Micro-Project – Basics

Cross Stream Broadcasting : Intoxicated.

Bao as the Mobile Streamer

Cross stream part 2 with @bao

Cross stream part 2 with Songyu Bao

Posted by ZiFeng Ong on Thursday, 21 September 2017

school project: getting drunk with ZiFeng Ong

Posted by Songyu Bao on Thursday, 21 September 2017

Me as the Mobile Streamer

Cross streaming with Songyu Bao

Posted by ZiFeng Ong on Thursday, 21 September 2017

Cross streaming With drunken Zifeng

Posted by Songyu Bao on Thursday, 21 September 2017

The concept of our CrossStream was simple, since we know that there will be some inconsistency in the timing of the delay between both live stream, we decided to produce a piece where the OBS(Laptop) user would only react to the visuals of the live mobile stream and create a scenario that timing would not be the focus of the piece, 3 reasons why we produced such an intoxicated piece and totally scraped the idea of the 1st/3rd person view we did in the previous week.

First – By being drunk, the timing will be the least importance due to the nature of intoxicated, people will have a weird sense of time and since we applied filters on the Mobile Livestream, every time the Mobile Livestreamer changed the filter when entering a door, it will be a Cue for the Laptop Livestreamer to progress into the next level of intoxication.

Second reason – The Livestream will be 15 minutes long, and we wanted to have a varying level into the 15 minute to keep the viewer entertained by not having to show/hear the same thing over and over for 15 minutes. Therefore we used the 5 stages of drunkenness to progress the varying degree of visual and audio within our livestream to give it a variance of emotional degree.

Third reason was personal reason for Bao and me, as our way of thinking is usually on the practical side and we could not grasp the idea of abstract, as with the Videofreex whom taught us to step out of our comfort zone, we decided to produce a piece which are relatively esoteric just to explore some of the attributes which we normally wouldn’t, if the audience gets it, Great! If not, well… we tried, and may try again in another approach.

So, Lets talk about the piece in action.

Door 1

The first scene depict a black and white, featuring a guy(me) with shades whom appear to be chill and cool, upon opening the and walking out of the room, I changed to fragmented filter while Bao switched to the second OBS scene where the music started to play along with generally mild graphical art that seems to “morph” into itself with bright solid color with striking contrasting background to represent the stage 2 high when someone is drunk, it turned from a cool and chill environment into the character of valor where the love and hate was showed more distinctively.

Door 2

The Second door transit from stage 2 to stage 3 intoxication, in stage 3, the filter on phone showed the spiral of the background, this is when people gets dizzy and feel like the world is spinning, from the OBS, more intense music was played and the graphic traverse from animation with solid colored background to full screen animation where it felt more chaotic to bring the spinning dysequilibrium to the next level.I also love the part where the effect from the obs spins along with the filter from the mobile streamer.

Door 3

The Third door transit from dizziness to the start where every thing goes crazy, the camera movement here changed noticeably from slight left and right spin in stage 3 to stage 4 where it is going left and right and the focus on the face is going off, the effect shows the colorful drips and while paired with even more upbeating music from the OBS stream, creating a high contrast chaotic feel.

Door 4

Lastly after entering the 4th door, the camera movement became really erratic and not only the camera moves vigorously, both Bao and I are shaking our head violently and we made our self really dizzy in real life. As this is the climax of our stream, the music and the OBS effect exhibits the true nature of intoxication where the world just crumble and it ended in me lying on the ground towards the end and slowly covered the camera to do a manual fade out before ending the stream.

Overall, This piece was us, by adding some emotional and eccentric nature into our work was influenced by BOLD3RRR to create a piece which is not suitable for all, but might be loved by some as we do not want to be conformed into the mainstream idea of broadcasting and wanted to try exploring what we wouldn’t otherwise explore. Our objective was to disorient the viewers by progressing the level of drunkenness through sound, visual and camera movements which would be really obvious when placed together.

Some Behind the scene:

OBS Livestream Documentation

I Am Unable to embed the video here as I posted it directly to the NTU OSS Facebook Group, Hence.. >> CLICK HERE FOR THE VIDEO IN NEW TAB<<

Initially I wanted to tackle on the idea of multi-tasking by having doing many task simultaneously while on live, but after watching BOLD3RRR by Jon Cates, It gave me an idea of having multiple prerecorded videos in the live stream and produce a piece that is slightly chaotic due to the amount of events happening on the screen of the viewer and with sounds from the recordings disrupting my live speech. Originally I wanted to have multiple cameras, one filming me from the front, others will film from other angles like from the back of my head, side view and such, however I’m unable to find my additional webcams I had. So I resorted to having a share screen from my phone whereas my phone is usually unlocked and in the “auto play mode” of some sort of game and recently it’s Pokemon Go so I wanted to show it as part of my life.

Before the stream

I’ve recorded 3 grid of 15 minutes each on different days but I wore the same shirt to give a illusion that it all happened at the same time. Since I’m using my desktop which does not have a webcam installed(my laptop keep crashing), I stuck the USB camera onto a small tripod and placed it in front of me.

In my 10 minute live stream

As I said, I will talk more after the first class assignment,

Note to self: I should talk more in the live video.
-Zi Feng, 21 Aug 2017.

Although I am really bad in English and don’t enunciate words properly, I tried to narrate like living in a third space and interacting with the recordings which I dragged myself in the third space to describe what’s happening on the screen, I remembered that during our Adobe Connect lesson that when the camera is flipped, I had a hard time coordinating my movement so I flipped the live camera(only the live is flipped) to make it a mirror. Also, I am not sure if there audience but went ahead and asked if the audience could hear me, Makoto replied but I only saw the reply about 5 minutes later. (Should check comments more frequently, now I know)
“Live” me flying over to point at “third space” me

The reason that I used this Youtube video from TrainerTips was because it was his first live stream of the series and I was watching and recording it while he was on live. The basic idea is to use a Live streaming video streaming me doing things Live in my Live stream, its like a Live-Streamception.

And then something happened as mentioned by Makoto when he was an audience during the live stream.The top right(pre-recorded) and bottom right(live) goes to the desktop at around the same time and you can see the changes that happened on my desktop within that few days.

As mentioned by Alvin’s comment in my previous post, Gesture is an important factor in communication so I tried to incorporate hand movements into the live stream when I was explaining about something. I was talking about how Korean manga is usually in a long strip format but the website which I read it(MangaFox) cut it into a page format.

Throughout the 10 minute of live, I am kind of lost and got mind blank multiple times, guess this is the cons of going live but also the beauty of it- the imperfections in realtime, I also asked the audience if there is anything they could recommend me to do and I think there were no audience during that point of time so I ended the stream soon after.

Lastly, I think that the future live streams will be posted to my timeline and then shared to the OSS Facebook group because posting directly to the OSS group prevented me from showing the video in this post as the OSS Facebook group is a closed group.

Special Thanks to Makoto and CherSee as they were my live audience and reacted to me during the live stream.Thank you!!! =D

I am Bonnie, The Next Pokemon Master. (Alter Ego/Video Double)

My First idea Diden’t work, but I’ll do documentation on it….

It took me a long time to think of someone to base my Alter ego on, I really wanted someone who is very different from me, relatively well known and have some comical effect, and after a long period of researching what Alter Ego is(from youtube), someone flashed across my mind….
KIM….
KIM….
KIM JONG UN.

Yes. This.Not to be disrespectful to the Respectable Supreme Leader Of North Korea. I kind of love him and thought that I could draw some similarity between us…. Black hair with similar hairstyle, Asian, double eyelid, protruding ears, I may be able to pull off some similarity and could impersonate him with ~~some~~ a lot of ~~makeup~~ prosthetic fats and makeup on, some tape on the eye(classical stereotypical joke). First I will get my hair slightly shorter.Hair cut (sideburn fade) – Done

Next, Style my hair:
Roughly~ will put more gel to press it down after the makeup, Done for now.

Next is to cover my thick eyebrows… I’ve Tried Makeup(Foundation,Cover base, Consealer and BB cream, I don’t know what they does and all seemed to be the same thing but I was told which order to apply them) which I borrowed from Su Hwee and it doesn’t work as my brows are too protruding and the makeup does not hold them down. So I hair gel-ed my eyebrow down and use Plasticine (I blended many colors to produce my skin tone) mixed with Vaseline to give it a mud like consistency and applied over my eyebrow, which I thought it would work.
I’ll makeup over it and draw fake Kim Jong Un brows later.

Now some Fake Cheek Fats:
I thought it look OK now as I should be applying makeup to my whole face later to cover the noticeable color difference.

And then comes the Fake Double Chin:
Fake Double chin supported by using metal wires within the plasticine and with rubber bands holding it at the back of my head, but then…..

FAILURE DISCLOSE!

Up till here, everything look promising… until I tried to blend the Fake Double Chin onto my face using the Plasticine-Vaseline mud mix.. it does not stick to my face if I move even a tiny bit. So I removed the idea of double chin and proceed to the makeup.

Expectation:

This is a Kim Jung Un Impersonator Kim Jung Um

Reality:
My eyebrow cover fell off while I was finishing with the make up, the Fake Double Chin doesn’t work, I look more like a (failed)Geisha than Kim Jung Un……
I am shook and decided to give up on this idea.

And the comes Bonnie.

Bonnie is a Female Pokemon Trainer from the Kanto region of Japan. Trying her best to become a Pokemon Master in the future, She had received her first Pokemon – Bulbasaur 3 days ago from Professor Oak and is currently on a journey to Pewter City on her quest to defeat all 8 Pokemon Gym leaders to earn the right to challenge the best in the region- The Elite Four.

I am Bonnie, a Pokemon trainer from Japan. I want to be the very best like no one ever was, to catch them is my real test, to train them is my cause. This is a Alter Ego project for assignment 2, sorry but I hope you don't get cancer from watching/hearing this.

Posted by ZiFeng Ong on Wednesday, 23 August 2017

Why did I decided to do this weird thing?

First, Why a girl with weird voice?
I wanted to have an alter ego of myself as someone I’ll never be, biologically and psychologically speaking, I will never be a girl but I thought it would be really funny to be a girl temporary, at least in the digital space.
Aaaand about the annoying-feel-like-punching-cancerous voice, I am seriously sorry, that’s the best I can do, if I retake 5 time, 5 times you will want to punch me. But I told myself after the previous live video that I will try to speak more in the video so Bonnie spoke for me.

And then why a Pokemon Trainer?
As the extension of the previous reason, someone I’ll never be.
Pokemon doesn’t exist regardless how much the Pokemon community wanted it, they are only virtual. It was my childhood game, I’ve played almost all of Pokemon’s main series and still plays Pokemon GO now, it’s a childhood fantasy that still lives within me- Travelling, Exploring, catch Pokemon, breed Pokemon, meet new people, fight them, ~~take their money after beating them~~ and be the best like no one ever was.

Japanese?
Japan was my dream destination since young so it’s still the number one country I want to visit. Nipon Banzai!

What’s up with the setting?
The location was set to be somewhere grassy as there need to be tall grass for the wild Pokemon to appear plus Bonnie is on a journey to the Pewter City. I’ve been to this place 2 years ago, both side were tall grass and apparently they chopped off one side now and Bonnie’s sad(lesser wild Pokemon for her).

It is a good place to film this as there will only be passerby occasionally. There’s basically nothing there as it was a train track which stopped working in 2011 and got removed afterwards, so its good for me to do this man-in-wig-blasting-Pokemon-music-shouting-go-Bulbasaur-in-a-cancerous-voice thingy.
I got the oldwig from my mother and that’s the only one I could get, the cap is a Pokemon Go- Team Valor cap, the orange hoodie and the headphone was to give Bonnie the anime feel.
If you watch it without voice, its kind of good actually, and this was from a NG try.. I did a few tries and the one I uploaded was the best… just imagine how ~~bad~~ cringey was the rest.

Best part of this 1 min live video…

The video was SOOOOO ~~bad~~ Cringey to a extend that it might be good.

And this is the first time I saw this in my facebook feed cos I don’t have many friends…..

So if you happened to stay till the end of this long post, here’s a bonus photoshopped photo for you.

A picture speaks a thousand words, but with Photoshop, it tells a thousand lies.

Real Time Aggregation.

15 min of randomness in adm

Posted by ZiFeng Ong on Thursday, 17 August 2017

Before the Live Video:

This was the first time I did Facebook Live video and I felt like a cave-man that doesn’t know how does it even work, I don’t even know how set my profile to public since I’ve set it to private years ago, I had, however, took part as an audience for the Live video of my friends and kind of like it due to the fact that people reacted almost instantly on the comments I’ve wrote. But the idea of going live on Facebook was really scary for me as I did not have the confidence to produce quality video which people will like, what if like there is totally no viewers? And also there are people who I am not very well acquainted with in my friend list and I don’t feel good putting the live video where they will probably not get what is going on. But Oh well~ What needs to be done must be done.
*clicks the red button*

During the Live Video:

At the start of the live video, I was really lost and did not know what to do so I followed my classmate out of the class room and was feeling weird as my friends are all taking happily to the phone but I’ve got nothing to say so I only filmed them in silent. The anxiety of putting myself on the web Live slowly dwindle down as soon as I saw our IM juniors, since they are from IM, it feel like there is a connection with them just because I knew they will be doing this the next year, just like how I saw the Senior Nathanael did it last year.

And then, I’m surprise that my first viewer on this live video was also Senior Nathanael, I’m touched that at least someone was watching so I went to say hi to him in the video, at this point of time, I did not know about the function to switch the camera(because I’m a caveman) so I turn the phone physically to show my face, I had no intend to show my face at all as I planned to just film what is happening without showing myself but it just happened naturally.

After me exposing myself in the video(2:23), it feels OK since I’ve did it once and broken the barrier of videoing in a third person, suddenly my phone became something which I am interacting with, (so instead of me using as my phone to record and tell a story, it developed into me talking to the phone and the phone just extended itself from “part of me” into “a separate entity of me”. which is really bizarre as all I did was to show myself in the video and my perspective changed so much.)

After going around looking at what the second year was doing and semi-introducing what I was doing and filming others, it came to a point that I started to do random things and became numb on the fact that people will judge me while I am on live(my anxiety before the start of the Live video), I think this is partly because:
1) People around me were doing the same thing.
2) I’ve did it for a couple of minute and slowly getting used to it.
3) The pace of live video was fast and there wasn’t time to pre-think what to do.
4) The viewers were commenting on random events which gave me a feeling that I am not alone.
5) I felt like I have some responsibility in entertaining the viewers.

Therefore I did some random(disturbing) acts just because I could.(Just to clarify, I don’t go around squeezing people’s butt in real life)

I thought it was funny, and now looking back, its still kind of funny albeit the creepy movements. Just what the heck am I doing. LOLLL

And then I proceed to do normal activities like walking around, talking to people and trying to introduce ADM to the viewers whom are not from ADM like my Ex-classmates and such.

I also really like this part where I was filming what CherSee was Filming and he was on the front camera while I was at the back camera so I could see myself in his screen and I am recording myself recording myself like a video-inception (left), but from the video which he uploaded(right), its only a one way video which he only shoots my face trying to get into the center of the frame while filming him. This is really mind boggling and cool in its own way as both of us are having live videoing it feel like it is a real-time magic or something.

At the end of 15 minute while I was walking back, I went back to the IM Junior table and I only notice the difference when I rewatched the video. I was filming myself!! Comparing to when I just started this live video where I was just filming the juniors, Now I am in the video showing myself to the public. I was talking much more in comparison. (At the start, I was just waving to them without saying Hello and only briefly reply in short sentence about the live video, and towards the end, I am just talking aimlessly.)
*Thanks Bridgel, Tisya and Sylvester for entertaining me.*

At the end of the video, I got a slight panic when I stopped the video as I am afraid that I would do something wrong which accidentally delete the footage since it was live, there is no way which I could replicate it again if it was deleted so somehow, so a live video felt more precious to me than any other video I took.

After the Live Video:

Prof Randall showed us the 4×3 grid video wall of the with 12 of our videos playing at the same time, I love the way that everything overlapped but the non of the video’s time frame was in parallel (the same exact event happened at different timing on the video wall) and it is totally uncoordinated, in a sense, it is chaos, but the rhythm is there within the chaotic mass which made it much more interesting than just looking at one single video at once. The visual and audio of all the 12 video was overwhelming and just when I am focusing on a single video within the video wall, suddenly I heard something interesting happening and I will glance around to find which video produced the sound as there must be something interesting happening in it, this gave me a sense of treasure hunting.

In Conclusion

I love the way that our individual 15 minute effort was placed together to form “something greater than yourself ” piece of work. This 15 minutes of live video was really fun and enriching, it somehow changed me and gave me some confident in the future Live video that I will be doing. At least I won’t start with the Live video with anxiety and getting lost right after I clicked the red button.

Note to self: I should talk more in the live video.