#creative media practice

[kikkermeis]

Now that I’ve been accepted into Bath Spa Uni, is anyone else that follows, or doesn’t follow, me a fresher there this year? 

[emmculture-blog]

PROJECT: Inter-culture Relationship

At the beginning of this term, I was given a task/assignment to come up with a project that I want to pursue that will further my skills and learning outcome of the module I’m currently taking which is Everyday Media Making. 

So the first thing that came up in my head was:

STOP MOTION ANIMATION!

In my opinion, it is something that I wanted to do ever since I was a kid! It’s fascinating to see objects or people to move in a “weird” way that manipulates the content of the animation which relays a greater message to the world. Which in this case would be a great starting point since I want to showcase the cultural differences that people encounter everyday or once in a while. 

What got me started was basically the fact that I’m from Malaysia and currently living and studying in England for my degree in Creative Media Practice.

I want people to know what it is like to meet people with different cultural backgrounds since culture itself is something profound and amazing. Therefore, basing the fact that I’m a foreigner, I thought to myself ‘what could be the best thing to show to people about cultural differences’ and that’s where it hit me: INTER-CULTURAL RELATIONSHIPS.

Nowadays, having an inter-cultural/inter-racial relationships are fairly common within the society/community since we are more open and diverse with these things. There are many projects and awareness such as  “Love Has No Labels” that shows that you can love anyone regardless of their race, size, sexuality and age. Well, that’s on another level since I’m only focusing on the cultural aspect of it.

Here’s the video link of the project that they are doing:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PnDgZuGIhHs

After doing some research on this, I have decided to do a story-like stop motion animation about a girl and a boy with different cultures and ethnicity, falling in love at first sight which in the middle of the story, both of the characters encountered a problem with their families that disapproves their relationship. In the end, they worked things out and continue to be together. What a nice ending! For now, I am developing an outline of the story to fit the whole story in 1 minute preferably in order to keep the entertainment going for the audience. 

Wish me luck!

[getbusyliving404]

Montage Editing

I used uncopyrighted music so was able to upload to YouTube.

To prepare for the Montage task, I read a chapter from both Voice & Vision and The Filmmaker's Handbook. These were both interesting and informative chapters on the history of montage and it's creators. It gave me insight into how a montage is expected to look and what montages are used for; both reaction sequences, time-moving sequences, and action sequences. This therefore allowed me to come up with some idea as to how I was going to create my final montage sequence. During the pre- and production stages I was able to choose which piece of music I wanted to use and which bits of footage to use in my work. It was difficult choosing key shots from 1hr30mins and even more difficult choosing a piece of music that would suit to work my chosen theme of conspiracy. The footage was full of a variety of shots and so it was relatively easy to find something to suit my theme. I was able to find two shots that worked well as a motif - one that was obvious, and another slightly more metaphorical - a woman on a typewriter and rats trapped in a box. The result of the motifs allow my spectators to link them to the disaster they see on-screen. To get my edit cut between 60 and 90 seconds, I had to edit the piece of music down, finding places where there were repetitions in the song and cut bits out to make them fit. I chose to edit quite quick shots together to create a tense sequence, and I also wanted to keep my audience engaged throughout. I overlayed some of the clips in order to create a link between two images in a way that is subtle and sleek. All of my decisions allowed me to create a montage piece that fitted well with the music, fast paced and action-based through the heavier sections and slower during the more mellow sections, creating a reminiscent effect for the spectators. I believe that every decision I made was a wise one, including editing to the beat and using very few transitions (only one fade-to-black). I am very proud of my overall finished piece, completing it in 3 hours, and I believe that I managed to create the feel of conspiracy with people trying to get away and others witnessing the disasters. Compared to other items in the domain, I have managed to create contrast, parallelism, symbolism and leit - motif within my montage, but I would liked to have been able to include simultaneity in order to achieve all 5 of Podovkin's editing rules. Using these rules has allowed me to create something that may be seen in a film, about conspiracy, reflecting and contrasting on what it was like before, and I believe that it is only the technical quality of the footage used that would not compare to the more high-tec, high-definitioned montages that are seen in films today.