Month: April 2022

Visual Metaphor Proposal

Project Title: The Hook

Team Members:  Christian Stalker, Jia Wen Lin

Concept | Storyline:

Who are you going to interview? Or What is the piece (article, poem, story) for the narrative voice over?  

S.O.S. 1995 by Leonard Cohen 

What’s the story about?  

The poem is about coming to terms with anger and other internalized feelings, and using this coming to terms in order to improve relationships in your life rather than harm them.

 Which part of the story are you going to focus on? 

The poem is not incredibly long, but the two main passages that are the most meaningful to the overall poem are “your misery a deliberate policy/ of those in whose thrall you suffer,/ and are sustained/ by your misfortune” and “Whoever is in your life,/ those who harm you,/ those who help you;/ those whom you know/ and those whom you do not know — / let them off the hook,/ help them off the hook./ Recognize the hook.”

What kind of style/aesthetics are you going to pursue?

The cleaner, more literal metaphor method will work better in contrast to the tone of the poem. It is not incredibly clear how this will visually take form as of yet, but far more in the direction of the birth control short film example compared to any grittier examples. Methods such as collage/stop motion will be used to capture aspects that fall outside of equipment ability.

Execution Plan: 

What equipment are you going to use when shooting the movie? (cell phone, DSLR camera, sound recorder, stabilizer..)

Cell Phones,  Tripod, Basic Lighting rigs (hopefully)

Which locations will it be shot at? When is it? Day time/night/unknown? Why?

Unknown because it will primarily be shot in a controlled, non-natural environment.

What are some challenges you might  encounter and how will you prepare?

Time Zones and Quarantine. Time zone issues aren’t incredibly bad because the class is conducted at an overlap time already, shooting will be mostly conducted asynchronously, meetings will be reserved for the small reasonable time overlap.  Quarantine will mostly be alleviated by use of any supplies present in non-quarantine areas. 

  1. Gantt Chart*
Task Owner Start Date Due Date Duration PCT of Task Complete
Full Storyboard Both 4/27 4/29 2 days 50%
Shooting Responsibilities/Individual Assignments Both 4/27 4/29 2 days  
Scene 1 Christian 4/29 5/1 2 days  
Scene 2 Jia Wen 4/29 5/1 2 days  
Scene 3 Christian 5/1 5/2 1 day  
Scene 4 Jia Wen 5/1 5/2 1 day  
Editing Both 5/2 5/3 1 day  
Scene 5 / Tweaking Previous Christian 5/4 5/8 4 days  
Scene 6/ Tweaking Previous Jia Wen 5/4 5/8 4 days  
Reconvene Both 5/10 // 1 day  
Final Drafts/Editing Both 5/10 5/12 2 days  

(Two Different Current Narratives)

Prose Storyboard (Narrative B)

 

I don’t know why the picture is so blurry so here is the second page to the storyboardIMG_5735 2

 

 

Memory Soundscape

The concept for this project is that I want to portray a dream where I woke up early for school and did all my morning routine, and then ended up waking up from my sleep realizing that it’s all a dream. Throughout the audio, I tried to make it sound like it’s a dream and I was hoping to create this cozy feeling to it, because I’m in bed sleeping so the whole audio should sound cozy and peaceful. I also wanted to make the sound like it’s far away because since it’s not in reality, the sound shouldn’t sound like it’s right next to our ear.

The first sound is my alarm going off. At the same time, there are birds chirping. While the birds are still chirping, I am getting out of bed and making my bed. Then, you could hear the water running because I’m brushing my teeth. After that, I brushed my teeth and walked downstairs, poured myself some water and made breakfast. Finally, I wore my jackets and walked out the door to the subway. The final sound is in the subway where the announcer is saying something. When the announcer goes off is when my alarm clock went off and I woke up from my dream.

Originally, I didn’t plan to make it a dream. I was trying to recreate the sound of my morning routine, however I ended up feeling like the audio sounds a bit plain so I decided to add that it’s a dream. To make it sound like a dream, I used a lot of mastering-warm concert hall on the whole audio. I find that this effect creates a bit of surrealism to the sound. It sounded like the sound is a bit further away from us so it would create this dreamy sound. When I was working towards the end, I thought that just adding the mastering effect isn’t enough. I want to create an audio where even if I don’t explain my work, people would still get that it’s a dream. I decided to create the echo effect at the end where the alarm is going off and I’m slowly waking up from my dream. 

    

If I had more time, I hope to add more creative sounds to it. During the critique process from others, I was told that the sound doesn’t have to be very realistic. There could be more creative sounds fading together to make the audio sound more fun. There’s also too much space between each sound so maybe I could do more fading between the change of sound. 

The Uncertainty of Documentarism

  1. Nowadays, new forms of mass media such as documentaries are more “expressive” than “representative”. They stir up excitement and exaggerate the footage to attract the audiences, rather than focusing on being representative and finding the truth. No one really questioned the truth of documentaries because documentaries were supposed to show the truth. Footage in the documentary looks like it’s very raw and unplanned and they’re supposed to make us feel like everything is very trueful. On the other hand, fiction is very thoroughly planned out but in some way they are also revealing its truthful side. The story in fiction might not be true but the emotion and the plot of the story is realistic. 
  2. Media tend to exaggerate the topic so that it could attract a larger audience. Some change up the truth to make it sound interesting and some use lies to cover the truth.  The role of live broadcast is to give the audience the real, unedited and raw footage of the live scene. It connects the audience more when the broadcast is live. Live broadcast is more truthful because there is no redoing its part. It has only one try and if something goes wrong, then we can’t do anything about it because it’s already broadcasted live to the world.