THE VISUAL TEXT
ABOUT THE VISUAL TEXT It can still be green is a visual text that aims to get the audience to think about today’s environmental situation. The visual text uses various directorial techniques to manufacture the perspective of the audience.
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SCENE BREAKDOWN Throughout the visual text, there are basically three main areas; the good, the bad and then hope for change. Interact with the gallery below to see the main breakdown for the visual text!
1. The first part is meant to show the beauty of nature. This particular shot uses the directorial technique of panorama.
BLOG POSTS
BLOG POST ONE What will you bring to the table for your team with this final assessment? What type of collaborator do you hope to be? From watching the movie Vertigo, I felt inspired in terms of building the suspense, creating the story and using proper cinematic techniques at the proper time. The movie itself doesn’t contain a lot of dialogue but it doesn’t fail in catching the audience’s attention on the plot. To manufacture perspective, creating the story is an important part but from the angels, techniques and colors used are also very important factors that needs to be focused on. I would focus on making the plot interesting and purposeful before I would continue to do anything else. After that’s settled, I will then plan to put the angels, techniques and colors to create meaning and depth to the visual text. I also realized that in the film, the music plays a big part in creating suspense and making the story flow. Since we’re supposed to create our own music and I’m not at all a composer, I think it’s going to be one of the challenges. It’s really sad because music plays a very important part in telling a story. I hope my team and I would be able to produce a decent visual text of our own. I think I’m mostly the taskmaster because being organized is a must for me. Through this project, I hope to bring out my inner ringleader. What I would mostly bring to the table is my organization skills (creating timelines, storyboards, to-do lists, etc) and I would also think that I use my time effectively. I will help my team stay on task and hopefully create quality piece of work.
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BLOG POST TWO STORYBOARDING 101 1) Birds Eye View of the schoolSoothing Music, Warm colors 2) Transition to blur- Waist under & taking videos of people’s shoes (possibly fast forwarded) in black and white 3) Point of view of the kid- Panorama View, Long shot and Close-Up 4) Timelapse of students walking from Zheng He building to Arts Building- Fast music to go with fast pace 5) Panorama of the school- bright colors
Our initial idea was to make a visual text based on adapting to a new community. After a while, we figured it’s quite hard to take the footage and we decided to do one based on the environment.
6) Close-Up pictures of students in fast-paced 0.2 seconds per photograph- fast music
BLOG POST THREE What directorial technique must be used to manufacture perspective in your film? Why? The visual text that Sally and I are making is about adapting to a new community and how the community should support whenever someone new comes along. What we want others to feel is the realization that being new to the community might be hard for some people and hopefully from that, it would inspire others to get to know a new person whenever they come along and ease their adaptation. My purpose is to get people to be in the new girl’s shoes: sad at first when she has no friends and happy and relieved when she made some new friends and finally adapted to a new environment. In order to do this, some directorial technique must be used. Here are the techniques I think are a MUST to manufacture that perspective: Focus is a complete must because it can manufacture mood and feeling and can fully represent what the new girl is feeling (well, not fully). When the image is on blur, it represents the anxiety that the new girl is feeling in a new environment but when it’s focused, it represents the sense of belonging and the fact that she is more relaxed. Focus will allow us to direct where the audience should be looking at which is very important to keep their own focus. The Point of View Shot is also very important because it captures everything the new girl is seeing. This directorial technique is used throughout the film because the idea is that we want the audience to see the world in the new girl’s shoes. At first, the new girl will be seeing only shoes, which means she will be looking down the whole time which means that she’s scared and shy. Towards the end when she feels more comfortable, she begins to look up. This will get the audience to see that she is now more relaxed thanks to the friendly community who made her feel more comfortable. Time-lapse is also very important because it represents the fast pace going on and how the community doesn’t have time for her. It also manufactures the fact that it’s scary and she needs to catch up with everything that’s going on. My idea is to get a lot of people walk back and forth the Arts Center to Zheng He and the new girl will stay in the middle and stay still. This will also represent confusion which is common when you have to adapt to a new environment. We will also be using this where more people will come to the circles (more shoes) which represents unity- but just really fast. Some other techniques that we will be using but I don’t think is as important as the other three are: Zoom in Blur Transition, Close-Up, Color Filter, Panorama and the Bird’s Eye View. Since this week is a super busy week for me, I will make sure every class time is used effectively. We will start filming tomorrow and hopefully we’ll be able to finish it on Friday
How can this manifesto guide your team?
BLOG POST FOUR
1. There are three states of being. Not knowing, action and completion. In this section alone, it guides my team in the sense of directing myself to think of 3 things for this project; knowing about it, acting towards completing it and finally completing. 2. Accept that everything is a draft. It helps get it done. With this in mind, it’s easier start making whatever we want to make and we can write or do anything that our mind set for us because if we start, it’s easier to get it done. 3. There is no editing stage. This can help my team because we can strive for perfection when we know we can’t edit anything. 4. Pretending you know what you’re doing is almost the same as knowing what you are doing, so just accept that you know what you’re doing even if you don’t and do it. I guess if we do pretend that we know, we finally believe ourselves that we do in fact know what we’re doing. This can help our team because we do not know what we’re doing but we just act that we do and it just move things along a lot faster. 5. Banish procrastination. If you wait more than a week to get an idea done, abandon it. I absolutely agree with this. My team procrastinated quite a few times even though we strive to be as effective as possible. Finding the idea of our visual text alone takes quite awhile. The idea is basically if we don’t love the idea enough, we have no motivation and leads to procrastination, we should just abandon it and save our time.
BLOG POST FOUR 6. The point of being done is not to finish but to get other things done. To be honest, I’m not quite sure what this means but the way I see it, we don’t strive for the finish line but achieving and finishing other things along the way. It can guide my team because if we strive for the finish line, we won’t care how the visual text turn out but if we strive to get other things done (the little things), we will be more focused towards how we want the visual text to be. 7. Once you’re done you can throw it away. I love this idea of relief after we’re done with making the project. This could guide my team in finishing the project before the actual deadline to get the sense of relief. I actually find this as a motivation. 8. Laugh at perfection. It’s boring and keeps you from being done. This is actually my favorite one. I do take my time reviewing and trying to make sure the things I do look presentable. We should just DO IT isntead of taking the time trying to make it look perfect instead of actually completing it. 9. People without dirty hands are wrong. Doing something makes you right. You can’t just sit around and do nothing. Do something! This could help my team in the sense of actually going out there and film instead of being potato couches and sitting around planning.
10. Failure counts as done. So do mistakes. This should help my team in actually trying everything and put a lot of effort into it but don’t spend a lot of our time making it perfect because failure is okay. If we think this way, we can do a lot more ‘risky’ things and not focus on the unimportant things. 11. Destruction is a variant of done. Even when it’s destroyed it’s done. This makes me want to strive to completing the project. 12. If you have an idea and publish it on the internet, that counts as a ghost of done. I don’t think this really relate to us actually because we won’t be publishing on the internet. Unless this is a metaphor of something then I’m completely wrong. 13. Done is the engine of more. If we’re done, we can perfect it and do more things afterwards. The important thing is to get it done. This can guide my team in the sense of actually completing the project first and add any finishing touches later. Reading ‘The Cult of Dome Manifesto’ has inspired and motivated me to actually finish my project as soon as I can. This manifesto can guide my team by not procrastinating, keep doing something and making sure it’s DONE.
BLOG POST FIVE BLOG POST SIX What advice would you give to a current grade 9 student, in order to prepare them for this unit? Are you engagng as the collaborator you set out to be? What could you change about your teamwork in order to make you more effective within your team? I have always been a taskmaster and I said I wanted to bring out my ring leader and I think I did. We didn’t have the best teamwork though because last week has been a really hectic week for me. This week, however, we are more focused and I think we worked well together. I think we worked effectively and efficiently with the time we have. If I would change some things about our teamwork would be in terms of allocating jobs. To be honest, none of us are actually filmmakers or composers so we do have a hard time making the visual text. But overall, I think we did okay.
1. Get a good camera 2. Make sure you plan enough- you don’t want to waste other people’s time 3. Make sure you read the instructions and the rubric before doing anything else. Be sure to include them 4. Cut down on your rationale- only write down things that are required to stay on the word limit 5. Use your time in and outside of class wisely 6. Get things done before you start filming to save the filming time 7. Be consistent with your choices 8. Elaborate
RATIONALE
RATIONALE
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ASSESSMENT Does the rationale do all of the following? 1. Explain what influenced your work 2. Explore how 4-5 directorial techniques blend to create perspective 3. Clearly express the intentions behind your perspective: What do you want your audience to think and feel? 4. Explain your choices and explain what decisions you need to make as a team 5. Clarify why certain directorial techniques were necessary, while others are not 6. Discuss how well you feel the final work conveys your message Level
Does the rationale show the understanding of the film techniques?
1-2
The rationale only describes the use of one technique.
3-4
The rationale uses at least three techniques. The writer is able to appropriately identify specific selections from his/her film which showcase an understanding. We don’t get a clear understanding for what the aim of the video is.
5-6
The rationale uses at least four techniques. The writer is able to appropriately identify specific selections from the film. While the writer attempts to clarify what the point of the film was, it is difficult to understand how some of the techniques worked towards constructing that perspective.
7-8
The rationale uses at least five techniques. The writer is able to appropriately identify specific selections from the film which showcase their understanding. While the writer attempts to clarify what the point of the film was, it is difficult to understand how one-two of the techniques worked towards constructing perspective.
9-10
The rationale uses at least five techniques. The writer is able to appropriately identify specific selections from the film which showcase their understanding. The rationale truly explains how the techniques are used in unison to produce meaning for the viewer. The rationale states what the text wants from the audience. The rationale explains why some techniques were more appropriate to use rather than others. We are provided with a true insight on how the text developed. The writer allows us to understand how well the video achieved the perspective desired and why.
PEER REVIEW ASSESSED BY SEAN Techniques Used Cross dissolve, color, zoom, panorama, focus Director’s Main Goal Make people realize that there is still hope, and we can still make a change in making the environment better Is the goal stated? Yes, in the introduction as well as the conclusion. Does the Techniques Work Together? The techniques and how they are used in unison is mentioned in the conclusion. She mentions that in unison, all of the techniques should work together to create sympathy and realization for the audience. Suggestions A very well written rationale. Some things the student can do to improve could be to state how the different techniques helped reach your goal in a short conclusion at the end of each paragraph.
ASSESSED BY ANDREW Techniques Used Color, panorama, zoom, focus, fastforward, transition Director’s Main Goal Beauty of nature, destruction, hope for change Is the goal stated? Yes. She mentioned it in her first paragraph which says ‘it’s meant to show...’ Does the Techniques Work Together? She explain it clearly in the third page where she said “in unison...”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR Elena Lie is a determined vegan and a die-hard environmentalist who is involved in various different projects related to environmental sustainability. She believes that the first step to ensuring environmental sustainability is by educating the community about the issue.
VISIT ELENA’S BLOG HERE