Made for UTB CC4262 Emotions Engineering Task 5: Influencing Emotions 2 (Collaborative Video) (Semester 7, 2020)
Influencing Emotions (Sadness)
By Alvin, Arik, Naderah, Rahmah
This project was done as a collaboration of 14 UTB Creative Multimedia students in 4 different teams, each producing a short 30-60 seconds video connected by the same character or object, but emphasizing on influencing different emotions - sadness, happiness, anger & fear.
As a group of 4, we chose sadness as our theme & produced the following video.
Sadness (1/4)
The video above is the first in the sequence, followed by Happiness (2/4), Anger (3/4), then Fear (4/4).
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Planning & Discussion
In order to have all 4 videos have parts of the same story, the 14 of us held a group discussion for the narrative & production for the project. Some pointers thrown around included Mental Health Awareness Month, psychological horror/thriller, looping storyline, plot twists, cursed item, murder & multiple endings. After 2 days of planning, we wrote a solid storyline which hits most of the pointers mentioned.
Ultimately, we decided to follow the journey of 1 character as she goes through a hard time, with the story told mostly linearly with flashbacks. The 4 videos would showcase (in order) sadness, happiness, anger, then fear. The production would involve all 14 of us, filming to be done in the same day(s) & each group editing their own video.
Once all the ideas are finalized, risk assessments are written before proceeding to production of the video. All the members involved in this task given their consent and the risk associated in each locations are assessed.
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Equipment & Props
Filming Equipment
Camera : Canon EOS 6D & Canon EOS 800D
Lens : Canon 50mm 1.8, Canon 100mm 2.8, Canon 10-18mm 4.5-5.6
Extra : Tripod (lightweight) , 3 SD cards , camera shoulder strap , various ND filter
Camera : Canon EOS 6D & Canon EOS 800D
Lens : Canon 50mm 1.8, Canon 100mm 2.8, Canon 10-18mm 4.5-5.6
Extra : Tripod (lightweight) , 3 SD cards , camera shoulder strap , various ND filter
On-Set Props
Objects : Shovel, smartphone, EyeGlo eye drops (for fake tears)
Outfit : 2 (for burying & for weeping)
Objects : Shovel, smartphone, EyeGlo eye drops (for fake tears)
Outfit : 2 (for burying & for weeping)
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Storyline & Character
Character
The full production required 2 character actors. Aida Ruzana Bungsu - one of our 14 production members & fellow course-mates - played the main & the only only character to appear in our video. She played the role of a cat owner who loves her cat dearly & (after a recent tragic loss) terribly misses it. The character was to be portrayed as a quiet person whose actions are mundane & unenergetic.
The Storyline of Our Video
Our video starts with Aida (the character) burying something in a plot of dry land. The actual hole itself is hidden by a pile of dirt that she is shoveling back into the hole. After the burial, she stands in silence, looming over the fresh heap of soil, sorrow & despair filled her mind as she grieves over the buried soil. Sometime after, Aida scrolls through her phone, eyes welling up as she reminisces over her dearly beloved cat whom she had (through implications) lost earlier.
The Full Story
The full story of all 4 videos combined revealed a twist in our video; the time jumped between Aida grieving over the grave & her scrolling through her memories of her cat is not a fast-forward but instead a flashback. Chronologically, the story starts with the latter half of our video, then the Happiness video, then the Anger video, then the first half of our video which is part of the Fear video.
It's a story of Aida who while grieving over the loss of her dear cat, found an abandoned cat plush which becomes her comfort blanket. She is happy with the cat plush, bringing it everywhere she goes. However, an outsider character (played by Najib Hamid) finds this weird & uncomfortable, confronting Aida to tell her how everyone thinks she looks insane. In a fit of rage, Aida accidentally murdered Najib. Fearful of what she did, she drags Najib’s body to a remote location & buried him; now feeling both remorse & grief. It's a story of a person whose mental & emotional state was affected by immense sorrow.
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Location Scouting
The 14 of us discussed & considered a few options while looking for suitable places for production & all of them were in UTB campus grounds. Ultimately, we went for the areas towards the edge of the campus that have less foot traffic or potential interruptions in the afternoon & opted to use the same locations for the production of all 4 videos.
(i) For First Half of the Video
For the first half of the video, we needed a plot of land with soil, dirt, or short grass that can be dug up - this includes both red & green areas. During planning, the top red area was excluded due to the amount of equipment, personnel & props to be brought along, while the bottom red area was excluded because of on-going excavation. During site visit with the other teams, we chose area A (at the edge of UTB Isle Garden) out of the green areas as the nearby excavation made the ground easier to dig up & it borders a long grass field.
(ii) For Latter Half of the Video
For the latter half of the video, we needed a large open space with seats. At the campus, the two blue areas are the buildings that house such places. Ultimately, we decided for the Common Engineering Block (CEB) building marked as area B since the other filming locations are nearby & the building is generally quiet after lunchtime. The empty concourse of the building was perfect to shoot a scene with a sense of emptiness in the surroundings.
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Storyboard
Framing Conventions
Extreme Close Up Shots are used to intensify the emotion and make the audience focus on the emotions presented by the actress. These close up shots capture the face of the actress and it can enhance the sad emotions that is portrayed by the actress which is the main key in the story.
Medium-Wide Shot shows the actress cut off across the leg just below the knees. It is wide enough to show the environment in the vast land where the action takes place.
Wide Shot is also also known as a long shot or a full shot, it is a shot that shows Aida and the surrounding environment. The environment shows Aida is all alone in a quiet surrounding, this can be used to present the emptiness of the person that has just lost the most beloved ones.
The overall durations for the cut is longer to match the pacing of the emotion
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Color Grading
Colder colors - like blue & gray - especially if dark, desaturated & muted can be used to express loneliness, & sorrow. Hence we used this general color principle to intensify the gloomy atmosphere portrayed in the sadness-themed video.
Specifically, we placed an adjustment layer above all the color-corrected scenes to apply color grading. The temperature leaned towards the cooler (blue) tone to give a sense of melancholy. The exposure, contrast, highlights, shadows, whites & blacks were lowered so the overall film looked more monochromatic as if the character & environment are devoid of hope & optimism. The saturation & vibrancy were also lowered to take out some of the colors as if to show that the character’s world has become colorless & miserable after the loss of her cat.
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Foley, Music & SFX
Music
At the start of the video, there was no background music playing to establish that the short film is more towards being serious. The lack of music was an attempt to entice & ground the viewer into the atmosphere, focusing on listening to the sounds of the activity being done. Once the atmosphere is set & the viewer is given enough mystery through the visuals alone, the story “jumps in time”.
Shortly before this jump, the atmosphere should begin to relax as the mystery is explained, so we used sad-sounding music to enhance the sad emotion of the video. The only music used featured a slow piano piece to match the character’s emotion & unenergetic activities.
Foleys & Sound Effects (SFX)
During filming, there were a lot of external noises from the surrounding environment and excavation sites picked up in the background which would have ruined our scene. Hence we decided to use Foley to get clear sounds that match the action portrayed. The Foleys that were used were needed to immerse the viewer into the film by giving context of where the scene took place. Additionally, some man-made sound effects were subtly added to ease the visual transitions from one scene to another. By the end of editing, we used the sounds of shoveling, falling dirt, ambient nature, and building pressure sound effect.
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Behind the Scenes
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