Link to the video: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1m0dVyMNJWMs-PjK9McfW0MztM5UW7UUl/view?usp=sharing Title: The Paper That Uncrumbles Team: Jia Wen Lin, Christian Stalker

S.O.S 1995

Take a long time with your anger,
sleepyhead.
Don’t waste it in riots.
Don’t tangle it with ideas.
The Devil won’t let me speak,
will only let me hint
that you are a slave,
your misery a deliberate policy
of those in whose thrall you suffer,
and you are sustained
by your misfortune.
The atrocities over there,
the interior paralysis over here-
Pleased with the better deal?
You are clamped down.
You are being bred for pain.
The Devil ties my tongue.

I am speaking to you,
‘friend of my scribbled life’.
You have been conquered by those
who know how to conquer invisibly.
The curtains move so beautifully,
lace curtains of some
sweet old intrigue:
the Devil tempting me
to turn away from alarming you.

So I must say it quickly:
Whoever is in your life,
those who harm you,
those who help you;
and those whom you do not know –
let them off the hook,
help them off the hook.
Recognize the hook.
You are listening to Radio Resistance.

The inspiration behind this project is based on this poem called S.O.S. 1995 by Leonard Cohen. 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. When I was reading the poem, redemption is a strong feeling that I was picking up from the poem. Thus, my story is about two people saving/helping each other by pulling each other from their deepest thoughts. The paper slowly crumbling in the video represents letting go of all the negative thoughts and stress. There was one particular scene in this video where the paper is slowly falling and falling until it finally hits the ground, with the BANG sound. The purpose for that sound is to show that once the paper hits the ground, it means the person is ready to welcome a new future or beginning. Along the ideation process, the metaphor of the paper uncrumpling stays the same. However, our story did kind of change a little as we started to film and edit the video. My way of showing redemption or the concept of the poem is quite different from my partner Christian’s but overall our message of the story is the same.              

Above is my storyboard before I started filming the scenes. The final video didn’t exactly follow everything that was on the storyboard. I just kind of went along the flow and didn’t really follow everything that I initially planned, because new ideas came up when I was filming and editing it. For the lighting and the scenes, because me and my partner are in two different locations, our lighting of the setting is completely different. I had to do a lot of saturation for each scene to fit well with each other. The challenge that I encountered is making sure that the story is understandable, so that the audiences can understand the messages nicely and clearly. Another challenge is the time difference with my partner. We try to text each other in the morning and at night because that’s usually the time where we’re both awake at the same time. The editing process was very adventurous for me. I discovered a lot of new effects and functions on the premiere pro, so the overall editing process was pretty fun. Some kind of editing techniques that I explored was the use of split screens to show the life of two people. I also used another photo/editing app to create the transparency effect of one of the scenes. I combined two videos together to create the transparency scene and I really like how it turned out.  

I would like to give my partner the credit for finding this poem because he introduced the idea behind this story. Christian explained the meaning of the poem to me and he thought of the paper uncrumbling metaphor. Since we’re in two two different time zones, it’s hard to communicate, but when we do get in contact with each other, we try to decide which scenes each of us have to film.  Regarding the camera angles, I try to explore the different angles.  I have camera from over the shoulder when the person is slowing uncrumbling the paper. There is also a scene where the camera is focus on the shadow on the wall. I feel like I didn’t really explore much of the camera shots, because I was rather more focused on the story context itself. The tone of the video is supposed to be sad and depressing in the beginning, and towards the middle and the end, it’s supposed to be more inspiring because the resentment is slowly starting  to present itself.