1. the concept of my project is based on the simple question: what is the difference between humans and AI? No doubt, it is a complex problem. but we only have less than 2 minutes to tell a story, how to do so? at that time, I think of a mind experiment. in that mind experiment, a girl who was the top expert on Earth about color. she knows everything about color, from their nature to the literature describing them. however, because of certain diseases, she has never seen any color. so when she was cured and see the color for the first time, does that increase her knowledge about color? the nature of this thought experiment is about whether experience counts as knowledge. at first glance, this may have little to do with the topic I choose. but with further interrogation, you may find the similarity between that color expert with AI. AI knows every knowledge human masters. they have it all, in their digital brain. they are more knowledgeable than anyone on Earth. however, they are also less knowledgeable than everyone on earth as well because they have never felt anything ever. they never feel the breeze of the wind although they may know thousands of ways to describe that tender feeling. they never see the blossom of a flower, never love someone, or lose something. this conflict is the main thing I would like to discuss in my final project. after some thought, I decided on the structure of the video. the video will follow the cliche of three paragraphs. In the first paragraph, the main information will be laid out. there’s a guy who lost their loved one so they created an AI to represent their loved ones. they kept communicating with the AI, always beginning with the sentence “I miss you”. then the AI will respond with all sorts of sentences from the books that the guy feeds it. the second paragraph is the paragraph where things begin to go wrong. One day, the AI caught a virus, and all the data was lost. but the guy didn’t know about the loss of the data. so as usual, they said to the AI “I miss you” However, the AI won’t respond. so they begin to say it again and again with nothing happening. however, there’s something happening. so in the third paragraph, we looked at the story from the AI’s perspective. for the AI, after losing all the data, it finally understands what is the feeling of loss. although it has read so many books about loss before. it wants to respond to the guy who is constantly saying “I miss you” on the other side of the screen. but without the books, how to respond? with some struggle, it responds “I miss you, too” and it completely shut down. in the word “too” the AI tries to convey everything it feels. after hearing that response, that guy felt for the first time that he is being understood and he felt complete again. the reason for me to do this theme is that in one of my writing classes, someone used Chat GPT to write their essay and was found out by the professor. he used half an hour in the next class to discuss with us the future the university is facing when Chat GPT emerges. in my opinion, the university is a place to teach knowledge as well as a place to let the students experience certain things they will encounter in future life. these two functions are similarly important. and the AI can never replace the second function. so I want to express that point. based on that idea, I thought of this topic and also this story.
2. the process of creating this project may be a bit different from other’s projects. first, I thought of the story and has a faint idea of what to shoot. then after two telephone calls with my group mate, we decide to use stop-motion animation and will not use real humans in the shooting. we also decided about the voice-over should be a poem that is somewhat relevant to the video and mainly let the video explain itself. after deciding all that, we bought a wooden figure to represent that guy in our story. and shoot some images in my home in Shanghai as there’s a very clean and large table as well as a clean wall. after some shooting, I began to write about the poem that should be read. and written the poem and the translation of it, I started to draw the storyboard. after drawing all the storyboard, we began another shooting in my home for certain images we missed in the first shooting.
this is the storyboard I draw. the lighting is mainly natural light with a reflector to represent a kind of lighting that is unreal with no shadow. because the attitude we hold is that it’s hard for the AI in real life to say “too” in real life. so this is just an imaginary story. the BGM is selected by both of us. we first presume the length of our video and started to find the music that is story-like and is not strange to end at about a minute and 30 seconds. when creating the storyboard, the main problem is how to let the video itself tell the story without the voice-over. our solution is to use objects that can provoke emotion. for example, when we want the main character to lose their loved ones, we use the image of the breaking of chopsticks, the separating of dumplings and two hands originally holding together separating. and when we want to express the guy feeling incomplete, we use the scene of him doing a jigsaw but couldn’t find the final piece. when we want to express the guy accepts the AI as part of his life. we use orange candies to represent that guy and green candies to represent the AI. because they are contrasting colors. the green candy slowly occupies the space of orange candies and then the candies with the shape of a bear surround them and wiggle to show their happiness of being together. when editing, we use the material glitching of the computer as a special effect a lot along with the filter of several kinds. we also use masking too.
3. because my partner is sick with covid during the first half of the production process. I did all the things in the preparation stage. including coming up with the story, writing the poem which is the voice-over, translating the poem, and drawing the storyboard. then, when she got better, she took up the role of shooting and recording. after the shooting, I took up the role of editing all by myself and she looked for BGM. I really appreciate the complete trust and cooperation she expressed during the whole process of the project. by discussing with her, we come up with the idea of the candy, the voice-over, and many other things. I learned patience and the calmness we should all have when facing a deadline.
4. the main artistic theme of our project is poetic and also unreal. we use contrast color as well as filters with AI sense. our cutting is basically quick. the pace is mainly slow, quick, and slow. I got all my inspiration from myself when it comes to the camera language.