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Very odd, the two posts below this refuse to turn up..... u need to highlight the thing to see the text

Final Project: Documentation

Preproduction:

Stage 1: Reverse Engineering (Analysis of Linkin Park MTV)
Members in charge: Su Pei and Xue Li

The reverse engineering exercise is a tedious but proven to be a useful and necessary process for the development of script for MTV. In order to effectively and efficiently analyse the MTV that has more than 100 transitions, Su Pei and Xue Li decided to split the MTV into 2 parts, with Xue Li in charge of analysing the first 1:40 minutes of the MTV and Su Pei analysing the rest of it.

After which, to document the script in the standardized Hollywood script format, the members consulted existing examples such as "Batman Begins" and "Lost in Translation", and the lecture notes given. Upon familiarizing the main components, that is, the font, font size, margins measurements, indent measurements and when to indent, both members started watching the MTV and jotting down what was seen.

As a script is supposedly to be a descriptive version of what has to be filmed, it has to be detailed. Thus, the members have to repetitively watch the MTV, and pay attention to the details, making sure that all scenes are noted down. Besides that, there is a need to describe each scene as if there is no visual aids.

However, given the theme of the MTV, it involves a lot of historical and general knowledge to fully describe the short clips being inserted into the MTV. As there are several parts that the members are unable to identify and come to a conclusion together, a third opinion is needed. Thus, Su Pei and Xue Li approached Chris for help, to look at scenes at specific timings to discuss and identity what was actually being captured.

After days on working on dissecting the scenes, the next step was to fit the lyrics into the scenes. This step require members to be very sharp and has good sense of timing. Given the nature of MTVs, that certain words from the lyrics stretched over a couple of scenes, the timing as to when the words changed/ended/started at certain scenes have to be taken note of.

After these, Su Pei was in charge of compiling the script by standardizing the language used, the way the scenes are being described and presented, and making sure the format is correct. In the process of compiling, there are several opinion differences to certain scenes. For instance, the stage in which Linkin Park was filmed was being seen as part of the dessert, but also being seen as somewhere with a bridge by another member. However, in order to have consistency, the elements were changed to follow suit a standard description.

Upon all the hard work, the main content was passed on to Chris and Mark to add in some elements like page numbers, scene numbers, and header and footers.

Stage 2: Brainstorming of ideas

Members in charge: Su Pei and Xue Li
With support from: Mark and Chris

In view of coming up with a narrative MTV, which the music and lyrics have suit the visuals, Su Pei thought of settling the music and lyrics first. As such, she started contacting friends to get songs they composed. Having managed to contact a band call Rika, she approached them and asked them for the songs they had done up. They are a unique band that does a mix of heavy metal and soft rock music. However, upon several discussions withing the group, it was decided that the team would not be collaborating with Rika due to the nature of their songs and lyrics being too hard to fit into developing a narrative MTV. Consequently, Mark contacted his friends to get songs they composed.

However, in order not to further delay the project, it was being decided that the storyline of the MTV be settled first. As such, the first round of brainstorming was done by Xue Li and Su Pei to come up with possible themes for the MTV. Discussions circulated around the theme of love, murder, mystery, revenge, hatred etc. An initial research was also done to look at past years' MTV productions.

After discussions on some random ideas, Su Pei and Xue Li settled on the idea of murder and vengeance, something not as common in MTVs. A group meeting was held to settle on the main ideas of the MTV. Minutes of the meeting are as follows:

Ideas:
- Murder
- CAP5 (humor video on how to get A+ for all modules)
- Just a simple sad love song where the man dies

MURDER
She is a vengeful murderer and she will eventually kill the boyfriend

Why does she kill?
- for fun
- love
- jealous
- secret agent
- money
- psycho
- bored
- boyfriend complains
- possessive

Fatal Attraction:
Shes conditioned to kill because of a past betrayal from her first love. When she first kills, shes scared. Subsequently more and more, she keeps meeting lousy guys. She kills them all. And her love slowly drains out. And she a cold hearted killer that the audience pities. All in all 4 murders including first love.

Murder Style:
- Heart Carving
- Mouth Stabbing
- Simple Stab
- Back Stab
- Neck Stabbing

Possible filming locations:
Park
Town, Orchard

Rough script
Total Running

First minute
1. First shot, girl admiring ROSE camera panning. In white room
2. First love (lyrics will queue this) girl happy with guy
3. First love guy betrays/harms girl
4. Girl kills guy
5. Girl Scared but smiles a little at the end.
6. Rose Scene together with knife and blood, rose withering

Next 45 sec
7. Second Guy, falls in love with her
8. Second Guy, betrays/harm girl
9. Girl kills guy in similar fashion to the first but different camera angle
10. Girl this time show a happier smile no trace of fear or regret
11. Rose scene, rose is slowly decolourising

Next 45 sec
12. Third Guy, falls in love with her again
13. Third Guy, betrays/harms girl in a different fashion from the 2nd
14. Girl kills guy in similar fashion to the first but different camera angle
15. Rose scene, rose is turning cold and blue

Next 1 min
16. Fast fowarded quick cuts killings superimposed interlaced with girls mood improving as video time moves forward
17. Hands dropping into frame to represent more killings
18. Extended rose scene with rose deteriorating even more, perhaps a strong wind blowing

Final min
19. Finally she meets the last guy.
20. Extended lovey dovey scene
21. He screws up
22. She lures him to her house
23. Camera showing closeup of her knife as she walks into the room
24. Fade to Black

Stage 3: Documentation of preproduction plans
Members in charge: Su Pei and Xue Li
With support from: Mark and Chris

Upon settling on the main content/storyline, the members in charge went into the producing the actual preproduction documents with the help of the rest of the members. Knowing the strengths of each team member, that is, Mark being best at drawing, Chris best at budget and resources calculations, Xue Li being best at persuasive writing, and Su Pei at script writing, the storyboarding and resources components were completed with the help of Mark and Chris. The rest of the documentation were divided among Xue Li and Su Pei.

In the process of writing the script, it was being brought up by Chris that the team might need to change the storyline. From his research on MTVs on youtube, the MTVs were built on simple plot, or rather a linear storyline that is straight forward and easy to understand despite having storyline twists etc. As seen earlier, the team storyline is build on complicated subplots. The initial idea for all the plots of killing and explanation of why the killings started, was for character build up and for the audience to empathize with the character. However, as argued by Chris, the restricted timing given by the nature of MTV would imped the character build up and audience empathy that the team tried to build up. As such, the plot was changed to concentrate on just one killing, with good enough reason (betrayal and psychotic illness). Upon settling the main storyline, the script was written and passed on to all members so that the rest of the preproduction documents (i.e. storyboarding, resources and budget estimates, rationale/aim/objective of MTV etc.) could be done up subsequently.

Additionally, as the main aim of the preproduction document is to set the anchor for the project, and mostly for quick internal reference, it was being presented and written in a concise, precise and succinct manner.

Production:

Stage 1: Preparation for filming
Member in charge: Su Pei

Preparation for the actual filming mainly involves the recruitment of casts and setting of dates for filming. As props used could be found easily, they were not much of a hassle. Su Pei managed to get her friend and friend's boyfriend to help out in the filming of the MTV. Dates were scheduled on the 19th and 26th of March. However, upon nearing the dates of filming, the casts had last minute meetings and changes had to be made. As such, the filming dates were changed to the 25th of March and the 26th of March.

As of all projects, nothing goes smoothly. Just before the date of filming, when Su Pei contacted the casts to triple confirm the timing for filming, the casts could not make it for evening shots due to other commitments. In view of completing the project on time, it was decided that the team members take up the acting roles instead.

Stage 2: Filming
Equipments used: Panasonic NV ex 21; Canon MVx 330i; 2 tripods

First day of filming (25th March):
INT. Chris's house.

The team had planned to use Chris's sister's room for the filming. However, upon visiting Chris's room, it was decided that his room be used instead. It was due to a couple of reasons such as, lighting, spaciousness and layout/structure of the room. However, as the room belongs to Chris, it lacked the feminine elements. As such, props such as pink pillows, soft toys, pink blanket/bedsheet were borrowed from his sister's room to set up the setting for filming. Little details were taken into consideration. For instance, for the split second of Girl on the ledge by the window scene, the drawings/paintings and pillows at the background were placed in consideration of how the overall composition looks like.

As both Mark and Chris have cameras, 2 cameras were used concurrently to film the scenes from different angles/perspectives. Additionally, this also helps to create extra footages that could be used for back ups. If otherwise, re-filming will only mean waste of resources and time.

The other noteworthy scene is the emotional scene where the Girl was kneeling in front of her desk, and she stood up after banging the table and swiped everything onto the floor. The actual footage was about 8min long. Chris was lying on the floor with his camera, trying to capture the action of kneeling down, standing up, and things dropping on the floor. On the other hand, Mark was standing on a mini ladder, supporting the camera and the tripod using his arms and body. The angle which he was trying to capture was the action of the hands swiping the things on the table. As such, the camera was positioned from a top view.

However, as originally planned, the things dropping on the floor, with the pen knife amongst them was to foreshadow the ending of the plot. As such, a close up separate footage of the things dropping on the floor was taken. To effective focus on the penknife in a clear yet subtle way, the penknife was deliberately dropped last.

The other interesting scenes would be the emotional scenes where the actress was required to cry. As she is not a professional actress, eye drops were used instead. For the extreme anger scene in which the Girl tear the soft toy apart, cotton wool was used in replacement of actual tearing up of bear. The idea was given by Xue Li who initially insisted that the bear be tore apart, but with Chris unwilling to spoil the bear as it belongs to him. Cotton wool was placed under the bed, hidden away from the camera. After the actress did her act on collapsing onto the floor and pulling hair, she got up to reach for the cotton wool and held them in one hand and reach for the bear in the other.

The last interior scene was the supposed ending scene, with the Girl cuddling up, shivering away in fear and eventually break into a smile. It was supposed to be a night scene but when the team was filming it, it was only evening. To create the night scene in the room, curtains were drawn up. However, it was too dark and the camera could not capture the scene well. Touch light was used but it created too ghastly a feeling. Eventually, some light was allowed to pass through the curtains and the exposure component of the camera was adjusted in order to capture the scene.

2nd Day of Filming (26th March)
EXT. Orchard Road (morning)

The filming started along Orchard Road around 11 plus in the morning. As suggested by Xue Li and Mark, in order to avoid the afternoon crowd from hindering with the filming of the emotional scene (i.e. slapping), the scene was done first.

The first step was to find the right composition. It was decided that the street along Wisma area was used instead as there was lesser crowd. In deciding which angle/side to shoot the scenes. Su Pei suggested that the background be made up of the shops instead of the road. The reasoning behind this was that the street already had people walking, with the cars and buses moving in the background composition, the scenes would seem very noisy, messy and distracted.

Unlike the interior scenes where movable containers could be used was dolly for panning shots, the outdoor filming was met with challenges of taking steady panning shots. Chris suggested going to supermarkets and insert the dollar coin for the trolley to be used as dolly. However, the idea was scraped because the team might get caught for stealing. Eventually, the team decided to use the 'blair witch project' (a movie) technique, that is, camera man moving along with the actresses/actor down the street without the help of any supporting equipments, to produce a raw, 'on the move' feeling. Additionally, this also helped to foreshadow the plot where the supposed couple was on the move towards the realization of the 'unstable' relationship.

The hardest part of all the scenes was the slapping one where there were tons of NG footages. It started off with a fake slap (but was too obvious that it was fake), and turned into a real (light) slap in hope of achieving what was intended. After tons of tries, there was finally an acceptable slapping footage. But further tweaking (using preimere/after effects) was needed to make the scene more realistic.

Lucky enough, the filming of the rest of the scenes along Orchard went on smoothly.

EXT. Punggol Park (night)
The team met up again around evening time to film the remaining of the scenes. The biggest worry then was lighting. However, thanks to the street/park lights, the problem wasn't too big. Adjustments could be done using programs during post production stage. With the experience of filming of previous scenes, the night scenes went on smoothly once the composition/ background of the scenes were decided. As like before, extra footages were taken and taken frm several angles/perspective. Additionally, during the filming of the night scenes, Chris suddenly had an idea of ending the MTV with a splash to make the MTV more unique and not so straightfoward (idea inspired by the park with a beautiful pond).

3rd Day of filming (27th March)
EXT. NUS University Cultural Hall
After 2 tiring days of filming, the final shots were taken at NUS which were used to fill in spaces between transitions/subplots i.e. couple lovy dovy scenes vs. house scenes vs. park scenes.

Extra footages:
Rose scenes.
For the mere few seconds of rose decolorizing scene, a 10min footage was taken to perfect the shot of rose turning (with the help of Su Pei's mother turning the rose).

Stage 3: Music production
Member in charge: Mark
Equipment used: Acoustic Mixcraft, with midi controller

Being not able to find existing songs that could effectively portray the storyline of the MTV, Mark engaged his sister (and himself) to compose the music and come up with the lyrics that was composed specially for the plot of the MTV. The initial idea was to use a simple guitar tune (acoustic music) to juxtapose with the plot of the story. However, after much consideration, the idea was dropped because the music and the plot had too big a mismatch. With all the emotional and dramatic scenes, the soft and slow acoustic music would not be able to match up and portray the feelings well.

As the music was composed from scratch, refinement after refinements were done to perfect the tune for the MTV. From key by key composing, to drum base/brass adjustments, to tempo, and to choice of mix of instruments. had to be taken into consideration. The hardest part of the music production was instrument balancing. That is, to make sure that the different instrumental sounds blend into each other well, with no 'spot' having an instrument intruding and break the melody.

In the process of voice recording (song was sang by Mark!), as cited from Mark, the most important take home message was "distance between singer and mic is the utmost important element".

Post Production:

Members in charge: Mark and Chris
Supportive roles: Su Pei and Xue Li
Programs used: Adobe Premiere Pro, Adobe After Effects, Adobe Photoshop, Acoustic Mixcraft

Chris was in charge of sequencing the footages, that is to piece up all the selected shots into a single footage before it was passed onto to Mark to add in effects. Basically, the tapes were rendered using the firewire at the media lab and Premiere was used to cut up and join up scenes. The file was then rendered out as avi.

Upon receiving the sequence, Mark used Premiere to further better time the sequence, rearrange the order of certain scenes, and add in effects. Details of how certain scenes effects are done are as follows:

1) Rose decolorizing: Use of After Effects to create the effect. Steps employed: Effect>Colouration>Replace Color. Basically a one footage transformation, that was split into 2 to fit into 2 parts of the plot.
2) Split screen: Load 2 videos on separate tracks, resize both by clicking and on the monitor and draggging it, followed by rearranging and alignment of the screens via similar steps (i.e. clicking and draggin).
3)Transitions used were mainly dissolve and cut to, given by the nature of the plot not needing special effect transitions.
4) Slap scene: To make the scene more real, the timing was adjusted (sped up the pace) and the point of slap i.e. actor's hand slapping onto the actress's face was cut off.
5) Importing of music: The first preview with had the music too loud and the Mark's voice too soft. Thus, the music was adjusted manually for all channels (voice and music pieces) before importing into the video sequence.
6) Importing of splash sound effect: Sound effect was taken from a package that Mark previously paid for. In order to create the appropriate volume and tempo, Mark slowed down the sound effect tremendously and eventually causing it to sound lower and thus the illusion of depth and something heavy dropping into water.
7) Newspaper: Done up separately by Su Pei using Photoshop and added on by Mark via Premiere - video effect>lighting.
7) Rendering: The MTV was rendered in mpeg2 format by the following steps - file>export>Adobe Media Encoder; settings were set at - format: MPEG2-SVCD, Bitrate Encoding: VBR, 2 Pass.

*Roughly 5 revisions were done before the actual MTV was finalised based on opinions by team members and friends. Adjustments were mainly made on the sizes of the split scenes, the lighting of night scenes, the visibility of tears and penknife, the loudness of music and singing, the cutting of certain scenes etc. Additionally, the footages on actor lip syncing was removed as it was hard to pace precisely to the music and the actor was not exaggerated enough in mouthing the lyrics to make it seem like he was singing.

Assignment 4

Pre-assignment thoughts

Chris and I had some fantastic ideas for this assignment actually. Unfortunately we were lacking both in technology and time. I think the greatest thing that came out of it was this idea of a movie trailer, where the main guy suddenly discovers that he has the power to freeze time. So we started filming some footage and all but in the end, our most ambitious part of the project, which was to create a freezing barrier aura – a globe that gradually expands from the main character and shifts out and anything that gets caught in it gets frozen – was way too difficult to pull off.

We also toyed around with other freeze frame ideas that were a little off track. From having mundane discussions where things would just freeze to weird comedic pieces. In the end though, we settled for something that was a little off beat too – an instructional video for a freeze frame upgrade to super powers. Yes it sounds long but the idea was to make the power to freeze time a product that heroes can buy and use.

This actually required me to use After effects for the first time this semester, so it did take a while to figure out some of the functions and how after effects works. I tried to originally do the entire clip on aftereffects and realised that it would probably be better to do segments, and then export those segments into premiere.

Finding music was not much of a problem because of the previous assignment. It had allowed me to get acquainted with the music that was available. I wanted something classy and light.

Class Response

Well there were 2 things that bugged people. Firstly, it was that not enough freeze footage was inside and that the whole video was building up to an anticlimax. Secondly, it was the rapidly changing colour of my skin due to the gamma correction, brightness and contrast adjustments made to the briefing clips. I shall re shoot some of these.

Updating

I decided to keep the freeze frame clips, but added a new clip that used not just freeze frame but a camera shake effect (not the wriggler, its shaking combined with motion tiling and mirrored edges) and a light bloom effect to emulate a nuclear warhead exploding. Hopefully, that adds some weight to the video bits.

Insights

I think that it was this project that single handedly showed me the power of adobe aftereffects, at the time of writing, I have downloaded at least another 5-6 new presets for aftereffects and am experimenting with the effects just for fun. Some of them are truly amazing and if not for this assignment, I would not have been able to fully grasp the full power of aftereffects. No wonder its often called the photoshop version of premiere.

I think this assignment had also helped me plan videos in terms of special effects. In some of the clips, we had to act as if something was there which wasn't and this require before hand planning and sometimes, several retakes.

Defend!!

Ok here is the part where I reply the various comments, dont think its actually defending but oh well. Im also not quite sure how to go about this, so I figured I'll just post my answers here...

rebecca oh said...

Wow, your concept seems abstract. But i like it! Gives me a surreal feeling.

Some comments on the photos u've posted. The pictures seemed a bit too luminous? At least on my screen it looks luminous and hurting on the eyes. Mabye try making the colour more warm? Or is there a reason for the pictures being a bit luminous?

The music seems good to me. I don't suggest using an edgier music as this may not go with the storyline?

February 17, 2008 9:18 PM

Mark: I actually tweaked the greens and compressed the levels to create the luminosity, cause in the final vid most of the pics will be masked so I was worried about them not sticking out enough, but I guess I went too far haha so will tone down the whiteness.

Pei said...

Woah. I think it's great! It's sweet. The pictures are great! You have paced the tune and rhythm of the whole thing well. Can't wait to see the whole video!

As for the narrative part. I think there is no need for a link. You can just continue.

P.S: What camera did you use? I only have the normal camera and I wanted to achieve that kind of effect but it's impossible. Like the micro take ones. Any tips?

February 17, 2008 11:10 PM

Mark: Ok I use a DSLR Nikon D80, if u want macro shots, most point and shoot cameras have a macro mode I believe, for me, I need to switch to a macro lens...also u might want to use photoraw application in photoshop to edit photos, its good stuff. If anything bring ur camera along one day and let me take a look, will try to help u adjust... As for the narrative, ok I'll try to continue, though after the test video I realised even the first few lines took 30sec... die la.. haha

peiru said...

Hi,

i like your concept and the layout of your video. Its very classy and professional looking. I agree though that if the colours were warmer it might look nicer, but i thought the music fitted really well too.

February 17, 2008 11:57 PM

Mark: Hi, thanks for the compliment, haha yeah I guess I'll tone down the photos, perhaps I went too overboard haha...

chr1s0ng said...

Ok. Picture wise, maybe a little over-exposed.... maybe that's the effect you wanted, but i can't really be sure. might need to tweak the brightness / contrast maybe.

Script looks detailed for sure (extremely well thought i'd say... just how you'll exactly portray all that might be a bit of a challenge, but i think you've more or less got it all together.

February 18, 2008 12:14 AM

Mark: Yup, I actually wanted to over exposed effect but I guess its not working like I thought haha...and yes Im quite concerned over the script, I have no idea how Im gonna squeeze it all, time to cut out bits and pieces of it :( I was actually inspired by the story telling segments from the game Lost Odyssey on the Xbox 360, go youtube em if you can, fantastic stories, with minimal pics all done with power point animations, damn good haha...

aline_hs said...

hi,

nice photography... it really has the focus of the story that you want to convey...

after viewing the first 30secs of the video.. it has a lonely feel of the plot...

Mark: Hi thanks, yup, the story will eventually lead to a lonely ending, so I structured it that way from the beginning.

Devi said...

Mark, I like the video and the narration. I especially liked how you kept “she’d sit there” part while the other phrases were shown. It’s very clever and interesting. I feel that the music suited the whole idea of the video. I ALSO WANT TO SPEAK TO THE AUTHOR! Are there going to be any actors in the video? The 30 second clip was good. Keep it up.

February 18, 2008 12:25 AM

Mark: Haha yeah unfortunately, besides the she'd sit there bit, I dont know how to play with the rest of the narrative...but I'll try :P And yes I will have actors, but the scheduled photoshoot is later on this week so yeah couldnt do much. I am actually trying to shoot with actors but without using their faces...we'll see how that goes haha...

Ozeona said...

Nice colours used, but would the story include any characters inside? Or it is more of a narration/poem type?

February 18, 2008 12:27 AM

Mark: Yup as mentioned, I will be using actors along with the narration! :)

Jennifer said...

hi there,

I think your video is good. Very simple... Especially the "staring into space" bit, just the black background (VOID).

Maybe you could take pictures of leaves slowly falling and touching the ground? But then again, it is ery literal. haha

February 18, 2008 12:43 AM

Mark: Yup, I was thinking of taking pictures of leaves falling, I like the literal thing haha...only thing is, I have no clue how to freeze frame a leaf falling like that...thinking of using wires/thread and then super impose...

Joon Yong said...

hi mark,
great vid, and photos.

anyway, regarding the actors part. i think u can explore leaving the actors out? might give it more of a dreamy, abstract effect (if that's what u are looking for).

February 18, 2008 12:44 AM

Mark: Better not pick up your handphone. haha. Anyway its true that it might be more dreamy without actors but I'll try it and see how, because the narrative itself is quite a literal narrative so it will probably need real actors, but like I mentioned above, I will probably try to NOT show the faces of my actors...see how.

Xueli said...

Hi Mark

I think your pictures are very well-taken and the video is professionally done too. Are you using any actors/actresses in the final video? I feel that the overall effect will be better if you include actors/actresses. Under the “she’d sit there” narration, perhaps you could add an image of the girl staring to the right (at your pictures). Looking forward to watching the final version of your video.

February 18, 2008 12:46 AM

Mark: Yup, will use one actor and one actress, I imaged the girl actually sitting and we see her back, but yup will consider using other points of view for the shots, just need to find a nice park now... any suggestions?

Katherine Lu said...

Hello Mark:

Was trying to find your comment box and realized you had 2 entries together! So here goes:

For the narrative about changing from you to the woman, you can change the colour of the text to maybe red or pink. Another way is that when the guy narrates, words comes from the left and when the girl narrates, words can come out from the right. When you are consistent, the viewers will be able to understand the story immediately.

I really like the trailer you did!

Mark: Oh thats a great idea! For some reason it never occured to me to use colour in the video bits mmm will consider using both ideas haha thanks thanks.

Assignment 3 - Love Story

Boy, there are a ton of things that need to be uploaded simultaneously for this one...

First off, heres the script I have kinda worked out so far, that will act as a narrative...

I used to know a woman by the park

She'd sit there. Staring into the leaves, into space. Everyday at noon.

She would go there with her lunch box.

And everyday, she'd pull out a sandwich. Then another.

She would eat one. And leave one behind.

"Hi"

She turned slowly and smiled. A radiant smile like no other.

"I've often seen you here. Do you stay around the area?"

She gingerly nodded her head.

"May I?"

She nodded again. And I sat next to her.

There really wasn't much to say.

"Why do you leave a sandwich behind?"

"Why do you ask?"

"I don't know, just thought it a little odd..."

"Don't ask. Everything in its own time."

I nodded.

(At this point I need to think of a way to connect the story to the womans narrative, any ideas?)

"See the leaves? How slowly they fall to the ground. Its like our lives, we are born and we slowly fall too."

"Each leaf is affected by the wind, big or small. Sometimes you fall fast, sometimes you fall slow. But you still fall."

"Each leaf no matter how pretty, no matter how intricate will need to take that free fall one day."

"Each leaf will eventually hit the ground."

I nodded again.

"Its like us isn't it? We complain so much about life and what it brings. Some of us really do have a hard time. Some of us sail by. Some dance with the wind. Do we really see where its all headed?"

"The ground," I answered.

"Yes, the ground. And back into the earth, where we were conceived. Why worry about everything, we don't get to keep our possessions, we will all turn to dust one day.

"True," I said with great clarity.

She told me that nature taught her a great deal about life. And that it helped her through the hardships she faced.

That was a long time ago. I still remember.

We met often like this. Talking about life.

I began to find her a solace. She straightened my thoughts.

She once told me, that she liked the rising and setting of the sun. It reminded her that there are things that should be done in your prime, while it is bright.

Was she trying to tell me something?

I thought it was perfect. She loved to talk, and I loved to listen.

But it was also so wrong. She, like a sage and I like a fool.

She could carry the burden of the world. I could only stand by and watch.

I could never tell her.

She moved on.

To another part of town perhaps.

Hopefully far away.

The last time I saw her, she didn't say anything.

The next day, there was only a sandwich on the bench. Rotted by the sun.

Next, this is a link to the music that I intend to use...

http://homepage.mac.com/cushy1/MEDITATION/files/Meditation.mp3

Note that I have already emailed the author of this music and have his permission to use it :)

What follows next is a series of sample photographs that kind of demonstrate the colour style I want to use for the video...

I want to take a note though that these photos are not exactly as I took them I made some colour adjustments. For most of these photos I upped the brightness and compressed the levels a little, which led to an increased vibrancy. Also, the greens have been increased ABIT as well, to help achieve this overexposed/green effect that I intend to do for the other photos.

Combined with the music, I hope the piece becomes a relaxing piece, not something that grips people on the edge of their seat... or should I try something edgier?

This rose, just for your info, its fake and made of plastic. But its very red. Haha...

Macro shots of blades of grass, not as contrasting as I would like but I guess I could take more shots...

I know the sky is overexposed here, but I want that white light effect, I have shots of the same place but with blue skies though, however, the leaves in that one turned out less green.


This was actually taken on a rainy day, from the view from my house, theres a slight vingette effect because of the extremely close black bars that were out of focus, but it didnt hurt the photo so I just left it as such...

This tree, was taken from an abandoned plot of land, just playing with the focus... oh and if you notice, the intended browns for the assignment arent as vibrant as the greens.

AND OF COURSE:

a 30sec sample video...I probably would have to speed things up or simplify the narrative for the final but this was just a test run, was alot harder than I thought, and ended up messing with photoshop masks, transparency blah blah blah...(P.S. I have no idea why the mask looks weird here, it looks completely fine in youtube itself...)

Assignment 2 - A day in my life

For this assignment, I began by thinking what a typical day in my life would be like. I realised that there are basically 2 main operating modes, which is to be on time and late. And both happen with almost even frequency due to mostly unforeseen circumstances and my own procrastination.

Thus, I wanted to present to the class something that I would normally go through in a day. I had originally intended to present it in the style of "24" and if you do look at my webpage (ok I have no idea how to upload that here) there is actually a bar on the left that says "the following takes place between 0900 and 1200" and what not.

Another thing is, I wanted to show it was me, but without my presence in each of the pictures, so rather than pictures of myself doing stuff, I wanted to show that I was at a particular place and time by showing EVIDENCE that was there. However I might just want to rethink the whole concept...

The late bit of the presentation was supposed to be a sort of humorous juxtaposition. Which unfortunately, wasn't very humorous. The bit about sleeping seemed like a cheap shot, but that was actually because despite shrinking my images, I could not fit everything into 180kb. However now with the help of my team mate Chris, I think I know the right method to do it.

Here are a few of the images that I had to cut out due to the lack of space...



This (above) was supposed to be a typical day at lecture, with me in the washroom trying to stay awake.
Something along the likes of me waking up early (messy)
And me waking up late (messier)
Wanted to use this shot for going home, I personally love it, but didn't include it in the class presentation either...

Assignment 1 - Dreams

I think my original motivation behind this was to fully make use of the fact that this was going to be a surrealist assignment. Meaning I could actually do all sorts of weird things with the work.

Subsequently my thoughts were drawn upon the notion of madness, what better way to perceive the world than through the eyes of someone who doesn't quite?

Exploring this idea of madness however would mean that I had to come up with a viable script. While surrealist plays themselves have odd motivations (much like surrealist art - although from what i know, it tends to touch also upon ideas of human desire).

In anycase, I believed that I wanted to do a play about a mans journey into madness, while not quite as profound as say, King Lear, I still wanted to set the play to that sort of backdrop. So I forced a plot (a brother wanting to take the place of his younger brother in an asylum and thus must become mad) and got to work on the design.

Since the plot motivation itself was the breakdown of sanity, I decided to use the notion of reality breaking apart. Also, the idea of the blue sky was to show a sort of clarity in madness too. The bars (my rooms window grills, I assure you do not resemble an asylum) were used to represent prison.

I also had to factor in the Dark Comedy aspect, so I took it locally and used Singlish! "Siao ah"

Adding that altogether, we get this final product...

After presenting in class however, several changes need to be made, need to add in more details, gotta add in more bars too.

I did have some alternate ideas though, but they were just cheesy afterthoughts...while I thank my friend for helping with the photo... I couldnt put together something completely great...

But who knows, i might get re-inspired.