Task 2 - Personal Project - Production

An Introvert

Vision

Mind

Path

Influence

Above are the final productions of this entire campaign I have been working on - An Introvert. The problem I am addressing here is to make people realise and understand what introversion is about and stop the ignorance of introversion that introverts needed to be changed to be extroverts to be better. 

Introverts have their beautiful world of vision and mind; they think differently, they also see things differently. Introverts are not antisocial, they just enjoy being within themselves and having fun with themselves, they can talk and socialise, when they do, they are as interesting as influencing and inspiring others who are talking to them. Introverts are creative having many different ideas all the time, the way of thinking is always something beautiful and colourful that makes their paths of working, studying and living more interesting and wonderful.

Process

The ideas came from the inspirations from different materials I have at home, such as the raincoats, I have a pair of raincoats, a yellow coloured and a blue coloured, there was one rainy day when I had to walk to college in a raincoat, I had realised that raincoat closes a person very much which leaded me to this campaign project - an introvert; Since then I decided to use raincoats as a part of the subject matter, raincoat closes a person very well delicates the characteristics of introversion. 

Before shooting, I had planned and sketched down all the ideas that had came to me. 

First Sketch

In this sketch, there is the first idea I had thought about, this concept is around one characteristic of the introverts that is they are generally very creative, which leaded me to the artists, and artists are mostly very creative, and the most common tool that an artist uses is a pencil. Here, I concluded and had the very first idea of mine which I hadn't completed this idea; that is a photo manipulation of the subject walking among the forests of pencils instead of trees. 

The problem which caused me not to complete is the forests I had done my photoshoot in wasn't the ideal forests I had thought by the moment when I sketched out this idea. The woods I had been to had been very messy with the tree sticks/trunks and leaves and hard to manipulate on photoshop afterwards, a good solution os this problem is to set the location in a bamboo forests which is over limit of my current conditions.

Second Sketch

The above is the second idea I had, it involved a material - crystal ball. I had this idea one day while I was reading an article about crystal balls, and had known the facts that crystal balls visually make things upside down when you look through it; then I had searched on google image to have a look of how that effect looks or whether anyone has ever taken picture of this vision; then I had found many pictures of how things became upside down through the crystal ball.

Crystal ball makes objects upside-down.

The concepts of this idea was to show how introverts are balanced all the time, in the middle between two gravities that they don't get attracted by any sides but in a balance always.

Sketch 3

In this idea, I had considered of using shiny materials such as cutting off the shinny foils and shiny plastic materials into small pieces of stripes, the model of the subject will be blowing off this tiny and shiny stuff out from the inside the raincoats, and the camera angle will be set on the profile of the subject and  shoot the moment that looks like the shiny things come from the subject's inside; which indicates one characteristic of how introverts express and share interesting and colourful stuff around the socialised people. 

The reality turned out a little different from imagination while shooting, it was hard to capture the tiny stripes being blown out by the subject; instead the stripes float everywhere around and it turns out to look like this: 

The solution was to still apply this image in editing and edit it into a different concept, and the final outcome is the fourth image "Mind", which had been overlaid with a picture full of balloons to express the colourful thinking of the introverts.

When I overlaid these 2 pictures together, the different backgrounds had made the entire image messy and dirty and hard to understand and tell what's going on in the photograph, then I had used eraser tool to erase the trees and sticks parts on the balloon layer.

Sketch 4

This idea is the concept to indicate what the introvert's visions are, the world around them is black and white, but what they see through the mirror is a colourful world. The final outcome is the first photograph "Vision"

To have this effect, I had used polygonal lasso tool and traced the reflection on the mirror and copied layer, select the background layer and go to image to make the background layer black and white. 

Sketch 5

This idea is to express the same notion as sketch 4, - the vision of introversion. the subject matters are a pair of plasters stuck cross the subject's month to indicate the characteristic that the introverts don't talk much, but the subject matter the circle shades turn out to be colourful flower indicates the beautiful visions of introversion. 

The making of this image was easy, I had made the background layer black and white, and selected elliptical marquee tool, hold on shift and circle a photograph I had taken for flowers and copy layer - drag layer to the image of the subject, then copy layer again, so there are 2 layers for both the glasses for the shades, select both copies layers and hold Command+T to transform the size of both layers the same size at the circle of the shades, then manually adjust the positions.

Sketch 6

This was an idea of a photo collage in sequence of space which looks alike a panorama or wide angle prints, 3 different shots of the surroundings vertically and photo collage them into sequence. in each frame, the floating balloons has to be shown. The problem I had for this shot was the gas for the balloons, I couldn't find a proper gas that can help balloons float, and it was very hard to capture the balloons floating by throwing them to the sky, then I had changed the direction of using subject matter "balloons" in a different way while shooting, which turned out to be the fifth photograph "Path".

Sketch 7

This is an idea of photo manipulation and the outcome is the last photograph "influence", to get this photo, I had firstly set my camera on tripod and shot 5 times and put them together in sequence by space.

Sketch 8

This is a sketch of the subject matter and confirmation of the character in this photo shoot.

Sketch 9, 10

This is a sketch of planning, which plan should be taken the first and to set each shoot in order and well-organised, so the entire shoot won't take much extra time for deciding which should be taken the first, second…..till the last.

Task 3 Cinema "For Peace, Paradox."

Final Work

For Peace, Paradox.

(short film)

It is a short film I have been working on this couple of months;

If you agree that everyone is the key of world peace, and want to support peace with us.

find us on Facebook: facebook.com/pages/WORLD-WAR-3/384921301640213

I have combined the big campaign project from module graphic design 2 part 2 together with this assignment; I had an idea of making a campaign video/short film to support our campaign "World War 3?" 

The ideal of this film is to make people support peace in the way of understanding peace well. I have received some questions about this video while sharing to my friends.

"SO in your movie, peace is something negative?

I mean everyone who is put into the folder piece is killed. right?"

- In my movie, peace isn't something positive or negative, it is a thing that people need to understand; the entire film seems very negative, but it has a paradox logic into it, it's true that death leads to peace, but death is not the only path to find peace. Understanding it is the way to find peace.

Process

To begin with shooting, a story must be important! So I began with sketching out story boards.

Simple sketch of the story board on my sketch book

Storyboard page 1

After I found the ideas of the story and constructed them into a story board in A4 form, so the storyboard is concise and clear.

In storyboard page 1, there are 2 scenes involved. 

Scene 1: A terrible incident had happened, to indicate that incident, I had a final solution of using the siren sound of ambulance in a scene of fast speeded car or its movement; although the very initial idea of the first scene was the shot of the main character found dead which is way too direct to indicate that. To start with the end of the story gives audience curiosity to want to keep watching the entire film.

Scene 2: The main character reads news about war and peace, that shows how much this character cares about topic "peace" In this scene, I chose to use jump cut to set the main character's morning actions in sequence, the jump shots include different camera shots and angles in eace frame, there is close-up, wide shot, cut-away shot, etc.

Close-up shot in scene 2

Wide shot in in scene 2

Point of view shot in scene 2

In this point of view, it is the point of view of the main character reading news on his laptop, to get the shot of the content in the screen, I had recorded my screen using quicktime player.

Story board page 2

When the main character was reading news, he had received a message from his friend, "Can we party at your place tonight?" he replies"OK" as a response. The next shot is the main character grabbing his camera and going out of his house for a walk.

In scene 3, originally I drew the scene that's in a shop, the main character buys magazines about world war, but I have added another scene into it which I haven't added on the story board, this new scene involves our campaign project. In this scene, it has included different shots as well.

Close-up shot in scene 3

Wide shot/long shot in scene 3

In scene 4, the main character comes back home and sits back to his laptop and started working till late and dark outside, in the shot of him working in front of his laptop, we have used time lapse technique to show this shot. Jump cut is also involved in this scene to show the main character's actions in sequence.

In scene 5, it's getting dark, his friends came for the party as mentioned in scene 2. In this scene, the background music starts kicking in which I had picked from the musician Zeds Dead's music work called "Rude Boy" (none offence of copyrights)

Storyboard page 3

A party has started, in the party, things like fighting, girl friend yelling at the main character had happened, and things like painting on the magazines and the flyers he had bought in the shop some funny stuff also had happened, these make the main character pissed off and hate his friends and girl friend for being not peaceful and respectful for peace. The editing of this scene is the hardest, each shot had followed the beat of the music, effected by the music as well.

In scene 6, he started being mad, and created a folder named "for peace" on his desktop, and dragged his girl friend's picture into the folder, afterwards he started feeling dizzy and fell asleep.

Storyboard page 4

In scene 7, the character wakes up in dizziness the next day, and did the same routine in the morning. surprisingly, he found his girl friend dead in the news page, and received another message from his friend: "we heard it, rest in PEACE" the word "peace" had leaded him to the folder he had created the night before, he opens the folder and found his girl friend's picture became black and white with a red cross on the surface. Did he kill his girl friend?

storyboard page 5

When he found out his girlfriend has died, he wants to delete the folder he had created, but the memory of what happened in the party won't let him, and leaded him to drag other friends of his into the folder, he had fell asleep again…

Falling asleep.

In this frame, it is a shot of the a close-up the subject's face, it has been recorded by the subject with a camera in his hands and tracked all the way to when her falls asleep. This frame has been recorded several times, and in the editing, they had been overlaid by 3 frames together and came out with this effect.

In scene 8, the next morning when alarm starts kicking in, empty bathroom, empty kitchen, and empty laptop with no one sits in front of it, he did not wake up.

Storyboard page 6

Later in the evening

In scene 9, the main character wakes up in misery, and had found more of his friends dead on the news, to feel relief, he grabbed cigarettes and went to the balcony for a smoke, while smoking, he heard fighting noises from the neighbours, and that made him pissed off again, grabbed his camera and going out wanting to take pictures of those people who are fighting, and kill them in the folder. but by the moment when he opens the door, something had changed inside him, he realised that he can't kill everyone to find peace. He sat back to his laptop, opened the Photo Booth and took a picture of himself, and dragged his own picture in to the folder…

POV shot in scene 9

Wide shot in scene 9

In this end of the film, I had claimed different informations of the entire film. Such as: 

Actors who had participated in this film

Music that I had chosen to use into the film

(to not offence others copyrights)

Which camera had been used to shoot this film

(the technical consideration)

In this film, there are moments when the subject receives messages on his phone, I had chosen to show the content of the message by using WS with text on the frames. 

Like this, the content of the messages are more concise and clear to read than a cut-away shot of the phone.

This entire film has been edited by Final Cut Pro Application. Which is my first time experience in this app. in the process of editing, I have met different problems of editing and how to do, which had been resolved by the tutorials on youtube and other sources. 

It has been a fun and fresh experience working with Final Cut Pro; and in the meantime had learned many techniques of editing, such as the body language of human beings, the sound and music, etc.

Process of video editing

Here are some drafts while editing video on final cut, to decide which certain second in a clip needs to be cut and used.