Category: Uncategorized

Concept & Story

The love story is told between two peoples’ different perspectives with an unexpected ending. The audio consists of two people individually speaking about their perspective on the relationship that was had. However in the end it will be revealed that they’re talking about different people. So, the underlying idea is that a guy cheated on a girl. She is still in love with him, but he has already found a new love interest. It is the real-life story from Irene’s experience which makes it even more spicy and that’s how we got inspired and found our script.  We wanted to explore the topic of relationships, even though it is really popular. But we still thought that it was quite interesting. One more detail is that the metaphor itself – changing sky came to us only after the name – “shifting skies”. First we planned it just as a narrative, but the shift in sky brings so much more to this work. The connection between the guy’s name and the weather helps us to represent how their relationships changed and it makes the whole story more structured.

Creation Process & Execution

We started from the storyboard and the audio. We used a storyboard as a place for our sketches. First, we recorded the audio. Then our main problem was to cut it to only 90 seconds. Originally, our audio was around 2.30 minutes. However we managed to cut it down to 1.30 seconds. We had some notes for the shots that we wanted to do, however in the process we changed a lot of the original ideas.We used scenes from the storyboard, however, I think that we changed the order of them.  It worked really well for our team. At the class on the first day of this project we discussed scenes that can help us show love stories. We decided to use a lot of sun, sky, grass, and eyes. We got inspired with these ideas from cinematic poetry videos. We wanted to use more real-life shots than symbols of life. Our video is more a visual aid than a narrative, especially because the interview is talking about different times. Our setting choice was our campus and places next to it, because it helped us to work more efficiently, thanks to the proximity of it. We used a field, quad, IMA studio, and a classroom. However, we needed to follow the directions of this assignment, so all of the shots in this area are subtle without recognizable NYU symbols.  So, you can’t really tell that it is nyu unless you know the campus really well. We chose natural lightning, and daylight. All of our scenes are full of sun. It represents warmth, love and sky. We shot some main scenes first – grass scene, classroom scene, and typing scene at first. We didn’t use the stabilizer, however, I came up with the idea to use a desk and a ribbon as the stabilizing tools. It made our scenes more smooth, especially the classroom scene. Irene was an actor, because it was her life story, however, we discussed all the shots together and corrected each other. I was in charge of filming everything. Our team work was efficient. We spent two days on the filming process and discovered one really interesting lifehack. After the first day of filming we put our scenes together with the audio and filled missing parts with scenes from the youtube or words with what we want to shoot in the future. It helped us to put together the first draft and structuralize the next step of filming. It was much easier having the whole ready script. In the post-production this technique was also really useful. Because we just changed already existing clips to our own filmed shots. One of our big problems was the search for a male actor. We ended up just asking a boy from IMA studio to participate in our video. One more interesting approach that we used was to film scenes in the middle (Sky’s part) without stabilizing them. I was running while filming on purpose to make those shots look natural. We wanted that part (where Irene is acting cute in the quad) to be the representation of their relationships through the eyes of Sky. So we decided to make some of the clips shaky. It added some natural feeling in them and more comfort, like he filmed them. One more challenge was how to make a phone light up with the notification. We changed our own home screens and WeChat names, and created lots of fake messages. It was quite funny. For the post-production process – editing was quite easy for us, because we didn’t need that many effects. We used split screens and some interesting transitions. We chose our favorite shots, decided where to better place them, cut some of them and made some of them longer to better fit with audio. BEcause our audio was already 1,30 seconds we were not able to add additional slides for the title and credits, so we made them a part of our visual aid with transparent text field. At the end there was a sky background which logically ends our story with rain, symbolizing the end of their relationships and also showing our credits. And in the beginning you can see a pretty scene of trees and bright sunny sky with our title and names on the slide. 

Collaboration

Since the story was Irene’s I proposed to film her which also helped us, because we won’t need to search for an actress. I was in charge of the filming process. We came up with all the shots together, exchanging ideas and thoughts. I was also searching all the missing materials and inspiration on YouTube. I was the one who came up with the sky metaphor and I was trying to develop this idea even more. Irene did a great job with the editing process. She put a lot of effort into it and the result was very good. Especially I love how she did the split screen and all of the transition effects. She is also a great actress:). First round of editing (video draft) she did all by herself, however we were working together on the second round. All of the ideas we shared and everything was really good. We had our different views on some of the minor parts of the project, but good communication and argumentation helped us to decide which idea to use. I think our collaboration informed our project in a lot of ways. Both our similarities and differences influenced it. Irene has a lot of experience working in the new media industry and I have a lot of unusual ideas and some filming experience. Our ideas complimented each other. By connecting our visions we came up with the final project. Irene taught me some life hacks mostly about the technical part of shooting and editing. I learned how to efficiently organize and manage just filmed shots, how to make draft videos, how to merge our own videos with outside sources so it will look mostly similar. I also learned a lot about the collaboration process itself – how to critique and how to balance between following and leading. 

Aesthetics & Results

It will be very raw and emotional. Not a whole lot of audio effects but more artistic with the videos. We tried to mix different camera movements, used a lot of close-ups and extreme close-ups to show emotions and text messages.  We also used smooth camera movements when showing background story and shaky shots for the Sky’s part. Pace of our video depended on the audio file. Every scene in the audio corresponded to the new video scene. Most of our shots are medium length. Also, for almost the whole video we asked our actors not to look at the camera directly to show the story from the side, however for the Sky’s part with shaky shots Irene is directly looking at the camera, because this part was supposedly filmed by the Sky himself which makes it logical that she will look at the camera. It adds more naturality to that part and more professionalism to others. Our main colors when filming were green and blue. We used warm shades of them. Pink is a little too popular for showing love, so we decided to change it. Green looks comfortable, natural, warm and it is associated with summer/spring feeling which is associated with love and liking. Green is a perfect color for us, because we had a lot of nature scenes and this warm, loving green gives the whole motive to the video, because it is in almost every shot. Blue we used much less, usually for Irene’s clothes and for the sky. We tried to film a lot of shots with the sky in the shot. Also one of our colors is gray. You can see it in the background behind our male actor and when the sky changes to rain. Our whole video is supposed to be calm, with a little bit of contrast, fresh feeling, natural raw shots, innocent vibes and be aesthetic and cinematic. 

Footage of our process:

proposal Dana + Irene

folder with the most important drafts of our audio and video: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1BGnK5GqM_IET_RBTQeNVkf4lRHKewfu-?usp=share_link

all of the minor steps can be also found in our previous assignments submissions

proposal Dana + Irene

advertisement video:

five pages of storyboard:

Отсканированный документ 3

1. Concept

My memory was just a peaceful moment for me in middle school. I stayed at home because I was sick and instead of sitting in classes and really working. I was sitting next to the window in rainy weather. While all covered in blankets I wanted to create an even better atmosphere for myself.  I opened the window. There was wind and rain outside, but the fresh air felt really good. I was reading my book, and coughing in the process. My mom walked in, gave me a beverage. She whistled some melody and walked out of the door. Then the rain ended and while humming the same melody as my mom I closed the window. 

At first, I just wanted to immerse my audience into the moment by showing them rain, wind, paper movements, and my sick noises haha. However, I changed this into the whole story with the beginning, high point and ending. I also decided to make it as a loop, so it’s spiral – beginning and ending are connected and inside of this whole story there is also a smaller loop. Open the window – close the window, open the door-close the door, mum whistling- me humming. The whole concept was in the loops. 

I wanted to translate the contrast between my comfy mood and the restless weather outside. So, I had a lot of different sounds.

1.   Process

I decided to try to film everything in a music practice studio because it has noise reduction. However, I needed to film rain sounds in the gym shower. I used the real door to record door sounds, but for the window, I used a piano cover because it gave a different sound. I faked coughing and sniffing – I tried to do it for the whole minute with just some pauses, so I will need to make fewer cuts at the end. Same thing I did with the wave and rain, but ended up still cutting some of the parts that didn’t work for me. Just in case of problems I did around three takes for each sound. I had prepared a list of sounds that I needed beforehand, so I would be able to just cross them out and be organized. I recorded everything with a tascam and the phantom. I used a mono channel because I wanted to showcase everything from my perspective, so I chose to stay only on one channel. After the first day of recordings, I tried to cut everything and discovered that some of the sounds were too quiet I got a little inspired and decided to add some more sounds. For the editing process, I started by loading everything to Google Drive. Then I spent a lot of time listening and renaming all of them. I chose a name for every recording so it would ease my editing process. However, I did count on the fact that I was uploading files to the Audition from my laptop and not from Google Drive, so it all was useless. First I picked my long background sounds – rain, wind, sniffing. However everything was too loud compared to the rain, so I changed the volume of all the media files. Then I added the beginning and the end-window sounds. After that, I worked with the door sound and whistling. Also changed all the volumes and cut everything. I did some editing at the door/window part with the closing sound. At first, I tried to make it a reverb, but it didn’t sound the way I wanted it to, so I just cut out the needed part. Then I added the Coca-Cola sound and the drinking sound. I wanted to use coffee at first, because it’s more comfy, but coffee doesn’t really make sounds, so I chose a cola can. Then I needed to move all the clips because my sequence was wrong from the beginning. I wrote a script with seconds on it, and I started to move everything. At first, I wanted to whistle after my mom left, but then I decided to make the same melody, but with a different sound, so I picked humming. I did fade out for the rain and wind sounds. I re-recorded some of the sounds louder. Cut and added the sound of pages. I also used one of the page sounds at the same time with the knock, so it would give a reason why I didn’t answer the first time – because I was busy reading – and distracted. I wanted to add some dialogue between Mom and me to explain that there are two people in the room. However, we can’t use words. I exchanged “YES” for “MHM” and other words I just invented. I whispered, so it wouldn’t be that obvious. 

 So, for the final steps, I adjusted the volume of everything and cut unnecessary parts out. I tried not to have a pattern, so it would all seem natural. So I ended up with the story – a window opens, some time passes, mom knocks, I answer, she walks in, we talk, she gives me a coke, I drink, she whistles, walks out of the door, then rain fades out I close the window while humming mom’s son. The continuous background is wind, rain, sniffing noises, and pages turning.

 At the very end, I thought that it would be more logical not to fade out the rain and wind, but end them at the same time with the window closing. I tried to fix it by deleting the action “fade out”. However, that was my biggest mistake. I deleted half of my work (almost all of the action – only some parts of the background left). Thanks to me, I saved the previous version with fade out, because I wasn’t able to recreate or to use ctrl+Z to turn back. So the whole sketch of my work is still deleted. 

1. Conclusion

If I had more time, I would have made the whole audio less messy – do better noise reduction, and checked sound time. 

I would’ve also used my friend to record Mom’s lines of unexisting words – so the voice would be more different.

Do even better volume control, so there won’t be any peaking sounds. 

Make the story more logical and meaningful.

1. Image of Audition

Photo in the process: (here are only half of my clips)

In the documentary “The Five Obstructions” (2004) Lars Von Trier challenges Jorgen Leth to remake “The Perfect Human” – a short film five times. Each time with a new obstruction ( set of specific rules). Give obstructions there were:
 1. The film must be made in Cuba.
 2. The film must be made as a cartoon
 3. The film must be made in extreme poverty (“in the most miserable place on the Earth”)
 4. Use “Film Noir” style
 5. The film must be made with the theme of “The Perfect Human” but in a place of Jorgen Leth’s choosing

At the beginning and through the filmmaking process Leth struggles -he gets frustrated. However, later he embraces the new rules – obstructions and starts to explore creativity in this new reality. He tries to remain flexible and open-minded to Von Trier’s suggestions. So he starts to create in the given limitations.

The result was really interesting. These obstructions caused a significant effect. Limitations forced filmmakers to think differently and to explore new. It forced him to push his own boundaries. Each remake became a unique interpretation of the original movie. All this experiment shows the potential benefits of working under different kinds of limitations. They push you out if your comfort zone and the result shows your ability to be versatile and skillful.

I want to add also that the same approach works in all of the creative industries, especially I can point out music making, writing, and dancing. As a dance teacher, I have a lot of experience in this area. When I teach improvisation it is always about the limitations. You search for new movements while doing something uncomfortable and limiting.

And from the most recent experience, during the Communication Lab course, we had a lot of projects and all of them have some kinds of restrictions. They help to stay focused on the task and to come up with different creative approaches and ideas. 
Other thoughts that I had during the watching:

I loved the dynamics of filmmakers’ interactions, It seemed that one tried to challenge another one. I feel that. It is helpful in the creative collaborative process. I always play the role of a challenging person – I love to see how people provide the most creative ideas under a little push.

I loved how locations influenced the final result. Leth needed to shoot every one of 5 movies in a different country and I am interested in how cultural context and background influenced the final work.

I snuggle up on a soft pillow by the window, all cozied up in fluffy blankets. Gently flipping through the pages of a book I sit next to the window. It’s raining outside, but I’m home. My window is open, so I hear how bad the weather is, but the wind is actually refreshing. Savoring every sip of my yummy caramel latte from a cute mug, I smile as I remember why I’m here. Today, I decided to stay snuggled up at home because I felt under the weather. I got sick, so my mom let me miss the school. But little did I know, a book that I chose to read that day would steal my heart away. My incredible mom brewed the most perfect coffee ever and I can still hear her mumbling a song. I carefully placed my pills on a tiny table beforehand and nestled myself beside the window. It felt just like scenes from a movie. The atmosphere was simply amazing, as this book transformed my worldview in a big way. Despite my sniffles and coughs, I couldn’t help but have a truly amazing time. Wrapped in warmth and comfort, my body felt so relaxed and cozy.

1. Zinchenko Dana, Two Sides Of The Same World
2. 
   Concept
   

My concept was about schizophrenia. I wanted to show how people who don’t take medication see the world around them during the visual hallucination. I used the personal experience of my friend who is suffering from this disorder. Basically, my pictures have a meaning of how it is important to take medication and also the information that can help to understand what is going on in the heads of people with hallucinations. The first image was a normal world picture – emphasis on cuteness and bright soft colors. The second picture is dark and scary, however, all the changes are not really bright, but the longer you look at the picture – the scarier it becomes. My research was basically a talk (interview) with a person who lives with such a mental disorder + mid-critique from the same person in the process of my work, so the result would look natural. 

1. 
   Process

1)

At first, I got the general idea of what I wanted to do. Then I searched for the ideas online but found nothing really useful. I tried to take some sample pictures of pills and fire, but I didn’t really like them. After I cleared out the concept I started to walk over my room trying to find something small and cute. I found these Barbies from some fair. For me they looked really creepy but funny, so I decided to use them. Then I thought that the picture in the mirror would really suit my idea. I put my mirror next to the window so the lighting would be good, and put some pink fabric (my blanket) as the background and ground. I turned Barbies’ heads towards the mirror at a weird angle so they would look as if they broke a neck or something, but still not really noticeable. I tried to use a big flower and a candle, but it didn’t fit. I changed it to a small cactus and put an artificial flower on top of that, so it would be pink and cute. I also used pills in the frame. I tried a lot of compositions – pills in the center, a circle of Barbies, only their legs, a flower in the background. However, in the end, I picked not the most basic one, but not the most creative one. I used a diagonal, so I will have a 3d picture, but still not too creative as a circle. I think that this decision serves my requests. 

2)

At first, I tried to add smoke, but it looked really fake, so I just decided to add a vignette to change the coloring. I did brown corners at first, but then due to the critique of my classmate, I changed the color to black. I think this change worked out right. After that, I added blood from barbies’ eyes. I started by adding blood to each of them but then decided to leave only one bloody face and just deform the others. It made my picture more interesting. Then, I realized that I forgot to add layers, so I spent some time redoing all of it. I added Barbie’s eyes to the cactus and to the face of the first doll( with the clone stamp tool). So, now I have a Barbie with four melting eyes and one Barbie with blood pouring from her eyes. For the third one, I made a hole in her face. I wanted to erase it at all, but it didn’t look natural – photoshop was too obvious, so I just did a hole. And the fourth Barbie received the second head. They really looked creepy, especially because I changed their features only in the mirror, but not in the second part of the picture. I saw this in a horror movie and decided to try it. Also, in the very beginning, I deleted pills from the picture. I had some difficulties with that, but figured everything out later. After that, I thought that the picture was too simple, so I added red words like “kill” and “again” and some signs like someone used blood to draw them. However, I really wanted to stick to my project topic, so I asked my friend with schizophrenia for advice. She said that it’s much better without words. She also gave me advice to keep it simple like it is now because she said that this is exactly how hallucinations look – subtle. They just add some small details to the real world, but sometimes it’s even hard to notice them. That’s why I decided to keep these changes subtle, almost hidden. The next problem that I had was the printing. The printing shop did it not in A4 format, so I found out that I messed up with the format. I stretched my picture and was pretty upset about it. However, after the printing, I saw that it even made my picture better. This stretching sometimes occurs in hallucinations. So in the end I was happy that it worked out in this format and style. It really gave more to my work in terms of the naturality of hallucinations representation. I was really proud when a person with real hallucinations told me that my picture really accurately represents what she sees. 

Contact Sheet:

1. Possible Improvements
   

I really wanted to add some smoke, but wasn’t able to do it naturally, so I would like to try out more strategies and add some smoke to the work. Also, I would love to implement some images from other pictures/files. I saw a lot of people working with that, however didn’t get a chance to try. I think I would be able to add some demon’s faces or horns. I think I could also light up Barbies’ faces a little to emphasize change. 

1. Image of Diptych

• My overall concept for this Photo Diptych project is to show schizophrenia in a simple and generalizing way. I want to show how pills help to turn off the hallucinations that people with schizophrenia get. I want to show what kind of visual hallucinations people might get and what it would look like if they were taking pills as the prescription says. The point is to show how important it is to continue the treatment for these people and to show others how this disorder might look in some of the aspects of it.
• The first image for me depicts the “real picture”. It means that first I’m just going to show an innocent scenario that people can possibly see in real life without the alterations of the schizophrenic mind. I need to use something really cute to emphasize the contrast between the two pictures. I will use many pink colors, soft textures, and playful objects. For the second picture, I will add something really crazy and horrifying. I will change these cute objects into something scary but still keep that scenario. I talked to people who are suffering from this disorder, so they can explain to me what they usually see during hallucinations and I am going to use this knowledge while photoshopping my picture. So, without each other, these photos are completely nonsense, but together they depict the contrast between the “real picture” that everyone sees and the picture that a person with schizophrenia can see at the same time. 
• According to what I want to depict, I think I will use Barbie dolls, flowers, a pink blanket, and maybe some special lighting – this is for the cute and innocent part. However, in the middle of the picture, I will put pills. In the second part of the diptych project, I will delete them from the photo to show that when pills are in the frame (a person is taking them) the image is fine, but when pills are out of the picture ( someone stops taking them) the image becomes darker and much different. 
• I plan to add some smoke, change the coloring to the darker one, add some fire, and use repetition in some objects – I am thinking of derealisation the picture by changing the number of eyes on Barbie dolls, adding some on the background, also I will delete the pills from an image and adding some blood and mirrors. 

Fred Ritchin discusses the idea of the “fluidity of the digital” in the foreword of “In Our Own Image.” Ritchin defines this fluidity as the ease with which digital images can be altered, modified, and distributed. Digital photography allows for ongoing change and permutation, as opposed to traditional photography, which captures a single moment frozen in time. It really gives photographers a lot of new opportunities. 

Instagram can be used as an illustration. Before sharing an image with their followers, users can take a picture, add various effects, change the brightness, and crop the picture. Through this process, the image becomes adaptable and fluid, allowing the photographer to create a particular story or emotion. This digital image modification shows the fluidity that Ritchin refers to.

When one considers how closely photography represents reality, it is obvious that all images, regardless of format, have some element of subjectivity. Despite the fact that photography has been widely accepted as a reliable tool for recording and portraying reality, it is important to understand that the act of framing and taking an image is by itself quite selective. The final image’s perception of reality is influenced by the photographer’s choice of perspective, composition, time, and environment.

Comparing photography to other forms of media, such as text, video, virtual reality, and books, shows how each has distinct advantages and disadvantages when it comes to representing reality. The text provides depth and information, but interpretation and creativity are needed to make the story come to life. Video is more immersive because it records sound and movement, but it is still limited by its selective nature. Although virtual reality strives to be completely immersive, it is still a created world that mimics reality. In contrast, books mainly rely on the reader’s imagination to create mental pictures. 

In conclusion, although it is frequently thought of as an art form capable of portraying truth, photography is actually subjective because of the decisions the photographer makes. Ritchin claimed that the fluidity of digital photography adds a degree of visual modification and change. Photography and other forms of media can be compared to show how each has advantages and disadvantages when it comes to capturing truth. In the end, it is necessary to approach all images—digital or not—critically and to understand their subjectivity and fluidity.