Work Name: When Actors Don’t Learn Their Lines

Work Type: Pseudo trailer (the final one, 3 minutes after the edit)

Full drama comedy remake video (11 minutes 30 seconds)

Work Link: https://youtu.be/wliThBo5YoE (11 minutes one)

https://youtu.be/__36Frzm8Co (3 minutes one)

Key Words: Tony Oursler, Jan Svankmajer, Mary Ellen Mark, Ibaridnex Perello, Eugene Smith, shoot way, shoot style, writing style, writing practice, practice work review, photography and writing training, storyboard, research, script, vampire, ghost, shixuegui, lie detector, comedy, Anwar Jibaw, social issue, film product, ps, post-processing, vedio editing

PS: Please watch the full unedited version of the video before viewing the edited version, which will make your viewing experience clearer.

— Preview of works and team introduction

— Preview the opening credits

— The conception of the early shooting method of the work

After the investigation and the preliminary estimated shooting, I have made a certain decision on the production direction of my works. As can be seen from the Primary Research, I conceived my idea and tried to make it for the first time to try it out. After my research, I wanted to learn how to imitate Tony’s shooting and delivery techniques. After writing a short script, I planned to implement the shooting, but because my idea was not valid in the final presentation, the plan was cancelled.

Then I reimagined my approach to projection. I put the most began to consider to divert the subject into a and face similar items, but because it in every dialogue when need to switch the picture, it is not convenient for me, and on the top, because the outbreak reason I can’t borrow so much one-time projector, so I didn’t use this idea.

Then I rethought it with the resources I had at my disposal (a basic studio, a camera, curtains and lights). I still extended Tony’s idea, but this time I used the actors themselves, I used a black curtain and cut out three holes in it, and had the actors put their heads through the holes to achieve the same effect. I used lights on the left and right and above the heads of the actors to make the ambient light stand out and “project”.

— Script writing and shooting exercises in the early stage of the work

Because I have been making works about social issues since I was a student in production, so this time I will do the same. However, before the final shooting, I made an in-depth study of Mary’s research. In order to improve my ability to read pictures and write stories, I researched two artists, Ibaridnex Perello and Eugene Smith.

Then, in order to extend this investigation, I edited a short story based on a screenshot of a Russian film Նռան գու both film, and shot again one of the stories of Demonstration, so as to exercise my story design and writing ability.

<Blood- red Pomegranate>

This is my life, this blood- red pomegranate

I like the seeds, that taste

The next second, they’re gone

Sometimes it’s a lot of juice

Sometimes it’s hard to strip off

What does it taste like?

Sometimes it’s too fragile

This is my life, this blood red pomegranate

<Darker- purple onion>

— A written summary of the production process about idea development

In the Transform project, I produced a video clip in the form of a 3-minute ‘fake’ trailer, named When Actors Don’t Learn Their Lines. The length of time before the clip was 11 minutes and 34 seconds, it is a reversal story in which vampires, shixuegui play a lie detector at a ghost’s house. The project is positioned as an all-age comedy, and in doing so it is a lighthearted way of expressing the theme of how to find one’s true identity in this overly serious and perfection-seeking society.

The decision on the project was a bit of a surprise, as I came up with the idea after reflecting on it when I didn’t get it done the first time. The exploration of this project shows a form of expression that is completely different from the society or the opposite of today’s large and rigorous photography industry. I chose a comedy from Anwar Jibaw original short video called Lie Detector (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9SK1I0V6U5c), he is my attention for a long time a perfect short video screenwriter and photographer, it was originally a comedy video about three people playing a lie detector test together. Then I did a whole new screenwriting and choreography, but the main framework was still based on the story.

The whole work combines my understanding of all research with my perspective on this social phenomenon, which is a good demonstration of my screenwriting ability. In the final before filming, I had a couple of pre-production, after the failure to meet the different categories of I aware of the cause of failure – I too much focus and the visual effects for the pursuit of perfection, rather than our current situation, now we are still in the outbreak period so can’t rent to some special facilities and equipment.

This is my last the key factors to determine works, at the same time also remind me of the reflection in a social phenomenon, and this kind of social phenomenon is closely related to as college students we — we just entering, or the social society, because the family and social competition pressure forced into the work of the campaign, and because of our independence and our need for money, we have to cherish every opportunity we get to work, and this leads to working overtime even if we don’t like it in some cases, and not really showing our hearts when dealing with employees, because the whole environment is so competitive. This is a common impression among most members of society, especially among the middle classes. In such a social environment, we gradually mechanically work, so that we also gradually forget the real dream and original intention of everything when we entered the society.

As for how to reflect this, I deliberately used a completely loose form of shooting and production to present this story, in order to contrast with the social environment I mentioned before which was too strict and rigorous in terms of requirements and atmosphere. I didn’t use any professional equipment, and I didn’t let the actors learn their lines. Instead, I had them shoot “pseudo-docu-style” as soon as they got the script, which allowed me to most effectively collect the moments when they went wrong and their honest reactions to it. It also simulated a real work environment, where I was the boss checking on their performance and they were the new hires coming in for an interview, but the only difference was that the environment was completely relaxed.

At this time, I will work through this kind of means to make common sense to make people laugh comedy video, to rise to a deeper thinking, after to make people laugh, to reflect on and attention now because of the employment pressure lead to employees on the job too nervous, the pursue is perfect, so as to forget their first job search step into society of the social phenomenon.

And about how my work is relevant to Transform, my story script was conducted according to the questions and dialogue, and the main dialogue will be around two blood for a living of human beings, between them the questions and answer constantly influence the development of the whole story, the end of the story was constantly Transform, until a certain point in time, The climax slows down and then ends.

In the production process, I mainly investigated three people, Tony Oursler, Jan Svankmajer and Mary Ellen Mark. I will learn to imitate the shooting method of Tony. He likes to project the head or facial features of the subject on some objects after shooting. So I would change the way in which I used to shoot the projection, and would shoot the actors’ heads individually and put them on a black background board. Then I combined Jan’s shooting style and used this quirky but thought-provoking production style in my short film. Let a seemingly simple and funny movie go deep into some social issues that need to be discussed. Mary, on the other hand, trained my ability to write stories by looking at pictures from the side, which made me more prepared for future script writing.

— Production of Works

• Previous preparation

I chose an original short video called Lie Detector from Anwar Jibaw. It is from one of Anwar’s series and mainly tells about interesting things that happen when people use the Lie Detector game.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9SK1I0V6U5c

I first conducted a research on it, regarding its length, genre and story introduction. After determining the final shooting theme, I planned the props I needed to buy, summarized my ideas and drew some brief scene designs.

But because in the end, I don’t want to copy all Anwar idea, more concise and want my production to more apt my ideas, so later I didn’t use the original scene design and the actor’s clothing, but only in the background using the black cloth and give one of the actors in the early stage of the dialogue using the mask, And in it, when talking about drinking blood, he used a glass and paint.

• Script writing revised and finalized

After I had a general idea of the story, I began to write the script. I took Anwar’s story and expanded and rewrote it independently. I replaced the protagonists of the story with three non-human creatures, a vampire, a shixuegui and a ghost.

The whole story is that the vampire and Shixuegui come to the ghost’s home, and after a bit of fun, they start to play a human-made lie detector game. Aside from the mere ghost of Rachel, Lesley and Esther are clearly on their own. After they confirm the lie detector is real, Lesley and Esther start asking questions outside the card, which apparently heighten the tension between them about what they will do before things get to the worst. Where will their questions lead the whole thing?

* The full script will be shown in the next blog post

• Full story shooting

In the studio I rented, I invited my classmates to assist me in this shooting. The session lasted about half the afternoon, and we used some basic studio props such as lights, rolling curtains, and mobile phones.

We initially discussed about props, because I wanted to show artistic expression techniques similar to Tony’s, so we could not meet the props requirements of using tables and wearing lie-detector headsets under the circumstance of insufficient resources, and at the same time make such an expression possible. So we ended up discarding all the props we were supposed to be doing and just giving verbal descriptions. But it also strikes me as more like going to a job interview for a script with nothing but a script to offer. This is more relevant to my theme.

• The editing work

At that time, we were shooting in different areas, and we roughly divided the whole story into six parts for shooting. After finishing, I went back home and first edited these clips into a complete video with subtitles and some music. Because I needed to edit, I didn’t pay special attention to the sound processing of each part during this process, but I wanted to leave it for editing.

And before the final cut, I had the idea in the book. What I wanted to show was something like a trailer, but it was a fake version. In this, there is a “third party”, who is more like a voyeur and recorder of the whole event, and you can see its evaluation of the story through the middle lines. As for the character’s setting, the screen is slightly blotted out during any dialogue about him, indicating that his actions are conducted in secret.

And at the end, a hasty phone ring indicates that voyeurism has been detected, and the chronicler is forced to withdraw, and then the final word indicates the time for people to go and meet it, which corresponds to the release time of the film. So, you can see that maybe the trailer is actually something that the voyeur recorded, like the end of time or a message from an expert who was being watched on some secret mission.

• What it looks like before the video clip

• A segmented video clip (but part of the video clip in this photo was not used in full)

• I put the video clip into the new clipboard, and then I insert the text, which is what the recorder said. After doing this, I was the first to deal with the over-loud background music that had been inserted earlier.

• I separate the video from the audio through processing.They were then given the appropriate volume.

• In the end, I searched and inserted the special sound of the phone ringing, processed part of the last video, and added the photos and introductions of my classmates and me at the end.

— Introspection

On this occasion, my entire production process was full of reflection. Taken me through the video to early to reflect on the success and failure and got my final production idea, and then on the investigation of the artist’s reflection, let me continue to improve my shooting way, until you reach a satisfactory result, finally in editing video is my reflection, let each part of the video are good performance, is not only a picture and it is the volume.

For the evaluation of this work, I have tried my best with limited resources, so I am satisfied with this result. But if I had the chance to do it again, I would have chosen some better facilities and locations to shoot in, and then tried some more areas that I had not touched before.

— The exhibition thought

If possible, I would like to have a simple release of my work. Place a white wall and let it play out.

Since my video was meant to be a “trailer,” I wanted it to be shown as a movie.Such an idea can also reflect my theme. I don’t want too many complicated decorations. I just have a clear, clear and simple idea just like everyone who has just entered the society.