The perfect orange – Visual Metaphor

Our story sought to express everyone’s pursuit and reminiscence of childhood memory using the metaphor of finding the perfect orange. My partner Riley was pretty fond of my previous works on oranges. And she suggested that we could plot a story of finding the perfect orange, so as to tell a touching story. At first, I thought we should make a cheerful and energetic video since I already had the vision that most other students would go for slow-paced touching topics. However, since she was more confident in finding suitable narration to render a touching atmosphere, we agreed to keep on with the topic.

Storyboard

Our storyboard, which was mainly drawn by me, worked more like a shooting script. Since I was determined to shoot most of the scenes in the final video, I elaborated on each shot and how they linked with the previous and the next shots. When we were shooting, we mostly followed the scenes and lens pan designed in our storyboard, but would occasionally make minor adjustments accordingly. This made our shooting process more efficient.

Apart from helping us shoot, it also reinforced our workflow.  Riley could work out the narration and the music even without seeing the final video, which was why our audio and music came before our final version.

Our shooting, thanks to our shooting script, Riley’s amazing modeling ability, and my proficiency in using the stabilizer and the camera, was finished in 3 hours in Qiantan Park. One of the main problems that we encountered was the scene of childhood. In order to portray the character’s reminiscence, we need a flashback to childhood, and apparently, it had not been practical for us to find a suitable kid for shooting. Our method to solve it was really simple too. We went to the website pixels.com and downloaded one. I hated to admit that not all of the shots in the video were 100% original, but the kid scenes were the only ones that I found online.

I had learned loads of premiere tricks long before Com Lab, so I encountered fewer difficulties editing my videos. However, I still challenged myself by adding more speed ramps to connect each shot, so as to make the flow better.

This is a picture of how I adjusted the clips’ speed/duration.

 

The first 200% was intentioned to make the panning more swift and to create smoother transitions. The second 100% and 50% were designed to leave enough room for understanding the scene.

These adjustments in speed enabled me to emphasize some content and maximized the effect of my panning transitions. Almost every transition you would see in our video was processed this way.

Collaboration

My role was directing the visual exhibition. I concentrated on making the scenes cinematic, so it was my job to compose the scenes, choose the right place and the right time to shoot, and finally, edit.

Therefore, I would like to extend my gratitude to my teammate Riley. She was such a cooperative teammate and a responsible model. She was the one that wrote the poetic narration and found wonderful music for the video. When we were shooting the scene, she never complained or minded anything, but would always agree to shoot over and over again. I still remembered shooting the scene of dropping the orange nearly ten times. After the main shots, I felt sorry to keep her occupied until dusk to get the sunset scene for she had some planning that night. However Riley agreed to stay until the sun went near the horizon, and we managed to finish the last beautiful scene by the river.

This was my first time working directly with a model for a film. This wonderful experience would guide me to better understand the mindset and mood of my future models.

After all,

All I tried to do was to give my audience a visual feast. I used as many transition techniques – cut-outs, pannings, similar shape transitions – as possible. Besides, I tried to use the cuts to indicate the changes in time and space, with both long and short takes, close-up and far shots.

I didn’t do much in color correction. I was using Fuji XT-3’s Flog and added the official LUT preset. The final color looked gorgeous.

Finally,

Thanks to all of my peers and Prof. Ian that provided compliments and valuable comments for us to improve. Thanks to Riley for such an outstanding performance. Thanks to IMA Com Lab to give me the chance to design, to create, and to feel my life.