Project description, and details

Fatigue of Playing Hero

Very early on in the production process, we were tasked with writing a short narrative (under a thousand words) depicting a plot, direction we are hoping to peruse in our final product. I wrote about a personal experience I had gone through a few years prior — this experience, when put harshly in a drastic writing-style, seemed to catch the attention of my professor, and fellow classmates. I was then encouraged to revitalize the concept for my film adaptation.

surface-level concepts (inital thoughts)

Zoom Fatigue

Being Human

BLM (and Related)

Potentially playing off of the overworking yourself/ fatigue concept as a designer, I have always overworked myself, and this might be a cool theme to pursue as it was a big turning-point in my life realizing how unhealthy lifestyle is if not kept in check — mental health mentality.

A superhero fan coming to terms with the mentality that they are in a very realistic world where superheroes, and superpowers don’t exist ultimately getting sort of a culture shock into the fact that they’ll never aspire to be a hero as portrayed in the comics — facing ones-self in the real World.

Recently a big part of Society and international progressions, however due to my ethnicity I feel this might not be the best route for me to pursue. I feel this was another eye-opening moment in my life where I realized how selfish, and genuinely evil, the human race can be.

video-graphic, and cinematography inspiration

Case Study #1

Split (2017), and it’s visual elements were a huge inspiration behind how I was hoping for the film to be shot, both conceptually, and visually. The typographical narrative, and visuals constantly play off of each other - almost mirroring the core aspects of the film. Using simple typefaces, but using it LOUDLY. Just in the opening sequence alone, the audience gets everything they need to know about what they will experience mood wise. Kept to a subtle yellow, faded hue, contrasted roughly with a harsh black, and white makes the sequence almost unsettling, as if they are two separate entities. I’d love to explore how the film worked with its type, and “thriller” underline in my film. Check it out here!

Case Study #2

When coming across Counterpart (2017) I instantly recognized the shooting style I liked, this style would keep coming back via my other case studies, and felt like an “invasion of space” getting too close to the actors. Exactly what I wanted to portray in my film! The color grade here proved to catch my eye in the best manor as the paper-white hue never really leaves the opening sequence. Bouncing between light, and dark, the colors remain true; the blacks, and whites are the same (or at least very similar). It didn’t matter what was in frame, it always possessed that same rule. The sequence itself was poetically playing with rhythm, which I wanted to ensure my film had, always on beat. Check it out here!

Case Study #3

Dark (2017), was a title sequence I instantly fell in love with; it’s warped features, and thin type fit beautifully with the imagery complementing its weary audio. This sequence was a ton of fun to analyze, and its color grade was something I referred back to when grading/ writing notes for After Image itself. The quality of the camera is breathtaking, with all the cinematic detail catching light in frame. I shot a lot of B-Roll (which unfortunately didn’t make the final cut) in this shooting style at our first location, in hopes to come back, and edit a sequence in a similar style. This was later rushed out, and replaced with the final introduction, and end-credits sequence you still in the film today. Check it out here!

Case Study #4

Arrival (2016), directed by Denis Villeneuve, and based on the 1998 short story “Story of your life” by Ted Chiang, had me itching for more as the credits rolled. The 2016 cinematic masterpiece pulled out overwhelmingly deep conceptualized thinking, from themes like: the universe, laws of time/ space, societal responses to problems, and the importance of communication among many other things. Backing up its iridescent plot with cinematography by, American visionary, Bradford Young. Shooting majority of the scenes focused on artistic subtleties, looking to invade the lead's personal space with his acute shooting style (heavy use of 35mm). The visuals here were what encouraged me to shoot on a 50mm lens.

Locations, and set-Scouting

After Image, initially, was written to take place at York University, I started scouting my “dream locations” and worked my way backwards to what was realistic for the films production timeline, and Covid-19 restrictions. I plotted, planned excessively with my script draft at the time with my desired locations before coming to terms with how unrealistic my desires were as we wouldn’t have a large crew.

Huge thanks again to the folks down at Shepperd Montessori Private Catholic School for allowing us to use the space for the films production!

My York University facility scouting images are below. Shortly after, I ended up getting in touch with some family members I knew who owned a school-site. After confirming we could use the facility I simply re-wrote the script to suit the location!

Title, and End-Credit sequence animations

based off of my early research, and referenced case studies; I had a fairly good idea of what I wanted the introductory, and end-credit sequences to look like. I did not start with a rough stage either, I simply opened a new After Effects file, and experimented. Compared to the laborious task of physical set-work, this was the simplest task of the film. I ended up using a very simplistic, roughed out version of my final sequence to show as a draft but ended up coming back, and completely revising it. The final product mimicked that of a Stranger Things-esk aesthetic with its complimented sequence audio, enforcing the

“thriller” mentality early on. I had the title, and end-credit sequence dramatically different from each other as I wanted viewers to come into the film, intrigued, bright flashing reds, and leave feeling like something was missing. Hence the reason the audio compliments the text; a drastic instrumental at the start, and a subtle hum at the end. The process of mine and credits and opening credits documentation and final along the way over the last couple of weeks. Initially I wanted to do a similar concept to Halsey and the Chainsmokers in there one music video presented in our meetings, But after two

attempts the concept ultimately collapsed in on itself as I felt completely overshot my aesthetic of the film end goal for an intro/Outro. I felt it did not pay enough memento To the deep concept of my short film. This brought me back to the drawing table where I used my extended time approval to do some more research before really falling in love with Stranger Things/James Bond style aesthetic. After following up with her after tutorials online I found a happy medium as well solidified a font face For my film that would be used for branding across-the-board and quickly got to work stretching it to fit my shooting style.

poster/ promotional mock-ups

Playing off of my first poster mock, I wanted a sort of “anti-version” when it came to the figure. Posters weren’t mandatory, and I specifically did them for fun, but I wanted to explore my Branding on something other than digital animations. I wanted to ensure the first poster captured “casual” elements, before flipping it around, bringing out the dark figure in the same place, replacing the light figure. The text reading; “this isn’t just a nightmare.” in my second poster (above left) would invert to read “just a nightmare…” with a subtitle-esk feel to it.

My first poster mock (above right) was my first stab at typographical branding outside of animated sequences which I felt was necessary to grasping my aesthetic more. Colors are taken directly from the film frames. Text here reads; “in need of a wake up call.” but inverted like my second poster to read; “wake up”. If you combine the two, it comes to read; “just a nightmare. wake up” which I felt was quite nice, nudging the viewers to get a better idea of what’s going on in the film, rather than just throwing them in blind.

Course Specifics:

Time-Based Communication
FA YSDN-3009 — Fourth-year Course

course duration:

October 2020 - December 2020
(Two Month preparation)

programs used:

Adobe After Effects // Adobe Premiere Pro //
Adobe Photoshop // Adobe Illustrator