Month: November 2018

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Project 4: Poetics of Time

Project Proposal

  1. Flow of Time
  2. I was always fascinated with the idea that we were literally born to die, that every second of our lives is every second closer to death. I decided to explore a different concept, much darker than what I am used to. I would like the audience to get a “wake up call”,  relating what I am trying to convey in my video which is to spend time on things in life that matter and let go of things that are trivial.
  3. I intend to create a 1 to 3 minute animated video, going through the ageing of a character since birth. The audience would see the gradual ageing of the character and how they would eventually meet Death, a character that waits at the end of the character’s life.
  4. I would mainly be using Photoshop to animate frame by frame, and using after effects to edit.
  5. The video will be projected through the class’ projector. I would use a timer that counts down the duration of the video and have it ring at the end of the video.

It starts off with a clock with the time ’01:00′ and you see an image of a baby, to signify the start of a new life through the 24 hour clock. As time passes, the baby ages and time moves on as well. Every time the character ages, the alarm would ring. At the end of the character’s life, at ’23:59′, it shows that the alarm clock was Death all along, waiting for the moment the character dies which is at ’00:00′. At the end, there a voice over of a poem by Ursula K Le Guin,  Hymn To Time, which tells us about how we as humans chase this notion of time, using units, be it through inanimate or animate objects, daily natural occurrences such as day and night, etc to measure time when time is ever flowing and stops for no one.  At the moment the poem ends, an alarm would ring in real time.

Honestly, while doing this project I felt really pressured as I dug myself a grave by raising the standards for myself through the previous project. I kept doubting my own concepts and was worried that people would not be impressed if I could not hit my own standards. Ironically, while overthinking things, I wasted lots of precious time that I could have used to work on my final project. Hence, I felt disappointed that my video fell short of my expectations and usual standards.

Audience Reactions

I am thankful that the audience were sensitive and encouraging, even though I felt pretty down. I’m also thankful to my friends for helping me through this project and for providing support, I would not have been able to move on without them. If I could work on a similar project again, I hope to be able to talk about my concepts confidently without doubting myself again.

 

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In Class: Re-visit Project 3

RHYTHM 

The dub step music in the background, constant chipmunk noises, the man groaning in the foreground, and the repetitive crow cawing creates a sense of rhythm in my work.

MOVEMENT

The entrance and exit of Dracula in the middle of the video indicates the presence of attack, sustain and decay as he enters through the portal, rings the bell and waits, before proceeding to enter the house. As the video is 360 degrees, you are able to see every little detail such as the characters moving and interacting with each other.

CAUSALITY

I think my video is rather predictable. There is little to no movement in my video and the only unexpected aspect is Dracula entering through the portal.  If I had more time, I would have added more elements that could surprise the audience. For instance, I discussed my initial idea to Serena and she suggested for me to add explosions and aliens to further intensify my scene. 

DURATION

I feel that my video was long only because it was lacking the elements that I wanted to include but could not due to time constraint.  1 min is definitely more than enough time to tell a simple, but straightforward narrative.

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Final Fashion Piece

Fashion Week 

For my fashion week item, I mainly gained inspiration off Jess’ unpleasant scent (Wine) and my pleasant scent (Medical Halls). What I found interesting was that Jess’ unpleasant scent actually smelled pleasant to me, hence I wanted to try and incorporate the 2 scents to create a more positive image.

Wine to me:

My part of the collection – Glove

Final  Piece:

Reflections:

Our collection was modelled by Jess’ friend, Rachel Ng. She did a wonderful job of modelling our pieces.  It was really fun to be teamed up with Jess as fashion is her strong point and as a collaborative effort, I felt that we managed to pull off our Mnemosyne project really well.

 

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In Class: 10 Seconds

10 wants:

  1. Gentle rain (hear)
  2. Water rippling (hear)
  3. More dogs (see)
  4. More cats (see)
  5. Rainbow (see)
  6. Money clinking out of a casino machine (see/hear)
  7. Freshly baked cookies (smell)
  8. Antiseptic (smell)
  9. Scented candles (smell)
  10.  Lush shower gel (smell)

 

10 Don’t Wants

  1. Drilling/Construction (hear)
  2. Dog barking (hear)
  3. People screaming (hear)
  4. Parents beating their kid and their kid is crying  (hear)
  5. Moist munching (hear)
  6. People who eat messily with food all over them (see)
  7. Soft, mushy soil (feel)
  8. Vomit (smell)
  9. Random hair in your food that does not belong to you (see)
  10.  People talking loudly on the phone in public spaces
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Project 4 – Research

#1 – A Grandma’s Goldfish 「婆ちゃの金魚」

While researching for project 4, I stumbled upon this gold nugget from 2012.

This is an independently produced animated short film by Kaori Iwase who completed it at the Tokyo University of the Arts as her graduation production while she was a student there.

The subject of the film is about dementia, being heavily influenced by the theme that people’s memories become just like water; unstable and easily displaced, as they grow old.

The main character of the story is an elderly lady who has dementia and can’t remember the past.  Her world revolves around her beloved pet goldfish, Tama-Chan, that takes her on a journey down the River of Memory.

This short film is a combination of experienced time, Grandma’s perception of time passing as is, and non-linear edited time, when she realises that it is a flashback of her past as a child.

When the short film was released on DVD as part of the collection of the 2013 Tokyo Award Collection, it was the only film that came without the subtitles. Interestingly, going through some of the Youtube comments, I saw how this film had managed to transcend the language barrier to come to a common understanding that the film was about dementia. The film had skilfully directed the audience through the child-like behavioural attitude of the Grandma, the state of decay of the house; reflective of the grandma’s mental state, the use of water as a portal to her old memories, and the Tama-Chan being the trigger to her flashback for her love of fishes.

#2 The Village by Mark Baker 

This was an animated short film produced by Mark Baker in 1993.

In this short film, the subject is the man wearing the glasses. The story is about a town ruled by a church filled with sinners who spy on each other, pretending to be upright and lawful citizens. The whole film is heavily themed on the idea of sin, that every human character in the film has committed a sin even though the town is ruled by a church which preaches to the villagers and that the only “normal” and humane characters are the ants.

This makes the viewers question organised religion (touchy subject here wow) , being just an excuse to hide people’s negative side, and their own morality, whether they have been the victim of such behaviour or if they were just like the villagers in the film, full of doubt and mistrust in those around them.

The short film is a combination of linear time and edited linear time.

Similarities 

  • Both film uses edited time to show the passing of day/s.

Differences 

  • A Grandma’s Goldfish (2012) evokes emotional reactions hence, it is an emotional content whereas The Village (1993) raises questions and thoughts in the audience hence, it is an intellectual content.

 

I am v tired pls excuse my horrible writing will fix it once I’m functional (real question is, when will I ever be lmao)