Author: Samantha Peng

ADM Student.

breathing image – bringers of cybersleep

narrative

I’m using project 2’s assets for this project but the narrative changes a little bit. Instead of just showing what Tiong Bahru would look like in a cyberpunk futuristic world, I wanted to use the fishes to be the ones that ignite the change or the “land imagined”. The fishes are very much so the main characters, bringing the place to life. From the perspective of the viewer, I wanted it to seem like a fever dream where they would see a giant goldfish peeking out and like a prophet, see a vision of the future, and as the fishes leave, so does the vision.

technical decisions

I animated the fishes and the camera movement. The main effect I wanted to use was to make the fishes look more like a hologram to create the tech/futuristic vibe which wasn’t there in assignment 2. It looked more cohesive with the blue-ish cyberpunk background. I also “animated” the change between normalcy and the future.

before/after

Me Opening Up to Someone There's Layers to This Sh*t | Meme on ME.ME

Firstly, I removed the girl from the picture.

Then I isolated each layer, dragged psd file to AE and begaaan.

I drew the fishies

Then on AE, I hologram-ed em up.

I first did the camera movement before animating.

And animated them around the image by puppet pinning their bodies and masking out their tails to have more control over the individual parts. But of course, since I’m still a noob, it doesn’t look as natural but hey this is a hologram from the future i can make it whatever i want.

As for the top view fish, I wanted it to go into the wall so I just added a glow and track matted em out.

Aaaand done.

(pls excuse gif quality the lowest i could get it to export on AME was 280mb and had to run it through many different gif compressing websites. This is as good as it gets unfortunately.)

artist/film references

Artist references were about the same as the second assignment. Mostly inspired by the game Cyberpunk 2077, though the game is about as buggy as a cracked After Effects CC. The goldfish in the Corpo Plaza and the koi fishes swimming around during the festival was amazing to me. I referenced it for how the goldfishes should look like as well as how they should feel in the moving image.

𝔧𝔲𝔰𝔱 𝔶𝔬𝔲 : silverhvnd:CYBERPUNK 2077 | SCENERY (1/?)

A film reference would be Blade Runner 2049. Particularly this scene. A new Cyberpunk 2077 mod adds the memorable Blade Runner commercials and advertisements to the game

I loved how the hologram looked ahead in relation to the surroundings. Shedding light on the bridge and the space around it. I wanted to do the same for the goldfishes but it was quite difficult to accomplish because I didn’t know how to make it look realistic enough.

A reference I used for the fishes swimming would be this video on Youtube. I referenced the look of the fishies as well as the way they moved and swam. But the tail that I drew for the goldfishes didn’t move as well as I had hoped for.

 

DN1013 FOUND – Counter Strike:World War 2

narrative

It’s the violence of video games based on war and the actual war these games are based off. What’s the relationship between the two? Why has the story or progression of every round in a first-person shooter game been set in this way? I wanted to draw parallels or comparisons between real-life world war 2 and these FPS games so many people play and explore how these FPS games have been influenced by war. War didn’t/doesn’t necessarily end when a bomb goes off or when everyone dies, so where do FPS games get this idea from? I picked these footages because they directly depict the scenarios FPS games take from.

description/justification of your technical decisions

I chose to cut my video in a way to make it seem that whatever is being said in the VO could have been said in a war but still drawing the line between real-life and video game. For example, when the player throws a flash bang grenade, so does the soldier that we see. I also tried to emphasise more on the pacing of the video as visually, the shots might seem similar to one another which decreases the visual interest which is why I chose other means to increase the impact or the visual value of them.

colour editing process

ďżź[ no edit ]

For example this shot in particular would require a bit more work because as compared to other clips, the saturation and contrast is completely off, it doesn’t help that the uniform is of a different colour too. So, I tried to tweak it such that it matches the previous shot and the next shot a little bit more before adding the overall filter over it.
ďżź[ color matching/ saturation ]

[added filter]
ďżź

After adding the filter, it matches (sort of) the shots that are taken from different found footages so that it looked more coherent. Of course, it’s not the best, given more time I would’ve went more in-depth shot by shot to tweak the details like matching the greens of the trees, matching the colour of each soldier’s uniform, as well as the ground and sky (especially for all the outdoor shots).
ďżź
ďżź
ďżź

ďżź

artist/film references

1. Atomic Bomb Wipes Out Hiroshima In A Matter Of Seconds _ Greatest Events of World War 2 – Discovery
Because war and violence can be quite sensitive, I referred to the videos regarding war from more mainstream channels instead of private or personal channels as I personally felt it to be more respectful of the soldiers and the victims. For example, not depicting any death of any particular soldier specifically and as much as possible, not show their faces for prolonged periods of time. The way in which they edited the narrative was interesting too, there was a progression from getting ready to enter the battlefield, entering the battlefield, charging in, (interview of expert explaining), the big destruction, and the consequences of war. I tried to follow this narrative/progression as well.

2. “High School Musical: A Bad Lip Reading.” – Bad Lip Reading
The treatment of my work is rather different from this reference but it was born of the same method of dubbing/placing a voice that fit but wasn’t there in the first place. It was this video that inspired me to do something of the same nature but instead of doing something humorous, I wanted to try making something a bit more serious or sensitive.

3. Counter Strike: Global Offensive
The VO is directly referenced from a normal CSGO match. When I watch competitive Counter Strike or when I play it myself, the things that are said in the VO, I guarantee, you’ll hear at least once in every map/game. The script of the VO is very tightly based on Counter Strike: Global Offensive because firstly, it’s familiar to me and to many other people who might not play FPS games but still know the mechanics. The mechanics of the game can be quite straightforward which is what I needed especially when comparing the round progression to something familiar to everyone which is world war 2 battlegrounds/ground zero.

transcript

Terrorist 1: Eh, do you have enough money for an AWP?

Terrorist 2: Will you drop me something?

1: Just use a pistol la! Gun or pistol, you’ll still die within a few seconds.

Okay, I think the guy at A is really, really good so-

2: RUSH B! Let’s go!

1: So, I’ll throw a flashbang first, then we go in, okay?

2: Okay.

1: 3, 2

2: Wait…

1: What? You hear something?

2: Footsteps. Eh, don’t have, don’t have.

1: Ugh, waste my time. Okay, 3,2,1, we go in. 3, 2

You said “don’t have” but really have!

2: Clear, clear, site clear.

Planting.

Plant, plant, plant.

Yeah, okay, the bomb is ticking.

short descriptive text premise

World War 2 soldiers run into the battlegrounds with guns at the ready and strategies in their heads. Their crosshairs are hungry for enemy heads. They work together, fearless of impending death, to destroy enemy grounds and detonate a bomb and win the game.

credits list

1942 The Taking of Singapore – Japanese Footage Only – UnknownWW2InColor
Atomic Bomb Wipes Out Hiroshima In A Matter Of Seconds _ Greatest Events of World War 2 – Discovery
Little Boy & Fat Man – Atomic Brothers
Rare WW2 Footage – German Infantry – No Music, Pure Sound – BalticSeaBoats

Tiong Bahru 2077

Before

After

Narrative

I love Cyberpunk 2077 HAHA Yes that’s it. This is my take on Singapore in 2077 in the world of cyberpunk. The mix of the familiar Tiong Bahru with a futuristic-y world.

Image result for onions have layers

Background – Yes
CBBG – Cyberpunk Background
Balance
KOI
GIRL
DOOR/WINDOW
(collective sighing)
Fog and Overall
Step 1
A shot of human walking in Tiong Bahru bc why not. Then it was the isolation of three things which is the foreground buildings, background building and le sky. Then adding the cyberpunk city.
Then basic colour balance and very intense selective colouring for the buildings to match the city.
Koi. Added glow to it so it looks more lively and techy.
Gave girl the iconic cyberpunk samurai jacket and gave her a pop of colour to stand out from the background just a lil.
Added blue glow from the door bc why not and it highlights subject just a lil more. Tried adding orange glow from the windows but sis looked tacky.
Added fog/smoke bc we all know that in 2077, factories finna be everywhere and global warming.
last selective colour is just to give the whites a bit more white so that it glows. But can’t really tell from these two screengrabs.
References:
u/GoldenPedro
r/Cyberpunk - Street in the future
GASP RIGHT? I COULD NEVER. But yes, the whole thing about putting something so futuristic with something that seems to be of the past. Though I wanted to do another cyberpunk idea, this one really caught my eye. Thanks Pedro.
Yessssss. Okay now the game that started it all. I love this game even though it’s buggy. Some iconic things I included into my image from the game were…
Image result for cyberpunk 2077 koi
&
Image result for cyberpunk 2077 samurai jacket
Gdrive Link:
Credit –
Samurai Jacket:
https://www.takerlama.com/games-cyberpunk-2077-bomber-jacket-p0370.html
Cyberpunk City:
https://design.tutsplus.com/articles/the-work-of-master-concept-artist-feng-zhu–psd-17368
Fog:
https://www.deviantart.com/ztphotography/art/NicePng-transparent-fog-png-8047958-837159072
Koi Fish:
http://www.pngmart.com/image/185932

Assignment 1 – Expiration Date

Expiration Date

Nani? What is this about?

The narrative of the image was inspired by Wong Kar-Wai’s Chungking Express. Specifically these two lines said by Cop 223:

Somehow everything comes with an expiry date. Swordfish expires. Meat sauce expires. Even cling-film expires. Is there anything in the world which doesn’t?

If memories could be canned, would they also have expiry dates? If so, I hope they last for centuries.

In this composition, I tried to depict the groceries previously bought from the supermarket being placed on the table. The edibles chosen were either canned foods or simply foods that expire easily. They are accompanied by photographs and handwritten notes that represent the “memories” aspect of the quote chosen. And of course, the composition wouldn’t be complete without the iconic sliced pineapples (but not the actual brand from the movie…I couldn’t find that brand in NTUC).

Artist References (brain juice suppliers)

      1. Wong Kar-Wai – Chungking Express

In terms of stylistic approach to the edit, I heavily referenced the scene of He Qiwu (Cop 223) eating the sliced pineapples.

Takeshi Kaneshiro in Chung Hing sam lam (1994) Chungking Express – Wong Kar-Wai

Pineapple Cans in Chung Hing sam lam (1994) Chungking Express – Wong Kar-Wai

The greener hues and the grain as well as the magenta highlights stood out the most to me. The mood from the scene was solemn but still playful. Though it was visually appealing, I still felt unsettled. To incorporate the dreaminess or hopefulness of the second quote, I chose not to use the high contrast in these screenshots.

2. Jennifer Lauren Martin

This image titled ‘Wrap Sheet’, though thematically dissimilar, had the right composition and feel I wanted for the scene of “coming back from the market”. I referenced the composition as well as the shapes they used overall.

Wrap Sheet – Jennifer Lauren Martin

Before

After

Camera and Digital Processes: 

Camera:

Canon 80D. As I’m not the most familiar with photography or how to use a DSLR to take good pictures, so I just auto-ed it. I focused mainly on the pineapple can, it being the most iconic object in the picture. I also turned off all the lights in the room and used my phone light to create the lighting I wanted (soft w/ not much harsh shadows + isolating the milk bottle from the white wall behind it).

Digital:

After the cleaning up the dust on my camera lens (??? oopsies) and the dirt on the orange etc., I did a quick colour balance based off the white on word “pineapple”. I then lowered the highlights and brightened the shadows to decrease the contrast to create a dreamier look.

I then brightened the photo and the frame separately just to fit the softness overall as the blackness of the clothes in the picture was distracting. Then brightened pineapple can, bringing up the highlights to bring more focus on it.

To create the mood/setting I wanted, I used colour balance to increase the greens in the midtones, and used selective colour to increase the magenta in the whites to create the emotion needed.

Finally, a quick lens correction for the slight slant in the original and distorting it just a tiny bit to make it look less harsh/”in your face”. And the grain to sort of replicate the grain in the original screen cap.

link to files: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1UKud6DVAXMiVdPpOwe-YNplxRc8ToBpG?usp=sharing

arigathanks gozaimuch

UPDATE

Comments taken into consideration for Part B of the assignment:
1. BOLD BE MORE BOLD
2. COLOURS BE MORE BOLD
3. MESSY TOO NEAT
so this is the second rendition 🙂
before
after

reverse michael bay | moving image now

My interpretation of the moving image now refers to images like vfx, deep fake and other COOL THINGS 😀 That being said, as consumers or filmmakers, we are often pressured to try said cool things or even immerse ourselves into these cool things to “amplify” or “make our films bEtTeR”. Sometimes, we even find ourselves anticipating these new technologies or ways to show the moving image and that’s fine but also when we choose not to board the bus of constant change, we might find that the road we already travel or the road that is right in front of us is more beautiful than the fast, convenient and COOL bus.

 

INTER- [Let’s Talk – Chelsea, Sam, Joreen]

Artist Statement

We communicate every day and talk about many things. We share secrets, talk cock and sometimes we banter. But how many conversations do we remember? Which ones are significant to you? Why do we remember them? What makes them special?

Conversations may make us happy. They may be frustrating. There are times when we may be excluded from conversations. What would our conversations look like if we could see them? Want to find out? Let’s talk.

Ideation

The idea of using balloons to stimulate conversations came from Chelsea. She envisioned the throwing of balloons and the hectic atmosphere as a key part of it so we began to build around that. During our discussions, we talked about what the colours, size and shape of the balloons should be and if they meant anything. What would the audience’s participation represent or mean, what is the takeaway here? We also discussed the setting in which we wanted it.

We wanted to explore conversations and what happens through conversations, stimulated by the balloons.

Concept

The passing of balloons represent the passing of information or the different conversation topics. We will be passing one balloon between 3 of us and depict communication breakdown etc. and gradually add more balloons/topics into the conversation.

Eventually we have too many to handle so we pass it around the class as well. They can pass back to us or pass to someone else.

Once all balloons are passing around the class and it gets hectic, representing an overload of information, we will take the medium and small sized balloons and throw them to the side. There will be 3 big balloons that we will be left with us in the end to represent meaningful conversations sticking with us while the small-talks are forgotten.

Prep

During our discussions, we came up with every minute of what we were going to do and practiced it. We wanted to use audio to aid us through the timings, which in my opinion was really important because we had 15 minutes. How do we keep things interesting for 15 minutes?

 

Time Section Action  Resources
1: 

1 minutes

 At the corner of the room 

J: Blow the big balloons x1

C: Blow the medium balloons x1

S: Blow the small balloons x1

Box with 4 balloons in the middle

 3 balloons 

Box with 4 blown balloons

2B 2S
2: 

1.5 minutes

 Converge at the middle 

J: Pass the big balloon around

C:  Kiap the balloon at the feet

S: Kiap the balloon at the feet

Passed around 3 rounds. C tries to pass BB but J and S don’t want. C keeps BB. We pause (to emphasize the moment). 

 3 blown balloons
3:

3 minutes

 J: Kiap the balloon at the feet

C:  Keeps the big balloon

S: Passes the small balloon

Pass SB between J and S. C emo emo. Look at C again. C passes around BB. C adds MB to the mix. Pass all 3 balloons 3 rounds.

 3 blown balloons

 

Time Section Action  Resources
4: 

4 min

 (Transitioning)

JCS struggling to pass the three balloons. S pass balloon to class on audio cue. JC give balloons to class. While class passes blown balloons, JCS pass deflated balloons to a few people (TBC). Class blows balloon, we pass balloons with other classmates. We pass the big balloons from the box.

 3 deflated balloons

7 blown balloons 

(3 B, 1 M, 3 S)

*If

Balloon pops: J tries to pass to them, C intercepts.
5: 

1 minute

 Hectic throwing balloons.  3 deflated balloons

7 blown balloons 

(3 B, 1 M, 3 S)
6:

3 minutes

 Stand in the middle around the box, facing the class. When they pass us the small and medium balloons, we drop into the box. When we receive the big ones, we pass it back. Only after collecting the small and medium, we keep the big balloons and hold on to it. 

*if they don’t pass us the BB, we gesture that we want it. 

 3 deflated balloons

7 blown balloons 

(3 B, 1 M, 3 S)
SOUND ACTION 
Phone ringing  Blow up balloon 
Heartbeat Pass balloons
Ding  Add balloon 

We tried to plan out for the audience’s reaction like if they don’t listen to the audio cues, what then? If they don’t give us the big balloons, what then? But we underestimated the chaos that would ensue.

The Chaos

On the actual day, it started out fine. We were doing our thing, the three of us followed the audio cues pretty well, I would say. But one Joreen “burst”, everyone became 5 year olds, which worried me. Because you can’t keep a 5 year old interested in one thing for more than 5 minutes. Let alone 15 minutes.

When the five minute mark hit, and the first communal Ding came on (meaning the first balloon gets added into the crowd), the basket holding all the balloons were empty. And everyone started hitting the balloons all over the place. My brain began to worry. It was only supposed to get hectic like 13 minutes in. What were we supposed to do for the next 8 minutes?!?!?!? And it wasn’t like we could start talking to each other in the middle of it all. I tried to stimulate the slowing down and quickening by deliberately hitting people in the face when it got quicker and withholding balloons when it got slower, like in the beginning. But amidst the chaos, it was impossible to have made any impact. The next 8 minutes were a blur, literally couldn’t see anything except dashes of colour. Everyone’s faces started looking tired and bored after a while and I felt defeated. My teammates were probably feeling the same thing.

Reflections 

We should have made it clearer with each other EXACTLY what we would do when chaos ensued. We were the facilitators of it and should have been able to set the limitations of the performance better to better get the point across, and at the same time, better stimulate the interactions. We should not have drowned.

I guess if we were to tie it back to the main theme of our concept: the three of us, the hosts of the group chat or rather the admins, having our own little conversations. Maybe the group chat was a tamed group. Those where people would text once in a while but you don’t really think about it throughout the week. Then we would think “Won’t this group chat be more fun with more people?” Then we opened it up and made the chat public. We publicised it by sharing the chat link with people (the handing out of balloons) and formed more admins. Then we started talking to even more people but we wouldn’t expect these people to talk SO MUCH with each other. We lose control of the conversations. The audio cues would represent what a normal group chat would look like, but this group chat isn’t normal. It’s full of eccentric people who are meeting each other for the first time and are having so much conversations, big or small. Some people are opening up quickly while others only text in stickers or in “haha”s. After a while, we lose stamina. The craziness in the group chat lasts for a few hours but after a while we die down. A few new people still talk a lot but it’s starts to feel forced. And slowly, everything stops. We forget about whatever we talked about in the hectic period of conversation but what we do hold onto is the impression we have of the people who spoke through what they said. Fun fact (and you can fact check me on this): This is exactly how the Reddit ADM2020Y1 Telegram group went down.

So yes, I think that even though the execution wasn’t as we expected, it still was able to show what we wanted it to, about stimulating conversation.

 

Sam Peng Ego

 

Colour Theories: Adobe Color Wheel

flawed, fat and fabulous.

Monochrome colours keep the composition simpler, which is what I wanted this row to look like as the elements within are not flashy too. If I had two or more colours within this composition, I was worried that it would be too cluttered.

 

 

 

I chose this colour palette because it made the most sense to me. The cookie is brown. Brown is chunky. Brown also represents isolation.

Could it have been purple? Maybe but it would look gross like I mean…

Experimentation:
This was the “sketching” or experimenting process for this piece. I did the rough sketch on the Adobe Sketch app before transferring it into illustrator and making a few changes to make it more interesting. I kept the things like the couch and the limbs of the cookie outlined instead of filled so that the focus would be on the cookie or the TV or the cookie looking into the mirror.
For the Art Style, I got my reference from the Pear with me Canvas Print by Jeah Design.
Pear with me Canvas Print
balance.
The concept behind this row is that I’m a bright and lively candy corn which is excitedly entering a new world. I enter a world that it full of life and candy but instead of fitting in, I find myself desaturating in order to create balance because having an over-saturation of liveliness can be harmful or bad…in my eyes.
Triad colours are colours that are equally apart from each other on the colour wheel.  The reason why I used the triadic colour scheme here is because triadic colours are typically more bright and lively. Which is what I needed to create the contrast between the bright, liveliness of the candy corn and the black and white to balance out.
Experimentation: I did the most experimentation on the second column of this row. I was struggling with the composition. How do I create an island of candy corn? How would an island look like? In the beginning I tried to make the skies alternate colours, referencing this image.

Sunshine, peace, and Pepsi: Groovy 1969 #Pepsi ad by artist John Alcorn

But it looked sketchy when it came to my composition. Other friends have suggested candy canes instead of candy corn but I felt that candy corn was still more applicable when it came to the concept. I did try to make a candy corn on a cob situation but the perspective transforming in Illustrator was too tricky for a beginner and it just looked bad, weird. Like it didn’t even make sense.
At first, there were no clouds in the composition as well. Just a plain blue sky but I added the clouds in later on to minimise the white space in the composition so that it would not look so empty and maybe even brighter. I think it worked.
Something risky(?) I tried was to make the candy corn in the second column different colours aka not the typical candy corn colours. I wanted to show the different *personalities* the candy corns had.
As for the texture, I wanted to keep things glossy and prim. Like a clean, bright world.
netflix: are you still watching?.
The concept for this row is that I’m a piggy who’s obsessed with Netflix and I can watch random brain-numbing shows until I forget to bathe and get stinky.
Complementary colours work well when we want something to stand out. In this case, the piggy and the tablet. It’s not jarring but also looks vibrant, which really brings out the cuteness of the piggy.
Unlike the others, I did not do much experimentation with the piggy as the idea came pretty naturally and I knew what I wanted it to look like. The background of the second and third column would be the only experimentation, I would say. The texture was meant to look like hay to make it seem like a barn of some sort, to create visual interest.
confusion is among us.
The concept for this row is that I’m represented by Yellow from Among Us who’s just happily running around but then encounters a task that is confusing.  Though Yellow is confused, it knows that it MUST complete the task in order to save the ship aka its life. I chose Yellow because I feel represented by the colour yellow.
The colour palette I chose for this row is also triadic. However, the reason why I chose the triadic palette for this row is not just because of the vibrancy but also the use of the different colours to show the confusion in the wires. If I chose a colour palette that was analogous or complementary, the effect might not have came through. Blue also represents the calmness at the beginning whilst the pink represents the childishness and weakness. I also chose cooler tones as they are more calm and in a way, sad.
As for experimentation, I tried using different colours. Like this salmon red. Though it looked fine, I did not get the emotion that I wanted out of it. It didn’t show the childishness or the weakness as much as the pink did. I only changed this after the final consult.
difficulties
Some difficulties I faced were linking the colours that I needed to the emotions I wanted it to have. That led to finding a row for the analogous palette very challenging. It also led to choosing the primary colour of each palette hard. But by letting go of conventional thoughts on what the colour of each thing may be, I became more liberal with the way I used the colour for whichever object. For example, Piggy’s hay is green! This is something I think I picked up and learnt from the previous assignment about thinking beyond conventions.
Another difficulty was using Illustrator, of course. It’s a new software that I haven’t touched before because I was too scared. But now, though I don’t fully understand how to use it, I’m less intimidated by it. Switch from pixels to vectors? hmmmm .