jiwoonglim

[jiwoonglim]

Experimental Film

Making an experimental film that expresses certain emotions in collaboration with one of my classmates = This week’s task. 

This assignment was more difficult than the other projects I did previously. First of all, the concept of experimental films itself was unfamiliar, and even after seeing the examples of experimental films and learning the definition of experimental film, I was still lost in how to express my chosen emotions — changed from 'bored' to 'remorseful' —  experimentally.

The reason why I changed emotion from 'bored' to 'remorseful' is that I really couldn't think that I could successfully express 'bored' in an experimental film. I mean at least the ones that I saw as an example of experimental films were very experimental — they were not ordinary, not usual, and not familiar — so I doubted if I could express the feeling of boredom in such an interesting type of film with this bizarre nature. So I switched it into 'remorseful' which I thought was slightly more interesting than 'bored'.

Before I started to actually work I planned a few things. To create films that are experimental in both form and content, I had to think about how to destroy the conventional visual composition and how to escape the linear narrative structure. However, I didn't want my work to seem just a chaotic piece (unless the emotion I picked is 'chaos'). I wanted to experiment to a certain extent but did not want to destroy all the rules and conventions; I thought going too far would just be meaningless. So I tried to find the point where the film is experimental but at the same time emotion I chose could also be expressed.

My experimental film could roughly be divided into 3 parts or it can also be divisible into 4 parts if one divides them according to the music that is used. In the first part, I used lots of glitch graphics and glitch sound effects to give some feeling of the past; I thought people usually feel remorseful primarily due to their past deeds, so I wanted to give emphasis on the concept of time.

This is a scene in part 1 and it's a scene showing the two choices of ‘RESTART’ and ‘REMORSE’. This is a scene I planned to actually give the audience a choice but I had no gut and skill to make this into an interactive video so I just kept it like this. But I thought it is also cool to not give a choice — just show them impossible options to make them feel miserable — and express the reality that we cannot go back to the past and restart it. Facing such reality seemed to help maximize regrettable emotions. 

In the very next scene, I put a scene where a man plays a game with Erik Satie’s ‘Gymnopédie No.1′  as the background music. It is a calm and peaceful scene prepared for dramatic production through contrast to a stormy, emotional, remorseful scene. 

In parts 2 and 3, it shows people expressing a feeling of remorseful. And I am also remorseful for not carrying out part2 and 3 as planned.

#erik satie #gymnopédie #allen walker #faded #experimenal film #remorseful

[jiwoonglim]

This week I was asked to recreate the silent film into a film with sound. All I had to do was to basically find some sound source and merge them with the short-silent-film. It was as simple as bringing music and video together but the actual work required more work and effort than I expected.

Firstly, it took really long to find a sound source. Thousands of free online sound sources didn't really mean it is easy to find sounds that fit in the movie I choose. It just meant I had to go through thousands of sounds source to find the one I'm satisfied with. In fact, only after examining dozens of sound effects, I could find the one that sounds about right. There were literally hundreds of different kinds of footsteps sound, dropping sound, the sound of clothes being rubbed, etc. Out of tons of options, finding the one I'm satisfied with was definitely time-consuming work. Also, I had a problem with coming up with the keywords that will show the result that I want. There was a specific sound I wanted to search for, but I had to go through a lot of trials and errors to find the keyword that will show the right result. For instance, I wanted to search for the sound of people making noise in the theater in a very small voice, but I could not just search "people making noise in the theater in a very small voice sound effect" on youtube.

Editing was another problem. Now that I experienced both video editing and sound editing, I personally felt like sound editing is way harder than video editing. I don't know if it's just me, but sound editing was harder to make naturally than that of the video, and if the sync did not match, it felt like a very big mistake. In order to make the sound heard natural and not abrupt, I had to use lots of audio transition effects such as 'constant gain', 'exponential fade', and control the loudness of each sound effect. The hardest part of audio editing is that there are so many kinds of sounds and that those sounds are usually heard at once. Think about the real world, we see only a single-layered image at a time but we hear lots of different sounds(multi-layered) at once. Therefore in just a single scene, there could be background music, ambient sound of people making noise, white noise from the bad recording device, the sound of a person walking around, dialogue, and so on. So, in order to accurately mimic the real world and create believable scenes, I had to stack up the one sound on top of other sounds, and the editing became so complicated.

Besides the one I explained above, I also had to think about the function of BGM, how to use sound in a way it contributes to creating atmosphere and pushes the story forward.

#the spiritualistic photographer #george melies #sound design

[jiwoonglim]

This week I got this assignment to create a trailer for an existing film of our choice. An important point of this project is that the scenes of the film should be re-edited to be transformed into a different genre of the trailer than the initial genre. For example, comedy should be transformed into action or thriller, and thriller and horror movies should be transformed into completely different genres such as romance or comedy. I searched for many movies that have the potential to be re-edited and transform into a different genre.

“Dumb and Dumber” and “Split” were the films that I choose as a final candidate. In Dumb and Dumber there were lots of scenes that have the potential to be seen as an action movie; most of them were the imagination of Jim Carry. In Split, the main character had 24 identities and they all had their own characteristics so I thought it would also have the potential to be manipulated into a different genre if I only focus on one of the identities. However, I decided to go with Dumb and Dumber because Split had not enough scenes to make a successful edit.

So my plan was to make an action movie trailer out of scenes from Dumb and Dumber. First I started with collecting action scenes that can be used in my re-cut trailer. After done with collecting scenes I still had absolutely no idea how to make a meaningful sequence out of scenes I collected. So I searched other action movie trailers from YouTube to get an idea of how to combine scenes that I collected so that it looks like an action movie trailer. There, I found one trailer that seems really fitting into the definition of action trailer that I was searching for. So, I download it and scanned it through to see why it looks so much like an action movie trailer.

It was a trailer for the film “death wish” and of course it had violent scenes, it revealed some amount of information to give a general idea about the plot; like how violence has happened, and how are the relationship between villain and hero(main character). But personally, I thought pace control was the key essence of the action movie trailer. The pace should go really slow in a peaceful scene that exists for the greater contrast for the upcoming action scene. And then in a scene where the action is happening, the pace should go faster and the scenes should change quickly.

Well, I just said the pace is the key essence of the action movie but what I really learned from this project is the importance of the background music and sound effects. I thought the visuals are the most important element in creating trailers but what I really felt the most important thing that contributes to creating the mood and really changing the genre, is sound. I witnessed how the genre changes just by switching background music. Yup! that was the longest way to explain how I realized the importance of the sound. I knew it was important but I know it even better now.

#trailer #recut

[jiwoonglim]

I just finished my Tableau Vivant project. It took me a day to finish it but I spent half of my day just figuring out what to do. On the Moodle, it said that I should create this Tableau Vivant, which defined as a “representation of a scene, painting, sculpture, etc, by a person or group posed silent and motionless". It wasn't so hard to figure out what Tableau Vivant means cuz I found a bunch of reference images on google. But the thing was that I should make a 1:30 long video out of it and I lacked props, light sources, and people to assist me. My initial reference painting needed at least two people to pose but I had my brother and that was it. So I had to find the ambitious painting that has mise-en-scene in it with only one person posing. So that went like that and I finally found a painting called "Magdalene with the smoking flame". It was a painting of a woman holding a human skull in her hand, rope wrapped around her torso, the fire was burning next to her, the light was deemed and it seemed deep.

Ok so I was done with the first task and next, I had to somehow find props to do a cosplay. Thick old books, candles, ropes for hanging a person.. the props were relatively easy to find compared to the paintings that I found earlier but still, I had none in my hand. I decided to renders them out with Blender and thankfully there were all the ready-made realistic props models that I needed. This is why I can't stop using computers to do all my design projects.

Anyway, I created all my props with Blender, used a computer screen and smartphone flashlight for lighting, and took picture of my bro posing after Magdalene. And then I used photoshop to modify some colors and add more shades then import them on aftereffect. And yeah added 3D effect using the camera layer inspired by Kanye west's music video "power".

I really liked Kanye's work that is why I tried to imitate his style albeit it wasn't so successful. I don't know much about mise-en-scene but in his MV I can for sure say that there is mise-en-scene. I can't put it in English but there was um godlike feelings. Everything was flat but they really weren't. Hyperreal, surreal, the slow-mo.. etc. the lighting was crucial I think. 

conclusion: Tableau Vivant feels like noble version of cosplay. 

https://youtu.be/L53gjP-TtGE (YE’s MV) 

#Tableau Vivant

[jiwoonglim]

Tableau vivant

When I searched the word Tableau vivant on Google, I found the keyword "living picture" and a lot of people posing like the characters in old masterpieces. As soon as I saw these pictures, two thoughts flashed across my mind. The first is Jean Baudrillard's simulacrum theory that I learned from COMD 204 class. I thought it was very ironic that the original(real people) was posing along with the painting, which can be called the imitation of the original. However, it is also surprising that a new form of art has been born with a reversed relationship between the original and copy.

Another thing I remembered is one of the scenes I saw in "Freud", the original Netflix series drama. In the first episode of season 1 of Freud, there is a scene where there are a bunch of naked people posing to mimic an old painting of gods and goddesses during the party. When the posing was ready it was shown to many people who were at the party, and this one old lady shout out to the audience "Tableau!". I didn't realize what she meant but now I do.

I don't know how exactly is this form of art is significant but as far as I know, Tableau vivant was a thing the noble and rich people used to play with during the party. Also, this form of art influenced the performance artist of some region in Europe where the performer act as if they are a statue.

If I were to talk about the technical part of this form of art, it is the lighting that is the most important thing in taking a tableau vivant photo. I know it because starting from tomorrow we are going to learn about them ;P

[jiwoonglim]

As usual, I was watching YouTube and got attracted to one video that had the keywords "hand model" and "billionaire" written on the thumbnail. I knew some models that earn tons of money but didn't know that there was a professional hand model so I got very curious about it. 

The video was really interesting. A professional hand model named Yoon Sun-young came out and explained her job and the horribly strict rules they had to follow. She explained that most of the hand in the ads even the one we thought belongs to the other celebs, was her hands. Initially, I thought the hand models only needed to have pretty hands, but this profession demanded more expertise than I thought. Hand models had to have acting skills just like professional actors and needed thorough management —of their hands— like any other model. 

These are some of the conditions —restrictions— professional hand models should follow

1. Blood vessels mustn't show on the hand. So they can not do a workout freely. 

2. There should be no calluses or wounds. So it is hard for them to cook using a knife or hold heavy objects or even take a shower for a long time. For this reason, Sun-young's husband said he was in charge of all the housework.

3. Their hands should not be tanned. So they should refrain from traveling to sunny areas and always wear gloves even if they go.

After obeying all these strict rules, they could finally work as a professional hand model. Suddenly I got this thought about simulacra and the hyper-reality that we learned in the COMD 204 class. Advertisements we see is a mimic of the reality, however, it is being made under very strict rules, unlike reality. When we buy the Samsung smartphone, we expect to own a product that we see in the advertisement. However what we get is a different product; From the hands that holding the phone to the lighting of the set, everything we see is so different from what we actually get; everything in the ad is perfectly calculated and controlled that it looks more real than real (however they are not real or maybe they are or not or..). Anyway, I started to think maybe it is stupid to feel attracted to products while watching the advertisement. 

Today, I took a picture of my hand holding a Samsung phone. There were clear wrinkles and small scars that were not found in her (Sun-young's) hands. I am 23 years old and Sun-young, the professional hand model is now 35. Only then did I realize why I couldn't be a hand model and how far from reality the advertisement was.

#handmodel #simulacrum #advertising

[jiwoonglim]

In class, we watched this short film called La jetee. It was a 28-minute film made up of only black and white photographs. Yeah, it was a pretty weird experience because I’ve seen a black and white movie before, but never a movie made up of black and white ‘still images’. Frankly, I thought my computer was lagging at first. Anyway, my impression of still image film has slightly changed after I watch it all. Before watching La jetee, I really had no solid opinion on it because I’ve never thought I would watch a still image film. But when I realized that La jetee is a still image movie, I thought It would be like a black and white slideshow. After 28 minutes of staring, I was like “this isn’t as bad as I thought..”. However, it doesn’t mean that I found my true interest or something. I still can not deny the fact that moving images are more compelling to watch. But I found out that still-image film definitely has its own strength that is different from ordinary films. One of the strengths that I realize is that scenes are more artistic(?) and thoughtfully composed. I’m not sure if I’m using the correct term but I thought visual compositions in La jetee have their own 'Mise-en-scène’ that contribute to the creation of a strong atmosphere. Scenes in La jetee looked like an artistic photograph that would be displayed at a photo exhibition. And I don’t know if it was just me who felt some kind of emotions in each photograph —maybe it is just because it was black and white images— but it seemed to have a story in each of them. Presumably, the number of images was far less than other movies, so the director would have chosen the scenes more carefully, and that is why the scenes are impactful. Other things that I liked about this La jetee is the sound effect and the content. To tell the truth, I don’t know if the sound effect was better than other movies. However, the sound effect felt somehow more powerful, perhaps because the images were fixed so my brain had more room to focus better. Or maybe the sound was just good. Anyway, the sound effect helped me to immerse myself in the film better and it also effectively created a mysterious mood. In addition, the content of the movie also goes well with the visual style of the movie. La jetee is a film about time travel and there is a deep philosophical theme within it. Maybe not that deep but there was a plot twist that made people think about time and the future. The combination of black and white still image + effective mood-creating sound effect + deep content creates a masterpiece with perfection. I don’t think the movie would have been this effective if the content was comedy or something that is not so deep. Experiencing such a special movie gave me a new perspective about mediums to create movies.

#la jetée

[jiwoonglim]

In recent days, I have made several ppts cuz people asked me to make some and I personally had to make it for the assignment. I thought making ppt would be super easy cuz I know how to use AI and PS and also high-end video tools such as AE and Premiere pro. I was like "Grandpa could make ppts too" and didn't think much about it.

First of all, I pulled out the document file that I should turn in to ppt and start working on it using the presentation making website called 'Pitch'. I choose a decent ppt template and put information on it, but somehow it didn't work quite as nicely as I expected. 

I boasted about me being a sophomore in design, yet, I decided to lean on the youtube channels. I searched "how to make a good presentation", then found one channel called PPTLOGY(피피티로지). The name of the channel felt trustworthy so I watched several videos from there. After watching 3-4 videos I could point out what I was really lacking. 

Here is what I found out from watching the videos:

I didn’t use design methods to create the content I want, but I fit my content into the design method.

I used ppt like a Word document. Even though ppt and the word document clearly are different in their role, I was using ppt like a word document with only adding some visual elements.

I had a stereotype about the design tools. I didn't realize that I was discriminating tools but I was thinking that AI is a decent designer's tool, AE is a better tool than that, and ppt is just a normal tool that anyone can use. However, watching the PPTLOGY channel, which makes video content and even tells stories using ppt, I reflected on myself, focusing too much on tools rather than my skill.

Lack of understanding of composition and lack of design basics; I am too rudimentary in the understanding of combining and using colors and in the use of basic design elements such as lines, dots, transparency, size, font, and gradation.

Now that I know what I have to improve I probably should watch more videos of PPTLOGY and other good projects while also working on design basics and content planning skills..

#pptlogy #ppt