Month: May 2021

Unit 8 work placement, CV and portfolio

I wasn’t really excited about looking for work placement during covid but I still managed to put my work together during the Easter break.

CV and portfolio PAFS2 Pinhui ChenDownload
My show reel
Anna’s feedback :))))))

And a list of practitioner/company that I sent my work to:

Ged Clarke: Production designer, mainly does commercials. He was the production designer for The Fall (2006) by Tarsem Singh which is one of my favourite films.

He kindly replied and offered to meet me!
But I couldn’t meet him because of covid regulation…

The Mill: Production company for digital video contents and virtual experiences. I found them on Instagram and really liked their works, they represent mainly directors and people who work in post-production, but I’m really into music video/ fashion video production, so I emailed their design department. Which they didn’t reply.

Object & Animal: Similar to The Mill, a production company for commercials and music video, which produced some of my favourite music videos. And I got no reply either…

Andrew Tomas Huang: a Chinese- American director/ creative director who directed FKA Twigs’s Cellophane music video, and some short films I really like. And his works are really dedicated to Chinese culture but managed to make it really cool and not cliché, which is something I want to achieve someday. But there’s no reply…

Tianheyan 天何言 concept art studio: this Chinese company that did the production design for the upcoming Love, Death and Robots season2. They mainly do concept art, but I found their works really cool, so I sent them an email with my portfolio as well. No reply.

(I guess I should have researched on individual production designers instead of production companies to have a better shot. I’ve got some more recommendation from people around and I’ll keep trying after finishing unit 8)

I did help out a bit with the LCC film practice project TANK. I didn’t follow it through because they postponed the shooting, and I was too busy with my own project work.

Concept art I did for them
Character design

And someone I met from my foundation at LCC is preparing for a fashion film, so she contacted me about production design. I sent her my portfolio which she really liked, and we met up to discuss the project. It’s a 3-minute short film about a fashion photography’s sketchbook coming into life, which is really ambitious and challenging. But we really got along well, and I thought it would be really exciting to do the production design since I really like fashion film and music video, so I agreed to that. The actual shooting will be after September which I don’t know I can attend, but I have informed her about that, and she is still happy to have me even just for pre-production.

  • Messages between her and me, and basically she was reacting dramatically to my portfolio haha
  • We had our crew group chat and had our first production meeting already to work out a schedule.

Unit8 reflective journal new

Week0

  • Watched the 2015 film- great visuals, Lady Macbeth: most interesting character
  • Thinking about my choice of period- what can I replace a war with?
  • Thinking about my choice of location and period- Would formal colonial treaty port Pakhoi be a good one?
  • Watched films with similar background (and there’s not many of them out there)
My mom sent me those pictures of Pakhoi- a town I used to always spend holiday in, that has an interesting histrory of being a treaty port in 19th and early 20th cetrury. Hence there’s buildings with western features.
The Lover (1992) set in the colonial Vietnam in the 1920s.
I told sunset about you (2020) Beautiful beautiful story sets in modern day Thailand, and one of the protagonists lives in a shophouse. The third picture is them being in the courtyard in the shophouse and the distinction between the light and dark looks fascinating.

Week1

  • Marking the script- Helped me understand the characters and their relationships much better and picked up more details
  • Thinking about the ‘unspoken words’- Macbeth and Banquo in their last meeting, would this be a good choice of scenes?
  • Script breakdown in Excel- not that fun but helps to sort out the location and props, must be so handy on set.
  • Watched Akira Kurosawa’s adaptation Throne of Blood- Macbeth in an Asian cultural context, and the delicacy of Macbeth’s relationship with Banquo might really fit my chosen background.
Marking the script on my ipad
Script breakdown in story order.
Script breakdown in location order
Macbeth script breakdown (story order)Download
Macbeth script breakdown (location order)Download

Week2

  • Researched into my choice of architecture, and talking to Anna about how to use the set to indicate certain themes in the script
  • Researched into the history and develop my characters
  • Rough visuals, thinking about what the landscape is
  • Pictures taken in Nanning and Pakhoi(Beihai) by me and my mom, and painting by me
  • Pictures from Bridgeman Education
  • Pictures from Pinterest, Flickr
  • Pictures from Pinterest, the TV show Little Nyonya
Some of my research pages. I was able to find a lot of reference of shophouses in Malaysia and Singapore, but not those in Pakhoi, which is a bit frustrating both because apparently they are not getting enough attention and that I didn’t get to visit and research on them myself (maybe I had been into one as a kid, but I just can’t remember)
Picture of Tjong A Fie Mansion.
Contemporariness?- Wood structure and the bamboo blinds?
Also- I like this dark blueish green colour so much that this particular mansion became my main reference.

History time
I had the information shorten in my presentation but there’s quite a bit that I have considered but didn’t put out. So just in case you are interested what’s written inside. (It’s a very chaotic file btw)Download
A bit visualization of the initial idea: Macbeth, Banquo and Fleance in the shophouse.
The landscape (picture on the left by my mom who went there recently.
I made these models in Sketch up and Blender for fun. Because at this point I knew the whole ground floor as it’s really long, if I want to have the courtyard, I might not be able to make the shopfront for this set, but I still love them so much.
Also, I tried to be a bit organiazed this time.

Weeks3

  • Struggled to put my mood board together- source of the pictures and how to search? Also, how to convey a certain mood?
  • Some reading on colour theory- kind of decided on the colour palette
  • Film reference and painting reference- thinking about the genre and style
  • More rough visuals- I love my pencil drawings
  • Rough storyboard- confusing orientation within the shophouse, but that’s probably the fun of it
Art history for filmmakers by Gillian Mclver
My initial idea for colour. As I said I really liked the dark green in one of the reference pictures, and here I had it but a bit more blue, thinking about the colour of the sea, and according to the colour theory, dark blue creates the feeling of distance and that’s what I want.
  • The Fall (2006) and The Prisoner (2009)
Painting and film reference, how does it look like? I imagine a very high contrast and vibrant image filmed in 4:3, with the sharp film grains… which I couldn’t really find a reference image for, and that’t what I had at the moment.
Mood board 1st draft- probably not that moody. And I realized later I missed out the green (which is everywhere in this mood board but not on the colour palette)
Visuals- Me having no style so trying everything.
Kind of like story board visuals. I really liked the scene 101 one, of Lady Macbeth in the bedroom, but I ended up not doing it because it’s a separate room and just doing the courtyard is overwhelming enough for me.
Story board 1st and 2nd draft. I still find this my most favourite thing to do and it was during that I decided to add scene 75, and add Lady Macbeth listening in scene 76 which is not in the script, for it would make more use of the space.
I was bored so I made a zine.

Week4

  • Rough white card model
  • Rough tech drawings
  • Storyboarding
  • Presentation!
My first rough white card model. It looks nice with the columns and blinds (I think) and I got the light to work as how I want. I thought it was all good but looking back at it, it feels like the room just stops at the wall and feels a bit boring and plain.
Rough tech drawings. Not gonna lie it does look really boxy…
I researched a bit in the graphic style in order to create my presentation.
Presentation1Download
The presentation was just me racing through.. But I guess I did a good job explaining the context, and people liked my drawings! Still, there’s space to develop in terms of the design of the space.

Easter break

OK, so it was at this point where I felt this design is a bit limited… I made up my mind on this choice very early which made my pace really fast, but there’s probably a lack of experimentation comparing to other people. But it was probably a bit late to completely change my design and I didn’t want to do crazy experiments just for the sake of it because I just really like the space as it is. So I needed to figure out a way to be creative within the design that I already had.

  • Trying to be more creative with the boxy structure- change of the size and relocated the stairs
  • I wrote my version of scene 75 Macbeth Act3 Scene2 (Scene 75) rewrite
  • Thinking about symbolism and architecture details
  • Character design
  • Inaccurate dressing plan with a giant sofa
  • My dad who was an architect said I should reduce the size of the courtyard of people would have very limited space to move when it rains.
  • He also suggests putting the stairs by the courtyard, so you have the view walking up and down. And it gives the space more layers. But it’s awkward with a staircase in the middle of the room…
  • So I ended up putting in the corner. Still not sure if that’s better, but it makes more sense for the movement of the character in my storyboard.
  • A set model exhibited in the V&A
  • From the TV show The Little Nyonya. I like the lighting coming from the holes on the wall
Both Anna and my dad asked ‘what do we see behind the kitchen door/windows?’ and with my old model it’s just a dark little room, and you’ll think, ‘oh, that’s the end of the house then’, which is not very exciting. I found this picture I took in V&A and the space behind is brighter, so you know the space extends further, and so I decided to open up the kitchen.
New update, I added this weird door at an angle to create foreground. It doesn’t make any sense practically, but I mean… a plain wall is boring.
The floating column- a feature of traditional Chinese architecture, which wouldn’t normally exist in the courtyard, but after I read and rewrote the story, I realized there’s a lot of reference of predator and pray, and decided to make the doorway the shape of a mouth.

So as you can see, I’ve been saying that ‘It wouldn’t make sense in the real life but let’s do it’. In one of the earlier talk I remember Anna was saying, the design doesn’t need to be 100% realistic, but believable. And when I read the book Art history for filmmakers by Gillian Mclver, there’s this reference to the ancient Roman sculptures, saying that we wouldn’t actually know whether they’re realistic since there might be exaggeration on some features to emphasize certain quality of the subject (usually people in high status) , but we still find it believable. So I decided to challenge myself to think outside ‘what should be in the set in reality’ but at the same time find a balance of the reality and fiction.

Character design- I have my costume research in the presentation at the end so I won’t put it here because this blog is getting way too long.
So my dressing plan looks cute, but just not in scale.
I also had this page dedicated to the French, because the original owner of the shophouse, Duncan is French, so it’s heavily influenced by the French style. And maybe it’s a bit ironic, the French invaded this town, but Macbeth invaded this house, so I want him not to fit in by having French elements dominating this house.

Week5

  • Loads of lectures first week back
  • Started technical drawings
  • Nothing else basically, I was a bit unproductive
Though very boring, in general, this drawing didn’t give me too many problems as the one I did in unit 6 so far.
I found this website of George Town World Heritage Incorporate, which is really helpful for contextual information for shophouse in Penang Malaysia (George Town) and I referenced a lot from it. They also offered internship before Covid and I was just thinking it’ll be so nice to work in the preservation of shophouse…

Week6

  • Amended colour palette- very helpful feedback on how to lay the palette out
  • Technical drawings- 3rd time doing it yet still confused about a lot of things
  • Started the proper 3D model
  • Spent the WHOLE weekend on animatic- which I felt so proud of
My original layout
So in the feedback session, my lovely Henrike laid out her colour palette according to the portion each colour has in the space, and Anna suggested that as well. I had never thought about it but putting them in different size actually feels so different and much more straight forward than what I had done!
(which results in me rethinking my whole design decision for a while because it looks really… like my grandma’s clothing… but I started doing my sketch up model, and they look fine on the architecture, so I stuck to them.)
I can’t shrink this picture for some reason, but basically it’s my notes from the tech drawing feedback session.
Ok, my sketch up model didn’t look that good…
a guide for my had tech drawing from my sketch up model
  • Guides I made for the animatic, because I changed my set after I’ve done the storyboard, some shots might look different
  • Enjoy my beautiful drawings
Onto making the animatic. I have always just been free-styling it when it comes to video editing and never really had a logic behind the shots which is probably very bad… But this time I watched Jack’s video about breaking down the script and working out the shots, which I tried to do myself later. I had the storyboard already so it’s not like ‘omg it’s so helpful’, but it definitely made me much more organized when putting the shots together.
  • What I did for the animatic is, exporting my sketch up model in a drawing style
  • And drew on my iPad the characters
It actually worked very nicely!

Week7

  • Added sound to the animatic- which made me even more proud (Jack is soooooooo nice)
  • Tech drawings Tech drawings Tech drawings (Katerina is sooooooooo helpful)
I had a tutorial with Jack and that was a confidence boosting experience. There were tiny things I had to tweak on, but he said it was nice and gave me a lot of advice on my study in general as well. I have always been really into video editing but kind of left it aside after joining this course, but being approved on that really encouraged me and I think at the end of the day, knowledge of any aspect of film making would help me with what I’m doing anyway.
And on Friday, I came in with a ‘not wanting to do tech drawing’ mind but was greeted by the kindest person Katerina, who basically answered 100 questions from me (because I was confused about the ceilings, also which walls to build just for the set) and looked for tech drawings and set building videos for me to refer to.

Week8

  • Finishing tech drawing- yayyyyy (final drawing and model in the presentation)
  • White card model- not that difficult but I had back pain
  • Finishing Sketch up model (not really, because we can keep doing it for next unit)
  • Putting presentation together
All the different versions of my tech drawings (I’m horrible with naming things)
I didn’t have a bigger sheet or enough space, so I did the drawing on separate sheets and put them together in Photoshop. At some point I found things didn’t match up but from then on I laid them on top of each other from time to time to make sure it doesn’t happen again.
Another thing is, it was long after I started the final drawing in metric when I remembered we were supposed to try to do it in imperial for this unit! But it’s a bit unrealistic to restart, so I carried on drawing in metric. People who did it in imperial said it’s really confusing especially for those who has no idea how long things are in inches (like me), but it’s a good opportunity to train yourself for that, and I missed it…
  • Cutting out the ground floor
  • The upper floor, actually the windows are too big but they are barely in the shot so I left them like that.
  • The ground floor coming together!
  • Making the roof was not easy
My model making journey. It was not difficult but just very tiring and my hand hurts from holding the blade. The tip Anna gave us about leaving the edge for gluing really helped, and there was nothing that didn’t fit so once I cut everything out it all came together really quickly.
So I thought I could get away with not building the outer wall on the upper floor cuz they don’t show in the shots, but it turned out that you will shoot off the set from the opening for the staircase.
So I had to build all the walls on the upper floor. It’s kind of a waste and I could have planned something on the upper floor… maybe in the next unit?
I put the blinds and the figure in (more pictures in the presentation). I don’t know, it looks fine, but I feel like the stairs looks flat and didn’t add much…
Same thing in the sketch up model. And not just the stairs, the windows looks flat as well.
My texture folder. I customized my own tile patten and dark blue wood material.
So at some point I decided to colour the wall dark, which I think added more depth. But the stairs are barely visible.
Added the blinds and I opened up the ceiling on the upper floor, so there’s light coming through the hole above the stairs, which makes it look more interesting. But I hadn’t realized I missed out the key part— the sunlight!!
(Probably not the best idea)
The upper floor window looks bad because I made no effort… but the stone texture worked well.
Sunlight is in, and the stairs are a brighter colour now.
The kitchen feels nice, just a bit empty at the moment.

At last, some stuff that didn’t make into the final presentation:

  • Hand drawn characters
  • Lady Macbeth walking through the courtyard
  • Architectural details
  • One idea of the back of the building

The Grand Finale

  • My notes
  • Some feedback from Anna
  • People’s very kind feedback
I thought we each had 20 minutes to present so I had a 4-page note, but it ended up being just 10 minutes… I had to rush through and didn’t really follow my notes, so there are some bits that I didn’t get to explain very well… But I think the presentation that I spent an hour choosing a font for worked nice and clear and I got some nice feedback. The sound of the animatic didn’t play properly and I was a bit sad but you can watch it in this blog!
Final PresentationDownload

I amended the presentation according to Anna’s comment and here it is.

With every project I’ve done in the past, there’s always some stages where I just couldn’t stand it any more and got really sick of my design. But for this one, although I did feel as if I couldn’t bring it any further at one point, I had always been really passionate about it that it even amazed myself. I guess it is a really good choice for my set, and for all the stuff I’m still not very satisfied with in this set, I look forward to bringing it further in the next unit.

Also, a big thank you to Anna who gave us so many amazing talks and tutorials!!!

(Bibliography included in the final presentation)