Sequencing Image – Part 2 (References & Draft 2)

References

Here are just what I observe and my interpretations in each movie:

Pan’s Labyrinth

  • It uses different colour scheme to differentiate the scenes
  • Daylight – abit gloomy
  • Why most of the scene are blue? Blue represents cold and isolation
  • Why there is a scene where there is orange? Exotic – where the character its different from human and its in her own world
  • Orange and blue – is it because its contrast with each other? Conflict between the day and night – real life and fantasy

The strangers Part 2: Breathless

  • Does not use the literal sound of the animal.

ET

Movies GIFs - Find & Share on GIPHY

Screenshot of ET trailer
  • use of blue and purple – to represent fantasy
  • orange/yellow – daylight
  • Silhouette – background light & shows the figure

Alice In wonderland – a good example of colour scheme


  • Real world – pastle blue, light colours to show fairytale and green as the contrast colours so that It wont look flat
  • Got into a hole – dark with a shades of orange
  • Sound when the man is walking too – to show his personality/characteristic
  • Red queen – which explains her setting to be mostly red, her soldier are in shades if red too
  • Red vs white
  • Sound effects used – very fantasy

Star Wars: The force awakens

  • A pinch of sound
  • When showing the bad character – the sound becomes lower
  • The background music – fantasy
  • Lighting and the music syncronize each other – Rain with lighting, did not show the  rain sound
  • There is narration on a blank screen

Maleficent  

  • blue/purple effect
  • Light from the back – giving shillotte to the character – introducing the character
  • Light on the character – half side
  • Sound transition from 1 scene to another with the THUM effect
  • Shows the eye – slowing revealing her whole face
  • Thummm then silent, THUMMM louder abit, then THUMMMMMMMMM loudest – same scene different angle
  • Only her narrations with blank image – to emphasis what she is saying
  • Reveling sound effect
  • Sound of the bird
  • Sound effect between the conflict and narration – like it comes down to silent and the narrations speaks

Colours

Filmmaker David Fincher uses color to create emotion.

  • Complimentary colour – Opposite colours represent conflict both inside and out

  • Monochromatic colours – to convey rigid worldview of unbalanced characters. – character are all taking in cafe

  • Discordant colours – draws attention to out-of-place elements to build anticipation

Colors can

  • Elicit psychological reactions with the audience
  • Draw focus to significant details
  • Set the tone of the movie
  • Represent character traits and more
  • Show changes in the story
source: https://www.studiobinder.com/blog/how-to-use-color-in-film-50-examples-of-movie-color-palettes/
Test try of editing the images

Before I start editing the images, I really thought deeply on the colours that I want to insert as I wanted to show the contrast of reality and fantasy. Initially, I wanted to make the daylight more yellowish to show the youth of the girl. However, it looks very vintage and old. Hence I decide to keep the natural light for the daylight.

Sound

Sound artist reference – Ben Burtt

I was amazed by how he used the traditional method to create sound. Even a bear sound can be used for a character’s voice. He also used human sound to create character voice by mixing the humans voices (I think this was use in Starwars). A lady with  a low voice as ET voice. He explore sounds anywhere he can find which inspires me to go out and listen to the sound around me

In Wall-e, it require a whole new world of original sound such as the background, ambience, robot sound, space. There is no dialog, so it emphasis on the little details like the squek sound. Each sound created by Ben Burtt shows the personality of the character. (Note: Control the sound, loudness and hierarchy of the sound and use sound at the right choice, right moment).

He was inspired from history of sound like Disney, musical sound by using props that they have. Previously, sound were made in studio and it has to match with the scene as there were no technology. Wind sound were made by using wind machine. Thunder sheet metal is used to create thunder sound with echo in it. The even combine sound from different items to create a new sound.

Experimentation

So I went and recorded a few sound. However, I recorded it using my phone and I could not find a way to upload the sounds. ):

Screenshot of the sounds I recorded
The snack I ate while recording the sound of eating
I stood by the side of the road to record the traffic

Based on this video, here are by observations & interpretations:

  • Focus more on the sound of the small details on the moving image
  • Able hear the table – fork and spoon – dining ambiance with the glass and stainless steel
  • Magic sound effect
  • Vibration phone
  • jingles – elephant wearing the gold crown
  • background music
  • taking pictures, beep phone
  • Silent – to show that everyone is quite surprise, spoon & fork down, stop eating to hear what she is saying

After researching about the colours and sounds, I input whatever I have observed into my video.

The blue and purple colour to represent fantasy and mystery type of setting. Some images are in natural lighting to show that its is reality. This is to differentiate fantasy & reality. I added a few glitch images and texts to show what was the main character is thinking, like her state of mind was not stable at that time.  I tried to keep the sound minimalism and play around with the breathing space to create tension. I tend to focus on the little details such as breathing, walking, opening the door and etc.

Sequencing Image – Part 2 (Draft 1 & research)

Draft 1

For the draft 1, I did not edit the images yet, instead I wanted to focus on the storyline and sound. However, after consultation, I realise it was the wrong thing to do and I had to redo most of it.

The problems that I encounter while doing draft 1 were:

  • Sound transition – how to make it flow smooth? Solution: overlap the sound or show the setting of the place
  • What should I consider if I want to input narrations into it? Solution: hierarchy of the sounds

The comments given for draft 1:

  • Missing of genre – It can be horror as it has creatures in it or fantasy where colours can be added in
  • Comedy part feels abit awkward
  • Image has to be brighten up – some are too dark and use the principles of lighting
  • Hieracy of the sound

Suggested steps to be taken after draft 1:

  • Find reference images of fantasy or horror – the use of colours and lighting
  • Think of a genre – it will help me when adding in the sound
  • Look for films with similar genre
  • Edit the images – colours & light
  • Then Insert sound

    My notes during and after consultation
Came up with my storyboard

Research on the animals

Dog as the main character

  • Dog are closely related to humans – in terms of attitude, social & behaviour
  • Dominant
  • Leader
  • Campanion
  •  Some dogs are socialable – able to pat them although you are a stranger
  • “It’s better to be the head of a dog than the tail of a lion.” – it’s better to be a big part of something small, than a small part of something big.
  • “Dog eat dog.” – People will do anything to be successful.
  • “Like a blind dog in a meat market.” – Out of control, frenzied, or aimless. Unable to take action in the face of many choices.

Fox as the second lead

  • hunt or sleep alone
  • Fox is most active after the sun
  • It even hunts by stalking and pouncing (a sudden spring/swooping) on its prey.
  • loyalty – they take care of their family
  • Playful, friendly and curious
  • Adaptable & Independent
  • “clever as a fox” – extremely clever, and remarkably resourceful – from hunting strategies to camouflague 

Rabbit as supporting character

  • sound navigator – in the dark
  • Sensitives and Seers
  • Hide 
  • movement – hopping in zip and zag
  • quick witted
  • Rabbits are quiet, but they let you know they’re around
  • Rabbits can make friends with your other pets – friendly

Bear as supporting character

  • Bears are highly evolved social animals with intelligence comparable to that of the great apes.
  • Bears often share friendship, resources and security.
  • Bears are not mean or malicious; they are very gentle and tolerant animals.
  • Bears can be empathetic, fearful, joyful, playful, social and even altruistic.
  • They’re all individuals and have unique personalities.
  • Bears communicate using body language, sounds and smells. 
  • A bear’s hearing ability is excellent
  • Bears see in colour and have good vision, similar to humans.

Input the research into the character’s personality 

Gir

  • Newbie in a new school
  • Shy, introvert
  • Awkward at first, but becomes more comfortable after knowing someone
  • Why she become a dog? It is the closest related to humans

Fox

  • Mysterious
  • Active after during the dark
  • Playful, friendly and curious – curious about the new girl

Rabbit

  • Sensitives and Seers
  • Quiet, but they let you know they’re around

Bear

  • Gentle
  • Communicate using body language, sounds and smells.

Sequencing Image – Part 1

Hello! So my group consist of Alina, Ying Hui, Syadza & me.

So how we start of was each of us came up with a story and we tried to mix it and match each other story. So as a start, we discussed individual story on WhatsApp.


Draft idea for storyline

So my idea (top most whastsapp chat) was about my childhood friend that I have not connected since we left primary school. Whatever she is doing now is a mystery to me and sometimes I wonder what she’s currently doing.

Then Ying Hui’s idea was about her long lost friend, where Ying Hui thought she would not turn out that way. But they both are still contacting with each other on social media.

Then Alina suggested to do like a fantasy story, which I though was a good idea. Because if this was an individual project, definitely I would not be able to create a fantasy story, so why not do it as a group then.

Syadza’s idea was about a girl who had a traumatic kidnapping accident, which plays around with the girl’s mental state.

So to conclude our idea, we mix our idea by having a girl, not in a stable mental condition, being transferred to another school which has fantasy in it.

Storyboard

After the discussion on Whatsapp, we met up to discuss in more detailed about our story. So our story is about a girl being transferred to a new school. In the new school, there wasn’t any humans in it.  Everyone is in an animal face. During lunch, she thought that everyone will have a normal meal like rice or bread, but it turned out to be the opposite. Some were having meats, carrot, rats, lizards etc. Then the animal beside her offered her a piece of meat, she accept it and ate it. Soon after, some of her body changes and she became one of the animal in school.

We wanted more scene as we felt that the ending was quite abrupt, and we had to fit it in 20 frames.

After confirming our storyboard, we went out to find props for our shot. The most important thing was to find animal mask as it is our concept in the storyboard. So I went to Daiso, and Ying Hui went to a shop in Bugis where they sell animal mask.

Searching of props

Image reference

Before we shot our images, Alina sent those images as our reference. The setting of the image should be dark, with a bit of lighting on the subject.

During the shot, we had 2 camera: Alina’s camera & Syadza’s camera. In Alina’s camera, she changed the setting of her camera so that the image will look dark when it is take. And in Syadza’s camera, we took it in normally lighting.

Alina’s camera
Syadza’s camera

The difficult part was editing the images, as some images are darker (in Alina’s camera) and some are lighter (in Syadza’s camera).

After we got our images taken, we realise that it does not have to be 20 images. So we went to shot for more images as we realise that the previous images might be too short to create a sequencing image.

Ying Hui’s drew the storyboard and she was just lazy to redraw the last few scenes.

So went to reshot a few more times and I realise that we had too many images. There were a lot of images that we took as each of us has our own storyline that we want to portray. And each of us also has different ending that we want to show. Hence, it was the only way to help each other to shot more images as teamwork makes the dream work.