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IDEATION

First off, just to introduce, my group cponsists of Chiharu, Pei Wen and Rebecca!

So we started sharing childhood acquaintances and friendship stories with each other, and we decided to work on someone from Pei Wen’s past. To put it simply:

She knew a guy by name but they never got the chance to interact until they were assigned to the same class. From there, they managed to click and became friends through common interests. Things got a little weird as this guy appeared wherever she went, tagging along whenever there’s something she’s attending to. Then one day he confessed, but she had no mutual feelings so she rejected him. He seemingly stopped but returned to tell her that he had dreams of her and nightmares of her being trapped and helpless. Not only so, he texted saying they need to ‘move on’ and ‘forget each other’, when there was literally nothing between them at all. It was really strange, though she realised he had depression and his clingy delusions probably stemmed from that.

Deciding on a more mysterious and psychological theme (yet again), this person fit the role well.

The character was delusional, so we did some research on mental illnesses of the like. Schizophrenia became the main focus of our research, as we wanted the character to be unable to discern between reality and her work of mind. She would go through unstable moods, aggression and hallucinations.

With the character’s base set, we needed a premise. What would stir a little drama but also balance out with the mystery we wanted to have? Thinking back to how the original guy would be unintentionally clingy, we gave the character someone important that they end up losing. The main character would probably cling on to whatever memory she has of that loved one, who was her sister, and in turn the obsessive behaviour blurs her boundaries of reality and imagination.

The intended climax – the main character eventually realising her sister is gone and won’t ever come back, and she has to learn to live on without her.

https://imgur.com/HtEWH3k

Goodnight Mommy (2014) is an Austrian film that features a pair of twins but one of them is actually dead, a figment of the living twin’s imagination. This was a good example of what we wish to achieve for shots with both sisters.

Once the storybeats were finalised, Rebecca and I worked on some draft storyboards:

SHOOTING

The storyboards were followed loosely as we went with the flow and got better ideas for shots along the way. We actually had to reshoot on different days due to conflicting schedules and the availability of some of the locations. Also, props to Chiharu for shooting for us! It was a tiring ordeal!

While shooting we faced the difficulty of portraying the non existent sister: do we want to use blur? Put her outside of frame? Lower her opacity?

We tried using motion to create the blur, hoping it shows surreality but it just ended up looking like she was moving very fast all the time.

Remembering how Goodnight Mommy places the dead twin in shots, we positioned the sister either uncomfortably out of frame, partially covered or simply oddly placed without following rule of thirds.

So the filtering began and we finalised on a decent amount of usable shots.


Then it was the photo editing! I edited most of them, tweaking them into black and white, adjusting different settings and levels to ensure the photos fit the intended moods perfectly. Following the film noir aesthetic of being mysterious and serious, the black and white visuals really enhances the mood while also minimalising noise and distractions.

There were a few shots that required further manipulating as we did not have time to completely reshoot – mostly removing certain elements of the photo. When the drawings are on screen, it becomes the only thing that’s coloured to bring focus and also giving off importance and sentimentality, like how Sin City (2005) does it to guide the viewers’ eyes to crucial elements.

Audio will be covered in the Final posting!

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F I N A L
Chiharu|Pei Wen|Rebecca|Yi Ting 

STORY
The concept we’ve finalised was vaguely based off an old distant acquaintance that cut off all contact after showing signs of being delusional. It narrates how this character goes through just another daily routine with her sister in the present and how a repressed event haunts her.

SUMMARY
As the film goes, it simply starts off with a shot of two toothbrushes, a basic daily routine with just the main character alone, nothing strange, a normal practice. The sister greets her and they share a moment of kinship before leaving to meet a friend. They stare out the window for a short while and shut the curtains, ready to set out. They chat, laugh, the main character realises – why did their friend not greet or reply her sister? She confronts the friend, there is confusion, puzzled tension.

The friend says, ‘No one’s there.’

That’s when the main character snaps and we are pulled right back into her dimly lit room, her desk messy with a stack of kiddy drawings of her sister and her. She looks through them and is suddenly assaulted with memories with her sister. And how she is now, alone. She takes a moment, stares at the closed curtains and finally opens the curtains and windows, light and natural sounds flooding through the opening. The last shot, an cup with a single toothbrush.

INTERPRETATIONS

The film is in black and white as it sets the melancholy, ‘boring’ but yet mysterious mood.

The story starts and ends with the toothbrush shot – right at the beginning there was an empty mug, then there were two; at the end it was an empty mug again, but then there was one. It shows how the main character has been living an imaginary life with her supposed lost sister and after the dispute, she has a revelation and now she’s back in reality, where it is just her left.

Another shot that sets the start and end is the curtains shot. As the siblings ponder at the window, it was oddly silent before they shut it and all light disappears and they continue on with their day. The lack of noises causes it to feel just slightly out of place, depicting how it wasn’t real, it being a part of the character’s mind. When the main character opens the curtains alone, light shines through and a stream of different sounds enter, showing how she is taking a step forward, moving on from the loss of her sister.

Using reflections and mirrors allowed us to portray the feeling of duality and the fine line between delusions and reality. There are a number of shots that has either reflections, half-half lines or contrast of lighting just to show that.

AUDIO

Taking some inspiration from a Swedish drama film, Through a Glass Darkly (1961) by Ingmar Bergman, which tells the story of a schizophrenic woman. It has effective uses of silence and minimal audios when the woman is faltering between reality and madness, with the audience only hearing what’s in reality but the visuals might say otherwise. I heed that in mind and slightly twisted it a little to fit the purpose of this film more.

http://siochembio.tumblr.com/post/146851512747/through-a-glass-darkly-1961

For instance when the water drips from the tap, there is never a ‘plop’ sound, no implication that the water even dripped at all, getting at the idea that this moment is unreal. Similarly mentioned earlier, the part with the sisters at the windows, there is no sound, another surreal moment.

As for the melody added as they leave their home, it’s suppose to show that the main character is contently living this ‘fake’ life as in reality there is never background music ever. It’s quickly cut off when the scene switches to the drawings, a blatant punch in the face back to reality.

The heartbeat was to create tension as it slowly sped up until she punches the friend, resulting in a cut to black.

The humming was to create a mood of somber self-reflection as the main character thought about the past and how she should deal with it now. The bouts of laughter sparking the need to move on.

Quick to note, I avoided adding any form of speech or subtitles, hoping to instead let the audience interpret the narrative by themselves without the blunt aid of words.

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TASK 1
Object and representation of self

This simple cheap ring was bought from those places that rented out boxes for people to sell their products. Why would something as plain and normal be something of significance to me? It’s because my grandmother gave it to me as a random gift.

A simple plastic ring made up of a twisted arrow.

My grandmother is very dear to me, she’s been taking care of me since I was born and I can’t imagine growing up without her. She’s been a constant part of my life, every day and every night I greet her and say goodnight. It’s the little things that show genuineness.

Wistful.

It’s kind of silly but the feeling of having this constant on my index finger comes off really comforting to me. I fidget a lot. I have a terrible habit of picking at my fingers, even when I’m not nervous or anything at all. The ring? It helps a lot, I end up toying with it, twisting, pulling off and putting it on whenever I’m trying to focus. While it does act as a great fidgeting tool, it does unwind me. Life is stressful, sometimes it’s just nice to sit and contemplate things you know? A long look, an unconscious twist, it makes me reminisce and think about what I could be doing better, or even just to relax and revel in past memories. Super glad I haven’t dropped it into a random drain with my fumbling fingers.

A constant.

Inspired by Rengim Mutevellioglu’s nostalgia-inducing photographs, I attempted to bring out the sentimentality in my own photos with what I learnt by studying her work.

For the general look, I used muted tones and this controlled contrast that’s present consistently in her photos. The overall contrast of the photos aren’t too strong, but when it comes to shadows, they get darker and harsher. It creates this old, vintage look that tugs at your nostalgia.

The 2nd shot’s a full body interaction shot. The perspective lines from the roof of the shelter and the path point towards me and the ring, bringing attention. By positioning myself towards one half of the shot, it leaves a void, a space that feels like longing.

The final shot is a close up interaction shot, with the ring as the point of interest. Wanting to create the illusion of movement, the hand is angled a little as it tangles slightly in my hair, but the ring remains a still constant in the shot. It stands out, being in the central position, contrasted by the shadowed background.

 

TASK 2
My World

Fuchun Primary School, where I started growing into my own shell. This place probably houses all my earliest prominent memories, it was an eventful kid life. Fun fact! The school in these photos isn’t actually my ‘first’ school. I spent half my primary school life in the older school, which still rests at the same place, deserted and so worn down. My remaining 3 years were in this one instead.

The ol’ hang out.

It’s the weekend; school’s out, students out. Nobody’s in or even around the school, it was serene and so quiet in comparison to the lively, chaotic weekdays. This spot was the void deck opposite the main gate that students liked loitering and chilling at.

Repainted, renewed.

I realised I never actually saw the school clearly from afar before, so I went up to the highest floors of the surrounding HDB flats to check the view. It didn’t hit me until then that the school had actually renovated slightly and has a new paint job! The bright colours are so modern and fresh, it bittersweetly reminded me just how many years has passed since I graduate from there.

Quiet.

The neighbourhood rests, along with everyone else. It’s extremely relaxing by simply watching the clouds float idly by with these sentimental buildings filling my sight. I’ve been in this neighbourhood for my whole life, and honestly I haven’t felt so soothed and calmed here. I should do this more often.

Architectural and scenic photographs are very intriguing to me, especially the way Arkos Major shoots his. Trying and hopefully, successfully, incorporating his lighter yet also muted tones into my own photos, I managed to make the shots feel nostalgic and a bit more personal.

The 1st shot was taken in a tilted lower angle to show more of the bottle and how the school is ‘away’ in the background, since the focus is how this is a place students spent time outside of school, after school.

2nd shot was simply to show a bird’s eye view of the school, this colourful yet old, sentimental space holding many memories. The added ledge as the foreground made it more visually pleasing.

Last shot is a flat shot, showing just a lining of buildings and the nearby foresty area, the top stretching wide with a cloudy blue sky. This conveys more of the underlying emotions. It’s a peaceful, slower moving neighbourhood, like the clouds.

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For this particular assignment, since we are supposed to take photographs of things and places that are of significance to us, I’ve settled on focusing on bringing out the sentimentality. Before jumping to shooting for the project, I did some research for inspiration!

RESEARCH

RENGIM MUTEVELLIOGLU

http://www.rengim.com/shoots

http://www.rengim.com/shoots

Rengim’s photos have this unmistaken feeling of amenity, a soft kindling of something nostalgic with her usage of duller, muter tones. With these comforting colours, it truly expresses the softness of sentimentality.
The depth of view and chiaroscuro effects are combined seamlessly, making the photographs seem untouched and pure.

I really enjoyed browsing through her gallery, every piece had its very own unique warm, content feeling.

AKOS MAJOR

http://www.photographyoffice.com/blog/2014/9/minimalist-waterscapes-by-akos-major-photography

http://www.designstudio210.com/2013/05/on-the-wall-photographer-akos-major/

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Akos had an eye for minimalistic shots that showed little, without losing its impact. Looking at his photographs, you just feel so serene and at peace. There’s not much happening usually, but the flatness and negative spaces he leaves gives this feeling that hey, there’s much more but this is what you see, and you will feel calmed.

Similar to Rengim, he uses slightly weaker tones and hues too, maximising the feeling of peace and quiet sentiments.

PROCESS

All I used for this assignment was my trusty Samsung S8+ camera and a friend as a tripod! (thanks man)
I’ll mostly be editing the lighting and a little of the hues with Photoshop after selecting the final 3 photos for each task.

For Task 1, I chose a ring my dearest grandmother bought for me from those rental box shops! It’s nothing much, but it means a lot to me.

CLOSE UPS

Close up test shots of the ring. I used a background that contrasted with the ring, especially since it’s a tiny object, I wanted it to pop out and avoid blending and disappearing from the viewer’s focus.

FULL BODY with the object

Full body shots ended up being mostly fail shots as my chosen object is way too small to be seen or focused on in these shots. But I still tried to convey the feeling of sentiment from the posing, although not proving to be as effective as the object of interest isn’t really obvious.

FULL BODY interacting with object

Similarly to the earlier full body shots, the ring is really small in the photos. However, compared to the earlier shots, with the simple act of interacting with the ring, it shows that there’s actually something there for the viewer to see.

MID-RANGE
 

Mid-range shots have a slightly more personal feeling. With the closeness but not too close either, it gives off this feeling of understanding.

These shots worked better in showing the nostalgic emotions, hopefully making some sort of a subtle connection between photo and the person viewing.

 

 

CLOSE UP of interacting with object

The close up interaction shots gave decent results I felt. They just felt way closer, personal and it really brings the ring into focus.

The ring is shown clearer and minor actions and details and be seen and portray some expression and maybe a little implication of a story?

After looking through all the shots, I prefer the full body interactive ones the most, but I’ll edit them and see how it all turns out!

 

 

For Task 2, I went to my primary school and the general neighbourhood area around it.

As it was a weekend when I went to take these photos, the school was obviously closed. It was really quiet and I couldn’t really get in to shoot. So I improvised and just went around taking photos of the routes and places I used to go or just hang around at.

I went up a few HDB blocks trying to take some top down shots of the school and the neighbourhood and I’m glad the weather that day was really nice.

All in all, some of the shots ended up a little off, with the emotion not being conveyed properly, being blurry, odd angles that just didn’t work out. But they were all just learning points in the end, and a few turned out decent enough for post processing, so there’s that. It was a little hard taking photos with just a phone and no actual tripod but with what I have, I’ll have to make do!

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1-Point Perspective

2-Point Perspective

3-Point Perspective

1-point perspective shows a single long, endless path stretching out.
For 2-point perspective, it creates a more spacial feeling compared to 1-point.
As for 3-point perspective, it’s similar to 2-point but since it has the added aspect of a bird’s/worm’s eye view, it makes the image look more vast and makes the viewer feel like part of the scenery.

Perspective creates the illusion of depth on a 2D, flat platform with the use of lines; visible and invisible.
With that said, lines exist to guide the viewer’s eyes along. In perspective, when 2 lines converge it creates a vanishing point, and that’s usually where the viewer’s focus will end up at.