Category Archives: DN1004-FOUNDATION 4D GROUP 4 (TUT)

Assignment 2: Sequencing Images (Conceal)

A collaborative work done by Yuki, Charmaine, Qiao Tong and Belinda.

[Task 1 : A Photo Story]

After mush dicussion on the genre and direction we wanted to head, we came out with our outline.

 Title: Conceal

Genre: Fantasy

Perspective of story: Omniscient perspective

Summary:

MC suffers from Chunibyo also known as Eighth-Grader Syndrome. Basically a person who thinks of themselves as more awesome than everyone else because of experiences, abilities, and even special powers that they clearly don’t have. E.g. a demon sealed in their arm and they can unleash powers through it)

Act 1: Beginning

  • Friends leave MC because they are tired of her syndrome (friends trying to rip bandage off MC’s arm)
  • MC enters museum and wanders alone (maybe can show other people in groups walking around the gallery) [Motion blur. Adjust shutter speed.]
  • MC comes to a stop in front of a painting of a girl with bandages around her eyes

Act 2: Conflict/Catalyst

  • Painting comes to ‘life’ (Side char, personification of the syndrome, a girl with bandage pops out of painting, reaching out towards MC OR bandages coming out of painting to drag MC in)
  • MC finds herself in a forest, her bandages albeit on her arm, is also stuck on a tree
  • Tries to remove bandage from her arm, doesn’t work. She has to slowly remove the bandages from the tree
  • After untangling, the other end of the bandage seems to trail off elsewhere..
  • MC follows the trail

Act 3: Climax

  • Bandage is connected to side character
  • SC wants the bandages and so starts a tug of war
  • MC ends up falling over
  • SC approaches MC and cuts off MC’s bandages
  • MC refusing to look at her arm
  • Her arm is full of holes OR reflecting herself like a mirror
  • Finally, she looks and she’s back at the gallery

Act 4: Resolution

  • Her arm is back to normal
  • Bandages are on the ground
  • She trashes the bandages and walks away from them

Research

La Jetée

It was a science fiction film shown during class. It has some scene featuring moment by moment, especially with the woman. I was really interested in using moment by moment as it creates moment using still images.

 

Fran Bow

We were figuring out on what to add in or use as a filler as just follow a trail of bandages seemed too simple. Belinda then mentioned she remember there was this game that had trees that were tangled with white hair with severed heads on them named Luciferns. This gave us the idea on having the bandages tangled in a tree.

Jabberwocky

Belinda also mentioned a music video by Erutan, mostly being shown in a forest setting. The colours of the forest are mostly cool and not very saturated giving this eerie fantasy mood we wanted for our photos in forest.

Fukurou

Another music video mentioned by Belinda showing a similar vibe to Jabberwocky, with the settings leaning more towards the cool colours as well. The video also plays with a number of angle especially the worm’s eye view which I have never thought of trying.

Process

We also dicussed on what shots was possible and divided up the storyboard.

Storyboard

Frame 1: [Medium Long Shot] Friends trying to rip MC’s bandages off her arm.

Frame 2: [Long Shot] Friends ditch MC. MC standing far away from group of friends who are having fun together. Isolated.

Frame 3: [Close-Up] MC’s face, shocked/sad/lonely.

Frame 4: [Close-Up] Same composition as Frame 3, BG change to museum.

Frame 5: [Long Shot] MC alone walk in museum full of people blurred out in the background w/ motion blur

Frame 6: [Medium Long Shot] MC looking at the painting

Frame 7: [Medium Shot] SC emerging from painting

Frame 8: [Medium Shot] SC pulling MC into the painting. Hand seemingly coming out from camera, reaching towards MC. OR bandages wrapping around MC to drag her into the painting/camera.

Frame 9: [Medium Shot] MC finds herself in the painting, astonished. BG changes to forest.

Frame 10: [Close-Up] On MC’s arm, showing bandages. Bandages now seem to connect elsewhere. Bandage goes out of the frame

Frame 11: [Long Shot] MC sitting on the ground, bandage on her arm connected to a tree that has bandages strewn all over it. Tangled. Rooting her to same spot.

Frame 12: [Medium Shot] MC tries to remove bandages from her arm but it doesn’t work. Maybe trying to bite and remove?

Frame 13: [Long Shot] MC resorts to meticulously untangling all the bandages from the tree to unroot herself.

Frame 14: [Close-Up] Untangling, following trail

Frame 15: [Medium Shot] MC reaches to the other end of the bandage and find the SC

Frame 16: [Close-Up] SC with eyes covered with bandage

Frame 17: [Medium Shot] SC wants bandagesFrame 28: [Long Shot] Bandages in the trash (taking up ¾ of frame), back view of MC walking away back, hand out with a pair of scissors

Frame 18: [Tension close-up of hands] Tug of war. Tension shown in bandages, both sides tugging

Frame 19: [Long Shot] MC falls over

Frame 20: [Medium Shot] SC’s shoe in frame, MC’s horrified face looking up

Frame 21: [Close-Up, Worm’s eye view] SC starts to cut bandages on MC’s arm

Frame 22: [Back view, over shoulder] MC does not want to look at her arm, struggle of wanting to face herself. Her head turned away from her arm.

Frame 23: [Close-Up] Reveal reflection on arm (like her arm is a mirror) or trypophobia

Frame 24: [Close-Up] One of her eyes open to peek at her arm

Frame 25: [Medium Long Shot]Bring back to gallery BG

Frame 26: [Close up]Checking reflection on arm gone.

Frame 27: [Medium Shot, Bird’s eye view] Bandages on the ground, next to MC’s shoes. MC looking down at bandages.

Frame 28: [Long Shot] MC walking away and bandages hanging out of the dustbin.

Shooting

Our plans did not go as we hoped they would. We mainly had two settings to shoot, museum and forest. For the forest, we initially wanted to shoot at Chinese Garden but after looking up on it we found out it was closed until 2020. We then decided to head to Botanic Gardens but we were not allowed to wrap bandages on the trees. After mushc wandering around ADM we found a spot with a number of trees at the perfect height to wrap the bandage and take them off afterwards and with a forest like background. Though having a shelter nearby which we did not want to have it in our photos, we managed to get the photos taken. 😀

We could not make it to shoot in a museum with the fear of what happened in Botanic Gardens as well as our time constraint so we ended up finding a place in ADM which gave of the feel we wanted. We ended up improvising and doing some photoshop for our photos.

Experimental Photos

Though we planned out how our shots would look, we exoerimented wtih different angles to see what feel of the photos can be achieved.

Final Photos

[Task 2 : A Photo Story with Sound]

I started by arranging the photos in Premiere Pro, and arranging the timing of each one of them. I then looked for the sounds that are possible to use, though I had trouble looking for them. 🙁 I decided not to include any distinctive voices as I could not find any that would fit the video. I had trouble exporting the video due to my driver which i ended up disable and using my second one.

Final

Reflection

I have learnt to think and plan more in the photos, how they relate to one another and them transitioning from different settings. Sounds do play a huge part and help a great deal in conveying the story especially with still images. I also got the chance to explore more in both Lightroom and Premiere Pro. 😀

Links

https://www.videvo.net/royalty-free-sound-effects/https://freesound.org/https://www.pond5.com/https://sonniss.com/sound-effects/https://fran-bow.fandom.com/wiki/Luciferns

4D Assignment 1 Picture Story

Task 1: Object and representation of self

Research

I was quite new towards photography but I was interested in trying out different techniques such as framing and cropping. I started on doing some research on framing such as using something in the background or foreground to create focus on the subject or block anything else that is distracting.

https://www.photovideoedu.com/Learn/Articles/jim-zuckerman-on-composition-framing.aspx

https://www.photovideoedu.com/Learn/Articles/jim-zuckerman-on-composition-framing.aspx

Some examples by Jim Zuckerman

There is also the use of built in frames

Taken by Kyle Rogers

https://kylearkrogers.wordpress.com/2010/09/27/built-in-frame/

Taken by Kyle Rogers

How it can be used by Jordi Puig

https://www.boredpanda.com/photography-tips-tricks-jordi-puig/?utm_source=google&utm_medium=organic&utm_campaign=organic

How it can be used by Jordi Puig

Ideation

Safe Haven

My object is the piano. I had trouble making friends or talking to people since I was small. I did not have friends that I really stick with. I tried out many hobbies from ballet, gymnastics to even swimming but none of them I came to really love compared to music. The piano was considered a shelter and provided me a sense of relaxation. It was even an escape from reality, by playing the piano I would forget everything that was going on. A space where I could just express myself when I could not put things to words. The piano helped me be more confident in myself, opening me to express myself using other instruments and just reminding me to keep pushing through. Though bittersweet, now there are hesitations to continue playing the piano as I strangely start to lose confidence in it instead.

I attempted drafting out some poses or ideas for the photos, though in the end there were adjustments in angles as the some angles showed reflections from the piano of nearby object which I find distracting.

Adjusting and attempting to frame using the pillars of the piano. Though I like the feel of the photo when one of the pillars covers my face and showing my reflection instead.

More full body shots

A mid body shot of me relaxing on the piano

Close up of the piano

 

Close up of interaction with the piano as well as trying out a built in frame using a music sheet.

Process

Something warm, bright, neat but still showing much contrast and texture to the photos are the aesthestics I want in my photos.

https://www.zhangjingna.com/

https://www.zhangjingna.com/

Examples by Jingna Zhang

As my object is a piano, I thought about editing my photos into black and white as it help cancel out an distrcting colours. However I want to bring some warmth to my photos so I ended up dulling out any cool colours and slightly tint them with yellow. Did some cropping to get rid of any objects that happen to be in the photos or being more focus towards the subject.

Tried out cropping the image to see if it looks better framing with the pillars

 

Final 

Close-up  of object

Full figure with object

The piano being there for me, always having my back.

Full figure interacting with object

It being like a shelter or sanctuary where I felt safe to express myself.

Mid-range shot interacting with object

A place I am comfortable with

Close-up shot interacting with object

Enveloped in music

Task 2: My World

Research

I started looking through Richard Billangham’s works, they were not posed showing how his family for how they actually are, which I really like.

I thought would be something new to try out instead of the usual having someone posing for the shot.

Ideation

Family

My world revolves my family. I used to live in my grandmother’s house with my aunts and cousins so it was where I spent most of my childhood. My cousins and I would play around the house and eat homecooked food by my grandmother. Whenever I needed help my parents, aunts and grandmother would be there for me. I remember I had difficulty finishing up an art assignment, which involved using shred up newspaper to create a work. They stayed throughout the night with me to help me tear and glue the newspapers. Though we are not really close knitted as we were in the past, we would always gather at my grandmother’s house to celebrate each other’s birthdays or special occasions. So my grandmother’s house holds alot of memories of my childhood and family.

I attempted drafting out how the photos could look like mainly the environment, and experimenting with the camera.

I went to visit my grandmother’s house for dinner and to catch up with her and my cousin. I then attempted to start shooting, telling them to ignore me and go about their business. I also got shots of my mother and brother.

 

Process

Similar to the photos from Task 1. I got rid of the cool colours and tint them with a stronger yellow to showcase the font nostalgic feelings I have towards the house. Yet with a sense of loneliness now that the house is quite empty and taking the details of the furniture around.

 

Final 

Photo 1

These figure represents the gods of prosperity, status and longevity (福禄寿) so since young we were told to not touch or mess with them. We were terrified when we broke the item the longevity figure was holding.

Photo 2

This seat may not look suitable or lie on but there are nights we spent sleeping on it.

Photo 3

Our parents would make us kneel down and apologize at the altar whenever we did something wrong.

Reflection

Doing this activity has made me think photography is more then just pressing the button on a camera. It is able to tell a story or express a certain feeling through the photos. It was fun to experiment around with the techniques, compositions, editing, and also share my experiences through the photos. 😀