Assignment 3: Uncut

The overall quality is still pretty much intact. Except for a few transitions and the sound quality. Other than that, the pictures aint that clear but it's still acceptable. Maybe because my original is of very high resolution.



Here's the youtube version. It's a little odd. I don't know why. But it looks fine on the actual youtube link. So if you want to catch a bigger version you can go to youtube.



Basically, I paced the photos according to the tune of the song. For instance, at the start of the video the first note on the piano is in line with the first part of the title. The main chord comes in with the main part of the video: A view of me with eyes close and the sky as the background.

For the text, I chose something that is very feminine and sensuous, something that suit the theme, the music and the creator herself (haha). The text is lined up in a way that it doesn't require the audience's eye to go back to the start of the line. I realised in this kind of video, timing is very important and every split second counts, especially when you are pacing in accordance to the music. So I don't have time to make the audience take their own sweet time to read. Thus the text are divided upon crucial parts and the next part is below the end of the afore line. In this way, the positioning of the text itself will hint the audience that there is more to come. This is repeated throughout the video so the audience knows what to expect and they won't miss out the important texts.

For the photos, they took me alot of time to Photoshop. Especially the one with all the hair. I ain't an expert at Photoshop so the effect ain't that good, but they were the best I could do upon learning it myself off the Internet. My favourites among all are the loneliness photos because I could make myself transparent so it really seems that I am part of the whole scenery. And among them the best would be the sunset one. The original photo was a clear pink and blue sky. But I photoshop-ed the clouds to create a more overcast and gloomy effect. The rationale behind all these photoshop-ing for the loneliness pictures is that the key to portrayal of loneliness is SPACE, wide amount, or endless amount of SPACE. And within the space, the only person present is the female lead (which is me). That explains why I started off with the sky. The sky has an endless space. Imagine yourself living in the clouds or the matter of fact, the sky is nothing but air, space and water vapour (of course excluding planes and birds, they are not sky itself). The sky is something that one could never attain. So other than that the scenery pictures are meant to create the effect too.

In order to build a story and bring the message across, I guess the photos, music and positioning or rather sequence of the photos matters alot. For instance, at the turn of the story, which is the climax with the introduction of the male lead, I tried using the sunset photo as the turning point photo (the one with the pink and purple sky), but the effect is not there. It just doesn't communicate the 'saving' message as strong. Then the idea of using the hands came into my mind. It's something pretty much religious if you think about it. But it's pretty much universal, something that I tried to keep throughout the video so people can understand easily. So I got my mother to help us take photos of our hands. A couple more of photos of us holding hands were also taken because I planned to use it for the ending scene. That is, holding hands and the background will be that of the clouds. However, I realised that the impact wouldn't be strong enough. As such, I edited an old photo of me and my boyfriend kissing instead.

Although this assignment is meant to be a video but because it is made up of still photos, each frame is still very crucial in telling people things and communicating the message. I guess this assignment is like 2208's 10 frames but it has expanded to more than 10 frames with added elements of transitions, effects and music. But still, each basic frame must still be strong and tells something I feel. As such, I have designed each frame to be able to stand alone. That is taken by it's own, it still says something. By doing so, it can tell another plot if view backwards (ignoring the text that is). It will tell the story of a breakup. Try it. ;) *But touchwood of course!*