Final Project + Title Screen

Final Title Sequence: Gunned Down

The theme for this title sequence was inspired by the recent news reports that I have seen regarding school shootings in the United States of America. Even with multiple school shooting cases such as the ones that happened at Sandy Hook Elementary School and Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, school shootings and gun violence still occur frequently. Thus, I made this title sequence as a possible title sequence for a documentary on gun violence in schools.

 

Final Project: Memories

During the ideation phase of what to create as my final project, my grandfather whom I was very close to, passed away unexpectedly. Thus, that became my inspiration for this short. I went around to places that he used to go and places that he use to live at to film. As all these places hold so much memories of him. And by piecing the shots together together with his favourite song, it helps set the mood as a short that is done in memory of him.

I did really enjoy the process of making this short for the final project as it was something that was really close to me and at the same time, holds a lot of emotions and memories. Having to go back to places that contains so much memories was a way for me to heal from the grief that I had when my grandfather passed away so unexpectedly.

Process:

My initial idea was to overlay a voice narration throughout the shot but I removed the narration for the final project as I felt like it didn’t really suit the mood that I was trying to portray. Below is a cut of the short with  narration.

Visual Storytelling: Run (Final Animatic)

Story Description:

A story of me running away from a monster throwing “stress balls” like bad grades and school work. Getting hit by the ball, I start cracking and the only way to stop cracking is to get to the hourglass. But as time starts depleting, I chase after the hourglass to stop everything. Eventually arriving at victory.

Run – A short visual storytelling illustration

Story Description:

A story of me running away from a monster throwing “stress balls” like bad grades and school work. Getting hit by the ball, I start cracking and the only way to stop cracking is to get to the hourglass. But as time starts depleting, I chase after the hourglass to stop everything. Eventually arriving at victory.

 

Did it turn out as you hoped?

The part where it has turned out as what I had hoped would be the style of the illustrations as I was aiming to have smooth flowing thick lines as part of the art style.

What would you do to improve it?

Exploration of more brushes would be a good way to improve it.

 

What skills do you need to improve?

I would still hope to improve on my illustration skills.

What are the most significant things you have learned so far?

The most significant things so far that I have learnt would be that the use of certain camera angles can help show an establishing shot and as for the illustration part, I learnt that I don’t always have to rely on a round hard brush and that even a triangular brush can create the style that I want.

Portrait Images

I have chose to have my guinea pig as the focus of my portrait as she has been part of my family for the past 1.5 years. Over the years, I got to understand her personality, her likes and dislikes. In this image I wanted to capture her expressions and her love for food such as the colourful treats shown in this final image. I had fun exploring the use of the camera as I had no previous background on photography.

Other portraits:

Visual Storytelling 1 Image

Rationale:

  • Character is running out time – slowly cracking
  • Being chased by “monsters”
  • Of  which the “monsters” are problems and issues (examples: life, school, stress etc.)

Transformation:

  • Character slowly cracks due to the lack of time
  • Grabs the hourglass and turns it over to gain more time
  • Transforms back to normal

Point of view of the Character:

  • Fearful of cracking fully and shatter as they are running out of time
  • Feeling afraid as they are being chased by their problems
  • Anxious

First and Third person’s point of view.

Final Project – The Little Mermaid (Goldberg Machine)

After working on this project for a few weeks and through lots of trial and error, I managed to complete it!

However, there were a few challenges that I faced.

  1. Due to the plastic hose/tubes crossing each other at certain part and being tied to the metal frame, I had to trial and error on how tightly I could tie the tubes to the metal frame as problems like the ball bearing being stuck when it reaches the crossing if the tubes were tied to tightly against each other.
  2. Determining how much water to place in each of the containers as for the metal bucket, it has to be able to sink fully in the water to be able to trigger the pulley system to lift the plastic sphere upwards.
  3. Finding the best height of the wooden base needed for the structure with the metal frame and plastic tubes as the height determines how much force the ball bearing will produce once it drops out when exiting the plastic tubes.
  4. Exploring whats the best distance to tie the pulleys to the wooden stick as I found through trial and error that the distance between the pulleys greatly affects whether the pulley system will be activated when the ball bearing drops into the metal bucket.

Overall, I enjoyed myself while doing this project as it gave me a chance to think about how to link both the motion of the ball bearings to the story but at the same time, this project allowed me to think critically and learn through trial and error to see what works best in order to improve my work during the entire working process.

And thus, I present to you my final project (Image and Video on how it works) – The Little Mermaid (Goldberg Machine)!

Final Project Research and Process – The Little Mermaid

My final project is based off the story of the Little Mermaid by Hans Christian Andersen. Of which, I did some research on the story and presented my findings in class.

I have chosen the part of the story where the little mermaid jumps in to the sea and gains and immortal soul while the prince sails off in a boat after he got married to the princess.

I decided on portraying the story in the way the ball bearing travels in the artwork.

These are my initial sketches when I was planning for this final project:

I had also planned out 4 main parts for this artwork.

  1. The part where the prince and the little mermaid spends time together – to show that their fates intertwined which I use the crossing of two plastic tubes to portray that as the two ball bearings would travel along the tubes at the same time but pass by each other while they are moving down the tubes.
  2. But they ended up being separated as the prince chose to marry a princess instead of the little mermaid – shown by having one ball bearing exiting from the left and the other from the right.
  3. The little mermaid then jumps into the sea as the prince marries the princess,  but instead of turning into foam, she was given an immortal soul – This is portrayed by having the ball bearing exit on the left, dropping into a small metal bucket which then is lowered into the water in the container through the use of pulleys (representing the little mermaid jumping into the sea) and a plastic sphere moving upwards due to the pulleys (to represent the little mermaid gaining an immortal soul and going to heaven).
  4. The prince marries the princess and moves off in a ship – This is shown by having the other ball bearing representing the prince to exit on the right and then falls into a boat which then moves off

After planning out, I went out to source for materials. Such as the wooden base to place the tall structure with tubes, the containers for the water, wooden sticks, the metal frame to hold the tubes. I did have go out to source certain materials which were not easily sold outside such as a plastic tube/hose that could accommodate the size of the ball bearings and the pulleys. The image below shows the process of my work in progress.

Project 4 Final – The Unfolding Narrative

For our final work, we decided on a layout like this with the 3D model done in Autodesk Maya. Our installation is titled “The Unfolding Narrative“.

 

 

 

More renders of the 3D model:

The stories that would be played through the headphones initially before anyone records their thoughts in the booth:

1 – Working adult – Mild bipolar disorder
2- Old Uncle – Anhedonia (Major Depressive disorder)
3- Working Adult – Manic depression (Suicidal)
4- Working Adult – Relocation depression (change of nature in job)
5- Working Adult – Parenting through depression
6- Working Adult – Depression caused by chronic Illnesses/change of environment
7- Fresh Graduate – Financial depression

Our purpose:

  1. To encourage open conversations on our mental health
  2. Choose to use the toilet -> where private thoughts are most apparent, bringing them to a public space

Front view:

  1. A row of 9 toilet bowls placed at the ADM entrance
  2. A headset will be attached to each toilet bowl where participants can pick up and listen to the recorded stories
  3. Each toilet bowl will have a different encounter recorded

Back view:

  1. Participant can move to the back and contribute their own personal stories
  2. We want to create a safe and comfortable place -> drawing/ writing/ highly encouraged to share their stories verbally

Explaining the layout:

  1. According to statistics, 1 in 10 Singaporeans suffer from mental health issues
  2. So we made 9 toilet bowls -> equivalent to 9 listeners lending their listening ear to the one person in the booth.
  3. Straight line of toilet bowls

Stories shared:

  1. Most common problems -> depression, alcohol abuse, obsessive-compulsive disorder,
  2. Other problems -> Schizophrenia and Dementia

Community involvement:

  1. We want to have an interactive/community sharing component included in our project
  2. Reason why we encompass different ways of expression -> to have a greater sense of inclusion towards the process of story sharing

 

What we considered?

  • Live streaming of personal stories -> why not? -> might create a sense of fear, a sense of formality in the process of sharing -> therefore, we chose not to do it

 

 

Project 4 – Research and Development

Our group decided to focus on mental health in Singapore.

Based on some research that I did, I found out that:

  • 1 in 10 people in Singapore suffer from a mental disorder (Singapore Mental Health Study 2010)
  • 5.8% of the adult population in Singapore has suffered from depression at some point in their lives
  • The top 3 most common disorders in Singapore are:

 

  1. Depression: loses interest in daily life, has feelings of hopelessness and thoughts of suicide
  2.  

    Alcohol Abuse: has to drink more and more alcohol to feel its effects as tolerance for the substance increases, experiences sweating and other withdrawal symptoms when not drinking

 

 

Obsessive Compulsive Disorder Obsessive: has persistent and irrational thoughts, impulses or images that cause anxiety or distress like an overwhelming fear of germs and dirt Compulsive: repeats actions like checking and rechecking locks several times over

  • Based on a study, The Mind Matters: A Study of Mental Health Literacy, they found out that there was also considerable personal stigma towards mental illness. Of which majority shared several common perceptions – that those with mental health issues could get better “if they wanted to”, the problem is a “sign of personal weakness” and people with such disorders are “unpredictable”.
  • The study also showed a lack of recognition for disorders like Obsessive Compulsive Disorder and schizophrenia.

Thus we decided to create an installation, titled “The Unfolding Narrative” because we want people to share their stories. And we don’t want a title that’s very loud and directly associated to mental health. We want to ingnite interest and curiosity first.

I came up with 2 drafts before modifying them to create the last sketch.

Draft 1:

Draft 2: