A. Concept & Story
The story is based on Italo Calvino’s novel The Flash.
It’s about a character who suddenly has the flash in the middle of the crowd, realizing he didn’t understand the reasons for things or for people. So he doubt that if there really exists the chain of cause and effect that bound things together. And he burst out, calling: “There is something wrong! Everything is wrong! We are doing the absurdest things. This cannot be the right way. Where can it end?” This calling was questioned by people who accept the fixed rule in their life. Then the character said sorry for he questioned everything wrong. But he still willing to grasp the moment that he found he understood nothing.
Basically, the concept is about questioning the regularity and normality of life. “Why is everything like this?” “Do I really understand those normal things?” When everything becomes too normal and in-place, it instead feels more absurd and even insane. In the story, the character started to question those “regularities” in life. He saw objects and orders detached from any sense of the world, and humans are somehow trapped in the order of society. However, though he wanted to inform people about it, he was still flooded by others’ voices to maintain the order, and ended up obedient to that order.
Ideation: First is to understand concepts behind the novel, then is to choose where to shoot, how to interpret the Imaginary of the novel. Also brainstorm which kind of audio do we want, use Adobe Audition to create some piece of sound and rethink how we could combine the visual and the audio together, and rethink how to use the visual metaphor for the novel. After the first shoot, we edited the resources and thought about the visual way to indicate the the character’s complex mental activity. After the first cut, we received feedback from our professor. Then we edited another version to better interpret the idea, and reshot some scenes.
(Eadin)Thanks Beatrix for introducing me to Calvino’s novels. I was really impressed by his experiment of existence, uncertainty and heteronormativity in life. Initially Beatrix picked another novel “The Adventure of a Nearsighted Man,” but because of the time limit, we changed to “The Flash” which is shorter but still with some meanings. We first thought about what audio materials to include to depict what the character experienced. Also we planned to convey the idea by combining scenes both indoors and on the street. Beatrix is really good at and passionate about emotional and less concrete creations, which I really appreciate and want to explore more. The novel from Calvino also contains profound meanings that are calling me to spread to people.
B. Creation Process & Execution
Storyboard:
Process:
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- Choosing a setting: For the outdoor scenes, we decided to shoot at a busy crossroads with crossed zebra lines. When shooting at Xintiandi, we also ran into some interesting scenes and recorded them, such as the cables’ shot. For the indoor scenes, we used the stairwell and classroom with white background.
- Shooting: Both camera and phone. With stabilizer.
- Lighting: LED video light for indoor scenes.
- Directing: Let the actor read the original novel beforehand. Ask the actor to act emotionally and find angles to shoot him.
Challenges:
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- The imaginariness in the novel
- Need to limit the scope of story to like 90s
- Other passersby at the crossroads
- Places to shoot the aerial view of crossroads
- The overuse of the effect
- Balance of the sound and video
First of all we made the whole piece interpretive and less realistic. At the shooting site, we let the actor cross the road for thousands of times. 😭🙏 We also climbed up a high and narrow platform to shoot the aerial view of crossroads. For editing, some info was showed by morse codes. It ends a bit before the novel’s ending, showing the character’s confession and leaving more room of imagination for the audience. We made new versions with less effect and more imaginary room.
Post-production:
AU: voice over editing
PR: prolong the speed of the video, edit, rotate, scale of the video, change of the position, the color correction, and the upend of the video, the typing effect and the panning of the sound.
C. Collaboration
My contribution is mainly about shooting, communication with the actor, and the film credits. There was also much work that we two did together, such as recording voices and discussing the piece. We have chatted together to exchange the video we cut and our interpretation of the novel, also the works we made together. Beatrix, a wonderful teammate who is really passionate about our work! She came up with many talented ideas about shooting and editing, such as the use of morse code. She also had a great control of the whole piece’s aesthetic style. I learned much from her regarding audio/visual editing and the representation of ideas.
D. Aesthetics & Results
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- We separated shots into outdoor and indoor, which indicates both the happening of the story and the character’s mental activities.
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- The long shot of cables, accompanied by sacred chant voices, represents the operation of an ordered and regulated society.
- We used black&white setting to better convey the stiffness of social order and conveys the character’s dreamy, unclear and unreal feeling of the world.
- Light flicker implies the character is observing himself and the outside order.
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- Morse code is a theme that goes through the whole video, showing the mental activities of the character while also creating mysterious atmospheres. More importantly, it’s a connection between character and the social order. One inspiration here is a scene from Christopher Nolan’s film Interstellar(星际穿越), where the daughter gets morse codes from changes of sand and books on the shelf, and hence reads predictions about the external world.
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- While editing, we tried different paces of video, and finally changed storytelling with fancy effects into simpler one.
- Distinctively, our voice over features edited chants and whispers apart from some lines from characters. In this way, the video delivers its idea more by cognition and emotional impact and instead of linear narration.