A. Concept & Story

•  What is the concept & the story in your project?

The concept is that the phenomenon of addiction to social media of the society nowadays. People pay more and more attention to their images and characters on social media, and although real life is not as decent as shown on social media, they don’t want to do something to improve their living quality of real-life, what they are trying to do is to ignore their inner feelings and show the bright side of their life to gain praises. They are kinda trapped in the dilemma. So we used the fruit to represent people in the society who are affected by social media to create this video to show this phenomenon. 

•  How were you inspired to create this project? 

I watched a TEDx talk about how social media ruins our life nowadays, and I was shocked by how deeply we are affected by social media and the internet. Also, I noticed that after I post something, I usually paid a lot of attention to it, like the comments, the likes. I felt pressured, but I couldn’t control myself. So I tried to use less social media, and then I found my life became more peaceful. Therefore, Miranda and I came up with the idea of making the final project about social media.

•  What is the ideation process of this project?

Because the final project is about visual metaphor, so we first want to show some real scenes and also the metaphor stuff like fruits. But first, we only thought of using apples as the metaphor thing. Then, professor Yunmi gave us the suggestion of making some variations, so we used different kinds of fruit in different scenes. And then, we wrote down our voice-over and made the storyboard of each sentence.

•  Why do you want to explore this topic?

I think this is a common phenomenon that needs people to pay great attention to, and I want whoever watches this video would do some reflect on themselves.

B.   Creation Process & Execution

• Share your storyboard and describe how it helped you in your project. 

• Describe the process of choosing a setting, shooting, sourcing materials, lighting, and directing(if applicable). 

setting: We chose a whiteboard as the main setting of our project. And we used a black sofa as the black background.

shooting: We borrowed a camera from IMA lab and we adjusted the ISO, white balance, and shutter speed for better shooting.

Sourcing materials: We bought some fruit online as our main characters.

Lighting: We borrowed light from IMA lab but we seldom used it, and we use the adjustment of ISO to adjust the lighting.

• Describe the challenges you encountered during the content creation process, and how you solved or overcame them. 

We first met a problem which is while we were shooting the movement of the fruits, our hands usually appear on the screen and that affected the whole video a lot. So, Miranda and I chose to apply stop motion to our project.

Second, we found it’s hard to find a decent ISO parameter. Sometimes it’s too bright, while sometimes it’s too dark. And also there were some bright circles on the screen which affected the whole scene a little bit. After quite a few attempts, we found a great shooting angle and ISO parameter to make sure our shooting quality is good.

• Describe your editing & post-production process. You may share a few screenshots from Premiere about the editing techniques and effects you learned.

We did some stop motion and we made the posting part like the real post, and we added some frames and heart shape to create the real feeling

C. Collaboration

• Describe your own role and contribution to the project. 

I did the whole recording work, which means I recorded the voice-over. I used the recording machine and the microphone borrowed from the equipment room of IMA lab. And I invited my friend to read the main part of the voice-over, and I read the posting voice-over.

The second thing I did is the shooting work. I shot all the scenes and took all the pictures and videos of the project. And I was doing the lighting and the composition work of the scenes.

Also, Miranda and I did the brainstorming together of the different scenes and how to properly show the meaning of the voice-over. We together created the scenes made by apples, oranges, blueberries, and avocado.

• Express appreciation for the work your teammate did. 

Miranda did a lot in our teamwork, she contributed a lot of ideas that are really creative and suitable for our project.

And I mainly want to appreciate Miranda for the editing work she did. I want to say that Miranda almost did all the editing work, because she edited the split-screen and the stop motion, and also, she put the subtitles and other editing work. 

After the critique classes, she did a lot of adjustments, which made the project much better than before.

• How did the collaborative process and exchange with your partner inform your project? 

Teamwork taught me a lot and added more things to our project. Because during our discussion, there usually exist some new inspirations and better suggestions of how to adjust.

And also, we have different advantages. Like I am good at shooting and using the camera, and she is good at doing the edition (the pr work). So we can do work in different fields which we are good at and that makes our work better.

• Was there something you learned from your partner? 

Yes, she usually came up with really great and creative ideas, and I think she’s a perfect student to learn IMA. And also she did very great on the editing work, and she has really great taste in art. She likes art and she went to some exhibitions in daily life. So I think she is a really great partner.

D. Aesthetics & Results

• Consider the aesthetics you choose to pursue your concept and story such as the following, tell us why do you think it is effective and you may also share your inspirations and references

We used stop motion and we adjusted the white balance to make the whole video look objective. 

• Camera language (e.g., long-shot, different camera angles)

We used stop motion and applied some variation to the camera angle. And we adjusted the focus to focus on something we want to let the audience pay attention to. And we also added some frames and did the split-screen.

• Color correction/adjustment

We didn’t directly apply some filters because that will affect the quality of our project, we mainly adjusted the white balance and make the style of the color of different scenes the same. 

Thank you so much for reading this, and that’s all for my final project!