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The Virgin Suicides (1999) | dir. Sofia Coppola 

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Lost In Translation | Sofia Coppola | 2003

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Marie Antoinette (2006) dir. Sofia Coppola

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Major Project - Final Reflective Blog

What happened? - how did it all start?

The beginning of my project was a bit chaotic, to say the least. I started off really rocky but through the semester I was able to create something that I feel very proud of. It started off with not knowing a topic to decide on, I thought of the most random topics, from the Colombian coffee crisis, (which isn’t a crisis anymore) to body image disorders (which is an important issue but not something I wanted to focus on for my major project since it brought back some hard personal memories), all the way to films. I had always loved films since I remember, it was a type of art form which can grab all your attention and make you feel like you're in another world for two hours, it’s almost like magic. Since I got Covid at the beginning of the semester, I found myself laying in bed for several days, which allowed me to catch up on my watchlist of films I have been looking forward to seeing. I found myself captivated with Sofia Coppola films, I just loved the feminine touch of the films and the use of color to portray her characters' emotions. I kept researching her background and color schemes days after I saw her films, and that’s when I knew I wanted to create my whole major project on her films and her grand use of color to portray emotions and femininity.  

What were you thinking and feeling?

To be honest, my last semester was the most difficult time I’ve had in this course, and I can definitely say it was all caused by external issues and not by the brief given. All throughout the course I couldn’t wait for my final year and be able to have full freedom to work on a project of my liking, but unfortunately due to Covid things really weren’t how I thought they would be. I can honestly say this was the semester I was least involved in but not because I didn’t want to be but due to the fact, I got Covid at the beginning of the semester and really couldn’t get back on track ever since. Getting sick really affected me more than I thought it was going to, psychically and psychologically. The truth is that it really took me a whole two months to feel back to normal after getting sick, which of course affected my project. It wasn’t till March I was finally about to really focus down on my project and figure it out. After the chaotic decision process of picking out the right topic for me, I found myself choosing a digital media I had previously told myself I wouldn’t work with again, VR on Spoke Mozilla Hubs. I must admit I decided to use it again since I had limited time to create worthy work and had recently used it last semester. I felt quite suborn to use it at the beginning, almost felt forced to use it, which is never good because like many people when I feel forced to do something it makes me not want to do even more. Thankfully, the more time I used Spoke and the more time I started researching skills to improve my techniques I found myself at the end even enjoying the designing aspect and how my final project was able to look like I had imagined it to be. I feel pretty proud of my final project, which coming from me isn’t something I have said too often throughout my course. It was a satisfying feeling which I was glad I ended to end my degree on.

What went well?

To be honest, if someone had asked me at the beginning of March ‘how do you think your project will turn out?’ I would’ve simply told them… ‘I don’t even want to think about it. But thankfully I can say that I am pretty pleased with my idea and how my curatorial design turned out. I was able to use all the skills I learned in curation, along with my experience of creating a small-scale exhibition last year to create my final VR exhibition experience. Now, of course, the fact that I wasn’t able to use the entire time given for this project might affect me and the turn out of my project, research, and skill-wise but it did lead me onto a path in which I was able to improve my skills in VR, curation, and project management. I can say that my creative progress went better than I had expected, I was able to improve my skills in VR design and advance my knowledge of Spoke, in addition to learning even more about adobe programs as well, which is always necessary. Now moving into the writing part of my project, I can say it was even enjoyable to work on and that’s pretty strange coming from me, someone who really doesn’t like writing. The fun part of my essay was the topic, the use of color in films has always been my favorite part of the film’s storytelling. The combination of writing the essay while designing my visual, helped me carry out my final project.

What didn’t go well?

I can’t help but bring up the start of my project, I think that’s the part where it didn’t go well. The fact that I wasn’t able to start my project on time due to being sick and then struggling to find my topic and question and just pressuring myself wasn’t something that went well for me. In addition to getting sick, Covid also impacted the development of my project since it made me focus more on creating something digital due to Covid making university shut their facilities and even leading me to travel back home. It was unfortunate ending my last year like this.

Thinking back on my project, I could’ve even added an AR element to my project if I had the time but since the start was a bit rocky, I decided to focus more on creating a well-made VR experience and essay instead of half-doing three things at once with the time I had. Another thing, I would’ve like to focus a bit more on my writing, even though I enjoyed writing the essay, I know that writing isn’t really one of my strongest skills and I just would’ve like to have a bit more time to perfect it and push on further topics.

What have you learned?

I have learned a lot on this project, I mean a lot… There were several moments during this project that made me doubt my creative skills, there was even a moment that I even doubted if art was ‘my thing’, if I was even creative? Of course, that saying was simply stupid to say because anyone can be creative but I was seriously doubting myself and find myself going into this hole of insecurity with it came to my creative skills. And to be honest, this ‘hole of insecurity was something I had struggled with before on several occasions throughout my degree, but it wasn’t until I stopped thinking about the importance of the projects I were working on, (when I mean importance I mainly mean grades or the opinions of others) I was able to just let myself free and believe me I know it sounds cheesy but trusts me that’s exactly how it felt. Once I let grow I was able to enjoy playing around and create the colorful experience I had envisioned in my mind. After completing the final major project I was even thankful for doing it, it gave me one last opportunity to work on my insecurities, design skills, and work ethic right before going into the real world. It was the emotional push I needed.

What would you do next time or if you had more time?

If I had more time I would’ve loved to learn how to create more definitive statement pieces for my VR experience on the Blender 3D program. I just feel if I had more time then I would’ve been able to push myself further creatively and not be stuck in the hole of insecurity in which I had dug myself before. Next time I would definitely take a step back at the very beginning of my project and just think ‘outside the box, not trap myself in this loop of the same old ideas in which I find myself comfortable. I would for sure take some more time on my research and straight away lookup skills on the program I decide to use, instead of just playing around and getting stuck wasting a bit of time. Going back to the thought of having more time, I wish I could’ve had more time to sample my VR experience on different types of computers to just have a full assurance that it would work at hundred percent capacity, but for the time given I was able to check it out on a couple of windows and mac computers, which is alright. Overall, I’m happy with how my project turned out, with the topic I had chosen, and the way I designed it. Going out with a big bang with my last project.

I would also like to say thank you to Russell, Xavier, and my parents for giving me the opportunity to join this course. Completing this degree has been a wonderful journey in which I’m very lucky to have experience. Thank you so much!

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Major Project - Final Look

Final Video 

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Major Project - Writing

Font Used: 

When it came to choosing the font for the exhibition, I want to use the font from Sofia Coppola’s film, Lost In Translation. I thought it would give the light feminine touch to the exhibition, with its round, almost playful look. It fit perfectly in with the rest of the visuals. 

Exhibition Text: 

With the exhibition text, I knew I had to address what the exhibition was about, along with not repeating topics in which I write about later in the rooms. I decided to keep it simple and short, just like a little insight. I also avoided completely the whole concept of ‘art speak’, using unnecessary words to make it sound more official and serious, that was definitely not the tone I wanted for my VR.

Sofia Coppola Mini Biography: 

The biography was something I thought would give the viewer a better understanding of Coppola and her directing history. Even though it might look long, I wrote the shortest version of her directing career up to 2021, along with add a short paragraph to her directing style.

The Film Synopsis:  

The synopsis all came from googling the film, this section along with the trailers at the beginning of the room, is information to help the viewer understand the films and the experience I created. Each synopsis can be found on Google by just typing: ‘the name of the film's synopsis.

Lost In Translation - 

Marie Antoinette - 

The Virgin Suicides - 

Room Text:

When it came to the text in each room, I didn't want to repeat the synopsis of the film and also didn't want to tell the viewer word by word what they should see or feel, I wanted the viewer to create their own thoughts on the experience. In each text, I wrote a short explanation on how the colors used in each film expressed certain emotions in the characters and how each room showed those moments of color.

Lost In Translation -  

Marie Antoinette - 

The Virgin Suicides - 

The Final Room - 

The text I wrote for the Final Room was a bit more descriptive than the text in the other rooms. I felt I needed to explain the reason for this room since it was completely different from the rest of the experience. 

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Major Project - Last Room Addition

The addition of the last room was, to be honest, last minute. I wanted to plan out my VR experience just like an exhibition along with being an experience. I wanted to create one last room to create an impression on the viewer, leave the experience feeling a different type of way from when they entered. This led me to create the “Last Room”. This room is heavily influenced by Yayoi Kusama’s Infinity Mirror Rooms, these installations catch my interest while I was researching several different types of exhibitions. Kusama was able to transport the viewer into a unique environment of endless reflection, and I really wanted to build on that idea. Her use of colors also was an important feature to me since the color really affected the viewers' emotions toward the installation. I decided to create this last space just as if the viewer was in an actual room, the thought of creating something larger was my original thought, almost like transporting the viewer into another parallel universe of color but unfortunately due to the limited space on the program, it didn't allow me to add another large structure to the room (it was lagging incredibly and I barely could move around). 

The image I used to create the room was something I found on Instagram, on someone’s story funny enough. I was just tapping away, and someone was at this art installation in Miami and they took a picture of this light and mirror installation which resembled a fractal, which was exactly what I was looking for. I was able to capture the image off Instagram and edited it on photoshop, while editing I decided to create different colored versions of the image that represented the colors that Coppola mostly uses in her films. Now, of course, the colors shown in the room aren’t the same tone and saturation in which Coppola uses them in her films but I wanted to show the colors in another environment, for the viewer to see how color and its tone, are important factors while creating a mood. Another reason why I wanted to create this room is because of the connection between the colorful fractal image and the boundless sources of creativity which females in the film industry have. I know, it sounds a bit far-fetched, but I wanted to show that females have an infinite amount of potential in the film industry to show the female ‘point of view’, just like the infinity amount of color environment in which the fractal room creates.

Final Room - exhibit text

Last Room Video 

I wanted to add an audio element to give a fully immersive experience. I straight away thought of 1982′s Blade Runner, for its sci-fi jazzy soundtrack, which would be a good contrast to the indie rock music from the previous rooms. I choose “Deckard Meets Rachael”, due to its sci-fi calm tone, it made me feel as if I was gliding through space, which was exactly how I wanted the viewers to feel.

Deckard Meets Rachael - Blade Runner 1982′s Soundtrack 

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Major Project - Soundtrack Content

After having most of the visuals curated in the place I wanted them to be, I decided to add an element of sound to create a full immersive experience. I want to select one song from each film that represented the auditory aesthetic of each story.

One unique aspect of Coppola’s films is the soundtracks she chooses for her films. Most of the music chosen in her films is influenced by the music she grew up with, bands such as The Clash, New Order and Generation X.

When it came to The Virgin Suicides room, I researched the soundtrack to the film and noticed that Coppola had the idea of using the band Heart and their song “Magic Man’, to recreate the scene in which Trip Fountain the ‘coolest boy’ in school become lovestruck with one of the Lisbon girls. At the start, I placed the song Magic Man along with the song but it didn't feel like it fit with the visuals in which the videos I decided to show. The song felt too upbeat and of course, now looking back to it, it definitely was upbeat since it was the song chosen to represent a love scene. In the end, I decided to use the opening song to the film, Playground Love by Air since it was used at the beginning of the film which set the tone of the film.

Now with Marie Antoinette, I was obsessed with this film when I was a teenager, I simply loved the way Coppola was able to incorporate the theme of a teen flic and history together. The memorable scene in the film is when Marie Antoinette is running down the halls of Versailles and jumps right into her bed like another lovestruck teenager, and playing them back is The Strokes’ “What Ever happened” was the best way to show Marie Antoinette as a simple girl just seeking for love and freedom, like every other teenage girl. The juxtapose between the 18th-century halls and the indie rock was the perfect example of Coppola’s unique way of using music to show a character’s emotion. So it was clear to make it my song choice. 

Lastly with Lost In Translation, after researching on the film’s soundtrack, I found out that Coppola had the song “The Jesus and Mary Chain” by Psychocandy in mind while directing this film, so it was another clear decision to make it my song choice. it gives off the dreamy pop vibe on which the whole film is based on.

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Major Project - Video Content

Since Coppola uses her strong use of color in her visuals instead of dialog, to express her character’s emotional state, I wanted to add short videos alongside the collages for viewers to understand the importance of Coppola’s visuals. When it came to getting clips from exact scenes from the film I found myself in a predicament, to say the least. I found out that I was to use Amazon Prime, Netflix, and NowTV (the places where I would normally watch films), they were all protected against screen recording. So I started doing some research and I found out that even buying the films, I still wasn't going to be able to do what I wanted, which was to be able to just screen record the exact scenes in which I created the collages with. Long story short, I found myself having to go on random websites on the internet getting filled with loads of sketchy pop-ups but at the end of my struggle I was able to screen record all the scenes I needed from all three films. Screen recording was a bit tedious since I had to constantly keep going back and forth throughout the film to get the exact scene I wanted, so I found myself rewatch each film like ten times which gave me the chance to recite scenes by heart which I guess is a new skill I have now. Now by screen recording the scene, I was only able to record the visual and not the audio but that wasn’t an issue for me since the concept I have is just to show the visual anyways and in the room play the film’s score for the viewer to have an overview scene of the films, instead of just showing them scene, something they could simply do on Youtube. Each recording is around 25 to 45 seconds, just to give a glimpse of the scene because I of course don’t want to ruin the film in case the viewer hasn’t seen it ( I never like when someone spoils a movie, so I would hate to do it to someone else). I was able to add each scene on Youtube and then upload them to my Spoke room. Once in the room, I placed them on their color-coordinated wall and left them all on a continuous loop. Another video content I was able to add was the trailers. Now with those, I wanted to include them at the start of the room, adjacent to the room text so the viewer can have a better understanding of what influenced each room.

Recordings

YouTube account and video uploads 

Once the videos were uploaded and places in the rooms

The Virgin Suicides room 

Marie Antoinette room 

Lost in Translation room 

Trailers used 

- The Virgin Suicides trailer:  https://youtu.be/8kDcCGlaBwY

- Marie Antoinette trailer: https://youtu.be/BuByY-DnGYo

- Lost In Translation trailer:  https://youtu.be/Qf0JD0gBDMc

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Major Project -  VR Development

Continuation 

From where I left off, I decided to create the rooms into a tesseract shape to resemble the 4th dimension in Christopher Nolan’s film, Interstellar. I also decide to create another collage room for each film to, later on, create a ‘tunnel’. The tunnel concept came to me when I realized that the VR experience didn't really have a structure to it. Now I know that VR designs shouldn’t really have a straight forward structure to them, since one of the main aspects of VR is users freedom to go wherever they want, but I really wanted to give the viewer a structured experience so they could understand the importance of Coppola's color scheme, along with having an understanding of her films. Having the rooms all lined up in a tunnel also shows off the tesseract environment in which I was inspired in the first place. I wanted to place The Virgin Suicides as the first film the viewer would see since it was the most colorful, and because it was Coppola’s first film and the most recognized by her use of color. Following that room, I decided to put Marie Antoinette next since it was the second most color film I had chosen. Lastly, Lost In Translation was at the end. I wanted to end the experience on a more subtle tone for the viewer to have the chance to recognize the transformation of color throughout the tunnel, just like in Coppola’s films. The topic of transition is important in Coppola’s film, most of her characters are in moments of transition and her films deal with how her characters react within that time. At the beginning of my VR experience, the viewers are transition through the different types of emotions in which the main protagonists in each film are feeling, leaving the viewer to also be in a moment of transition.

Images of the tunnel structure

Building The Entrance

After creating the tunnel I decided I wanted it to have an entrance for the viewer to have a structured start to the experience. In the beginning, I just thought of creating a black space in the front which can include the film's synopsis, exhibition text, and a quick biography on Coppola.

Once I started typing the exhibition text, I realized that it wasn't going to be enough space to fit all information I wanted to have in the front, which was important to understand the experience. Which led me to expand the square.

Following the expansion of the entrance, I started adding the synopsis, the exhibition text, along with an image of Sofia Coppola and her short biography.

Lastly, I wanted the entrance to catch the viewers eyes the moment they stepped into the room, especially since its VR the viewer has the freedom to wander about, to not let that happen (well not straight away, since I know people can be curious and just want to float around), I add two huge black banners on each side of the entrance, creating almost like ‘I’M HERE, START HERE” sign for the viewer.

Now for the name of the experience, I'm going, to be honest, I wanted to keep it simple and clear on the meaning of the experience. The whole idea for my VR experience is a strange concept to just imagine when explaining it to someone, so I just wanted the viewer to know straight away what they were about to enter.

- Final image of the entrance

Video and Images of Final Look: prototype before publishing on Mozilla Hubs (no audio or working videos) 

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Major Project - Christopher Nolan’s Interstellar: Tesseract Scene

After playing around with the scene collages on Spoke and seeing how to arrange them to create an experience, randomly I found myself thinking of the tesseract scene in Christopher Nolan’s well-known film, Interstellar. I remember seeing that scene for the first time and taken away with the idea of being in a 4th dimension, and that's when I knew that's exactly how I wanted the viewer to feel in my VR experience. The idea of the viewer feeling like they are in another dimension, stuck with the colorful scene of Coppola and not only looking at the scene but truly inside the scene. The whole idea of using VR is for the viewer to feel an experience, instead of just showing them images.

Once I had the tesseract concept on my mind, I decided to create some more color-coordinated collages so for each film to have two separate rooms, one room to showcase the digital art and for the other room have scenes from the films, maybe even some music. I was able to rearrange the new collages into floating cubes to recreate this 4th dimension environment.

The second rooms I created for each film 

- The Virgin Suicides

- Lost In Translation 

- Marie Antoinette 

Adding the extra collages on the pre-existing rooms

- The Virgin Suicides

- Lost In Translation

- Marie Antoinette

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Major Project - My Visual’s Development

Due to getting sick and basically starting off two months later I decided I wanted to stick with a digital program I felt comfortable with since I didn't have much time to learn a new one, and that's why I ended up using Spoke Mozilla Hubs. I had recently used Spoke for my previous project last semester, so it was fresh in my mind, but the only issue is ..... I didn't have a good time with it, to say the least. I had previously found it restricting and just annoying to design on, but that didn't stop me from using it and learning more skills for it.

I started off with the simplest idea that came to me, a gallery layout. I just wanted to showcase my collages and I was even thinking of maybe creating a short video to play in the background.

First Take on Spoke

Now after creating the layout seen above, I'm going, to be honest ... I knew it wasn’t good at all, it didn’t have anything exciting to it and it was just plain boring to look at. I remembered one important thing I learned from the VR exhibition I had created in the previous semester and that was not just to recreate an environment, but an experience.

Focusing on creating an immersive environment

Having the idea of wanting to create an experience, I wanted to immerse the viewer in a ‘color cube’. I was trying to recreate this idea I had in my mind of the viewer stepping into a rubric cube but instead of the viewer seeing squares of color, I wanted them to see my scene collages.

After seeing how my rubric cube would look like, of course, it was the first attempt but I wasn’t feeling too excited about it, it just looked too simple to me, I wanted more for my visual. I started sketching an idea that involved recreating important scenes of the films using digital art. I thought by recreating the scene of the film and surrounding the scene, would create a ‘more’ immersive environment for the viewer (along with being able to show off my skills on Spoke).

Beginning of the immersive environment 

As you can see in the images above, I decided to create a pathway using the collages to guide the viewer throughout the environment. At this moment I was combining the collages all together, not separating them due to which film they are from. I had the idea of creating the space on top of the water to ‘show off the use of VR, but after creating the waterfall effect I noticed it wasn't really noticeable and it also took too much space, making the scene lag too much.

This video was taken right before I decided to change the layout of the space. As you can see I was still getting used to the program, learning the best way to navigate the space. (also I couldn't screen record at the time since my laptop was broken and the laptop I was using at that moment was very old, so my apologies for the horrible quality.)

After taking away the water effect, I decided to also change the layout of the rooms. I thought placing them in a ‘cross’ shape would allow the viewer to see all three of the rooms once they enter the space. I also took away the roof I had previously place on the center collage because it looked too close up and the whole point of VR is to allow the viewer to wander free.

Including digital art 

When it came to deciding on the design for the digital art, I decided to rewatch the three films I decided to base this experience on, Lost In Translation, Marie Antoinette, and The Virgin Suicides. While watching I decided that in Lost In Translation that the Kyoto gardens were iconic to represent the location of the film. When it came to Marie Antoinette the scene in which Marie Antoinette expressed her happiest moments were in the gardens of Versailles and that led to the decision of recreating them. Lastly, in The Virgin Suicides, the iconic Lisbon’s house seemed to be the perfect representation of the film.

Now knowing exactly which scenes I wanted to recreate I start designing the spaces using digital art. As you can see in the images above at the start, I wanted to include two scenes from the movies, for example in the Lost In Translation room I wanted to recreate the Kyoto gardens in the front and then the busy central streets of Tokyo. Then in Marie Antoinette, I wanted to recreate the gardens of Versailles in the front and then the dining halls in the back. Before I started working on The Virgin Suicides room, I noticed that some of the art pieces I wanted to use were too large for the room to load. I really want to pact the room with several objects, including water, light particles, and flashing images but the size of the spaces wasn't big enough for my ideas. Like in many moments in design I found myself using the concept of ‘less is more.

 New Changes - More constructed layout 

As you can see, I made some subtle changes to the rooms. Firstly, I decided to change the background of the lighting in the environment to represent a sunset since Coppola’s use of natural lighting is the reason why her films have a ‘dreamy’ aesthetic to them. By changing the environment’s lighting, I wanted to try to recreate the same ‘dreamy’ feel to the experience. Another change I decided to do was the movement of the digital art in the rooms. By pushing back the digital art the viewer has more space to walk around the room and notice the collages on the walls. I also thought by pushing the digital art to the back, sort of made the viewer have to go to the back. Before there wasn’t really much reason for the viewer to check out the back and now having the digital art in the back gives the viewer a more structured layout without really constraining them.

Deciding on bubble backdrop 

After changing the layout of the rooms, I had the idea of including a space background. I wanted to create a more enclosed environment for the viewer to focus on the rooms and not wander off. I found out that in Spoke you can try an image and create a 360-degree bubble image. I decided to enlarge the bubble and found out that you can immerse your room into the bubble, which creates this enclosed environment I was looking for. 

For my first try, I wanted to use Yayoi Kusama’s exhibition, the Infinity Mirror Rooms. I thought it would be a great fit with my whole idea of the viewer being enclosed but still having the feeling of infinitive space. Another reason is the fact that Kusama’s artwork was another inspiration for my VR experience. I was inspired by the psychedelic sense of her artwork, the idea of making her viewer feel as if they’re in another worldly environment surrounded by lights of all different colors is the same ‘feeling’ I wanted to create with my collage rooms.

 Golden lights - 

Color Scheme -

After trying different types of images of Kusama’s Infinity Mirror Rooms, I noticed that there was a clash between the collage rooms and the image of Kusama’s artwork, I needed a simpler image to have as the backdrop. I, later on, thought of just having the image of the color wheel since my collages were all about showing the color variation of each film. I know looking at the backdrop by itself, it looked a bit boring but combined with the collages I thought it might work.

After trying it, moving it around the room I still wasn’t convinced that it was the best backdrop. Even though of its simplicity, it still looked a bit too ‘crowded’ in the room.   

Natural light - sunset 

In the end, after trying different types of images, I decided to discard the idea of an enclosed bubble and stick to a more natural backdrop. I created sunset lighting to embrace Coppola’s use of natural lighting in her films. I thought the sunset backdrop combined well with the collages since the colors of the sky didn't clash or fade away into the color of the collages. It was the perfect combination, it gave me a sense of comfort and dreaminess that Coppola’s films uniquely have.

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Major Project - Playing Around with Ideas

After researching color theory and the importance of color in films, especially in Sofia Coppola’s film, spoke with Russell and Xavier and was told to go on photoshop play around with scenes from her movies and just see what comes to mind creatively.

I started off by just taking some screenshots from some scenes in The Virgin Suicides, Marie Antoinette, and also in Lost In Translation. I then started putting them in color order since to me it made them look the most aesthetically pleasing, also I thought it would be the clearest way for someone to notice the use of color in Coppola films. Now I say ‘clearest way’ because to me as a ‘film greek’, when I see her films I notice the connection between colors and emotion but to other people, I notice that they barely notice or not notice at all that element of storytelling.

Multiple Collage Ideas: 

Color Wheel Idea - 

My first attempt: I was inspired by the color wheel but then I noticed that of course, I wasn’t going to have enough colors or even the correct colors in place to recreate especially every film’s color scheme.

Inception Idea - 

I moved on and decided to see if I recreate the concept of inception. I keep the idea of color coordination and placed all the scenes of one film in one collage. This idea was interesting but it fell out once I thought that simply repeating this one collage wasn't going to be exciting enough.

Psychedelic Experience Idea - 

After trying out the inception idea, I decided to go for a simpler idea and just color coordinating the scenes and creating a diamond shape for the collages. With this idea I wanted the viewer to have almost a psychedelic experience just looking at them, but the more I looked at them I started noticing that the viewer might not realize what they are and the scenes are a key feature for my concept.

Final Idea -  

These are just a few of the final collages I created. I decided to color coordinate two colors at a time to produce several collages. So within each film, I combined these colors together (depending on the color scheme of the film I had more combinations): 

- Blue and black - Blue and green - Blue and purple - Blue, purple, and pink - Green and yellow - Yellow and brown - Pink and purple - Pink and yellow

Organizing each scene in color 

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Major Theory - Sofia Coppola

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Major Project - Color Theory Research

The use of color in films is one of the many reasons why I love watching films. The whole idea of color being used to show emotions and sometimes even secret messages throughout films is super exciting to me, it’s like deciphering a a visual code which is always fun. Color can even be used to manipulate audience’s emotions even to a subconscious level, like have you ever left the movie theater after watching a film and couldn’t stop thinking about it weeks later, color can be one of the reasons why that film was so impactful to you. 

Color can show a character’s journey, communicate a film’s idea, make the audience feel a certain type of emotion, and simplify complex stories. 

Looking at different types of color theory explanations, I realized that colors can have loads of different meanings, it all depends on the filmmaker’s storytelling and the audience’s perspective. Colors can mean many different things to us, depending on how old we are, our culture and our own experiences. A clear example on how colors in different culture can have different meanings is shown with the color red, in western countries can symbolize violence and terror, but in eastern countries it symbolizes love and passion. Another example on how a color’s meaning can change, is by the way the filmmaker symbolizes it themselves. In the film, Blue Is The Warmest Color, the filmmaker decided to make blue the color in which represents love, instead of red. Now, that decision is a bit strange if you think about it since blue normally symbolizes sadness, but by the context in which the filmmaker decides to use it, the symbolism of blue changes. 

 By using color, the filmmaker get to deepen the narrative of the film, they get to show more insight into the characters emotions, or the plot’s direction, without having to ‘spell it out’ to the viewer. 

History of color in films:

In the early 20th century, for filmmakers to achieve color, they had to immerse their film strips in dyes or chemicals, or they had to take the time to hand paint them, making it a very tedious job. Later on, sound was introduced in films and color took a backstage in the film industry, many filmmakers realized that sound was another way to engage with the audience, and it was a less tedious job to combine with their film strip. It wasn’t till 1932 with the development of Technicolor productions, color came back into film, creating several color techniques in which we still use today. 

Videos and links that helped me understand color theory in films:

Videos - 

Web links - 

https://ideas.ted.com/how-color-helps-a-movie-tell-its-story/

https://www.premiumbeat.com/blog/manipulate-emotions-with-color-in-film/

https://nofilmschool.com/Film-color-theory-and-color-schemes

https://digitalsynopsis.com/design/film-movies-color-psychology/

http://khsdigitalmediaarts.blogspot.com/2018/04/sofia-coppolas-color-palette.html

https://thedailyfandom.org/the-tantalizing-color-palettes-of-sofia-coppola/

[valentinaforerocreativeblog]

Major Project - Project Ideas

Unfortunately, I got Covid in the middle of January, and well that really sucked. Seriously it was so painful and at the same time tiring. Long story short, I didn’t really start working on my major project till March and by then I had already lost a whole two months. At the start of the semester, I didn't really know what topic or question I wanted to create my project on. So I decided to create a list of topics I was interested in. The list included things such as miniature art, surrealism and the concept of dreams, the country of Colombia, and true crime just to state a few. Noticing that my list was all over the place I started looking into issues that were happening in the world and that’s when I stumbled upon the Colombian coffee crisis and I thought it would be interesting to bring awareness to a crisis that my home country is tackling with. But it isn’t till I started research even further that I realized ever since 2020, it’s not much of a crisis anymore.

So, once again I was back where I started, lost with the most random list of topics I was interested in. I decided to look into more common issues, and I came across body image issues. Being someone who suffered from body image issues throughout my teenage years, I thought having this personal connection would give me a personal point of view on the issue. The further I researched body image issues, the more I realized that it was a topic that brought me some not-so-nice memories, which led to the decision to change my topic for the second time. I thought the third time’s a charm. I cleared my mind and really thought of what I most enjoyed doing, which led to films. 

Growing up, films helped me cope with some hard times in my life. I like to think of films as a means to escape reality, almost a portal into another world where I can leave my reality behind and just be in another, which I have always found cool. So, it was clear to me that my topic was going to be filmed. I was advised to narrow down on a certain area of film, which led me to think of Sofia Coppola’s film since her movies were the reason I got into films in the first place. I decided to narrow it down even more and focused it down on Coppola’s use of color to define emotion and theme in her films since I thought it was one of her most unique aspects. Now having a defined topic, I didn’t really know where to go with the visual. I started researching on the theory of color and the importance it has in cinema, to the point I found myself reading psychology of color research papers and since they were academic papers, I simply got confused trying to understand them, easy to say I was going far off into my research. I decided to play around with the colors Coppola used in her films and started playing with photoshop. While I playing around with the colors and even taking screenshots of a couple of screens from her films, I started getting the idea of creating a VR experience that embraced Coppola’s color schemes, transported viewers into a world of color.

- My list of topics at the very start of the semester 

- Ideas for VR experience 

[valentinaforerocreativeblog]

Curation - Drag Queens VR Project: Reflective Blog

As I reflect on my final curation project, I can honestly say that it was one of the most exciting and most challenging projects I have had to do. This project truly taught me several important skills and knowledge which I think will be important for my big leap into the ‘real world’ in a couple of months. I found myself having several mixed emotions throughout the development of this project, but overall, I am glad that I had the freedom and opportunity to tackle this brief. I can successfully say that I have developed several new skills at the end of this project, along with a new way of creatively viewing things.

For my final creative brief, I was given the task to create a project based on activism. After several days of research, I decided to base my project on a special group that I have admired and loved for a long time, drag queens, and their stance in the LGBT community. Their activist movements have changed the course of LGBT history for the better, I have such strong admiration for drag queens especially since they are constantly fighting against social norms by simply being themselves. Drag queens have the courage and confidence to truly show the world who they want to be and not care about other people's opinions, and overall, unapologetically themselves which is something I strive to achieve.

For my project, I wanted to create an experience that showed the viewer the importance in which drag queens had within the LGBT community. Drag queens are famously known for RuPaul Drag Race, a reality competition television series that started back in 2009, ever since it is premiered the show has been a famous icon for the LGBT community within pop culture. Most people outside the LGBT community have associated RuPaul’s Drag Race as their only insight into the LGBT community and the culture of drag. Since I was one of those outsiders who fell in love with the show and drag culture, I took it upon myself to learn more about the history and challenges in which the drag community went through and their influence on pop culture as we know it today. The more I research, the more I realized that there is much more to drag than RuPaul’s Drag Race and most importantly, not many people knew about it. Hence the reason I created my project on drag queens, I wanted to create a VR experience that encapsulated the history of drag queens and their affiliation in several history LGBT movements.

The incorporation of the topic of drag queens and VR was another aspect of my project which I enjoyed. The combination of VR, a fake world that feels real once the viewer is immersed, and drag queens which are masters of illusion, making the viewer see something that is not real. Both aspects deceive the viewer, which I thought would make for a perfect experience. My goal was to clearly show the viewer the similarities of drag and VR and introduce them to the world and history of drag on a platform while the viewer can become part of the illusion by simply using a VR headset.

The process of design a VR experience was a bit challenging for me at the start. Since I had never use a VR headset before or even design on VR before I didn’t know where to start. Normally when it came to any other project, I have had experience on a similar project and can start building up ideas from the start, but since this was completely new territory I went straight to researching. While researching I came across Tate Modern’s Modern’s: Modigliani VR, it was a VR replica of Modigliani’s Parisian studio, giving the viewer the ability to move around and even interact with objects in the room. As soon as I saw

this, I had the inspiration of recreating a drag queen’s dressing room using SketchUp. Using SketchUp was an exciting new skill, it was a simple program that was easy to learn by using Youtube and casually guiding myself through the tools. The idea of a drag queen’s dressing room came from the famously known scenes in RuPaul’s Drag Race as an area in which the contestants talk about their personal experiences as drag queens and the challenges that they had to overcome to be where they are. My goal was to recreate a drag queen's dressing room since to me it represented the vulnerable space in which a drag queen can rip away from their daily outfit and turn into their alter ego they thrive in. In addition to the dressing room, there were going to be images of historical moments within the LGBT movements and well-known drag queens which influenced the course of drag. Subsequently, after completing my dressing room there was a sense of dullness in my idea, it felt as if my dressing room did not use the VR platform to its full potential. Unfortunately, I later realized to create the interactive dressing room I wanted I would have to learn a more complex program for 3D art and I simply did not have the time to learn and create the dressing room that I had envisioned. I will say, that after completing the dressing room I created on SketchUp, I have a clear understanding of the program and can confidently put it as one of my skills I look forward to advancing.

Thereafter, decided to move on and change my project idea, this decision changed the course of my project management and consequently the outcome of my project, but I do not regret my decision. I moved on to creating a hyper-realistic theme park that educated the viewer on the history of drag and the influence in which drag queens had in the LGBT movements. I felt a strong connection to this idea since I am from Florida, and one of the main things that characterize my state is the fact that it has several theme parks, most famously Disney World. Learning about hyper-reality, Disney World was one of the best examples due to its unique way of exaggerating real elements such as the wild west theme, along with castles and the concept of monarchy, construction of unnatural landscapes, and distinct vivid color scheme. I also thought it would be ideal to create a hyper-realistic theme park based on Disney World’s aesthetics for the viewer to have a familiarity, which can lead to a personal connection and develop a stronger sense of interest in my project.

After deciding on a new approach to my project, I started researching for the best platform to use, I decided MozillaHubs was the best program since it was easy to create, it had premade objects in store, and it was also easy for anyone to access. Looking back at the development of my project I wish I knew the things I know now. After designing on MozillaHubs, I realized that I was limited to what I could include in my design, there was not enough freedom to choose from. The program did not give you the ability to change several colors or create new objects which made me change the outcome I had in mind. Later, I found out that I need to buy another program called, SketchHub to be able to freely design the layout I had in mind, which in the end was too late. Just like my downfall in SketchUp, I did not feel like I had enough time to learn another program and achieve the design I wanted before the deadline. Either way, I can say that my experience with MozillaHubs was educational, it gave me the experience to work with 3D art which is the future of contemporary art.

Reviewing my notes throughout the semester, I have learned several topics that I have found useful for my project. One of the topics I found myself interested in was digital exhibitions: storytelling narratives and exhibition outlines. This class was the guideline that I needed to structure my project around. It helped me plan for my viewers to be symphony goers and be completely immersed in the experience. Along with participation, I had also realized that while I was creating my experience, I needed to keep in mind that virtual exhibitions do not stimulate all the viewers' senses, which is why I decided to create

the hyper-reality essence, to attract the sense of sight in substitute for the sense of smell and touch in which they would normally have in a real-life exhibition. In addition to planning the atmosphere of the experience, I needed to set the storyline of the narrative I wanted to achieve. Since I decided to create my project on a VR platform, I had to create my narrative in a non-linear structure because of the freedom in which VR gives the viewer. The whole point of VR is for the viewer to have complete freedom in where to wonder, feeling as if they are in their reality, and by setting up a linear outline it would obstruct the viewer from this freedom and cancel out the sense of being within in another reality and ruin the experience. Even though my project is based on historical factors, I believed that the viewer did not need to see the events in chronological order to truly understand the importance of every moment, instead, they can take their route and create their understanding and unique interpretation of drag history.

Another key element I wanted to add was a short video interview with real-life drag queens. I thought by adding this real element into my hyper-reality experience, it would give the viewer a full circle experience and understanding of the world of drag. I started by contacting several UK drag queen’s on Instagram by sending them a short message explaining what I was trying to accomplish with my project. In the end, I only got responses from three out of the hundreds I messaged, unfortunately, my plan didn’t work around either one of their schedules, but it was encouraging to see the support they gave me knowing what my project was. This gave even more motivation to create an experience for more and more people to understand the courageous history and inspirational essence of drag queens.

All things considered; this project has given me immense insight into my future. This was the first project I had to tackle completely online, which I did not think was going to be any different from my other project, but I was wrong. Deciding to take my semester online was a huge change for me, even though I took a careful decision to stay at home due to the pandemic situation, I must admit it was hard for me to focus as much as I would normally do if I was at university. But I learned from my experience and I am lucky to have had this experience in university so I can be ready for when I graduate. Another struggle I had to tackle was the element of digital design, I have never thought of creating on VR before this project and this experience helped me understand if the digital design was the job path I want to take. Fortunately, this project gave a sneak-peek into digital design and after reflecting on my work I must admit it might not be the path for me, but I am glad that I had tried it out and can show my efforts on my portfolio. Overall, my honest opinion on my project is that I do not feel this project showed my full potential, I tried to convey my ideas, but I feel that unfortunately the platform which I choose wasn’t the best for me. I did have an interesting time working outside my comfort zone but there is a part of me that isn’t truly content with my work. I do not regret the decision that I made, I’m simply going to take my experience on this project and learn from my mistake while focusing on my curatorial/event career.