IDEA A glimpse at my ridiculously innocent childhood wishes that still remain with me today!
Becoming a dinosaur, befriending an alien, swimming with sharks, they’re all really cool things okay
RESEARCH & DEVELOPMENT
Since the theme was self portrait, it had to be something that was about us and I wanted to do something fun and simple. I was daydreaming when I suddenly thought of my childhood dreams and decided hey why not! They’re funny and probably a good base to make a motion graphic out of.
By watching countless of motion graphics (and related) videos, I started to get some inspiration and an inkling of how the visuals will look like. I’m extremely enamoured by SIAMES’ music video for ‘Wolf’. It uses shapes and silhouettes beautifully and most of their transitions are actually simple zooming into characters’ eyes and that was simple enough for me to execute.
Screenshots from ‘Wolf’ by SIAMES
I started planning and sketching out some storyboards of what compositions and assets I needed.
Following the storyboards, I started working on the actual assets on Photoshop, man there were so many layers. So Many.
Even the layers have more layers.
Eventually, I’m done and imported everything onto After Effects to start animating everything. It was an experience, fun though. Extremely tedious. I had to go into each ‘scene’ composition and then into each part followed by that part’s part, it goes on and on. I had already started on animating part by part manually when i found out about the puppet tool, and in order not to confuse myself any further I continued manually animating. I’ll definitely try puppet tool next time, looks really effective. I kept realising I needed to redo assets and even make entirely new assets, so that was a challenge. I also combined 2 separate music tracks to create a fitting melody for this motion graphic animation. After all that, I went to Premiere Pro to do some minor adjustments and it’s done!
Overall I honestly really enjoyed animating with After Effects and might actually try to practice and learn more about it on my own time. It was tough to grasp at first but it was a fun experience! Could have planned my ideas better and also my time better for a more satisfying end result, but all in all I’m sort of content with what I have done! It’s been a very productive 13 weeks!
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.
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!
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!
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.
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.
IKEBANA I’ve seen flower arrangements like this before but I just never knew what they were called until now!
But anyway, what exactly is Ikebana?
IKEBANA is a form of Japanese art dealing with arranging flora with specific techniques to create a harmony between nature and humanity.
The Ikebana is made to be able to be viewed in 360°, each ‘side’ having its own look. This particular way of arrangement shows unity of its elements and really shows the harmony of nature and humanity. Unlike the typical flower bouquet and arrangements we mostly see, Ikebana deals with expressiveness through the usage of positioning, impliedlines, directions, voids and asymmetry.
Any sort of plant material can be used to construct an Ikebana arrangement – examples such as sprouts, leaves, branches, flowers, etc. That does not limit the materials used to just natural ones. Usually in modernised styles, man-made or non-living materials can be used as well, like stone.
Ikebana bridges the life of nature into the comforts of our human living spaces, linking yet again, nature to man. Spirituality of the Ikebana practice is significant, the sole act of creating has to be meticulous, silence preferred as one puts their entire ‘soul’ into their work, absorbing every moment.
Principles of Ikebana There is a set of principles that Ikebana follows, each of them pretty self-explanatory and adhering to these principles allows the best immersion to the craft.
Silence: Relax, be at peace, enjoy the process Minimalism: ‘Less is more’ Shape & Line: Minimal but effective expression Form: Discover different forms from different experimentations Humanity: Expressing human emotions Aesthetics: Japanese culture Structure: Basic structure usually a triangle, each point representing Heaven, Earth & Humanity
Moribana (Piled up Flowers) http://www.ikebana-de.com/pics2011/IC-AnnB-101911.jpg
Just some interesting styles the plants and all can incorporate!
TASTE & FOOD Here’s a short cartoon clip I found that talks about how the tongue works and also it’s relation with taste!
TASTE: Senses that occur on the tongue region, or areas with taste buds including the soft palate. FLAVOUR: The combination of the received taste and aroma received from the sense of smell.
Just fun biological facts:
Our tongue goes through a few stages of processing before it actually determines that taste and flavour.
ANTICIPATION happens when your brain is awaiting and ready to get the taste. Past memories might be triggered, the brain predicting the coming sensation.
SENSORY OVERTURE is the different senses reacting with the approaching food. This includes when you see the colours, shape and texture of the food; the smell that reaches your nose, when the food reacts with the tongue and its taste buds, garnering sensations.
SOUND means when you start chewing, the sounds emanating giving you more information. Your mouth also ‘feels’ the food, is it soft? Hard? Dry? These all contributes.
FLAVOUR CREATION is the fusion of everything that occurs throughout. The brain analyses and goes through all these steps to produce a sense of ‘flavour’.
Let’s briefly breakdown how the different tastes can be perceived as.
SWEET: Pleasant, energising, innocent, rewarding SOUR: Rancid, strong, salivating, unwanted BITTER: Medicinal (so in a sense healing?), upsetting, avoidance, uncomfortable SALTY: Bad if excessive, great if adequate amount, flexible depending on amount UMAMI: Savoury, enjoyable, enhancing
Depending on what kind of emotion the dish is supposed to evoke, the tastes can be combinedandbalanced in countless ways to achieve the aspired flavours.
Aside from the taste and flavour of the food, the looksandaesthetics of it has to match the concept or feeling the food has to optimise the charm and attractiveness so people wish to at least try it! However for our Food X Ikebana project, the end product might not exactly be meant for consumption but more of visual appreciation, so our compositions have more freedom, well….kind of!
SUMMER IDEATION Once again we drew our seasonal themes randomly, and I got ‘SUMMER‘.
It’s 24/7 summer in Singapore so it was a little challenging trying to portray the ‘speciality’ of summer.
I chose to show the tropical beach life of summer for the final model. Usually when it’s summer time, it’s vacation! What do people do? Go to the beach to relax, bask in the sun, go for a swim, enjoy cooling cocktails at the bars. Even though in summer we get baked from the unrelenting sun, the cold treat of desserts can make us relax in comfort. It’s a pleasant season. Well if Singapore actually had more than 1 season, that is.
2D ANALYSIS (SKETCH MODELS)
RED: Dominant BLUE: Sub-Dominant GREEN: Subordiante RED DOTTED: Expand GREY DOTTED: Rule of Thirds
SKETCH MODEL 1
For this particular model, I decided to use a small SO sphere as the base, a D cone wedged precariously into the sphere, looking like it’s defying gravity. The SD flat cylinder is wedged similarly into about two-thirds along the length of the cone. Each shape is independent. I did not choose this model as the composition doesn’t match the lively, energetic feeling I wanted to portray in the final.
SKETCH MODEL 2
The base for this is a large D sphere, with a small SO cone wedged into the sphere. A long SD cylinder that’s wedged in the cone shows some sense of direction in this model. After consulting, ideally the sphere should be about 2.5 times bigger to really show its presence as a Dominant. The cone is dependent on both the sphere and cylinder.However I didn’t choose this as the final because it was a little lackluster in composition.
SKETCH MODEL 3
A flatter SD cylinder is used here as a supporting base, tilted at an angle. A D long cone has about one-third of it propping against the cylinder base. It points in the opposite direction of the cylinder, creating a zig-zag motion. Then, there’s a SO small sphere wedged into the circular surface of the cone. As a whole, the cone and sphere looks a little like it’s levitating off the base while being only supported by that cylinder base. I chose this model to finalise as I like how it has a zig-zag sense of direction and also how it moves upwards, making the composition feel more ‘alive’.
FINAL
Here’s the final model!
First I’ll list out the things used:
Dominant: The ‘cocktail’ and branch Sub-dominant: Pineapple Subordinate: Cherry tomato
The colour scheme of yellows, blues and pops of red are bright, saturated and excitable, just like the hot days of summer.
Sadly I could not find a suitable palm tree branch to use so I used this random slightly curved branch I found. It imitates the curve of a palm tree on the beach, sheltering over the people on their mats below. The ‘cocktail‘ is made of blue jello and tropical jelly beans were added in it to make it pop more. The blue represents the vast ocean.
Taste wise, everything edible here is mostly on the sweeter side, with the occasional sour tang of the pineapple and cherry tomato. As how summer is, sweetness depicts the lively energy and the decent amount of sourness is not too much, portraying how after exerting so much energy during summer activities, you get that exhaustion but it’s worth it.
Actually before presenting this during class, the model has festival buntings added as I hoped to further enhance the feeling of festivities (natsu matsuri) and fun times. However it made it feel like there was a bit too much going on, which brought it away from the minimalistic feel of Ikebana. So, I removed the buntings and broke off a part of the branch that was extending away from the curve of the entire length. It helped with the aesthetics and it looks less chaotic from before.
Contrast occurs when various aspects are obviously differentfrom 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 Msized 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 blackanddark; 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, moremalleable. 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.
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.
