103221146

Photograph by Takuji Shimmura

The “Light is Time” installation was developed in collaboration with Tsuyoshi Tane of DGT Architects and watch manufacturer Citizen. The installation features 80,000 suspended main plates, the basic component of a watch, suspended in a vacuum. The art installation explores the relationship between light and time. This award-winning installation was unveiled at Milan Design Week in April 2014.

Subject The arrangement of the suspended plates is an example of a non-representational subject.
Form The installation was created by suspending numerous layered plates from the ceiling which visitors can view.
Context To explore the relationship between light and time through a journey into the world of clocks. Tsuyoshi Tane – “Light is time. Without light the concept of time never would have arisen.” The installation was set up at the Milan Design Week, an international festival of design, in April 2014.
Content Both emotional and intellectual. Generates excitement and awestruck emotions. Also, the installation prompts viewer to ponder on “what is a watch?”

I found this artwork interesting because at first, I thought it looked like raindrops.  As I continued looking at the images, it appeared to look like a small golden plate. It was finally pieced together when I realised that Citizen was a watch manufacturer.

The installation engages the attendees in an immersive experiential journey when you step into the space. It prompts me to try and create something that my viewers can immerse themselves in.

The Lion City II – Majulah, Keith Loutit

Video Link: https://vimeo.com/169993072

This time lapse film was created by artist Keith Loutit. This 4 minute film features the changes in Singapore’s cityscape, capturing buildings being constructed, cars moving, people moving around, trees growing and much more. He hopes to let viewers see places that they are familiar with in a different way. He began his work in January 2013 and the entire project lasted for 3 years, up to June 2016.

Subject The time lapse film is an example of a representational subject as it features real places around Singapore.
Form The time lapse of different buildings taken over a period of 3 years were put together into a film montage. The artist used geographic data to position his camera at the same location every time, ensuring smooth transitions.
Context Showcases people moving throughout the city and the city’s growth which allows viewers to see familiar places in a different light.
Content Emotional content. It is meant to invoke strong emotions in regards to the growth of Singapore. “I wanted to make people feel that it could be them,” – Keith Loutit, in regards to the movement of people in the film.

 

Being Singaporean, I felt drawn and connected to this piece. Rarely have I ever stood at one spot and observe how different a place looks during the day and night, how different a building looks as the shadow cast moves throughout the day. I especially enjoyed the moment from 2:13 – 2:15 of the trees growing, even though it was just 2 secs, it had a strong impact on me.  Most parts of the film focused on the progression of the infrastructure in Singapore, but the artist decided to also include the progression of nature in our garden city.

A takeaway I can get from this artwork is the relatability of this piece, which allows the audience to have a better understanding of the work. People get excited to see things that they are familiar with. I hope that I can incorporate this into my own project.

Comparison

Citizen “Light is Time” The Lion City II – Majulah, Keith Loutit
Theme: Time Theme: Time
Explores the relationship between light and time Showcases the changes in Singapore over the years
Installation art Film art
Interactive, viewers go to the physical location where they are to see, hear, and smell the artwork. Viewers can watch and listen it on any digital devices on the go.
Measured Time – in an actual space that people go to visit Edited Time – linear time lapse depicting the growth of Singapore over the years