Month: August 2017

Today I went to NGV with my group mates to make investigation, which is for finding out the immersive stuffs there. I went there with Cynthia, YeeNok, King and Wendell. Cynthia and Wendell brought cameras and the rest of us use smartphones to make video and pictures. Later we will share the notes, digital notes (videos and pictures) and personal ideas together. We went through the rooms that display different artworks. Some of them are displaying all the time but some of them are limit collections, which will be changed after a period.

I made some notes here. There are couples of immersive elements, the limit exhibitions, facilities, surroundings/atmosphere, building structure, order, classification, relaxing/rest place, explanation of the artworks and the light. Personally, the light classification, explanation of artworks and the light immerse me most. The exhibition of each rooms is different, including ancient Asia collections, European collections in 17-19 century and modern creative artworks. The kinds of artworks are also various, including painting, china, statue, ware, photographs, 3D video, digital painting, and furniture. Basically, the artworks are classified by the time, region and artists. The clear classification is benefit for  learning the story from the series of artworks easily. In addition, the introduction/explanation of each artwork can tell the background in detail as well. The most interesting thing is the light. Some display rooms are dark but some are very bright. We are confused about the reason. Then we ask the staff in there, he told us that the background of each room is different, the gray background creates darker light; the white and blue wall make the room looks very bright. However, he didn’t know why they are set like these. On the other hand, I know that some rooms use black wall and only use spotlight on the wares is for highlight the wares, make the details clearer.

Those are some basic findings of today, we will do further research of NGV, or we probably will visit it again or visit other gallery if needed.

I went to watch Wolf Warriors 2 last week with my friend. I’ve heard  various of commends about the film before watching it; therefore I watched it with a big expectation. It is an action movie directed and acted by Jing Wu. It is about a retired soldier named Leng, who was in Chinese secret military organization called Wolf Warrior. He goes to Africa for revenging his lover (was killed), and gets involved into the civil war there cause by the Rebels and mercenaries. He saves the locals and other Chinese residents’ life, and eventually kills the leader of mercenaries, who has killed his lover with his own hand.

Wolf Warriors 2 gets are rated high, breaks many box office records. It is known as the first and only non-Hollywood film ever to be included in the top-100 list of all-time biggest worldwide box office grosses. What makes this film immersive?  Film production and the significance of patriotism are the reasons. For one thing, the action shot of the characters is wonderful, actors have protectional guidance and trained well. The audio and visual effects are also attractive. For another, the patriotism of characters are also immersive, especially to Chinese audience. The whole film is praising our country, which grabs Chinese people’s psychology, stimulates them. As a result, it makes success, refreshes new record in Chinese cinematic history.

We’ve separated into groups for the project 3 in class on Friday. Our chosen immersive space is gallery. In the class, we made the research about different kinds of galleries, including the national gallery (NGV), Contemporary Art Centre (ACCA), Centre of Moving Image (ACMI) and some private galleries such as RMIT gallery; then we also found the exhibitions are held at present in those galleries. Personally, I am very interested in the Hokusai exhibition which is on show in NGV; what’s more, I’ve been there a lot of times because I enjoy the artwork, I think NGV has many stuffs are worth to discover. As a result, I strongly recommend to visit NGV. Our group are also keen on NGV, so we decide to visit together on next Tuesday. It;’s our fundamental resource, if need be, for example, comparison or additional information, we will visit other gallery. On the other hand, one group mate said it is better to research a place that involve both visual and audio elements, NGV is lack of audio aspect; so he thought we’d better go to a digital media gallery. Actually I disagree with his opinion, I consider that NGV also has the immersions except for the visual artwork, we can start from there first then add other immersive elements from other place, make it various and comprehensive.

Amélie is one of the films that give me deepest impression. The plot of Amélie is simple, ordinary — an adventure of Amélie helps people; instead, it wins many awards. Its cinematics plays the decisive role. The whole film is made by montage.

Talking about its narrative montage, filmmaker combines pieces of visions to describe a each character — Amélie’s father is gloomy and only planting; the owner of the fruit shop is irritable; the old artist with brittle bone disease never go out of his home and draw the same painting over 20 years… Those visions seem have no connection, but actually they have common characteristic: lonely. Montage technique connects them, makes them unitive, thus develops the following story — Amélie heals these persons, as well as herself.

What’s more, the use expressive montage is wonderful as well. Filmmaker only uses frames as its narrative form, express characters’ mental activities by transferring in different scenes. The flashback, imagination and dream can directly build the character’s characteristics. For example, Nino (the man Amélie loves) was a few minutes late when he has date with Amélie; Amélie started to fantasize that Nino might be kidnaped, then a series of horrible events coming, breaks their love relationship… Filmmaker uses black-and-white film in this illusion part, not only show Amélie’s mental activity completely, but also increase fun. 

I also like the color and background of the film, which give me French romance. The main tone is in green and red; when the scene is in memory, the color transfer to yellow, that makes me feel warm. Although the plot is normal, the film is fantastic.

video: https://vimeo.com/229363229

At the beginning of this project, I chose to make audio for the video artwork, because I shot the video at week one, I want to challenge myself and try both. However, when Darrin saw my draft, he thought that the audio I made is not suitable for the video since I don’t know much about editing sound. He suggested me to choose my strength. As a result, I redo the project, pick one audio from Google drive and start to shoot video.

The audio artwork I have chosen is from Numpark Sribanditmongkol. The reason of my choice is I think this sound is creative, leaves suspense and  a big range of development space and imagination, so I can use abundant sources. To be honest, I felt flustered firstly when I need to restart, because I was afraid that I don’t have enough time to finish. Therefore, I just shot several pieces of videos aimlessly. Then I tried to find some ideas from those videos by watching them again and again, as well as the sound. Finally, I had some thoughts about how to link those videos with the audio. In my opinion, this audio gives me dizzy feeling, makes me feel like traveling through the time. As a result, I decide to create a phantasm and make a contrast with reality.

I combine my video pieces with the audio artwork by following the audio rhythm. For example, there are some footstep sounds, so I put the footsteps video in that part. But it is too monotonous if there is only footstep’s vision, I add some video piece of train at the same time, which enrich the content and effect. In addition, the main sound track is about the train, thus I put different components relates to train such as train track and passengers, then I try to match the vision with the rhythm of the sound. The original footage has fuzzed up the middle piece of sound, which is inside the train: the speed is faster and the sound seems like coming from far. This is the most interesting part, I add some additional scenes in this part to build the “phantasm” (the footstep, train track, outside and inside of the train, revolution door and street view), and also accelerate the speed of those visions. Besides, I use different effects and transition there such as adjusting the scale of vision and color; use strobe light, twirl, replicate; reconstruct the vision pieces, etc). At last, I decelerate the final part after the sound “arriving” (including the train arrive, the previous accelerating revolution door moves slower and the footstep stop), which means the “phantasm” is over and return to reality. Decelerate the speed can enlarge the contrast between phantasm and reality.

My goal is to build the actual feeling of getting dizzy in the unreal journal at train then come back to reality quickly; also fully blend the vision and the sound. The final video will create a dizzying feeling, makes viewer feel involved in the “phantasm”, and consider themselves as the time traveler. I hope you will enjoy it.

The second reading of week two is about the camera and post-cinematic affect. It states that an image can be changed through the digital mediums, thus operate our sense (visual or even the perceptual). Let me pick an example.  I have watched the film Guardians of the Galaxy 2 recently. The section that immerse me most is the visual effect of the film. Especially the overview of the galaxy and garden city. Mostly, the background of the story is grand, magic and vivid; though we know it is unreal, we still feel strongly involved. This is the contribution of the post-editing.

Below is the video shows the filming process of Guardians of the Galaxy 2. We can see the power of post-cinematic affect from huge difference between the origin and the post final effect.

Below are the screenshots of the film on screen.

 

We know that the actual background is only a blank screen, but in the final film, it presents the scenes for example in the space, or a fairyland.

The reason of the influence perceptive influence is “the transformation at stake here pertains to a level of being that is therefore logically prior to perception, as it concerns the establishment of a new material basis upon which images are produced and made available to perception”(Denson). In other word, the concept of film starts building before the previous logic or it breaks the previous logic. Digital and post-cinematic media technologies establish entirely new con gurations and parameters of perception and agency (Denson), insert the new concept into audience, gives new feeling to them. We can say it is the huge reform of cinematography.

 

This reading analyzes the audiovisual relationships with human brain. As Verhagen said, sound stimulates human’s brain before visual picture, we will be easily influenced by the hearing sound. So how do the sound manipulate our mind? By adjustment. As a result, those sound components including timbre, pitch, volume, rhythm, tempo, spatial location, are processed by our brain, produce different reaction of us. There are many works of adjusting sounds, and those works are not conflictive.

I am curious about how the sound impact our brain. After further research, I found that when a sound reaches certain frequency as a stimulator, human brain will make respond to that sound in the same frequency of activity, produces resonance (in brain wave). High frequency of sound can activate the new neuron circuits in human brain, therefore human brain is stimulated and become more active.

Similarly, audiovisual in cinema affects audience’s mental activity. Sound stimulates brain more quickly than visual, this is why silent film have less possibility to get the audience involved. Filmmaker usually use audio effect to create the atmosphere he wants. In horror film, the background music and special sound effect would be towering, strange and uncomfortable, which aim to scare audience. In an action film, normally the audio effect would be intense and excited when the conflict begin; at that moment, audience would get the resonance thus become nervous as well.

This doesn’t mean that visual picture is not as important as sound. The point is, a picture with different sounds can produce different results.

 

The first reading of week 2, Cinema, Trance and Cybernetics (Holl) tells the relationship between experimental cinema and psychological reactions of the spectators. Experimental filmmakers use cinematic techniques on camerawork and post editing aim to lead spectators follow their thought. Usually, the camera angle and movement, the transition of sequences and framing makes a big influence. However, the reading says ” the subjects of perception (spectators), into new relations, in which they only consciously find themselves after they have already given themselves over to the transformation caused by this cinematically constructed perceptual relation”; that indicates different spectators have different perceptions of a movie depend on their experience, knowledge and values. In the experimental film Daisies, the editing of the scene and camera angle gives a special visual effect to spectators. We can see the same movement of the film,  but hardly get the same thought about what the film trying to tell us. Overall, filmmaker uses above techniques to express the main concept of this film — to release the women freedom, though we can see more other aspects from the film. How can we generally get the main concept? This is the effect of cinematic techniques. Filmmaker highlight the movement of the actress, cut the frame properly, control the speed of the film to  carry the spectators psychological activities.