See me in my works
Visual Metaphor
Sissi Zheng & Jane He
Concept | Storyline
The project name of our story is Schizophrenia, which represents the mental world of a Schizophrenia patient. The story can be divided into three stages, and each stage is hinted and connected by the going off of the candle.
At first, the patient doesn’t know what has happened. She is confused by the illusions – darkness, and shadows – she sees. However, one morning she finds herself locked in an empty room, implying the beginning of her illness.
Gradually, the patient has more symptoms of Schizophrenia. First, she notices that her time is inconsistent, that is because her awareness will be seized by one of her personalities without being noticed. Second, she finds a sense of oppression by internal forces. For example, the patient couldn’t control herself stop thinking. Many thoughts suddenly appeared in my mind. When people’s minds are filled with various thoughts, the patient feels suffocated and stressed.
Finally, the patient gives up hope. She considers herself is locked in this room forever, meaning that she could not get rid of Schizophrenia. Her illness worsens as time passes.
Inspiration
The topic of Schizophrenia is initially raised by Sissi. She watches documentary videos about Schizophrenia before, and she hopes to explore their mental world in our project. I agree with this idea because several friends of mine suffering from mental illnesses in high school, and quit school for a semester. Their experiences have a profound influence on me: I really want to help this group of people and let society no longer discriminates and excludes them.
After we determine the topic, we do some preliminary research on Schizophrenia to see what symptoms a patient would have, and how can we use camera language to express their mental experience and their thoughts. We research on the case study of Billy Milligan, and watch a film called Split (2020). Those researches inspire us to focus on two aspects: losing control of time, and the sense of crowded.
Preparation
I think the storyboard is very important for preparation. It benefits us from the following perspectives.
First, since we draw down the scene we want to shoot, we have a clear idea about what shooting location we’re finding. For example, we want the patient to sit in an empty room. Therefore, we search online to see if any art exhibition provides an installation that is an empty room. Luckily, we find the site we want in How Art Museum (昊美术馆) located in Pudong New District.
Second, the storyboard helps us to prepare props and shooting equipment. After drawing the storyboard, we make a list of what props we need to buy online and what shooting equipment we need to rent from the equipment room.
Third, the storyboard directs us to what angles to shoot. Since we write notes under the storyboard to show what angles we plan to shoot, we can shoot all clips without worrying about missing one. Of course, some adjustments are made during the shooting. We can try more angles in the field.
Fourth, the storyboard helps us in editing. Generally speaking, our edit is based on the storyboard. Because we shoot so many clips, the storyboard helps us to select which is useful and which is not.
Shooting Process
After drawing the storyboard, we find that we need both inside place for shooting. Also, we choose to use white as our video’s tone color, so the requirement of the site is simple and clean. For the inside scene, we shoot it in my apartment that has completely white walls. However, some settings, such as the projection of shadows on the wall cannot be set up in my apartment, so we turn to find some art exhibitions. We do the research on an app called RED, and enter keywords like Shanghai exhibition to filter the results. Within this app, we find two exhibitions that satisfy our requirement: “What is abnormality” hosted by The Black Museum and “Noire Lumiere” hosted by HOW Art Museum.
Sissi is responsible for preparing shooting equipment. We use her Samsung cellphone and a stabilizer rent from equipment room for shooting. I’m responsible for renting lighting equipment from equipment rooms and buying props from Taobao, including candles, balloons, and make up materials.
In my apartment, we do the setting together. For example, we put balloons on the wall together; when Sissi is shooting the clip, I will adjust the lighting equipment. Since both Sissi and me have the chance to be a cameraman, we direct together. We will discuss the angle and how camara move before shooting. Meanwhile, we share our opinion to each other, and discuss the possibility.
Editing Process
Since we have many short clips, we choose to layer them together to create a flashback (illusion part) and juxtaposition scene (eyes part). These two scenes are the most difficult ones, and we spend most of the time on them.
To create the flashback effect, I first use a razor tool to cut a clip into several more pieces and put them into different layers. To make the transition between illusions more fluent, I first copy clips and put them into three different layers, then apply the color balance (RGB) effect to each clip. Each layer is responsible to control one color (red, green, or blue). By adjusting the movement, opacity, and color balance, I create the effect of flashback.
About the juxtaposition, the original clips need to be cut to focus on the eye. We put an adjustment layer for color correction. The razor tool is applied to capture the clips we want to use. Also, we need to do some calculations to ensure that the clips are put in the center, also to ensure the time lasted for each clip.
Besides, I also learn the usage of adjustment layer, how to do color correction in the Premier. Moreover, I learn the usage of some effects, such as Glitch and VHS.
After editing the video, we need to add audio. Since the narration is in English, we don’t plan to add subtitles, but it’s important to let our narration match the scene. Thus, we use left and right to move between frames to capture the exact frame we want the audio to start. We don’t add effects on audio because we hope the emotion can be conveyed by the human voice. The only thing we edit is adjusting the volume level in Adobe Audition to make audio sounds consistent.
Challenges
Most of the challenges appear during the editing process.
First, the set up of the camera is wrong. Luckily, the setting is 3280 x 9072, which is bigger than the requirement, so we won’t lose resolution. However, since the clips are bigger than the setting of the sequence, sometimes we need to put the clips in a nested sequence.
Second, during the process of editing, we cannot preview immediately. The professor helps us solve this question by clicking the sequence, then choose rendering options. After the render, we can preview the video in Premier fluently.
Third, when I do the editing, I find one clip we must use is very unstable. Although we use a stabilizer when shooting, it seems that the equipment doesn’t work very well when we shoot this clip. However, the scene cannot be shoot again, so I apply the warp stabilizer VFX effect in Premier to make the clip stabilized.
After Sissi finishes her part of the rough cut, she could not export it because her computer is not good enough. I try to open Sissi’s project file on my laptop but fails. Since my Premier version is 2019 while her version is Premier 2020, I could not open the project file made by her. Therefore, Sissi has to edit her part again on my laptop.
Collaboration
Before shooting, I’m responsible for preparing props and rent lightning equipment from the equipment room.
During the production progress, I do the main role as a cameraman. Since Sissi acts as the patient in our project, I’m responsible for the shooting. However, due to the sensitive skin problem, Sissi cannot put makeup on her face, so we switch the role when shooting the scene of eyes. It’s me putting the eye shadow and act in front of the camera.
During the editing process, I edit the first 20% (until the juxtaposition of eyes), and Sissi edit the following 80%. We share the editing work like this because I’m responsible for writing the narration script, record the audio, and add sound into the video. In this case, I think Sissi plays the role as a visual producer while I play the role as a sound producer.
I think we cooperate very well. We share similar aesthetic values, so we always find resonance with each other during discussion; we can understand each other’s ideas very well. Sissi is productive, and she has professional editing skills. I learn a lot of skills in using Premier from her, such as how to do the color correction.
Aesthetics
Our aesthetics is influenced by the following videos:
Choi Sulli’s MV Goblin: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P5uE7KDkDFE
An experimental short video totiffany: https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1wi4y1E7L8
An experimental short video 视线练习: https://www.xinpianchang.com/a10412198?from=UserLike
The theme color is white, which corresponds with the topic that the mental world of a Schizophrenia patient. Therefore, the main color of this video is flat and bland, but we also neutralize this feeling by adding some colorful objects such as the balloons to make some changes without disrupting the overall feeling.
We mostly use fixed angle, but there’re moving objects in the scene, so it won’t be too boring. Close-up is applied when we shoot bubbles; when audiences see bubbles filling the screen closely, they can also sense the feeling of crowded and oppression experienced by Schizophrenia patient. We also include a long-shot at the end: the girl is walking through several doors, but she still cannot find an exist. This shot conveys the girl’s hopelessness.