User:Melly/textonpractice

Beyond The Rest,2021

Beyond the Rest is a 3-minute short film that takes place in a miniature forest. It begins with inviting the viewer to a mysterious world with a heavy bass soundtrack through the film. It aims to take the audience through an experience of audio-visual stimulation through offering an other-worldly feeling. It starts as a day-time in the forest and a voice over is heard, reciting a conceptual poem. In the middle of the film, it becomes night revealing an eerie feeling as 5 sculpture heads appear first closely and then scattered throughout the forest that represent the 5 main layers of human brain/psychology. At the end, plenty fireflies appear in the forest which are the only alive element of the forest. It touches upon the themes of void, rebirth and remanence.

Day 789 is a short film project I am currently working on. It investigates the possible outcome of being sheltered from the real world and being kept alone for a really long time. The short film is a miniature world set in few locations, such as a room and a fantastical forest. There is a female character which will be designed and made by me. Through voice-over she explains what she’s been dealing with and how she is afraid of going outside the room which represents her comfort zone. The character is introduced in a room with monochromatic and pale colors which accentuates the feeling of monotony. After the world and her story is established, she tells us about the other world she discovered which we later find out that it was created in her head. The forest is extraordinarily colorful where she instantly seems to be happier. The message of this film would be to get out of the comfort zone that we build and explore the world and seek discomfort since the only way growth happens is through that. The short film is not a stop animation but rather tries to achieve the narrative through strategically using the film language with camera movement. Through this work, I intend to investigate how to convey a variety of emotions with a character and the world that I completely build by myself. I believe that a strong art direction will help shape this project while integrating a narrative layer.

Both works aim to explore the methods of evoking emotions, setting a strong mood and conveying a story through a non-linear approach???. Similarly, the world is dystopian and it’s entirely designed. The way both works use the universal film language to establish the mood is quite similar and intends to subtly convey emotions and tell a story that the audience can relate to. Another relation between the works would be the way the character represents a layer or a concept and uses the same medium to establish it. In both works I keep part of the story open to interpretation so that the audience can perceive the story on a personal level.

The work Beyond the Rest is an experimental work that explores the possibilities of consciously using a non-linear storyline. It doesn’t follow a story and there is no concrete character. The voiceover is the main narrative which suggests feelings, rather than a story. However, the current work, Day 789 tries to push the limits of the possibility to tell a personal story through a concrete character and a more established world through realistic and fantastical world. After seeing what was possible with the medium of miniature, I fell in love with the artistic way of telling a story and building a world and a character by myself. Both works are quite similar in methods however, the recent work is more of an “experience” as it was my first time using this method whereas the current work aims to achieve telling a concrete story that’s set up in a more layered and suggestive world. Voiceover is much more crucial in the narrative in of the current work. In the recent work it acted only as a contribution of the abstract layer of the film.

After exploring my passion towards creating a small world and telling a story through that medium, I want to follow the same methods to tell my stories. I feel that it gives me the freedom that encourages me to tell the story I want to. I’m quite intrigued by pursuing the idea of looking through the world through a different scale. I would like to spend more time on creating a character and the world that helps to strengthens the story being told and suggest more direct links to the story itself. I would also like to continue taking an advantage of the film language with camera movements since the world and the character has a “still” nature, as the elements are not moving. In the future, I want to try to incorporate visual effects to a limited extent not to harm the nature of the medium but to reinforce it. In addition, as I get more comfortable and fluent with the components, I want to try to integrate more characters, instead of one protagonist. I believe that this story will ignite and trigger some thoughts.

The world I’m constructing will benefit from the help from the material station, to build part of the set. I've been researching about how to make miniature items I bought materials such as foamboards and thin wood plates. I feel comfortable with building the set however, as I’m not very experienced I need help from a person who’s been making miniatures and is quite fluent with it. Art direction department to make the world and possibly fashion department for the character’s costume which is quite important. It would also be helpful to receive feedback from artists who have been working on experimental films and are quite experienced/comfortable with the notion of the medium. They could guide me to find the right balance of how abstract to be for this specific project. Moreover, I am researching about the history of miniature filmmaking. This might help me get a different perspective on the medium I’m using.

I tend to come up with new ideas through consciously observing my surroundings and what goes in my mind so I can think of them as elements that I can implement in the story. Most of the time, I have a reoccurring image in my mind and I try to capture it by writing it down. Those images tend to be the final version of the project If I notice that something intrigues me, I try to go deeper and find out why. I try not to push the inspiration too much as I want the idea to form itself naturally. I believe that we get inspiration all the time without realizing, through every interaction. I try to find the reason and meaning behind it. I find inspiration particularly in the works of Rachael Olga Lloyd, Mohammed Hafez. For my current work, I started reading real life stories of people being stuck at home for a long time, however I realized that this project is much light hearted than the stories I read. Sometimes, I get inspired through a song that I’m listening to as it immediately forms a scene in my head.

Notes: Delve deeper into the meaning of non linear!