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!

Jessie Nie-  Loneliness in the city

Concept

I got the inspiration one day I was walking on the street with my friends, and the street was very crowded. Suddenly, inexplicable loneliness swept me, and I felt as though so many friends were with me, I was alone anyway.

So the first picture I took is at a low angle and there is a man who is riding a bike, and another man walking very fast. I made the shutter speed very slow, so the figure of the man is blurred. We can see from this picture that people are very busy and have no time to stop their steps. 

And for the second picture, I decided to take a picture and edit it to show this kind of loneliness in city life. I invited my friend to be the actor, and I took a picture of her walking in the crowds. I edited it, and I made the whole picture black and white except the actor. And I insert another picture of her taking a photo. I also let this picture be colorful. So it seems that it’s she who takes the picture of her walking in the crowds. I want to use this picture to show that in the crowded street, in the busy city, everyone is so busy to care about others, because the one who took the picture of the girl is herself, so you will feel lonely in the city from the two photos together.

And the relationship between the two photos is very close but it’s hard to tell the loneliness merely from one picture, only you put the two pictures together, you suddenly realize that it’s a story about a girl lonelily walking in the city street. Because the first picture shows that the city life is busy and indifferent, and the second edited photo shows that every individual is lonely and drowned in the busy city.

Process

When I was taking the first photo, I chose a night around 10 p.m in Lujiazui, because it’s the time some people finished a whole-day work and go back home very late. It was getting darker and darker, and the street was not that crowded but there were still some people hurrying. 

I lowered the ISO, but it cannot be very low since the outside environment was not that bright, and I adjusted the white balance to have a warm yellow tone. And then, I caught this moment and the photo was successfully taken. 

And for the second picture, I first made a filter to decrease the brightness of other colors and let the picture be black-and-white. Then I got a copy of the original picture and separated the girl (actor), and I put the girl in the colorful picture at the same place. So the picture was generally black-and-white but the girl was bright and colorful. Then, I cut her image of taking pictures from another photo, and I put that image of her at the bottom right corner. And I adjusted the color of those two bright images, and then it was done.

And in regard to the problems I encountered, I want to mention it’s hard to take a high-quality photo if the actor and photographer are both moving, so I just stopped moving and adjusted the focus. Only by this, I could take a photo of high quality.

Conclusion

If I have more time, I would like to make more variations of the second image, probably add some black cubes or some other images besides the existing ones to show the loneliness. 

And also if the quality can be better, it would be fantastic, though I think the quality of the photo now is better than the previous ones.

Image od Diptych 

Project Title

Are you real to yourself?

Team Members:

Miranda Jessie

 Concept | Storyline:

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

• Psychological activities of the protagonist
• The real sound
• The comments of the social media
• Text of the Voice-over“What is the real self in the virtual internet world?Social media shortens the distance between people on the Internet, people often feel lost in the carefully designed system, and have the illusion of being noticed all the time.

  This illusion makes people ignore their inner feelings, constrain themselves with others’ evaluation, and desire to create a perfect image to gain external recognition.

  “Morning”

  “A healthy diet”

  “It’s time to hit the road”

  “Nice dinner with my girls”

  Character settings and labels make people have no time to breathe. As a result, “social media anxiety” has become an inescapable dilemma in modern life. On social media, it’s easier to be someone else than to be yourself.”

   2). What’s the story about? 

 Theme:

People are always dying to post glamorous daily on social media and thus make character settings mainly for gratifying their vanity. It has become a medical condition to post enviable fake lives on social media. But the fact is that people’s real life is kinda messy and not that glamorous.

example: 

1. Mess room /tidy corner 
2. busy studying on the computer/ playing game on the phone                     3.Having a selfie together to pretend a harmonious atmosphere/ everyone is busy playing with their phone, not enjoying the gathering.

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

Using an apple as the metaphor object and to manifest the theme

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

Having a contrast of social media life and real life

Execution Plan:

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

• Camera for the video
• mobile phone  for the sound     

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

1. a room
2. Starbucks
3. restaurant

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

1.The lighting of an apple probably will be a problem, since it’s hard to film an object decently. So we will borrow a lighting equipment to film the apple.

2. Since we can’t film in dorm or ab, it’s hard to find a place to film the first scene. We have to find another place or change a situation for the first scene.

4). How will you collaborate? How will you divide work? (Gantt Chart)

1.   Storyboard Draft
2. Gantt Chart*

start from 00:16-00:57 link:BV1Bh411h7Wx

concept

When I looked back, thinking of which memory left deep impression to me, a day when I travelled to Greece came to my mind. Since COVID stopped us from traveling abroad, I really missed the time while traveling around the world.

That was a day when I traveled to Greece, we lived in a hotel near the seaside. And in the morning, I picked up and went out with my family. After we arrived the seaside, I set on a big stone by the sea, and put my feet in the sea to stir the water. My eyes were looking at the waves of the sea and my body was entirely exposed to the sunshine, and I felt unprecedented joy and peace. But suddenly, it started to rain, and the rain was getting heavier and heavier. So we had no choice but go home, but the rain could only stopped us from going out but not having fun. So after going back to hotel and closing the door, a guitar sound started, which means another kind of happy day started. So I use some real sounds to create a real scene.

Process

The sounds I recorded belong to different categories. I recorded the sound of shaking glasses, touching the plastic, walking steps… And the biggest problem I met when I was recording is that there was so much noise while I was recording, since I couldn’t guarantee that the environment was 100 percent quiet. So I applied another machine to record the sound which can make the sound more clear and less noisy. Also, while I was editing the sound, I applied an effect to decrease the noise.

During the editing process, I divided the scene into three parts. The first was the picking up process, and I spent 10 seconds using the sounds of walking steps, typing, and touching plastic to create this scene. And then, the main part is after arriving the seaside, I started to playing with water and then it started to rain which even went heavier and heavier. And I used the sounds of shaking the bottle at different frequencies to create the stirring water sound, and I use the sound of water from the water tap to create the sound of raining, especially heavy rain. And last, there is a sound contrast, after closing the door, the whole area became a quiet place suddenly.   And the guitar sound appeared to be the ending part.

I met quite a few challenges when I was editing the sound, the biggest of which is that while I was creating the water sound, I was too hard to use the shaking bottle sound to make the stirring water sound by the sea. I tried a lot of effects, but it always seemed to be missing something. At last, I chose to apply a little bit echo and delay,  and gave up applying FFT which would make the sound weird to solve the problem.

Conclusion

If I have more time, I would like to have more variation of the sounds and also make the story and the scene easier to let the listeners understand. Also, it’s essential to make the water sound more clear which can remind people of the scene I create very quickly.

For the feedback from others, my classmates pointed out that the sound sounded great but it was a little bit hard to distinguish and think of what I meant to create.

Image of Audition

• Steyerl talks about how the “unbroken belief” of the documentary form is challenged. What does Steyerl mean by this? Certain movies and films are based on a true story.  How does truth inform the fiction? How might fiction inform the truth?

Originally, documentary form can only be the real images and videos, but the fact is that the real images still can convey very subjective feelings. Just as Steyerl said, “documentary forms convey, regulate, and administrate huge emotional potentials that they both keep in check and unleash explosively. They bring distant events close enough to get under our skin, and alienate what is closest to us. They heighten a general sense of fear that increasingly being used as a political instrument. “

The writer of the fiction always catch some specific point from a real story, and to present the truth in his/her way and to express the feeling and the point he/she wants to let people know from his/her perspective. So fiction can partly represent the truth and let people know part of the truth, but fictions are always created by humans, so  they always represent the purpose of the creators.

• What is the significance of the authenticity and representation of the truth in the media that you consume on a daily basis? What is the role of a live broadcast?

The authenticity and representation of the truth in the media let people know what is happening or what is the trend in the society. Different representations have different usages.

For the live broadcast, it has a variety of meanings. If it’s a news live broadcast, it enables people to know what is happening in the city, in the country, and in the world; if it’s a shopping live broadcast, it is a platform to let people shop online. Anyway, a live broadcast is always in a true scene, but it always express and convey what the broadcaster wants people to see, so the purpose is always affected by people. 

The theme of my photoshop assignment is tranquility.

The main image of the original photo is an upside-down tiny vase, and there is a pomegranate seed on it. And the lighting is basically warm and dark, which makes the atmosphere of the picture very peaceful.  And the whole scene of the photo is relatively empty, which gives the audience a sense of loneliness.

And for the edited photo, I added a lake to the background. I also make a copy of the vase, and it seems like a red wine glass. So the whole picture now has some more dynamic factors, but the whole emotion of the photo is also tranquility.

So the two pictures share the same emotion of tranquility but differ in the degree of loneliness.

“It’s a day while I was traveling to Santorini, Greece. I happily pick up my baggage, and  plan to go to the seaside to enjoy the sea winds and the sunshine. After I arriving the seaside, I sit down on a stone and take off my shoes, and I put my feet in the water, starting to stir the sea water. The sunshine is on my face and I really enjoy the relaxing moments, but then, it starts to rain. The rain is getting heavier and heavier, so I can only go back to the hotel. I arrive the hotel, and close the door. I saw a guitar in the room, and I pick it up, and start to play. It’s still a nice day, cuz while traveling, everything is happy and relaxing.”

I used the sound of touching plastic, typing, and footsteps to imitate the sound of picking up baggage. And I add some reverb to let the sound mix together.

And for the main body of the sound which is the water sound and the sound of rain, I used the water in a bottle and the sound of water from water tap. I applied echo, delay and FFT to the sound, and also decrease the noise sound to make it like the real sound in the scene I create.

For the last part, I used a sound of closing a door to separate outdoors and indoors, and end up the sound with a sound of guitar. I basically just decrease the noise sound for the last part to make indoors environment sound very relaxing and quiet.

Jessie Nie/ 失控（Out of control）/Tizzy T

 Concept and Design

I mainly want to express a feeling of being out of control and I design the main part as something exploded, which consists of some “w” in the same shape. And I use a lot of “I” which are very narrow in width to enhance the feeling of loss of control. Then I use several “x” to create the sense of falling which is also a kind of loss of control. And the main image is divided into two parts of black and white, and there is a concept of the collision inside. For the bottom part, I use some white designs, which are soft and rhythmic, inside the black background, and this represents the rest part of this song which is not that burst and more rhythmic.

The gestalt theories I applied are similarity ，closure. I applied many same letters to compose my work, such as the “w” for the main image and the “I” and “x” as I mentioned. For the closure, I create some “v” that are not filled fully. And from the bottom to the top, the

Enlarge

change of background color creates a flow of emotional change.

Process

The most significant step I have taken is the design of the main part of this project which consists of several “w” and is like something exploded and moving. This is the most essential part I used to express the feeling of loss of control and is also the core of this design. Every line seems the same, but they are arranged at different angles.

I deem that I partly convey the feeling of being out of control in a successful way. But there are still a lot of problems that remain in my project. While I convey the feeling I intended to successfully, the style of the design is a little bit messy, and according to the feedback of some viewers, when they first saw this picture, they don’t usually have the idea of where to look first. And it is crucial to have the sense of composition which this work lacks. I would better use variation and apply more theories to make the main part and use lines to connect the separated parts.

Conclusion

If I have more time, I will re-arrange every part of this work to make the main part clear and not that messy. And to focus on the composition more, to let different parts connect but easy to be recognized at the same time. Use more variation to add vibrancy to this design as well.

1. What does Ritchin mean with the “fluidity of the digital”? Give an example of digital imaging/digital photography that exemplifies this.

According to Ritchin, “the fluidity of the digital” means that digital stuff is easy to change and spread. For instance, since digital images can be easily altered，the myth of photographic veracity was being utilized more frequently by those in power to establish their own versions of themselves and events. Therefore，the authenticity of digital images is replaced by fluidity. Additionally, the digital stuff spreads very fast, reaches a wide audience, and has a big impact.

2. Reflect on the extent to which photography is capable of capturing reality; and compare it to other media (technology) (e.g., text, video, virtual reality, books).

Compared to other media, photography captures reality to a greater extent. It records images of what is happening right now, therefore it has greater authenticity. It provides much more information than text, and it’s harder to make fake images while the text is easy to spread false news by mistake or on purpose, though nowadays photos are also easier to change. When compared with videos, photography is not that continuous，and not able to catch the whole process. Photography is a digital form about one moment while the video is about a period. It takes time to watch a video but it’s intuitive to see a photo in less than one second. When it comes to books, it’s essential to recognize the type of the book. Some books can capture and record reality while some books are just fictional that have no reference value.

All in all, photographs have a great ability to capture reality, but only if they have not been altered.

That’s all for my brief understanding of the 2 questions related to this book.