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#2017 Video Project ARTS3061

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Class Exercise _ Foley Sounds for Stalking Scene. I added in further music that I made from a previous project. Most of the sound files I had to individually edit to match a certain pitch I liked, speed and texture.

#2016 Work

Story Writing 3

A box on a table, one room, three people, one comes out alive.

Breaking into the window, the glass shatters across the wooden floor as three figures fall into the room. The dim street light barely revealing the outline of a neat bureau, leaves the robbers to grasp their surroundings with gloved hands. Splitting into three areas, the three rummage through filing cabinets, drawers and tapping the wood panelled walls. They were looking for something. The neat paperwork that lay on the table was discarded tattered on the floor. An ink glass rolled on the floor, kicked away by someone’s foot as they made their way to lift a loose floor board. Signalling the other two, a torch light is directed into the black hole of the floor. A wooden box sat below. As one of them reached out to pick it up, a short high pitched swoooch and a flash of of a silver string flashed across their eyes before disappearing into the floor boards once more. Startled, two of them men froze as their companion fell sideways to the floor. He didn’t move, but a dark puddle formed beneath him. Not comprehending what had occurred, one of the two men hesitantly approaches their fallen companion. Crouching down to the floor, he peeks at the dead man’s face. What was left of it. Something had cut deeply into the flesh, neatly removing it layer by layer. The man couldn’t bear to look at it any longer, shocked, he stumbled backwards scrambling to exit the room through the broken window. The third man glanced at the dead man before he saw the silver flash once more at the window. He acted fast, following suit of his companion, he hastily tucked the box under his arm as he made his way to the window. It was as if time had slowed down just for this one brief moment. Locking eyes, horrified, he could only watch his companion fall to their death. Silence. There was no sound to be heard other than the panicked, low and ragged breathing. The man stood in shocked silence. The moment broke as a sickening thud on concrete interrupted the night. As if the sound had awakened him, he fled the room through the door into the darkness beyond.

#2016 Work

What is Courage

No Lists. Be specific. You are telling a story of courage, without using the word courage or bravery.

I looked around the room. The woman had finished to rapidly read out the terms and conditions, without leaving any room for second thoughts. I had less than one minute. Less than one minute to sign the contract. I looked at everyone sitting at the table, scribbling their signatures on the contracts and other required documents. That is when it struck me. What is it really that I’m signing off? I looked at my paper, and I felt the strangers next to me, looking at me, wondering, why the papers are not signed yet. That is when I realised. The woman had read out the contract in a hurry, on purpose. Purposely stealing the time for anyone to thoroughly think through of the consequences of signing the paper. It was less than a minute time. It was enough however to allow me to think again. I stood up, empty papers in hand, and resigned my application. I would not be pressured by someone to give into contract, one that I can not agree to. As I left the room, I’m wondering if any people left behind thought of what they signed, or simply signed the papers because everyone else had? Now having had the time to think, I imagine if I had. I would be an independent business owner, with no experience in having a business, making sales and no means to travel from one place to another to make the sales targets of 2000$ a month by selling scratchy lottery tickets to raise myself into a better position. Worse, if no profit was made, I would be indebted to 10000$ starter loans.

#2016 Work

Week One Story Writing

Write how you made friends with your friend.

When I was Kindergarten, I preferred to be alone. I enjoyed being alone. It’s not that I didn’t have anyone to play with. I played, laughed, spend time with other kids, but every so often I distanced myself when I had enough being around people. Crowded places just weren’t my thing. There is a limit of how long I can spend in a crowd. So when I was not around people, I spent it climbing high places to get as far away as possible. I loved climbing trees, particularly a big oak tree. The view from it was fantastic. That is, until one day, a new kid arrived. For some reason this boy had nothing else to do but follow me around. I found him rather annoying. Every break, every lunch he just followed and never stopped talked. He talked about the places he went, places he’s been, things he’s done. Day in day out. One day, I got to Kindergarten, and I was expecting him to follow. But he wasn’t there. He was no where. For some reason I felt relief, on the other I was getting very bored. Suddenly, even though I got my alone time, it just wasn’t as enjoyable. It wasn’t until he came back, as it turned out he was sick, that I realised that he was somewhat a friend, a very annoying friend. I guess the people who’s company I enjoy the most a very annoying people, as, when I look back, the people closest in Life are the really annoying one’s just like my sister.

#2016 Work

WEEK 4 TASK: RECORD A CONFLICT FROM VARIOUS ANGLES WHILE RECORDING SOUND USING THE ZOOM RECORDER. THE TASK IS TO BE EXECUTED BY A GROUP OF THREE OR FOUR, RECORDING VIDEO FOOTAGE AND SOUND. EACH INDIVIDUAL WILL THEN TAKE THESE FILES AND MAKE THEIR OWN FINAL PRODUCT.

Result: This is my final product. Unfortunately the sound recorder was not working. Thus we all came to the conclusion to make a silent comedy film and give it an appropriate soundtrack. For my final product I decided to give it an early silent film treatment. Aesthetically ageing the film and presenting a black and white palette. I chose the music from Royalty Free Music Suppliers such as Jay Man and Kevin McLeod, editing their music to give certain actions more tension as well as mood.

The original music:

Sneaky - by Jay Man Call To Adventure - by Kevin McLeod

#2016 Work

Script Writing Reflection

I am not an experienced script writer. In fact, I write stories but making a script is very challenging due to its layout, format and unlike a book of continuous text of story, a script boils it down to a set of instruction, if any, and only taking the most essential dialogue. The visual details and sound which I often include when writing stories have their own separate script.

The most recent project, The Operation, which was adapted from a short cartoon blog entry, brought upon many challenges as well as useful lessons. I had a great joy working with Blanca, we had worked together previously on another script, and liked the short comedy we produced as we had a lot fun making it. So in this task we set out to find a story which had a similar genre to it, finding some very interesting material from tumblr, Facebook and other blog publications which we dubbed as the most ridiculous or amusing. In the end we found 'A beautiful transformation story', and we loved its plot twist very much thus deciding to make it our script material.

Writing it was easy, we followed the cartoon and stopped every now and then to revise the flow of the story, adding and subtracting dialogue we found excessive as well as adding our own to expand the build up to the peak of the story. However, once the task was done we both had to learn what on earth a 'treatment' was. Neither of us have English as our first language. So, what is this treatment? Asking around as well looking up provided an related material we finally pieced together what it was and we also came across a template which will be useful to refer to later on when required as it thoroughly depicts what other content may be required in order to successfully pitch it. (Example, log line, outline, characters, appearance, visual aesthetics, sound, lighting, feasibility study, location, finance etc.)

#2016 Work

The Operation - Script Assessment

#2016 Work

Script Writing Assessment - Exegesis

EXEGESIS

The Operation

The source from which the final product was adapted from is taken from a blog which curates a collection of entertaining stories, images and other ‘interesting’ posts that were found and selected by the site’s administrators in the aim to bring entertainment as well as distraction or relaxation. The entry of “A Beautiful Transformation Story” in I Waste So Much Time (Anon., 2016) appeals to a large scale audience as the entry, as all of the content on their site, features trending issues or topics and other elements to which a person can resonate with. The presentation has limited text, mainly featuring images making the original piece an easy read and twisting the content into a satirical, humorous or comedic perspective.

The entry was appealing, and the decision to adapt the entry into a script was an exercise that was both challenging as well as satisfying to be working with a very flexible and contemporary material. What one believes to be a story of a boy facing the issues of identifying themselves as, seemingly a woman, escalates into a completely different transformation than what one expected. The short story has a strong build up to the climate, eluding the audience to believe and hypothesise the outcome of a boy being transformed via operation into a woman, however the audience is left taken by surprise when instead of woman, the outcome is that of a dragon. Then, automatically the reader is drawn back to the earlier section of the story, discovering the subtle clues to the unexpected outcome.

When writing the script, we purposely named the piece “The Operation”. The aim was to keep eluding the audience, as well as the reader of the script, to treat the piece as a story of a trans gendered boy finding his identity and struggling to become the ideal person, only achieving so by an operation. The script had many forms of dialogue which the main character appeared to be defined as a female by either the insults or support from minor characters. Keeping true to the original blog entry we featured a first person voice narrator, in the script a voice over, based on the visual stimulus already given from the blog. However, unlike the blog entry, we wanted to keep the audience in suspense to the very end. Thus, we took the liberty in inserting a news reporting scene, ‘creating fuss’ over ‘the newest and hottest sensation’ to still elude the viewer until finally letting the dragon emerge and end the piece. The original piece had an extended dragon feature, however in the script, we related it with a tribute to the ending of ‘The Hobbit – The Desolation of Smaug’. The dragon, Smaug, is a familiar and well known icon. Tolkien’s literature or Peter Jackson’s presentation of Smaug is that of a terrifying, powerful and destructive being with the ability to communicate on a human level. It seemed a very reasonable choice to make the dragon as Smaug, using his famous line “I am fire. I am death” (xesafable, 2014) to connect the audience to the image of fear and terror, and yet a human character with these lines alone.

References

Anon., (2016). A beautiful transformation story. [online] Iwastesomuchtime.com. Available at: http://iwastesomuchtime.com/on/?i=95094 [Accessed 21 Sep. 2016].

xesafable, (2014). The Hobbit - The Desolation of Smaug - I am fire, I am death [ending]. [video] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7TSP_FxCe3E [Accessed 21 Sep. 2016].

#2016 Work

Script Writing Task

Write a script or and outline of a love confession under extreme circumstances. No paramedics, nurses or fire brigade please.

... Result,,,, written by Blanca & Victoria

The Proposal:

Outline:

A woman is running through the corridor to get to the boarding gate on time. Meanwhile, a man rushed into the taxi bay with his ice cream van, parking with squealing brakes. He runs out of the van, rushing into the departure hall, looking at the boarding panel before sprinting to the observation deck. The woman has by now reached her gate, and is boarding the plane, finding her seat at the window. Making herself comfortable, she pulls out the blanket, getting ready to take a short nap before she hears people behind her laughing. Annoyed she looks back, seeing a crowd gathered at the windows pointing and commenting on someone out there. Confused she looks out the window. In a starfish motion, a man dressed in bright pink is waving desperately from the observation deck. She looks closer at the man’s face. Embarrassed, her face turns red. Shyly she returns a tiny wave from her hand. The man flashed a big grin before going on his knees, pulling out a ring. The woman facepalms, unable to speak, she simply returns a thumbs up.

#2016 Work

Living Out Of A Suitcase - Piano Piece only.

This is the base for what I used for my short reflection film, Living Out Of A Suitcase. After recording the narration first, I took 5 attempts in creating a fitting background soundtrack for my work. In my last few attempts, I placed a snow globe, thinking of using a small footage for my piece from the recording. However, in the end, I decided to whose the entirety as the background for my piece.

Do not ask me what the title of the piano piece is. I make up a lot of pieces on the spot, nameless, and one time only. So even if I wanted to, I don’t think I would be able to replicate what I played the same way twice.

#2016 Work