Tag Archives: Visual Story

Shadow of The Colossus, Visual Story Assignment

As part of our Visual Story course at Carnegie Mellons Entertainment Technology Center we were required to briefly analyze visual imagery in a piece of media. I choose the game Shadow of The Colossus as my subject matter.

Diagonal Lines

As the game begins with an eagle in the distance. The eagle descends into a mountain range flying rapidly, in a titled manner past our hero creating a momentary clear diagonal, and frame within a frame. The combination of techniques draw our eyes into that area of the screen where we our introduced to our hero clearly contrasted in brighter colors against the dark mountains.

Contrast

As our hero continues to travel under the cover of darkness, we see the moon peer out from the canopy. the contrast between the moon and the dark leaves draws our eyes in which the director then uses for a smooth visual transition to the next scene which has a horse’s feet moving at the position of the moon.

As our hero approaches his destination he encounters a pass. Our eyes are drawn to our hero in his bright cape, and the glowing pass which contrasts with the stone grey scene. The techniques help setup our eyes on to our hero and where he is heading.

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For Rent, 48 Hour Assignment

Introduction: As part of Visual Story at Carnegie Mellon’s Entertainment Technology Center we created a 3-4 minute video with a given main character and conflict. We created For Rent, choosing a mysterious stranger and don’t touch anything.

Time: 48 hours |  Roles: Director – Writer Producer Team Size: 5

My Contributions:

  • Wrote the original script
  • On scene helping with lighting
  • Arranging equipment and props
  • Conducting group meetings, and arranged props
  • Directed shots

The Chain, Visual Story Music Video Assignment

Introduction: The Chain was our final music video coursework assignment for Visual Story at Carnegie Mellon’s Entertainment Technology Center.  Our film won a Bronze Telly Award in the student category.

Award: Bronze Telly Award for Student Category

Development

Our final video was a highly streamlined effort. We first conceptualized an idea based on Ingrid Michaelson’s song The Chain. Our artist then created storyboards, and using those boards we created a rough ‘film storyboard’ with music.

Next we faced location scouting, in this regard the issue we encountered was not having a pure white background as per our storyboard. We adapted to this by finding a suitable ‘black out room’ to provide an all black background. Meanwhile we made a shot list from the rough storyboard that we had created.

the_chain_shotlistWith a shotlist, and locations to shoot we purchased necessary props, and went about filming on thanks giving.

As usual on set we changed the storyboard in various ways such as:

  • Thematic use of red
  • Inclusion of shots such as limited space, panning techniques
  • Use of props such as the teddy bear
  • Lighting e.g. using a sparkly dress to attract attention

After fifteen hours of filming, several hours of editing, the film was complete. It was well received by our peers and professors.

Finally we submitted The Chain to the student category of the Telly Awards.

the_chain_poster
The Chain Poster by Yong Jie Wong

Missed Connection, Visual Story VR Assignment

Introduction: Missed Connection is our virtual reality team coursework assignment for Visual Story at Carnegie Mellon’s Entertainment Technology Center.

A special thanks to the folks over at Carnegie Library for letting us film there + being awesome!

Time: 1 Week | Team Size: 5 | Role: Producer – Director

My Contributions: I was involved in various aspects of the project, primarily:

  • Location scouting.
  • Arranging equipment, props, and conducting team meetings.
  • Building our second Lego storyboard.
  • Directing our final film.

Development

Learning from our last assignment we went into this project prepared to plan properly. We began with an idea of a love story in the library. Following this we created a Lego storyboard, and script.

We then scouted libraries around Pittsburgh, ultimately finding The Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh.

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solo-editing-image

Solo Editing – Visual Story Assignment

As part of our Visual Story course at Carnegie Mellon’s Entertainment Technology Center we were given a solo editing assignment which required us create a video given professionally shot editing software. The following is my video. The music used is Denial Revisited by The Offspring.

Task

Our task entailed selecting footage from a number of videos, namely:

  • TN Parkour: First experience with editing & storytelling.
  • Stranger at the Door: Easy but more storytelling elements.
  • Anesthesia: More story(scary) with effects.
  • Unleashed: More challenging with Green Screen, VFX.

I chose to edit TN Parkour. With this video I attempted to create a music video of with cuts at beats, and attempted to tell a story of friends meeting up to do Parkour and ultimately feeling some sense of accomplishment at the end.

Visual Story – Space

After completing our first assignment our next involved exploring a different aspect of Visual Story. Space.

Space in visual story can be broken down into four categories:

  • Ambiguous
  • Flat
  • Limited
  • Deep

Ambiguous Space

Ambiguous space creates a feeling of confusion in the viewer. It can be created with the following elements:

  • Lack of movement.
  • Unfamiliar shapes.
  • Confusing tonal and textural patterns (camouflage)
  • Mirrors and reflections.
  • Objects of unknown size
  • Disorienting camera angles.

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Visual Story – Composition

In our Visual Story course we were tasked to take pictures demonstrating various visual concepts. Our first assignment involved composition, namely working with the following concepts in photography:

  • Balance
  • Filling the Frame
  • Frame Withing a Frame.
  • Lines.
  • Patterns.
  • Rule of Thirds.
  • Shapes.

Below are the pictures I took for each category with a little why for each.

Some of the following photos did not successfully capture the category, but I included them anyways because I enjoyed taking them.

Balance

Balance is a tricky concept well explained at photographylife.com. Essentially when I took my photos I focused on creating photos with two points of focus and symmetry.

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