That Darn Assignment Part Trio

Interesting comment in my IVLE upload: 14 people commmented on my blog. Is that a good enough excuse to be later than 6.30pm?

So here's my response to the 14 comments individually. For a general one, please view the comments in Part Deux.

“I think you have a great storyline going on. The pictures in the beginning showed sadness (the letters, gifts, when were depressed). However i think the rest of your pictures didn't really portray it clearly enough? Were your pictures supposed to express loneliness?

Plus i realised that your pictures didn't contain any people in it. Is there a reason for it? Personally for me, i feel that one of the ways to express loneliness in a person is to take the picture of a person who looks lonely. Eg. a person sitting on a bench, or a person reading a book on his own? Basically, taking pictures of single people doing some form of activity on their own. =)” (Rebecca Oh)

Good point on that. However the intention was that these places where I used to go are now empty because… well, I’m alone.

“I think it's because these are specific memories shared by you and your ex. So to the rest of us we don't see much relevance of it to us.

I suggest you could 'hire' a girl to act as your ex? Like you two can sit on the benches together in one pic, perhaps in black & white, and then in the next pic, in color, the bench is empty. Think the feel of sadness would be stronger. :) (Anonymous)

Spot on with that one. Gotta remember that I’m making it for other people, not just myself.

“Hi Chris, I like your idea of finishing the video off with a scene similar to the opener. However, I feel that to make the whole thing appears as 1 session of reminiscing, you should start off with your character staring into space and perhaps end with someone else shaking your character out of his daydreams.

Also, I agree with what Rebecca said. To portray loneliness, the best way will be to show a person being alone. In the pictures that showed at the end, I could only see various items/scenes and they do not seem to express any meaning.

Perhaps you could add people into the video? That would add a human touch and create empathy.” (Xueli)

Good point. That means there’s an obvious problem there. The pictures aren’t tell the story correctly. I’ll need to do something about that – better pictures or different pictures.

“Hi, I thought that probably you could have some text or some description going on at the beginning of the clip so that one could understand your video right from the start? Cause actually i didnt really understand the story in the beginning. but, nice song =)” (Anonymous)

Ok that sounds bad. The fact that you couldn’t understand the starting bit means there’s really a problem with it somewhere. I thought that of the whole video, that part would have been the most self-explanatory.

“Chris~ I don't like the music and then the narrative part butts in like the video you provided. It's distracting. May be you wanna narrate with the background music altogether? Contradictory to what Rebecca feels I think the empty spaces works out fine for your part. I could sense it. Someone commented on using an actress... I don't think you will do it right. And I would say not to use it. It's bad and the other is it's like the aftermath of a broken relationship so don't think you should include. And I guess what you want to portray is the emptiness more than recalling the good old times aye?” (Su Pei)

You’re spot on with that bit. But I dunno if the video is achieving that aim considering the other feedback I’m getting. Seems like intention differs from perception.

“Similar to what the rest have commented, I do not really get the feel of loneliness you are trying to portray. Especially the series of the benches pictures.

Perhaps you could get some one to pose as your gf and you sitting at the benches Followed by the next scene is her gradually fading away. Guess that will portray a better feel of loneliness and sadness.

In addition, i feel that currently your .mov has a lack of human touch, is very cold. Just a suggestion here, instead of ending the story with two paragraphs, you could narrate yourself. I believe this will make your .mov more meaningful and touching especially if you can narrate it with a sense of sadness” (Anonymous)

1. Ok that one, personally I thought was a bit of an issue as well. But I wanted them empty. Maybe need to portray better.

2. Really? That wasn’t the intention (but probably the perception). Might need to work on that. Then again this video is about painful memories of what was. So cold may not be such a bad perspective.

3. Narrating is definitely an option I think. I need to toy around with the idea more. Just that I thought it was more impactful for people to read. Maybe read AND narrate?

“I like the idea of your story because it's very different. Pictures wise, I am able to get the story in the beginning. I think the song played a huge role in telling your story:)May I know where did you get your song from? Perhaps you could let the music fate into silence than having it shut off all of a sudden.” (Ting)

Hmm that’s good. But if its only at the beginning then it doesn’t achieve the purpose because then after that if no one gets it then it doesn’t work.

Unfortunately the song won’t be appearing in the final. It’s just a placeholder. Though I really did feel that it was extremely apt.

“Although I think both ideas work, i.e. with or without actors, I say the choice is yours, I quite get the sepia transitions hmm but perhaps you could desaturate the photos at the second part to look sadder.

Also, I think that for some of the shots theres a odd black space, which are interweaved with the photos that are full screen, to me if feels just a little odd, maybe if u could put all the photos full screen or separate the two?” (Mark)

Hmm… well all the photos were just thrown in “as is”, no touch ups. So might need to do a bit of that. That might help achieve the desired effect

The space comes as a result of having portrait photos which don’t occupy the whole screen. The only way to fix that is either use all landscape pics, or zoom in. Need to play around with that a bit more.

“I can feel the sadness in your video. And i think without the girl charcter would be better. Does the empty spaces hold some memories to you? That's how I interpret the empty spaces and I think it works fine. The song is also nicely fit with the theme of your story.” (Rash)

Thanks so much Rash! And yeah that was the point of the empty spaces.

“Hey i think the music is nice, but convey a feeling of missing someone.. instead of the anger you tried to portray last week at Valentines Day... Perhaps the visuals can focus more about the end of a relationship, so that we can see the story better, and feel for the character better, instead of items that symbolizes the relationship, because it may not be known to the audience. =)” (Ozeona)

Well… I wasn’t exactly trying to portray anger I guess. While its true that I detest V-Day, the aim was always more about remembering what was. And even then it wasn’t supposed to be the happy type of reminiscing.

Point taken. Might need to work on that.

“I thought that your song is a little unsuitable cuz i was expecting something like a really sad, sad song. Also, I think there should be some shots of you interacting with the inanimate objects, like looking at the letter, with your chin resting on the table and sadness in your eyes?

But other than that i guess you story is working out well.” (Hui Ting)

That’s an interesting suggestion. There’s going to be a little of that at the end I guess. But maybe need to put more.

“Hey chris, i would say a good effort for a draft. The song fits the whole feel of the video in terms of its lyrics. The words at the end aptly summarizes your video. Which is a bittersweet kind of a first love experience.

However in terms of retaining attention and capturing my eyeballs : ) it din fare as good. It felt a little monotonous towards the middle and the reason for the monotony was that there were essentially only 2 types of photos. 1, letters and stuff that she gave you. 2, places which the both of you have gone before. You could try exploring using words and blank spaces to bring variety into the video.

: ) cheers mate” (Sam)

Now THAT’s what I call feedback. Haha. Good point about the monotony. Probably need to cull some pictures and replace others.

“i feel you need a bit of text to explain some of the photos. otherwise, i feel you will have to finish the entire video to get to know what do the photos mean in the beginning...

and also i saw the video ending... but the music just cuts off... not sure if it's just on my platform. maybe you wanna check and fine-tune that part?” (Jasmine)

Isn’t that technically the point? That you should watch the whole thing? But I can see where you’re coming from, on the assumption that not everyone can catch it right from the start. I’m thinking narration MIGHT be better than text, but that needs people to concentrate more. And if they miss it then that’s problematic.

“Hi Chris:

You can consider to have the song lyrics to display when you showcase the video. But knowing that we need royalty free music it will be tough.

Otherwise words would be good to have so that audience can understand the video better.

Are the quotes by you? You can consider putting like the opening and closing like " ".

Great work!” (Katherine)

Thanks Katherine. Truth be told, the quote is actually from a movie I watched (also about broken relationships).

p.s. Apologies to Jasmine if my reply came across as being a bit on the harsh side.