Assignment 3 - U C What I C: Visual Story

Assignment 3 - U C What I C: Visual story

Brief synopsis on Assignment 3:

• Write and create a story
• Telling a story (visual narrative) with just 10 photos
• All contents must be original (plot to be written by ourselves)
• To include a twist to the story
  

Do you all think each Assignment is getting tougher? I wondered does anyone shares the same sentiment as me? Nevertheless this is indeed a challenging assignment as i only have four days to plan my storyboard, find actors and do shootings plus editing within this tight timeframe.

Drafting storyboard and sourcing for actors:

Due to my other modules project commitments, i only managed to came up with sketches of the storyboard on friday evening. Due to the time constraint i only had two sketches in mind. Please pardon me for my ugly drawings. As i only draw them in sketches so that i will not forget about the storyline.

1st Storyboard:

The sequence of this storyboard is from top left towards the right, follow by bottom left to right

1st scene -
A gal is talking on her mobile

2nd scene -
A guy is looking at her from a corner ( looks as if he is interested in her)

3rd scene -
He walks towards the gal

4th scene -
Start to make conversation

5th scene -
The gal blush

6th scene -
They are happily chatting

7th scene -
The guy asked for the gal mobile number (passed his mobile to her)

8th scene -
A shoe flying

9th scene -
The gal actually run off with his mobile (the reason to why the guy is throwing his shoe at her )

2nd Storyboard:

1st scene -
A gal walking up the stairs with a big shopping bag ( from the perspective of the guy's view)

2nd scene -
A guy walking down the stairs looking at her (from the perspective of the gal's view)

3rd scene -
Her shopping bag dropped and things fall out from the bag.

4th scene -
one of the item rolled down the stairs

5th scene -
The guy helped her picked up the item

6th scene-
Returned her the item and try to start a conversation

7th scene -
They chatted happily

8th scene -
The guy threaten the gal for money using a weapon

9th scene -
However she was a martial art expert

10th scene -
The guy quickly run for his life.


The final choice:

Initially i opt for the 1st sketch as i thought of shooting it in a comical way with a nice twist at the end. However i could not find any female actors who are willing to do this shot. Therefore i have to opt for the second storyboard.

Special thanks to Liling and Lawrence who volunteer to help in my shoots. Below are the photos that i took based on the second storyboard.

Feedback from the class:

For pic 5:

Some of them feel that they could not really gauge which one is the guy hand and vice versa. However from my point of view, when i took this shot my purpose is to let the audience guess who actually pick up the item

For pic 8:

This photo supposed to show the guy robbing the gal. However the position of the guy is at the wrong place as they tend to relate the right hand side for the placement for the gal based on the previous photo.

For pic 9:

Some of them commented that the impact is not there yet while some think this pic has conveyed the intended message. When i took this pic, i was trying to emphasize the facial expreession of the painess of the guy (The emotion of the guy). Therefore, i think this picture is fine.

For pic 10:

He dose not look like he is running.

Based on these comments, i have modified some of the pictures.

Modified Version:

Glad that i have took quite a number of alternative shots. Hence I have replaced with another picture with the guy on the left side, if you notice on the picture above the guy's hand is in his pocket.So that there will be linkage between pic 7 and this pic shown below that the guy is putting his hand into the pocket and take out the weapon:

Previously they comment that he dose not look like running so i have modified the photo using photoshop. This photo initially looked like this:

I have used photoshop to edit the pic to shift the guy more towards right hand side allowing him more space to run. In addition, i have rotate the guy position slightly to enhance the feeling of running better that derives the picture for pic 10 shown below:

Difficulties faced while doing this assignment:

• Is SO HARD to find people to help out in my shots due to the short time span
• Even if i have better plot, they are not willing to take up also.
• Initially for my 2nd storyboard i thought of using weapons such as knife or penknife to give it a more threatening feel. However due to the human traffic is quite high and i reckoned they will most likely mistaken it as a real robbery case, hence i replaced it with scissors.
• Nevertheless, both of them are not professional actors and there are lots of scenes where we had lots of ridiculous and hilarious actions.
• From the photos, most of you will probably think this is a secluded place but you are wrong! As one of them stay at Ang Mo Kio while the other stay at Boon Lay. So in order to compromise each other, our shots took place at Tanjong Pagar around 9pm. Never do we expect there will be so many people passing by and tourists too!!! They thought we were local tv program doing fliming. Hee what an interesting encounter.

Lesson gained from this assignment:

• It is vital to do storyboarding, as it allows the team to visualize what kind of shots a director will expect. With the storyboard, it enables the photographer/cameraman and actors to have a rough idea on what are the angels and position to stand in order to capture a good shot.
• Is always good to take few more alternative shots in case the initial shots do not fit well into the story.
• Do planning before the shootings so that there will not be a waste of time spent.
• Even thou it is just 10 simple shots, we took about 3 hours to complete it. It is never easy as many unforseen circumstances arise. Under this kind of situation, one need to be calm and be flexible to think of alternatives way to solve the problems
• If you all have noticed, all my shots had simple background as i want to portray clear and precise visual cues by reducing misleading elements. In addition i have attempted compositions such as rule of thirds and selective focus to make the photos more appealing with stronger message convey.