Artsies
Poster from Digital Imaging assignment
ASTROFLORA Animatic
An alien astronaut lands on a recently deserted Earth. It discovers new and foreign structures, mesmerised and awed by them. It starts growing alien flora all around, slowly transforming the human-made landscape into a hybrid habitat.
COLOUR SCRIPT / STORYBOARD
PROCESS
I decided to use the story from my Visual Storytelling module for this movie campaign project!
STORY
So the character and basic storyline has been set already. The movie will tell a story of an alien astronaut landing on a deserted Earth, exploring and eventually transforming the place into an alien natural habitat. The genres would be lighthearted, sci-fi, family-friendly, exploration.
Did some research on the direction I wanted to try. I like posters that depict action or something akin to a scene that’s played out in the movie itself, like the Star Trek and Casablanca posters. The dynamic strong diagonal lines these posters have creates way more impact than a flat normal shot of something. I included the Below game poster as I like the way it’s simple but has a strong usage of directional lines that guide the eyes and brings all the attention to what’s important.
So I started off with some simple, rough thumbnailing to get a rough idea of how I wanted the poster to look like:
The last one ended up being my favourite
At first, I decided to work on the 3rd thumbnail from the left as it felt the most intimate. However, when I started working on it I realised everything felt very flat and uninteresting? And the colours used made the poster portray the movie in a thriller-y, creepy light – definitely something I was not going for!
Tossed away 🙁
Soooo redo time!! I didn’t like the rest of the sketches so I quickly just drew out a new one and since it turned out decent, it became the finalised version. I used brighter and more saturated colours for this other attempt to hopefully spice it up a little while keeping it a little calm. Here’s some process shots!
The final result after post-processing and adding the text!
MOVIE CAMPAIGNS
MRT Station Advertising
Online Digital Advertising
First assignment! We were tasked to create 4 images that expressed different emotions.
We could either use photos or digitally paint from scratch and I chose to paint as it’s my point of interest.
THEME: Ocean of Feelings
As these sayings go, ‘you’re drowning in an ocean of feelings’; ‘waves of sadness hits you’, it’s a metaphorical way to describe how emotions can feel to a person.
I wanted to do something that wasn’t too literal in a sense whereby you can directly see the expressive features on a face, instead I wanted the environment or the ‘whole’ feel of the image to evoke its assigned emotion.
HAPPY
Happiness can be bubbly, hyper but what I chose to portray was the more serene and peaceful side of the spectrum. Everything is blissfully relaxing, the girl drawn and shown in clarity as she drifts off in the gentle waves. With the help of brighter, warmer colours, the image looks calm but still gives a sense of Happiness.
Inspired by the pink lakes in Australia that are so strange but gorgeous, it felt like the perfect environment for this emotion.
Process
For postprocessing I decided to edit the composition to bring in the girl closer and let the ocean fill up more of the space. And the colours were actually toned down a bit with cooler colours like purple as I realised later on that this image was too bright and popped out too much from the rest.
FEAR
Fear usually means a sense of dread, hopelessness as you fall deeper into depths of the unknown. So with that thought, a deep trench with an unending pit suited what I wished to go for. Real life deep trenches like the Mariana trench and Dean’s blue hole were the references I used.
Process
The hues for this are dark and foreboding, with hints of reds to pull in some visual interest. The central top point with the character is the only part that’s sort of illuminated whereas everything aside is hidden by shadows.
ANGER
Aggression, rage and fierceness are associated with anger. This feeling is vicious and strong and pulls you in deep unforgivingly, just like the ocean riptides and whirlpools. Sinking in your own personal riptide of strong emotions can be unrelenting, which is shown by the figure struggling as the water around gushes around without stop.
Process
The red and contrasting blue tones create this overwhelming feeling as they clash together to express something chaotic in nature. The character is placed in the centre region with the waves all going outwards from him, which guides the eye to the ‘object of interest’.
DISGUST
A common thing that’s thought to be unpleasant are looking at fish and specifically dead fish eyes. Making use of that fact, and inspired by how when sudden waves of dead fish end up on shore randomly, I drew many fish in a simple but ‘organised’ arrangement, imitating something similar to when dead fish just stack together.
Process
Grossness is done with goopy slime usually, which also happens to be green most of the time. I decided to swap to orange as the ‘water’ and green for the fish to kind of create this ‘uncomfortable’, contaminated effect as orange water doesn’t sit well with how clean and natural water should be. As an added effect, all the eyes of the fish are looking towards the character that’s hunched and perplexed.
Overall, this was kind of fun to do as we could experiment on what we wanted. At first I wanted to use daily objects to depict the emotions through the arrangement and composition. After some deliberation, I thought it felt too flat of a concept and changed my theme entirely into what it is now.
Here are just some sketches of previous scrapped ideas!
scrapped early on when initial idea was still Daily Objects
Fear and Disgust was changed because it didn’t feel as fitting
Though on my part, I did not have the best time management so I could not really edit and fix everything that I wished I could. But it was still a decent experience!
ADVENTURE
STORY by Rebecca
An adventurer on a journey with a dear feline companion, they stop abruptly and the adventurer opens up a map. Perplexed, the adventurer asks the cat, ‘Is this the only way to do this?’, and the cat pointedly replies with a simple ‘Yes.’ as they stare ahead at their glooming destination.
( This post will be updated as we progress! )
DRAWING MATERIALS
A2 Newsprint Pad (Not in picture!): For charcoals and figure drawings!
A3 Cartridge Sketchpad: For most mediums, practices. Bigger for basic stuff.
A4 Sketchbook: Mostly pencils, charcoals. Pretty basic stuff.
A4 Toned Sketchbook: Charcoals and some pencils! Good to practice around mid toning.
A5 Monologue Sketchbook: Mostly markers only, pencils and such don’t show well in this. Portable, for observational drawings on the go!
Staedtler Pencils: Varying tones
Daler Rowney Willow Charcoals: 3 thicknesses from thin to thick
Conte a Paris Sanguine (Brown), Blanc (White) and Pierre Noire (Black) Pencils: Hard, matte sketching pencils
Cretacolor Nero Medium Pencil: Soft oil-based charcoal pencils
ZIG Brushables: Assorted coloured brush markers
Faber Castell Watercolour Pencils (Not pictured): Old set, just to try!
INSPIRATIONS
CLAUDE WEISBUCH
His fluid and curved line work and gestures make the drawings feel much more alive and soft. There’s just this sense of movement and serenity in his drawings that I want to try to apply!
DENIS SARAZHIN
Denis unlike the previous artists, has a more distinct blocky style. His drawings are stronger in structure, with emphasis on the shapes and an interesting approach to using colours as tonal values. I really adore this take on drawing and I’d like to achieve something stylistically similar.
IAN MCQUE
He uses mostly pen and he’s still able to apply the sense of shadows and structure well with the strong ink pens have. Ian’s stylised art and ability to show depth are inspiring.
KIM JUNGGI
The diversity in styles and things that Kim Junggi can emulate is amazing. His sketches are clear and detailed, and there’s a sense of individualistic style. He has a great sense of perspectives as well as human anatomy, something I hope I can achieve with lots of work!
GOALS!
– Improve on anatomy, tonal values
– Achieve a satisfactory style
– Show personalities in drawings
– Better usage of colours for lighting and shadows (if we do colour)
R E S E A R C H
MODULAR DESIGN
It is a design technique that deals with designing a structure with numerous smaller parts that are usually known as ‘modules’ or ‘skids’. These modules allow the structure to be malleable and flexible in ways that normal structure can’t, for one, they are able to be reused, rearranged, replaced rather easily while still retaining its functionality. This becomes cost-efficient and increases the efficiency for improvement, edits or even removal.
Here are some examples of modular design and structures:
FURNITURE
Re-arrangeable shelves, seats, tables, etc.
Wine Shelf
NATURE
Honeycombs
ARCHITECTURE
Urban Rural in Istanbul
Izola social housing in Slovenia
COMPOSING SHORT TUNES
To start things off, we were grouped to create 2 different tunes with the instruments provided – I was grouped with Joy and Naomi! We picked the Resonating tone bars, Rhythm sticks, Finger cymbals and Wooden egg shaker and came up with the tunes.
The instruments we used for both our tunes.
AUDIO A:
Dominant: Resonating Tone Bars (RTB) (Deng deng deng deng….)
Sub-dominant: Rhythm sticks (Clack! Clack!)
Subordinate: Finger Cymbals (Ding!……Ding!)
This tune is slower, smoother and feels kind of spiritual, as if you were in some sort of temple chanting away. The RTB acts as the melody, the constant beat throughout. The Rhythm sticks clack away constantly in a 2-beat interval. The Finger cymbals come in at the end of every ‘set’ of 4 RTB beats, creating a high ding!
AUDIO B:
Dominant: Wooden egg shakers (Shhschshhchshh…)
Sub-dominant: Rhythm sticks (Clack! Clackclack!)
Subordinate: Resonating Tone Bars (Deng……)
This tune is slightly fast-paced, excited but with a abrupt sense of calmness. The Wooden egg shakers acts as the background sound, it’s swishing making a nice base.The Rhythm sticks is the loudest and fastest, creating the feeling of energy in bursts without stopping. The RTB is the pop of serenity in this busy tune, resounding and fading at the end.
INDIVIDUAL MOODBOX
I selected AUDIO A –the slower, spiritual one; to interpret into a moodbox.
DOMINANT: Black thread (Resonating tone bars)
SUB-DOMINANT: Wooden planks (Rhythm sticks)
SUBORDINATE: Ball of coiled wire (Finger cymbals)
The tranquility and calmness was the main aspect that I wanted to depict in the moodbox; as it brought feelings of serenity, divinity and also clarity.
As the Resonating tone bars (RTB) continuously went on as the melody and beat, it feels like it’s climbing higher with the finger cymbals clinking in high pitch. So I chose to depict that by letting it flow fluidly upwards. The melody created was soft yet solid, thus the use of black thread – its strong black colour suggesting solidity while the flexibility shows the softness.
The Rhythm sticks stood out from the tune as distinct clacks, sharp and loudly. Wooden planks were used to imitate that rigid, sudden prominent sound as it contrasts and stands out against the monochromatic scheme of the moodbox.
With everything rooted to the base, the Ball of coiled wire hangs high above the rest of the parts as the Finger cymbals give a satisfying resounding Ding! at the end of each 4-beat set, making the tune feel less down and a pop of lightness and divinity.
R E S E A R C H
MNEMOSYNE: Greek Goddess of Memory, name stemming from the word mnemonic.
SCENTS
Our sense of smell derives from the olfactory system, which consists of organs and parts that are also part of our chemosensory system. Important parts are the nose, nasal cavity, olfactory epithelium and the limbic system of the brain.
https://www.mediamatic.net/image/2016/12/14/undefined-774294500.jpg%28%29%282BFAFF5326707BDC1E9D8C136BDEA028%29.jpg
Just to break it down simply:
Important to note! Our sense of smell is intimately related to memories as we end up connecting new scents with older ones – either with familiarity or contrasts. Such memories come along with different sets of emotions, which in turns affects how the smell feels to someone.
P R O C E S S
P L A N A R M O D E L S
RED: Dominant
BLUE: Sub-dominant
GREEN: Subordinate
For the 1st sketch model, most of the mass stays close to the base. I did some tapering to the dominant, to make it look like its ‘fading’ away into the distance from an angle. The subordinate contrasts with the other two planes as it’s a simple short flat plane with no curvature or bends. The sub-dominant also brings forth a spike of motion, a point of visual interest as it looks as if it’s piercing upwards energetically.
As for the 2nd sketch model, it has more verticality compared to the 1st one. There is also more twisted places, creating more spirals. The dominant here twists in a big spiral, resulting in a spacious void right in the middle of the profile view. The sub-dominant contrasts by being drastically thinner and longer as it stretches high and pierces itself into the dominant. The subordinate is added two-thirds on the sub-dominant for bonus visual interest.
B O T T L E S C U L P T U R E
We had to base our sculpture off 2 personally significant scents – 1 attached to a pleasant memory, 1 attached to an unpleasant memory. After some consideration, I decided on these scents: Copic Markers as a pleasant memory and Surgical Gloves as an unpleasant memory.
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!
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.
C O N T R A S T
Contrast occurs when various aspects are obviously different from each other, causing juxtaposition.
We were assigned to implement our theme – in my case, Contrast, into our models. What I planned to achieve was to show the difference between each rectilinear form, with good positioning and materials.
PROCESS & DEVELOPMENT
Here’s the 1st sketch model. For this model, I used an XL box as a Dominant, a M sized Sub-dominant and an XS Subordinate. By doing so, I wanted to show that with the differing masses, you can see the contrast. The SD is flatter, but with a larger surface area and is taller; whereas the SO has a more relative form, and is thicker than the SD but despite that the SD still remains ‘bigger’. Wedging was used to make the 3 separate parts look more like one, fused model.
Materials wise, the D was planned to be transparent, acrylic. SD would be mirror-material, reflective. SO would be a solid black block, dense. With the transparent XL D, even though it’s so big, since it’s transparent it’ll remove it’s own presence and display and bring focus more on the SD and SO. Something very reflective vs something very black and dark; that’s contrast.
However, I didn’t choose this model in the end as I felt that it did not feel interesting enough.
The second sketch model. I wanted to show a bit of cantilever and rule of thirds as a bonus in this particular model. So each part was positioned in the way of the rule of thirds, making the whole thing look pleasing. The D, SD and SO were wedged and pierced into each other to create a feeling of unity with the aim of proving that in a single unit, contrast is still possible and it’ll remain as one whole.
As this was the sketch model I’ve chosen to finalise, I’ll go into detail with the materials later on.
Materials wise, the D would be constructed out of metal mesh that’s dense and fades off to the top, SD would be a translucent box with sand, SO would be a light, thin wood. The selected materials further enhance and complete the overall look and theme, Contrast.
The metal is to show that it’s very strong and concentrated, as it fades upwards into the SD that’s a translucent box with black sand. The box will show the sand as it moves around with motion, building contrast as the black colour make it seems dense but it actuality sand is softer, more malleable. It ends at the top with the SO being a very light balsa wood strip, something that’s a block and seemingly heavy, but in truth it’s very lightweight.
As a whole, it also shows the contrast of something ‘man-made’ vs ‘nature’
APPLICATIONS
It’ll work as a large high rise building, with the illusion that it’s fading to the skies, accompanied by a indoor greenhouse-garden extending at its side.
A table lamp and digital clock combination, the translucent part being the light and the wood protrusion as small light button. The clock face can be on the main body.