Category: Communications Lab

 

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: 

• • 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:

• • 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

• • We separated shots into outdoor and indoor, which indicates both the happening of the story and the character’s mental activities.

 

• • 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. 

• • 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.

• • 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. 

We have our proposal in this Google doc.

Project Title: Transition from The Secret Life of Walter Mitty

Clip: 

 

Name: Riding towards a Calmer Corner

Concept

The memory is about riding a bike from the noisy part of the city into a more peaceful and relaxing street. The roads are located in relatively quiet areas. Tall xiang zhang(camphor) trees shield the street while also projecting its shadows flickering on the road. Riding and hearing peace. I want to convey those physical experiences combined with the relaxing feeling and the extended imaginary world. I wanted people to sense a shift from annoyingly noisy areas to a peaceful/calm environment. The piece also intends to bring people closer to nature by this comparison.

Process

Sounds: Cars and buses, road repairing, vehicle horns, footsteps, leaves, bike riding, bike bell, windbell, one note of piano, bird chirp (made by water bottle).

Sounds of leaves are recorded by touching lower plants by hand. I tried moving the mic between leaves but found the sound less recognizable and satisfying. 

By using the sounds of windbell, I want to show some dreamy imagination from what I saw and felt at that moment. Wind and the shaking of leaves also give me the association of a windbell. 

When composing, I intended to create a shift from noisy to calm and relaxing. In the ending part, people get refreshed by the environment and feel a bit like liftoff. There’s the sound of bike braking in the end, which can be interpreted in many ways. Stop to enjoy nature / Stop to wait for the green light… I did a lot of panning work to show there’s a world surrounding the listener when riding, and also the feeling of moving.

I was once worried that since my memory is more peaceful, the soundscape would be a bit boring or flat. Based on Ken’s suggestion, I also made the comparison between the noisy and peaceful parts stronger.

Conclusion

If I have more time, the first thing I would do is to collect more diverse kinds of sounds. Even if I don’t use them all in the project I think it will help bring out more ideas. I was actually considering adding sounds of a drop of water but did not realize due to the limit of time. 

On the presentation day, Professor Inmi gave me valuable feedback. She thought many sounds in my project have pretty obvious fade-in and fade-out, making them a bit separated, so making more transitions and overlaps would be better. I thought this opinion really makes sense. I actually thought about it but at that time, since I wanted to create a quiet atmosphere I chose not to make many sounds happen together. But it turned out to be too separated. Yeah, relaxing doesn’t necessarily need equivalent quietness, it can still be shown by more sounds’ collaboration. 

Image of Audition

• Steyerl talks about how the “unbroken belief” of the documentary form is challenged. What does Steyerl mean by this? Certain movies and films are based on a true story.  How does truth inform the fiction? How might fiction inform the truth?

Since the conventional definition of documentary emphasizes precise representation of the reality, those documentary images with less similarities to reality are re-evaluated. For this type of documentary, unintelligibility and uncertainty contributes to its authenticity. To quote Steyerl, “ [t]he closer to reality we get, the less focused and jumpier the image becomes.” He referred to this type of uncertainty “modern documentarism”, which does not carry complete resemblance to reality. Compared to the representation, repercussions from its expression seems more important. On the one hand, truth informs fiction by providing context and inspiration. On the other hand, fiction informs the truth because ​​digital reproduction documentary still captures the real world by expressing uncertainty. It evokes strong emotional reactions, and furthermore political and economic effects.

• What is the significance of the authenticity and representation of the truth in the media that you consume on a daily basis? What is the role of a live broadcast?

The truth in the media directly affects my perception of the world. No matter WeChat moments or news from the internet or printed matter, we are unable to be on the scene or perceive the whole thing with our own eyes. Therefore people tend to trust what they see from the media as long as they think it makes sense. As a result, the authenticity and representation of the truth affect our understanding of what’s happening around them, which will further affect their reaction to the world. Live broadcasting is an example of showing people the reality that they cannot perceive on the scene. It represents the certain context by live recording, whose authenticity is established because it’s real-time and less editing will happen.

While public transportation is so well-developed and convenient these days, I really enjoyed the time riding a public bike near my home in Suzhou, Jiangsu. The memory I chose this time is when I ride on an empty rode covered by trees’ shadow during not-rainy days. 

There’s also a great combination of what I saw and heard. The roads located in residential areas in city. Tall xiangzhang(camphor) trees shields the non-motorized lanes while also projecting its shadows flickering on the road. I could also see some interesting passers by on the road. 

This is not a complicated memory. What I did is simply cycling, namely observing the road, controlling the handle, repeating legs’ movements, waiting for traffic lights, etc. (Maybe also unlocking and locking the bike). At that time, wind touches my cheek and body. I felt cooler. The street is not crowded  and I can hear the sounds of shaking leaves, cars passing by, and winds behind my ears. Because of this, I was really relaxed during that time and can wander around a little bit in my mind (while not distracted from riding). 

A. Eadin Wang, What’s on bed

B.  Concept

My original idea comes from the research on Nymphomaniac that we mentioned in class, and that again reminds me of our attitudes towards sex. From about high-school, I have noticed how my, and many other peers’ life, are deficient in sex education and taken this issue seriously. Take me as an example, I was disturbed by gynecological diseases and I didn’t wear bras with the right size before college. And I observed more peers, especially girls, also experienced, or are experiencing these things just because we don’t have enough awareness to confront, discuss and not to mention appreciate sex along with physiological knowledge that follows. Based on such obervations, questions are raised: what on earth does sex mean more for us at present? Beauty, enjoyment, or fraud, suffering? Why are people sometimes oversensitive to sex and how should we approach debauchery? And, especially for female, how does their understanding of sex or romance formed? Are they more consumed or fulfilled in this process? Therefore, my diptych aims to throw out such questions and eliminate sense of shame on sex. 

So the original photo depicts a scene on bed, reminding people of sex, romance and debauchery. The manipulated image overlaps photos and items, meaning the spellbound feeling in such circumstances. Rose and condoms, alcohol, perfume and bra overlap. By linking items together, it tells people that while you might feel spellbound in debauchery, things like feminine hygiene and revel, sex and beauty are possible to fulfill each other. In other words, they can have no conflict but rather make each other better. In brief, the manipulated image shows the mental feeling and deeper thoughts about the scene in the original photo. 

Process

(1) After having the general idea about what I want to convey, I still decided to build a still-life setting manually because I gave certain items their meaning, and wanted to challenge myself in composition of photos. Because concepts are included in the set-up, for the photoing process, I focused on exploring the composition and different aperture, shutter speed, iso and white balance. This can be reflected from my contact sheet. 

(2) Before starting the creation of part II, I went to the workshop and analyzed some previous diptych work. I personally identified one work as a shift from something to reality to imagination and human’s mental patterns and I love this idea pretty much. 

In the working class, I tried the method we learned for making double exposure and saw the effect of items overlapping. Based on my concept, I overlaid condoms and roses, bra and alcohol, plus the strong color connection, meaning they can contribute to each other. These are versions I finished at that class.

But later I saw these works a bit messy. The bright red color on white-and-black items did not work so well. Based on Ken’s suggestion, I edited the original photo’s color before further manipulations.

I tried for a long time regarding the presentation of red and blue color. Finally I cut out the shape of the condom in the center, indicating some over-shelter of sex, and placed another layer of the overlapping photo underneath and made it into the “difference” mode, in which the rose is weirdly blue. 

 

D.  Conclusion

One major conclusion I have for my project after seeing others is that I focused more on the visual and meaning connection and the connotation created by the photo after photoshop, compared with more distinct space/time/object relationship between two photos in terms of conveying the concept. 

If I had more time, I would think more about how to connect the photos I have with something containing things that are a bit different or even contrast. So that the work can better demonstrate “One cannot exist without the other.” Also, I focused on building upon photos I shoot for the contact sheet but have no new photo taken later for the project. If I have the awareness to collect more elements there might be something different. 

In addition, I found the printed work darker than what I saw on screens, and this lowered the visual quality to some extent. I might have printed the work using school printers as a test before going to Tongkun. I think it would also help if I have more communication with professor and classmates.

E.  Image of Diptych

• What does Ritchin mean with the “fluidity of the digital”? Give an example of digital imaging/digital photography that exemplifies this.

Based on my understanding the “fluidity of the digital” refers to the feature that photos (or other media) can be displayed and edited via computing/electronic appliances, in comparison with the physical, veracious, accurate and mechanical qualities. People shoot with digital cameras and modify photos in a digital way. Because photos are presented in the form of pixels’ composition, there also emerged more possibilities about imaging by the manipulation of pixels, or even the presenting media. 

Ritchin also argued that digital photography is a new medium instead of another kind of photography. To quote him: 

I see work by Hannah Whitaker as a typical example. In the shooting stage she uses layered exposures and in-camera masking. The complex photoing structure is also incorporated with photoshop work, whose distinct style gives me the feeling of contemporary collage artwork. 

 

• Reflect on the extent to which photography is capable of capturing reality; and compare it to other media (technology) (e.g. text, video, virtual reality, books).

What photography does is capturing a very instant, or seconds of moment of the reality. It highlights a typical moment/scene of life with the still capturing. When the instant of life is stopped and studied, there emerge more observation and discoveries and thus meanings accordingly. 

Compared to the shooting/making stage, photography’s uniqueness about capturing life lies more in the final product. In other words, it’s more about the features of the image form. It is closely related to light, which can be reflected from its output, the photo image. Photography provides more concrete and direct physical recognition of things in comparison with texts, which informs people by more logical narration and arouses imagination. Videos and virtual reality, on the other hand, provides an immersive audio-visual environment of the reality. Photography can definitely capture dynamic things, but shows us a frozen moment of a scene. In this way it depicts the dynamic reality in a still form. 

Eadin Wang, Shanghai Midnight by MT1990

Concept and Design

When I’m in the brainstorming stage, the words I wrote down while listening to the music are: modern, cozy, comfortable, dynamic, lively, harmonious, relaxing. Therefore my work intends to visualize the music methods (e.g. rhythm, melody, timbre, pitch…) and also those feelings that are created. 

Other than the modern, lively, but cozy feeling, another key concept I want to depict is the integration of different elements. Shanghai is a combination of ancient and modern fashions. And this Jazz Hiphop piece combined classical piano, saxophone and emerging hiphop/DJing styles but they reach a kind of harmony. Interestingly, listeners, at least me, can feel both lively/dynamic and relaxing/peaceful states.

Process

For my initial design, I focused more on the imitation of melody by typefaces, length of lines and placing of letters, trying to use Gestalt theory in proximity and similarity. 

In further development, I intended to incorporate a bit more ideas in the work apart from general improvement. 

I kept using the idea which is to represent/imitate a melody by the length and arrangement of letter “I”s. I changed the font so that it looks more smooth and contemporary and matches the general style better. 

I was thinking of duplicating a symmetric set of “I” on the left side, but changed my mind later to make another group of lines that contains different meanings. This group of line created by letter “I” resembles the piano appearance, and meanwhile also has a style of Chinese calligraphy. This combination of the Western and Chinese, plus the contemporary thin typeface on the right side, depicted the concept of integration in the music. 

In the music, there are also samples of human voice saying “are you comfortable” in Shanghai dialect (“nong se yi va” ). So I was wondering how to depict this special Shanghai feature. But one crucial question emerged: does this come from the music or lyrics?? Finally I decided to give up this concern. After all this piece of music have no regular lyrics. People’s feelings generally come from the music itself. 

As a result I chose to use the Chines character “夜” (night) in semi-cursive script/running script. A simple present of the character seemed a bit abrupt and too outstanding. Therefore I made two layers of the character as if it’s solid, and only kept the white parts, which also looks like composition of strange shapes of line. 

Conclusion

Overall I’m satisfied with my work. The AI skill part didn’t confuse me a lot. But I think the general arrangement of things still needs more thoughts.  After I adding the series of “O” at the bottom, I felt  those “M” on the top can be done better, or maybe connect with those “O”. In the future I might need to spend more time and efforts on the brainstorming and planning part. 

Also all the components are limited in the frame. It’s worthwhile to look into the possibility of making something out of frame but with the sense of continuity, as professor Yunmi mentioned in our class. Right now the work is not a typical demonstration of Gestalt theory. 

I also thought a lot on whether it makes sense to follow the rules strictly as we discussed in class. I read the prompt carefully and think this is valuable as our goal is to connect audio-visual art in a comprehensive way like the aliens’ cognition system in the reading, but sometimes it’s hard to tell if some feeling comes from the music or our pre-understanding of the lyrics. But basically I focused more on the music itself. 

Project Image:

My partner Lulu and me decided to focus on a wide and general tech system: solar energy.

In order to avoid subjective bias of being a human on earth, my explanation used a first-person narration of a particle of radiant heat. As the aliens can comprehend things in a non-linear sense at one time, the paragraphs are also disarranged, which interpret things in a messy order. Therefore humans cannot really understand what I’m talking about when they read through. 

Final paper: Google doc link