POSTER IMAGE
THE WONDER OF YOU –> a film by Seth Ho
‘In this introspective exploration of identity and relationships, a young filmmaker reflects on the concept of being “two-faced,” revealing that we all wear multiple masks depending on the situation. He identifies three key personas: the anxious individual, the creative force, and the playful spirit, each shaping his view of the world and his interactions with others.
The Reflection of 952 words
- consider in what ways you hope your final work engages its audience and communicates a key concern of the studio? Draw upon your experiences from attending the studio exhibition.
include at least 3 x references to readings from the course/individual research to support your reflection
Engagement
I had carefully considered audience engagement since the beginning of this project.
This is because our studio, Thinking With Pictures, was built around a conversation between ‘I of the essay film’ and the ‘You’ of the ‘embodied spectator’ (Rascaroli (2009). Instead of aiming for a film, I aimed for an evocative essay film.
The class’s title ‘Thinking With Pictures’, refers to the studio’s goal; to create a functional essay film. In another essay, also titled ‘Thinking with Pictures (2019)’ Rascaraoli defines the essay film as a form of ‘lyrical structure’ and ‘logical scepticism’. In essence, it’s a piece that makes an explicit argument that presents well, within the context of a film.
Knowing this, I aimed to create a strong introspection discussion in a unique and skillful format. Because of prior experience, I understood that the audience of these studios would mostly be other media students, who were prone to primed towards discussions. So I wanted to be more ambitious, because as the saying (I found on the internet) goes ‘if you can make any audience laugh, you can make your audience laugh’ (Simons, 2024). To target ‘any audience’, I uploaded my video on Youtube.
Paradoxically, my idea itself was designed to be felt / engaged with, because no media exists on its own accord, it’s meant to be witnessed. With this in mind, I targeted an issue I felt that everyone could understand; the idea of being two-faced. Using different styles segmented by ‘chapters’ (really just being the 3 act structure), I was able to portray my arguments with depth. As discussed in our studio, ‘the eye likes to travel’, and I leaned on that.
I don’t need to speculate on ‘how I wish my work engaged people’ or ‘how I thought’, because in uploading it to Youtube, I received a wide array of comments that praised the visual style and themes. But, perhaps the most valuable comments, described their own experiences with being ‘two-faced’ and fitting in, which clearly demonstrates my ‘I’ interacting with their audience ‘you’, as referred to in the beginning of this text. You can check my documentation (on my personal blog) for archived examples of positive responses)
- outline the singular most successful and singular most problematic aspect of your process/finished work
The most successful feature of my work was described in the prior section, but to summarise it’s the cultural quality of my work. John Fiske (2010) describes this concept best, ‘the active process of generating and circulating meanings’, in this context we can apply it to audience engagement.
A problematic feature of my piece (on a technical level) may be the audio mixing, although this is just a byproduct of my laziness. The most problematic feature of my piece may have actually been my planning, although it worked out in the end, I felt like I could’ve planned out the idea linearly. I genuinely was writing the script at the same time I was getting the permits for locations, as well as designing them. This made me feel all over the place. With a little more time I think this piece would’ve been even greater, the small technical polishing could’ve added so much more. But then again, maybe this is all 80/20, as in it’s the 20% of stuff that would heighten the experience but not necessarily be noticed.
- imagine you are going to keep working on that media piece, what would be the core things you would want to improve and extend and why?
I would first develop the final act, slowing down the overlay’s framerate to about 12 frames per second. Then I would re-record the act in a more organised manner, perhaps actually writing a script. The images I would pick would be clearer in meaning, and the overlay may actually change from a white negative space to crude animation.
I would do this because I would like to better represent my inner thoughts, because as stated before ‘the eye likes to travel’. Despite this, I am still happy with what I produced, because it was an extremely unique effect.
So maybe i’d add more B-roll into the first segment, or a moving camera and evolving setting to play with practical / stagelike composition first.
- outline one key thing you’ve learnt from your studio experience that you will take into your future thinking and practice
My goal for this studio was to deepen the quality of my work. This refers to building connections between my array of skills (cinematography, editing, writing, advertising), I think I have succeeded, but also found a blind spot.
Right now it’s in the development and pre-production stage. I traditionally use a non-linear creative process, so this means that I tend to miss important things in my work. But for this project, I adhered to a linear structure, and I found that I was able to address important issues. Although I’m not used to this structure, I think continuing with this will allow me to effectively spend my time.
- what’s one key takeaway about working collaboratively?
In this project I collaborated with multiple people for each act. The biggest takeaway is communication. I benefited from knowing these people personally, having already been friends with them, so we were able to communicate our wants and needs easier. By sharing my goals and timelines to each of them, we were able to work effectively within our segments.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Fiske, John. Understanding Popular Culture. United Kingdom, Taylor & Francis, 2010.
Rascaroli L (2009) The Essay Film: Problems, Definitions, Textual Commitments. in Alter NM and Corrigan T (ed), Essays on the Essay Film (2017), New York, Columbia University Press, 183-196.
Rasacaroli L (2019) ‘Thinking with Pictures’, Sight and Sound , Vol 4 (12): 12-13
Simons, T. (2024). Reddit – Dive into anything. [online] Reddit.com. Available at: https://www.reddit.com/r/tommyinnit/comments/1fehzmt/reddit_blog_3_where_the_hell_ive_been/ [Accessed 25 Sep. 2024].