Film Studies & Cinematography / Project 1

on
24.09.2024 - 29.10.2024 (Week 1 - Week 6)
Ng Kar Yee / 0367743
Bachelor of Design (Honours) in Creative Media
Film Studies & Cinematography / Project 1

LECTURES

Week 1⇒ Introduction & Briefing

On our first day, Mr Kamal gave us a brief introduction on the module and told us what to expect for the current semester. He gave us a brief introduction on the whole 14 weeks module on Miro. 

MIRO NOTES


Week 2⇒ We Are All Storytellers

Importance of storytelling in movies 
  • It emphasizes the concept of writing what you know and incorporating personal experiences into stories to make them more relatable.
  • The power of storytelling lies in its ability to connect with people on an emotional level.
  • Incorporating personal experiences into stories makes them more alive and relatable.
  • Stories evolve through multiple retellings before they become perfect.

Your Unique Perspective

  • Each person emphasizes the importance of personal experiences and unique insights in storytelling.
  • Viewers are encouraged to think about a vivid memory and express it in different ways.
  • Highlights the power of storytelling and the unique perspective that each person brings to their stories.

World & Character

  • World and character are essential elements in storytelling.
  • The world can be a metaphor for a deeper theme, like growing up in Toy Story.
  • The character should be captivating and compelling, even if the world takes a backseat.

MIRO NOTES

Week 3⇒ The Character

  • Character Development is a lesson that explores how to make audiences care about characters by putting them in difficult situations.
Highlights
  • Characters should be deeply flawed yet entertaining, as flaws can be key to why audiences care about them.
  • Characters will guide the audience through the story, sharing their lessons, challenges, and emotions.
  • The lesson encourages experimenting with different exercises to create compelling characters.

MIRO NOTES

Week 4⇒ The Story Structure

What is structure
  • Structure is the organization of a story.
  • The order in which we present information impacts audience engagement and the emotional impact, so storytellers constantly experiment with different approaches to story structure.
  • Basic structure: Opening, Middle and End
Story Spine
  • Story structure is like a building foundation, and story beats are important moments in a story. A story spine is a simple pattern to organize a story. 
  • It helps us understand a story's flow and create our own stories.

MIRO NOTES

Week 5⇒ Script Writing

Screenplay Format
If you are writing a feature film script that you want a professional producer or development executive to take seriously, then you need to be writing in the Master Scene Format.

Figure 1.0 Script Writing Format

MIRO NOTES


Week 6⇒ Film Grammar

Elements of Film Grammar
  • Framing
  • Staging
  • Motion
  • Editing
MIRO NOTES

INTRODUCTION

PROJECT 1⇒ STORY DEVELOPMENT

For first project, Mr Kamal introduced Story Development to us which we will create short story for animation project step by step using the weekly courses as a guide. We will start by coming up with ideas, then construct characters, a setting, plot arcs, and themes. Finally, we will write a screenplay that ready for production.

For this task, we are required to prepare a report document with the specified content format,
  • Story ideas – logline and synopsis
  • Character descriptions
  • World descriptions
  • Story arc
  • Theme
  • Screenplay writing

RESEARCH 

To have a head start, I decided on doing some research on short story or animation on Youtube.

Overcomer Animated Short | Hannah Grace
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V6ui161NyTg

(Piper) A JOY STORY - Oscar winning short film
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iR-JFks6uI0

Let's Eat - Award Winning Animated Short Film
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0MX_fJAhmEE

Short film about dealing with depression | "Fallin' Floyd" - by Albert 't Hooft & Paco Vink https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3-s0UIYc66U

Sinking Feeling
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3-s0UIYc66U

DRAFTING

After looking high and low for inspiration, I started on drafting the story and draw out some reference. After serious considerations, I decided to go for a mental health theme as mental health is a hot potato topic nowadays. Therefore, I would like to spread awareness through the project to increase the awareness on the importance of one's mental health being.
 

DRAFT STORYBOARDING

Beside of coming out of a draft, I also decided to draft out my story so that Mr Kamal have a better understanding on what I would like to express.

Figure 1.1 Drafting Storyboard

After getting some feedback from Mr Kamal, he advised me to go the second story draft which is having possite ending instead of having a sad one as it would be more educational. Therefore, I decided to go for the second idea however I did combine some of the ideas from draft 1. 

FINAL STORY DEVELOPMENT

FINAL SCRIPT

FEEDBACK

WEEK 4

Figure 1.2 Feedback 1

Figure 1.3 Feedback 2

REFLECTION

Working on Story Development has been a fun ride where I got to enhance my skills and knowledge in scripting and storyboarding. Besides, it was new experience as it was my first time learning to do write a whole new story by myself. Moreover, we have the opportunity to analyze and explore different type of animations and see how profesional share there knowledge in animation. This project was challenging yet interesting for me as I need to combine creativity and expressing skills however with the guidance I got from Mr Kamal and my friends, I managed to finish the tasks.

Comments

Post a Comment