Brutal Experiences (prev. Uncanny) @uncannyhme - Tumblr Blog

Reflection - Wk15 Blog

It has been a fantastic semester working with Darrin on Jazz Catastrophe, and it was so exciting watching my own work being played in the Capitol, thanks to Ben. In this semester I went out of my comfort zone, worked with someone I never worked with before. It may seem normal but to me at start everything was so uncertain. I am not a sound person so at first when I get into this studio I felt nervous and anxious, but soon I found my project Jazz Catastrophe. It was my first time doing a music video editing all by myself although I did some recut of existing music video before. So I learned about how to find clips in my mind online, and practiced to match the visual content with the audio. Also, working with Darrin has been a bit different since he seems always online and always replying to emails without the limit of time or location. Sometimes I felt pressure from him but more I was deeply impressed by his passion. And with his passion I finished Demo 3 which was the first full length demo. Actually due to the 2 weeks Japan Study Tour I was a bit left behind, which is what I should pay attention to in the future: time management. It was my responsibility to arrange across the different courses to make sure things went well and I’ve learned how to do so after this semester. There were many minor changes on both the video and the audio, which was surprised - I realised Darrin had no less expectation on this video than me, so he was also willing to make changes to make the video better, for which I really appreciated. Again, it has been a tight but fun semester and I am happy about what I learned, also I know better what to improve in the future.

Sweet Refrain - Wk14 Blog

One of the important idea in this project is ‘sweet brutality’, which I discussed earlier in the music video ‘Russian Roulette’. In that video, girls attempt to kill each other with the bright, 8-bit electro music. In Jazz Catastrophe, one could find it enjoyable, so it seems that I lost my objective ‘brutal’. But actually I did it in a way that people could enjoy, by using dancing and live performance footages. And the thunderbird footages will bring them an unlogic sense. Also, I use tape machine and automatic factory footages to clean up the ease, and brings in a sense of ‘surveillance’ or ‘control’ that will get audience feel ‘being watched’ hence to break the sense of enjoyment. Intercut is another tool I used to achieve this goal as I did it several times towards the end of video. Hence the whole experience starts with some enjoyable clips, but there are several approaches to break that enjoyment across the video, and all of that comes to an brutal, calm ending in the end.

Clip Picks - Wk13 Blog

In this blog I’m going to talk about some clip choices that stands out during the final presentation.

The first one is 1:10 - 1:29 a long stage play shot. During editing process, this part in music was a bit tricky, because I found it connected loosely to the previous part which was the commercial advertisement scene, yet had a strong boundary to the next thunderbird part. The tempo in this part is not so strong to do intercuts. I found the clip of pouring water first, and put it into timeline, but surprisingly found that there is a whole long clip happening after that, hence I fill the gap with the clip, and did cut out some glitches according to the music.

The second part is thunderbird scene after 1:29. At the very start I wanted to combine cartoon with real people scenes in my first Demo, but found it a bit harder to deal with copyright. And it was a bit further towards my objective ‘brutal’ since the cartoon scene usually won’t be too much brutal to its target audiences. However later I found this thunderbird clip which was not totally cartoon - if look closely one could easily see the strings used to control those dolls. And those big eyes dolls were something closer to brutal, even a bit creepy to watch. My thought was still the same: to combine something that was supposed to be enjoyable and delightful, but make them overwhelming or brutal with the help of music. Darrin at first was worried about this space clip since it was totally not in the theme of ‘Jazz’, but later he found the logic and accepted this.

Dumb Dumb - Wk12 Blog

Another important inspiration that went through the editing work is ‘Dumb Dumb’ by Red Velvet. The song itself describes a girl becoming ‘dumb’ when she sees the boy she likes. In kpop, one of the rules for music videos is that the music video does not have to serve under the context of the lyrics, and that is where this music video is going to lead its audiences. At start, with the sound of ‘Dumb dumb dumb dumb dumb dumb’, some clips about tape machine, old telephone, automatic factory, and the cloned girls appeared (0:00 - 0:13). These images soon became the main theme of the music video. The factory and the girls were ordered at start, but with the song coming to an end, when the iconic ‘dumb dumb dumb dumb dumb dumb’ appear again, everything went into a total chaos at 3:05. I was impressed by the using of dumb, lifeless and single coloured production line with the bright, colourful and vivid girls, together with the order at start and the chaos towards the end. It inspired me to have some boring, with tape machine and data collection clips as the ending of Jazz Catastrophe, as a contrast to the ‘disorder’ throughout the whole video, to have its audiences surprised that a video about chaotic and even brutal enjoyment will finally come to a calm, harmonic ending.

DEMO_3.3_Sun13 - Wk11 Blog

At this stage Darrin had been away in Vietnam experiencing some Internet issue but he was very helpful and passionate about this demo and gave me many ideas and suggestions. Thanks for the timeline created I did not spend much time thinking about the structure, but just finding clips that fit those stages and put them into the correct timeline positions in FCPX. I did use some fast intercuts, lags and repeatings as suggested on Milestone Presentation. Luckily Darrin was ok with most of the video, we had some discussions about small changes like replacing some clips and adjusting colour in some clips. Because of Japan Study Tour I was quite left behind in this project so there was a time that I felt truly panic about the progress, but after Demo 3 series everything just started to move on smoothly. At this stage since both Darrin and I haven’t heard from Maggie and Cameron at all we think for now we will just focus on this version without Maggie’s clips and Cameron’s postproduction. Will find a chance to figure this out hopefully in week 12.

New Timeline - Wk10 Blog

After some discussion we created a new timeline. Compare to the earlier one it is more detailed and structured, including ideas of clips/transitions/effects so would be very handy for my editing work in the future.

Stage 1

1: 00:00 - 00:19 Industrial noise

A brutal start? Fast-paced editing with repeating instrumental footages. Would be good to insert some distortions or crazy stuff.

2: 00:19 - 00:28 Music/Industrial Remix

2.1: 00:28 - 00:40

3: 00:40 - 00:52 Similar to section 1 - a switch to saxophone

Strong background tempo with a shift and back to section 1.

Sec 1 industrial noise with one total blackout (what it could be?)

4: 00:52 - 01:02 Jazz

The first ‘resting’ area? Music here allows a longer, smoother clip to be played.

4.1: 01:02 - 01:14 Recur of section 2.1

Visual reprise on the repeat

5: 01:14 - 01:29 Heavy industrial sound

A mixture of section 2/3/4

Things go crazy again……

Stage 2

6: 01:29 - 01:42 New Jazz sound

Any ideas?

7: 01:42 - 02:05 Keys, distortions

Another ‘resting’ area in section 7 where all clips goes colored.

8: 02:05 - 02:33 Jazz

Similar to section 4 but maybe this time could make it crazy?

(Break the ‘resting’ feeling of section 4)

Stage 3

9: 02:33 - 02:57 New Jazz sound - light, break, peaceful (kinda with noise

10: 02:57 - 03:10 Pure New Jazz

11: 03:10 - 03:14 Noise

Stage 3 will be the ending with automatic technology companies clips to provide a sense of ‘backstage’ or ‘collecting data’.

Milestone Feedback - Wk9 Blog

After showing Demo II in Milestone Presentation I received some feedback.

Compare to Demo 1 which is total chaos, Demo II feels like a total logic -- The structure is easy to understand hence the audience will lose curiosity since they already know what’s happening next. In a range of ‘total chaos’ to ‘total logic’, what I should do the next is to find a point between this two values.

Other suggestions including ‘disorder’: Disorder is not really no order, but just a order that is not accepted by common sense and cannot be understand. So I can actually break my order in my next editing, that is, bring in an order to the audience and break it in some point so that they continuously feel the sense of ‘disorder’ and hence to achieve ‘brutal’ experience.

And I got some advices on different clips -- that is not to be limited in dancing and live jazz clips but consider some more possibilities that will bring in new stimulations.

Other techniques like repeating, resizing, and colour effects are also suggested as I will take them into consideration in post-production stage.

Demo II - Wk8 Blog

This is another short demo for Milestone presentation. From Demo 1 to Demo II, I continued with fast-paced editing but this time I’m not randomly picking clips and put them together. With the help of Timeline, I started to break the music down to several parts and insert different clips for different parts. Some visual-audio matching is also achieved to make the video more acceptable. Since I spent 2 weeks in Japan so I did not have much time to cut a full demo. This demo displays the first stage of music: a chaotic starting point. Maggie’s video is also used as a transition, since I found the static 3D prints and the changing lighting in her video allows it to be used as a bridge between two stages.

Track Timeline - Wk7 Blog

Timeline created for the track.

Stage 1

1: 00:00 - 00:19 industrial noise

2: 00:19 - 00:40 musical industrial remix - strong tempo - a shift

3: 00:40 - 00:52 industrial noise with one blackout and shift

4: 00:52 - 01:14 Jazz with a strong tempo

5: 01:14 - 01:29 New heavy industrial noise - mix with previous sections

Stage 2

6: 01:29 - 01:42 New Jazz sound

7: 01:42 - 02:05 Shift and key sounds with noise - one break - keys with noise

8: 02:05 - 02:33 Jazz (section 4 with industrial bridge

Stage 3

9: 02:33 - 02:57 New Jazz sound - light, break, peaceful

10: 02:57 - 03:10 Pure Jazz sound

11: 03:10 - 03:14 Noise as the ending

Since three stages are set, what I will do is to build different emotions and scenes by using different footages for each stage. It helps me to break the pure chaos I did for demo 01 and makes the structure of the track clear, hence to make the next step easier.

‘Lenna’ - Wk6 Blog

On the exhibition ‘Open Space’ in ICC, Tokyo, there is a 22.2 multichannel sound installation called ‘Lenna’. In the pitch-black room, there is a chair and two speakers. The audience will experience a 7-mins Accapella in the dark. According to the official website, the work is to ‘serve as a sample for multichannel works in the future, also to inspire endeavours that help stimulate the discussion on environments and distribution of new audiovisual formats’. ‘Lenna’ apparently focuses on transferring the technology to the public. In this case, the experience and the technology used to achieve it is the key to the work and the sound design is less ‘conceptual’ but more like a demo which creates a smooth, joyful experience as a complementary element. It reminds me of guest lecturer Thembi Soddell’s work ‘Held Down, Expanding’. That work is about one’s own mind and emotions, include depressions. Hence, conceptual and ritual outcomes are important to trigger one’s emotion and build a complete experience. In that work, Soddell creates 3 stages which include a reading stage before entering the space, the pitch-black space to experience the sounds and a reflection stage afterwards. First, the book used in the first stage is about abuse in relationships and anxiety. It gives the audience a strong hint about the theme (or, experience) of the work. And the sound also helped to enhance and deliver a ‘brutal’ sense to the audience with the pitch-black set up. I was surprised by how similar pitch-black set up in these two works could have a totally different impact on visitors. When the vision is deprived, the sound becomes the only tool to experience and hence, by introducing different moods to the sounds, the darkness could be mysterious and attractive in ‘Lenna’, but could also be brutal in ‘Held Down, Expanding’.

Demo 01 - Wk5 Blog

This is the very first demo I did for week 5 pitch presentation. I combined old cartoons with scenes from 90′s huge automatic tech companies, girls camping, gas mask experiment and live jazz. As Darrin said, it achieved some sense of ‘chaos’, and successfully brought some overwhelming, brutal experience with fast-paced editing and switching from different scenes. However it fails to engage its audiences: the lack of logic between the scenes and emphasis on one major concept, results in a (might be) brutal clip but not necessarily an attracting one. That is: it is easy to create a physically brutal experience but a psychologically one is more desired. This brings me to some next level with a deeper dig in the relationship between the concept of video and the structure of the music: to understand what the music has to convey, its details, mixes, with what could be seen in which part of the music, together create what kind of ‘brutality’. Hence what I may do after pitch presentation first is to listen to music and try to build my own understanding to it, and eventually figure out what kind of footages could fit each part of music, hopefully, to build a more psychologically brutal clip for milestone presentation.

Wk4 Blog: Theories

As a complement to the week 5 presentation slides, I decide to discuss about Excitation Transfer theory and Social Comparison theory. The excitation transfer theory was first mentioned by Dolf Zillman in late 1960s/early 1970s, it describes that the residual excitation from one stimulus may amplify the response to another stimulus, and such a process could happen between different valences. That is, when watching brutal or violent media content, we receive the stimulus from it (which could be negative) , and while it still lasts, it could finally, eventually enhance our positive feelings when the media comes to a peaceful, happy end. It explains the question why are we so attracted to the brutal, cruel media contents even though we know it may take negative effects on us. However, it failed to explain why are there still many that cry for ‘Titanic’ as it is a total tragedy with no happy ending. And it could possibly be explained by social comparison theory by Leon Festinger in 1954. The theory simply states that, people gain more accurate self-evaluations from comparing with others. Further explained as ‘upwards’ and ‘downwards’ comparisons, Wills states that downward comparison theory enhances the positive effects of comparisons in ‘increasing one's subjective well-being’. Hence it explained our love to tragedies: we watch them to feel better of ourselves.

Both of the theories suggests that brutal, cruel or sad media content sometimes trigger positive valence on audiences, and it is where I could start thinking about: if I could design this music video in a way that it combines quickly switching scenes from both happy and brutal side, or I could combine positive scenes with heavy, overwhelming industrial musics to break this ‘reversing’ process, so that I may achieve ‘locking’ the feelings to a rather brutal state.

(via https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SEUXfv87Wpk)

Parasite (2019) - Wk3 Blog: Luxurious brutality

As the first Korean movie that won the Palme d’Or in Cannes Film Festival, Parasite is a black comedy thriller movie that features two different levels of families. The rich family live in luxurious mansion with housekeeper, driver and private teachers, and the poor family squeeze in semibasement, struggling to live. By chance the son from the poor get a chance to be the private teacher of the rich daughter, and gradually the whole family replace the driver, the art teacher and housekeeper, become the parasite of the mansion. But as the secret of the former housekeeper being revealed, things start losing control. The movie tells the story in a rather flat, humorous way with little spikes, but buries the conflict deep inside each spikes. When all of them burst together in the end of the movie, the series of murder inevitably happen. At the birthday party of the rich son, the rich and the poor, the cake and the blood, the morbid enmity and the superior kindness, are all compressed and mixed within few minutes, leave the audience overwhelmed by this brutality. Director conveys that the movie does not necessarily need mass violent scenes and direct contrast to be brutal, but can deliver its brutality through hinted conflicts with a fast-paced, straight forward, overwhelming ending.

(via https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Fh8lMTulkg)

Is that a LED screen?

The group gymnastics are normal, however the changing rectangle background is not a huge LED screen, but formed by thousands of people with colored boards. That means everyone up there is changing different colored boards at the same pace to precisely form a huge, moving background. Many even cannot tell the difference between this and a LED screen. Hence it achieves the mechanical-like performance with real mass performers behind, composes the machine with real people as components, creates this absurd, shocking and uncanny experience to the audience.

‘0.7% Salt’ - JiangZhi, 2009 (Collaborate with Gillian Chung)

In this 8:35 silent video, Hong Kong actress Gillian Chung performs a transition of emotion from ‘gently smile’ to ‘break down in tears’. Back in 2008, when chose not to cry in public as one of the victims of the infamous Edison Chen photo scandal, Chung was seen as ‘shameless’. Hence the transition in this video could be seen as ‘forced’ - in Asian entertainment industry, the position of women is always underrated. Chung is crying not because she wants to, but because she ‘should be’. Also, the absence of the sound creates this uncanny experience: the audience could see someone is crying, but could not hear it. And the name of the work, further deprives the meaning of tears: they are just 0.7% salt water. Together with the absence of sound and the ‘meaningless’ title, the core of ‘forced’ crying falls into a total uncanny void, nothingness.

#jiangzhi

25.8k Likes, 260 Comments - Kentucky Fried Chicken (@kfc) on Instagram: “Feeling the love in Japan! And it’s nothing but love back at ya. Going to amazing places where you…”

Kinda good looking, kinda creepy

There are two Colonel Sanders in this selfie, one is the plastic statue on the upper middle of the pic, the other one is this silver haired, good looking man holding the camera on the right bottom of the pic. He is the latest, computer generated KFC social media influencer. In one pic there are two levels of uncanny experience: one level comes from the real person (are they? I am not quite sure) with the CGI influencer as if they are really smiling together, we used to be able to distinguish virtual character from human beings but now we are not quite capable of this; the other level comes from the statue and the CGI figure, they are both not real human but we feel differently towards them, the statue apparently is amiable, but for the CGI influencer...

Kowloon Walled City, Hong Kong

As the most densely populated settlement in the 90s, Kowloon Walled City was seen as one of the inspirations of classic cyberpunk film ‘Blade Runner’, and also widely appears in other movies and video games. Within its 2.6-hectare borders there were more than 50,000 residents. Gangs, prostitutes and drug dealers live with joint families, makes the City a mixture of different sides of humanity. And the way it shrinks pushes the limitation of human wellbeing, which creates the uncanny, ‘low life’ side of cyberpunk.

#HK

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