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Visual Storytelling 2
Visual Storytelling Project 2: Darwins
https://qiuwen-98.wixsite.com/mysite
In this project, I wanted to explore and make the player a character in the game and following prof’s suggestion, I made the player/character able to navigate everywhere in a split second by making him a part of every electronics. The plot’s at first just a cat and mouse game between robots who have converted and robots who have not. However, I decided to give it a more meaningful conflict and explore the tension between humans and robots-what makes the two different and if one race is actually superior than the other.
With discrimination and prejudice that has happened in history and is still occurring till now and into the future, I decided to pit robots against humans. Instead of standing in the POV of a human, I decided to do so in the POV of the “alien” race and discover that they may have more “humanity” than humans do because rebellions are messy and people are mostly ironic in rebellions, often not noticing that they have embodied the ideals they fight against.
I think it would be interesting to stand in the point of view of a robot who detests humans because they act upon their biases almost too quickly and adamantly and wants to wipe out the robot race because of one incident. In order to protect his race as humans have attacked simultaneously, he decided to reduce himself into codes and become a part of every electronic device so that he may be clairvoyant and able to send warnings to his kind. Although by doing so, he is reducing himself to his most basic component–codes, rendering himself into nothing but a piece of science/technology, he justifies that his intention of doing so to protect his kind has reaffirmed that he is more humane than the prejudiced humans who are after him.
What baffles me is if I needed a reason for the player to not know that he/she is the character but I realised that as many other games are, the player is often “plunged” into a character/the character is “possessed” by the player and there still requires some distinction between player and character as the player is also exploring the character as the player plays. Hence, there need not be a reason for it is often inferred/implicit but does not take away the enjoyment of the game and it makes it more fun too for the player to know that he/she is exploring a character that he/she is playing.
For XX-Walks of Chaos
Videos:
30s ^
1 min ^
Pls bear with me, I’m super long winded :<
This project is about liking/being obsessed with something unhealthy and this already sounds like it is heading towards a toxic love r/s narrative but hear me out first.
Artist statement:
I seldom touch on this topic as I am afraid that people may not be comfortable but I decided to go for it as I wanted to offer something personal. I used to hyperventilate a lot about three-five times a week and I still do but not as frequently. I get anxious very easily and I panic at the slightest trigger. I often say that I hate hyperventilation but sometimes I wonder if in a perverse way, I actually am grateful for it because there is a long moment after hyperventilation when you’re feeling so much that you are not feeling anymore and that is when I actually calm as I’ve never felt before. It’s numbness and sometimes I find myself searching for it and even craving it. Hence, I decided to explore the idea that something that is chaotic, crazy and hurtful, is actually dangerous not because it hurts you but because you may end up liking something that gives you so much pain.
I took videos of the strings myself, just overlapping them again and again to push the idea of being trapped, being buried, constrained, silenced etc. a sense of helplessness and repetition that I feel whenever I hyperventilate. I used red strings again as I often hyperventilate due to social/communication issues or when you put me in a place full of people and the red strings, as I’ve mentioned before, represents relationships in eastern mythologies hence I decided to reuse red. Also, I tried to convey pain by finding videos of blood and suffocation. However, I didn’t want a very gory piece of art. Instead, as I wanted to convey the idea of loving one’s chaos, I tried to find more aesthetic videos of blood and realised that a lot of TV series’ sequences have that (is this a thing). I used sequences from Dexter, Daredevil and Hannibal. I realise that they tend to use blood to form a face and I really find that image appropriate as it is like something that hurts you and makes you bleed has become a part of your identity, has taken over your features, has become your mask (in a way that is a panic attack to me as that moment of serenity defends and protects me from the noises of the world).
In every video that I took, there is something linked to suffering-breaking, suffocating, bleeding etc. I put in Harley Quinn as I felt that she perfectly embodied the idea of loving and cutting oneself on chaos which is the Joker to her. I feel that she is a person constantly in conflict as to protecting herself and indulging in her passions and I think she represents what I wanted to show hence I put in her with an expression change.
Technical Decisions:
There are a few ways I went about cutting the videos.
Firstly, I didn’t string all the videos together and left gaps in between as visually, it makes the video as a whole look more erratic and random and that gives a sense of chaos and disorder. It also gives a jump and shock as one views it. It is as though the video chokes in intervals and this is in tandem with the gasps for air (sound effect) at the back which I find gives a good sense of what a panic attack may feel like.
Secondly, I overlaid the videos of the strings with other sourced videos as visually, it is messy and it gives you more things to concentrate on and you probably cannot concentrate on only one of them and that is anxiety. When a panic attack is triggered, it is basically a million thoughts thrown at you.
I also wanted to portray the difference between physical pain and emotional pain. Blood can represent pain but it is mostly linked to physical pain and physical pain is no measure of one’s emotional pain. In the overlaid sequence, I overlay the videos with lesser strings below the video of blood seeping through a piece of bandage while I overlay the videos with more strings below the video of two drops of blood. There is a disparity here and it shows that one’s mental state should never be judged based on one’s physical condition. A part of my hyperventilation stems from playing softball and when I was at my fittest, my mental state was at my weakest. Hence, I decided to portray this by overlaying the videos.
Thirdly, I link the videos together with most obviously the color red as red can mean love or danger which suits my idea that you can love chaos and be hurt by it at the same time. And also, through common things like faces (1st and second clip), subject matter aka blood or strings (for the 30s vid around 20-23s) and directions/actions (e.g. for the 30s vid when the test tubes smashes and the hand from the next clip moves and for the 1 min vid when the blender with red juice cuts to the barrel overflowing with blood).
Fourthly, instead of starting with the layering of strings from the first to the last, I started in sort of before the middle (before it gets crazy). It shows like you’re being plunged into something, without choice, which is panic attack. But at the end, I showed the first string and not just the first string but the fact that it is being pulled across, that it started everything to imply that subconsciously, or no matter how hard I try to hide it, I can’t deny that there isn’t agency, that there isn’t control, that a part of me chose to go into an attack because perhaps, I craved it. I feel that this subverts the idea of hyperventilation/panic attacks as I often find myself also defending myself and saying ‘I can’t help it’ then reflecting and thinking ‘maybe I can’. In the one min vid, I also put the clip of the laying down of strings backwards to portray a “what should have been/what I would like to/I should want to get rid of my anxiety and hyperventilation” but it ends with the clip of the first string being laid across to subvert that assumption/portrayal.
For sound,
In addition to the voiceover, I recorded myself pretending to hyperventilate and I think that that makes for a good backing track in way as there are times when I gasp heavier and times when I’m about to relax and slow down my breathing and times when my breathing goes completely crazy which makes for a track that can give a climax that I put at the end.
If you listen close enough there is a steady short breath that is repeated throughout the entire vid and that kind of makes for the background ‘music’.
In a way, using my hyperventilate-ish breathing as a form of music implies that there is beauty in it and that it is not always noise (how perverse).
Color Editing:
The first thing I ensured was that the blood is of the same color as I took them from different sources that color graded their blood differently.
Blood from Daredevil has a more ‘matte’ look to it. That of Dexter is brighter and fresher and that of EXID’s MV Every Night is a little pinkish and bright too. The strings I had taken were very bright and not a dark intense red.
I decided that I want a more intense and darker red hence I color corrected them with color balance, brightness and contrast and a little bit of tint.
I decided that I want a more intense and darker red hence I color corrected them with color balance, brightness and contrast and a little bit of tint.
I at first thought of using a very red scheme but I remembered my first project where the reds clashes and decided to go with green and red. Green typically is used in horror movies to convey fear but it can convey health too and red for danger but also red for love/passion. I think the duality and conflict in what they represent suits the idea. Also, red is typically used in traffic lights for ‘stop’, as a warning while green is for ‘go’ and that coincides with my views towards my condition (wanting it to never happen again and wanting it to happen again).
I went for a paler green as I wanted to contrast between an intense red and a less intense green to make the red pop and also because one constantly dominating color gives off a sense of helplessness towards the other color.
I also wanted red to appear in every clip for consistency and to show repetition/relentlessness hence I coloured the mist red and the hand somehow pinkish. I didn’t want to hand to be full on red or have a bright red look as this part is where there is realisation that one can love chaos and I wanted to tone down on the “danger danger” tone of red which is usually bright and intense but instead went for a softer shade of red that conveys affection and love. For the one min vid, I put in more contrast by putting the hand clip after a reversal clip of the first daredevil clip which is a face in darkness. Because that is the point when the voiceover claims that chaos can be loved so there should be a beat and a change of sorts.
I also wanted red to appear in every clip for consistency and to show repetition/relentlessness hence I coloured the mist red and the hand somehow pinkish.
I didn’t want to hand to be full on red or have a bright red look as this part is where there is realisation that one can love chaos and I wanted to tone down on the “danger danger” tone of red which is usually bright and intense but instead went for a softer shade of red that conveys affection and love. For the one min vid, I put in more contrast by putting the hand clip after a reversal clip of the first daredevil clip which is a face in darkness. Because that is the point when the voiceover claims that chaos can be loved so there should be a beat and a change of sorts.
After that beat, there is more green than red as it is a point of realisation and mimics the initial reaction of denying and rejecting the idea that I may enjoy hyperventilating hence lesser red and the fear that it gives to have my mind so twisted and stuff.
Artists’ References:
When I thought about strings and researched on them, I came across a Japanese artist Chiharu Shiota who goes crazy with strings and comes up with installations of strings that overlaps one another and forms webs and webs of strings that look beautiful. Hence I decided to overlap strings together over and over again as she did because I find that there is some beauty in that just as I admired her works.
The next reference I came across while researching on editing is the opening sequence of ‘Seven’, a movie about a psychopaths killing people according to the seven deadly sins. The cutting of the sequence puts a lot of jumps in between the clips because of the credits but it gives a certain sense of shock, mysteriousness and darkness. It gives the sequence a very fast pace and rhythm. I tried to do that in mine and when I tried it for the overlaid clips of the strings, it makes the clip more intense and I feel that that was very appropriate as to convey hyperventilation in the beginning, I wanted something fast paced and quick to mimic short breaths. Also because the strings are filling up, putting in the black breaks gives it a certain sense of doom and anticipation as the background becomes more filled up.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-k2gsEI34CE&t=27s
I did overlaying after rewatching sherlock (yay) and seeing the title sequence that has a lot a lot of overlays. It gives a sense of confusion, of leads going somewhere and yet going nowhere at all. It’s a mess, it’s all jumbled up and I thought that that was perfect in conveying a hyperventilation. However, I didn’t want to cross dissolve or overlaying everything together as I favoured hyperventilation because of that calmness after it and so I wanted some order to my video. Hence, I used the strings and used to strings filling up the background to add tension and increasing mess.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IB8nPu5iH9c
Descriptive Text:
When anxiety gets out of hand, panic attacks occur. During these attacks, you’ll find it hard to breathe. Your hands will become numb and your head will go dizzy. Every single bad thought haunts you and screams at you. You scream at yourself. You scream at people who tries to help you. You bite yourself, you hit yourself to distract yourself with pain.
And it ends.
You’ve hurt so much it no longer hurts. You’re numb. You can’t feel anything.
That is perhaps the most relaxing feeling ever.
A state of serenity you cannot possibly get from doing anything else.
And sick as it may sound, perhaps you crave it. You’ve come to terms with it, you’re used to it. You may even enjoy it. Instead of slaying your demons, you choose to dance with them.
Transcript:
Do I hate it?
Monsters in my head, short breaths, cold sweat and warm tears.
It hurts.
But I’ve reached a point when the demons have become my friends and the voices all sound the same.
Perhaps chaos is dangerous, not because it hurts you, but because you may fall for something that hurts you.
Credits List:
‘Dexter’ Opening Sequence:
‘Daredevil’ Opening Sequence:
EXID ‘Every Night’ Music Video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SVgkNW2cENQ
Suicide Squad Extended Cut:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5OORTGT36Pw
‘James Bond: Skyfall’ Opening sequence:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uto3lp-ewkU
BTS ‘Blood, Sweat and Tears’ Japanese Version MV:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7OX7dIRReSA
BTS ‘Live Episode III: The Wings Tour’ Trailer:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RuntXwPvvaE&t=20s